When your head of sales interviews for her next job, she won’t want to say that despite the fact that she ran a global sales force with hundreds of employees, her title was “Dude.”
- Ben Horowitz
Notable Quotables
If you’re low-income in the United States, you have a higher chance of going to jail than you do of getting a four-year degree. And that doesn’t seem entirely fair.
- Bill Gates
But use the opposite technique – be liberal with your encouragement, make the thing seem easy to do, let the other person know that you have faith in his ability to do it, that he has an undeveloped flair for it – and he will practise until the dawn comes in the window in order to excel.
- Dale Carnegie
Anyone who prefers owning a part of your company to being paid in cash reveals a preference for the long term and a commitment to increasing your company’s value in the future. Equity can’t create perfect incentives, but it’s the best way for a founder to keep everyone in the company broadly aligned.
- Peter Thiel
Never surrender opportunity for security.
- Branch Rickey
Animation can explain whatever the mind of man can conceive. This facility makes it the most versatile and explicit means of communication yet devised for quick mass appreciation.
- Walt Disney
Productivity is grounded in the PC. Where does the computing power come from? How would you run ‘USA Today’ without PCs? Run a hospital without PCs? People don’t want products, they want solutions.
- Michael Dell
[B]y being so long in the lowest form I gained an immense advantage over the cleverer boys. They all went on to learn Latin and Greek and splendid things like that. But I was taught English. We were considered such dunces that we could learn only English. Mr. Somervell — a most delightful man, to whom my debt is great — was charged with the duty of teaching the stupidest boys the most disregarded thing — namely, to write mere English. He knew how to do it. He taught it as no one else has ever taught it. Not only did we learn English parsing thoroughly, but we also practised continually English analysis. . . Thus I got into my bones the essential structure of the ordinary British sentence — which is a noble thing. And when in after years my schoolfellows who had won prizes and distinction for writing such beautiful Latin poetry and pithy Greek epigrams had to come down again to common English, to earn their living or make their way, I did not feel myself at any disadvantage. Naturally I am biased in favour of boys learning English. I would make them all learn English: and then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honour, and Greek as a treat. But the only thing I would whip them for would be not knowing English. I would whip them hard for that.
- Winston Churchill
Never forget, the real secret of giving advice is this: Once you’ve given it, don’t concern yourself with whether it is followed or not, and refrain from saying ‘I told you so.’
- Harvey Mackay
You weren’t created to simply exist, to endure, or to go through the motions; you were created to be really alive.
- Joel Olsteen
Hard disks have disappointed me more than most technologies.
- Steve Wozniak
People in any organization are always attached to the obsolete – the things that should have worked but did not, the things that once were productive and no longer are.
- Peter Drucker
Remembering you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
- Steve Jobs
Let me remind everyone in this room that we are not changing guidance.
- John Chambers
Ideas… they have the power.
- Napoleon Hill
Assetts put money in your pocket. Liabilities take money out of your pocket.
- Robert Kiyosaki
You can’t win by being more average than average.
- Seth Godin
Certainly, none of us enjoy going through struggles, but you have to understand that your struggle may be an opportunity for advancement and promotion. The very thing you are fighting against so tenaciously may be the springboard that catapults you to a new level of excellence. Your challenges may become your greatest assets.
- Joel Olsteen
This proves our strategy is working in terms of the convergence of voice, video and data.
- John Chambers
How do you make your company a good place to work in general? That’s a really, really, really large and complex set of skills. A lot of it is on-the-job training, combined with excellent mentorship.
- Ben Horowitz
I’ve already figured out when I’m going to be No. 2 and No. 1.
- Sheldon Adelson
Today is life – the only life you are sure of. Make the most of today. Get interested in something. Shake yourself awake. Develop a hobby. Let the winds of enthusiasm sweep through you. Live today with gusto.
- Dale Carnegie
I was always a huge fan of E. E. Cummings. He did a series of lectures at Harvard or Princeton, and they were recorded. And they were incredibly moving.
- Steve Martin
I still get real nervous when I go in front of more than two people.
- Phil Knight
A startup is a team of people on a mission, and a good culture is just what that looks like on the inside.
- Peter Thiel
One of the most powerful forms of communication that affects a business is one over which you have little control (after the conversation has already begun): The communication from your existing customers to your potential customers. At CASHFLOW Technologies, Inc. we attribute a large part of our success to our customers telling other people about us. The power of this word-of-mouth advertising is immeasurable.
- Robert Kiyosaki
The way to become rich is to put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.
- Andrew Carnegie
I deal with more practical issues of the Bible.
- Joel Olsteen
People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude.
- John C. Maxwell
It was a big momentum deal, so when the bottom comes out from under it, you have to go back to the well and start the whole thing.
- Travis Kalanick
We shall not flag nor fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France and on the seas and oceans; we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender and even if, which I do not for the moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, will carry on the struggle until in God’s good time the New World with all its power and might, sets forth to the liberation and rescue of the Old.
- Winston Churchill
Harnessing steam power required many innovations, as William Rosen chronicles in the book ‘The Most Powerful Idea in the World.
- Bill Gates
An asteroid or a supervolcano could certainly destroy us, but we also face risks the dinosaurs never saw: An engineered virus, nuclear war, inadvertent creation of a micro black hole, or some as-yet-unknown technology could spell the end of us.
- Elon Musk
Anyone, even a child, can be taught to develop a positive mental attitude. The method is to repeat positive affirmations such as: Day by day, in every way, through the grace of God, I am getting better and better.
- Napoleon Hill
The onset of global financial turmoil in the second half of 2008 and the resultant wait-and-see attitude adopted by some homebuyers put the property market into the doldrums, with a general decline in both transaction volume and transacted prices.
- Lee Shau Kee
Only engage in mutually beneficial relationships.
- Clay Clark
My favorite museums are things like the Frick Museum in New York and the Huntington Hartford in Pasadena where it’s someone’s home that you walk through.
- Larry Ellison
Be frank. Reporters know when your story is all hype and no substance. Be honest with them.
- Michael Levine
There’s no point in… just giving them money
- Lee Shau Kee
If you cannot read all your books, at any rate handle, or as it were, fondle them…let them be your friends.
- Winston Churchill
You shouldn’t do things differently just because they’re different. They need to be… better.
- Elon Musk
I will everyday as just a blow from my blade against a mighty oak…strike until it falls quote.
- Og Mandino
We gave new customers $10 for joining, and we gave them $10 more every time they referred a friend.
- Peter Thiel
Strategy is a commodity, execution is an art.
- Peter Drucker
We wouldn’t survive if people didn’t trust us.
- Sergey Brin
The little things in life frequently make the difference in success and failure.
- Zig Ziglar
We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.
- Abraham Lincoln
When you reach out to hurting people, that’s when God is going to make sure your needs are supplied. When you focus on being a blessing, God makes sure that you are always blessed in abundance.”
- Joel Olsteen
Man’s only limitation within reason lies in his development and use of his imagination
- Napoleon Hill
I’ve always been very happy. I’ve always been easy going and I’ve always been very encouraging, it’s just my personality.
- Joel Olsteen
You may think you’ve got a long way to go, but you need to look back at how far you’ve already come. You may not be everything you want to be but atleast you can thank God that you’re not what you used to be.
- Joel Olsteen
Every monopoly is unique, but they usually share some combination of the following characteristics: proprietary technology, network effects, economies of scale, and branding.
- Peter Thiel
I won’t do something unless I can get at least two or three good laughs out of it. If I can’t, it’s not gonna make the team.
- Jerry Seinfeld
It’s different when you’re trying to turn something around, especially something that you built, at a time when so many constituents – the media, Wall Street, competitors, ex-employees – are all saying that Starbucks’s best days are behind it, and that Schultz is never going to be able to bring it back.
- Howard Schultz
Companies such as Echelon are poised to help drive this change with Cisco and extend the power of the Internet from business to the home.
- John Chambers
Parkinson’s Law dictates that a task will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion.
- Timothy Ferriss
I definitely think there’s some way to understand how people emotionally feel about somebody, but I don’t think data collects it. They’re not going to click your bit.ly link or click your TweetMeme retweet every time.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Just because an employee does things differently doesn’t mean he or she won’t do the job right or as well. If you establish expectations of the goal and the standards to follow, then methodology shouldn’t be an issue.
- Harvey Mackay
Do you have a real interest in people who work for you? Most good leaders have that – it’s hard to get someone to follow you if they feel like you hate ’em.
- Ben Horowitz
The love of a foster mother for her charge appears absolutely irrational.
- Winston Churchill
You must focus on WIN. What’s important now.
- Lee Cockerell
It is equally important that diversification is an ongoing process.
- Cheng Yu-tung
When you combine ignorance and leverage, you get some pretty interesting results.
- Warren Buffett
I wanted to be an artist. They see the world in a very different way.
- Jack Dorsey
Let us accept the natural order in which we move. Let us reconcile ourselves to the mysterious rhythm of our destinies, such as they must be in this world of space and time. Let us treasure our joys but not bewail our sorrows. The glory of light cannot exist without its shadows. Life is a whole, and good and ill must be accepted together. The journey has been enjoyable and well worth making – once.
- Winston Churchill
This is a fantastic time to be entering the business world, because business is going to change more in the next 10 years than it has in the last 50.
- Bill Gates
Remember that failure is an event, not a person.
- Zig Ziglar
We’ve got to lift our game tremendously. We’ll sell our business news and information in print, we’ll sell it to anyone who’s got a cable system, and we’ll sell it on the Web.
- Rupert Murdoch
Diversification and globalization are the keys to the future.
- Fujio Mitarai
An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.
- Niels Bohr
Disneyland will never be the completed. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.
- Walt Disney
If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try.
- Seth Godin
A road that leads to nowhere is hard to build.
- David Novak
Art isn’t only a painting; it’s anything that changes someone for the better, any nonanonymous interaction that leads to a human (not simply a commercial) conclusion.
- Seth Godin
Lo que una persona diga de ti no define quién eres. Su opinión de ti no determina tu dignidad propia. Deja que eso te resbale como si fuera agua sobre el plumaje de un pato. Esa persona tiene todo el derecho a tener una opinión, y tú tienes todo el derecho a pasarla por alto.
- Joel Olsteen
Growing up I always felt like I was living on the other side of the tracks. I knew the people on the other side had more resources, more money, happier families.
- Howard Schultz
I read a lot of history, biographies, science, and novels ushering a reporter out the door with a hint of relief. I do not read management or economics.
- Peter Drucker
You know, Saudi Arabia has a lot of poverty also. Regardless about what you hear about the viceroy and people being rich, et cetera.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
When I used to play sports, I’d be the one cheering the team on, ‘Come on, we can beat these guys!’ That’s just in me.
- Joel Olsteen
I think I’m less afraid of failure than some others.
- Russell Simmons
Once you go from 10 people to 100, you already don’t know who everyone is. So at that stage you might as well keep growing, to get the advantages of scale.
- Sergey Brin
The focus on contribution by itself supplies the four basic requirements of effective human relations: communications, teamwork, self-development, and development of others.
- Peter Drucker
Knowledge isn’t power until it is applied.
- Dale Carnegie
I loved doing ‘Pennies from Heaven.’ Because you have to understand that I’d been doing comedy for 15 to 20 years, and suddenly along came the opportunity to do this beautiful film. It was so emotional to me. I loved it. I don’t think it was a good career move, but I have no regrets about doing it.
- Steve Martin
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.
- Timothy Ferriss
“High expectations are the key to everything.”
- Sam Walton
Cisco will be well placed to continue building our presence in India as a critical part of our research and development efforts and as domestic market for networking products and solutions continues to expand.
- John Chambers
Great companies that build an enduring brand have an emotional relationship with customers that has no barrier. And that emotional relationship is on the most important characteristic, which is trust.
- Howard Schultz
If you have enough push, you don’t have to worry about the pull.
- Zig Ziglar
A company shouldn’t get addicted to being shiny, because shiny doesn’t last.
- Jeff Bezos
The Group launched the ‘Create a New World for Children’ Corporate Alliance Campaign with UNICEF in August 2003 to help and ease the plight of the underprivileged in our society. We both share the same commitment in creating a better environment for disadvantaged children and improving their education opportunities.
- Cheng Yu-tung
We’ll make cloud computing announcements because, you know, if orange is the new pink, we’ll make orange blouses. I mean, I’m not gonna fight this thing … well, maybe we’ll do an ad. Uh, I don’t understand what we would do differently in the light of cloud computing, other than market … you know, change the wording on some of our ads.
- Larry Ellison
I think I will always have a connection to young people, to try to bring their voices to the polls, bring their voices wherever they can make a difference.
- Russell Simmons
Innovation comes from long-term thinking and iterative execution.
- Reid Hoffman
People have been indoctrinated so completely by their jobs that they don’t want to know how something works, they’re willing to accept that perhaps the laws of nature don’t work as they expect, and by the way, can I have the remote?
- Seth Godin
In the most minimal sense, the future is simply the set of all moments yet to come.
- Peter Thiel
Venture-backed companies create 11% of all private sector jobs. They generate annual revenues equivalent to an astounding 21% of GDP.
- Peter Thiel
Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.
- Colin Powell
Out the right product is the innovator’s job, not the customer’s job.
- Ben Horowitz
I think people instinctively know that their job is to give service and that they are part of a community. It had a great impact on me when my father walked the picket lines and I walked with him during the civil rights movement.
- Russell Simmons
