But the vast majority of books ever written are not accessible to anyone except the most tenacious researchers at premier academic libraries. Books written after 1923 quickly disappear into a literary black hole.
- Sergey Brin
Notable Quotables
You’ve got to take a big jump to make it. You’ve got to have great big balls.
- Forrest Ray
People development should be a daily event, integrated into every aspect of your regular goings-on.
- Jack Welch
We understand the most important thing we do is market the product…
- Phil Knight
Have you ever heard of Gmail? Ever used it? If so, it’s not because Gmail ran a lot of TV ads (they didn’t). It’s because the manifesto of free email got to you.
- Seth Godin
Silicon Valley is a mindset, not a location.
- Reid Hoffman
This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read.
- Winston Churchill
I thought Microsoft did a lot of things that were good and right building parts of the browser into the operating system. Then I thought it out and came up with reasons why it was a monopoly.
- Steve Wozniak
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
If you believe in quality, you can’t just tell everybody We believe in quality! You’ve got to pay bonuses based on quality. You’ve got to let everyone in the organization know that they are being judged on quality.
- Jack Welch
Work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls– family, health, friends, integrity– are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered
- Gary Keller
A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him.
- Winston Churchill
I guarantee you it will not be anyone from the outside.
- Jack Welch
In order to be happy, every individual needs to have goals whose attainment requires effort. Kaczynski argued that modern people are depressed because all the world’s hard problems have already been solved. What’s left to do is either easy or impossible, and pursuing those tasks is deeply unsatisfying. What you can do, even a child can do; what you can’t do, even Einstein couldn’t have done.
- Peter Thiel
An extreme representative of this view is Ted Kaczynski, infamously known as the Unabomber. Kaczynski was a child prodigy who enrolled at Harvard at 16. He went on to get a PhD in math and become a professor at UC Berkeley. But you’ve only ever heard of him because of the 17-year terror campaign he waged with pipe bombs against professors, technologists, and businesspeople. In late 1995, the authorities didn’t know who or where the Unabomber was. The biggest clue was a 35,000-word manifesto that Kaczynski had written and anonymously mailed to the press. The FBI asked some prominent newspapers to publish it, hoping for a break in the case. It worked: Kaczynski’s brother recognized his writing style and turned him in. You might expect that writing style to have shown obvious signs of insanity, but the manifesto is eerily cogent. Kaczynski claimed that in order to be happy, every individual “needs to have goals whose attainment requires effort, and needs to succeed in attaining at least some of his goals.” He divided human goals into three groups: 1. Goals that can be satisfied with minimal effort; 2. Goals that can be satisfied with serious effort; and 3. Goals that cannot be satisfied, no matter how much effort one makes. This is the classic trichotomy of the easy, the hard, and the impossible. Kaczynski argued that modern people are depressed because all the world’s hard problems have already been solved. What’s left to do is either easy or impossible, and pursuing those tasks is deeply unsatisfying. What you can do, even a child can do; what you can’t do, even Einstein couldn’t have done. So Kaczynski’s idea was to destroy existing institutions, get rid of all technology, and let people start over and work on hard problems anew. Kaczynski’s methods were crazy, but his loss of faith in the technological frontier is all around us. Consider the trivial but revealing hallmarks of urban hipsterdom: faux vintage photography, the handlebar mustache, and vinyl record players all hark back to an earlier time when people were still optimistic about the future. If everything worth doing has already been done, you may as well feign an allergy to achievement and become a barista.
- Peter Thiel
Given the uncertainty going into the Y2K quarter, we are very pleased with our quarterly results.
- John Chambers
I’ve actually made a prediction that within 30 years a majority of new cars made in the United States will be electric. And I don’t mean hybrid, I mean fully electric.
- Elon Musk
The best way to be missed when you’re gone,Is to stand for something when you’re here.
- Seth Godin
Every time you state what you want or believe, you’re the first to hear it. It’s a message to both you and others about what you think is possible. Don’t put a ceiling on yourself.
- Oprah Winfrey
I feel that people I trusted – I don’t know who, on what level – have let me down, and I think they have behaved disgracefully, and it’s for them to pay. And I think, frankly, that I’m the best person to see it through.
- Rupert Murdoch
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy and Jill a rich widow.
- Evan Esar
Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.
- Oprah Winfrey
My experiences have been, from the very beginning, cultural and creative. And my business has been a way of exposing the culture, exposing the artists so that the world could hear and see them.
- Russell Simmons
The foundation stones for a balanced success are honesty, character, integrity, faith, love and loyalty.
- Zig Ziglar
What has habit been doing to me?
- Dale Carnegie
10,000 years of fitful advance from primitive agriculture to medieval windmills and 16th-century astrolabes, the modern world suddenly experienced relentless technological progress from the advent of the steam engine in the 1760s all the way up to about 1970.
- Peter Thiel
If the United States wants access to Chinese, Indian or Vietnamese markets, we must get access to theirs. U.S. protectionism is very subtle but it is very much there.
- Azim Premji
OK, I have a nickname. My family calls me ‘Trey’ because I’m William the third. My dad has the same name, which is always confusing because my dad is well known, and I’m also known.
- Bill Gates
If we’re going to bring out the best in people, we, too, need to sow seeds of encouragement.
- Joel Olsteen
To achieve stable growth, an enterprise must live up to its conviction.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Hay que evitar siempre el ángulo agudo.
- Dale Carnegie
Look, I’m a passionate entrepreneur. I’m like fire and brimstone sometimes. And so there are times when I’ll go—I’ll get too into the weeds and too into the debate, because I’m so passionate about it.
- Travis Kalanick
The price of success is much lower than the price of failure.
- Zig Ziglar
Leadership is not dictatorship
- Tony Hsieh
As a group, we believe that education is extremely important for ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren. We spend heavily for the educations of our offspring.
- Thomas J Stanley
The most important persuasion tool you have in your entire arsenal is integrity.
- Zig Ziglar
Today, we exaggerate the differences between left-liberal egalitarianism and libertarian individualism because almost everyone shares their common indefinite attitude.
- Peter Thiel
Remember—boredom is the enemy, not some abstract failure.
- Timothy Ferriss
Most people consider me an optimist because I laughingly state that I would take my last two dollars and buy a money belt.
- Zig Ziglar
I believe you should have a world where you’ve got to license something at a fair price. There are good things I see on Samsung phones that I wish were in my iPhone. I wish Apple would use them and could use them, and I don’t know if Samsung would stop us.
- Steve Wozniak
The best job goes to the person who can get it done without passing the buck or coming back with excuses.
- Napoleon Hill
Two metrics set the limits for effective distribution. The total net profit that you earn on average over the course of your relationship with a customer (Customer Lifetime Value, or CLV) must exceed the amount you spend on average to acquire a new customer (Customer Acquisition Cost, or CAC). In general, the higher the price of your product, the more you have to spend to make a sale—and the more it makes sense to spend it.
- Peter Thiel
One of the things that I’m really proud of is that I have really good timing. It’s very easy for me to see what’s coming up and it’s no coincidence that I went headfirst into wine and then headfirst into new media – none at all.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
God, You said You would restore health unto me and heal me of my wounds. You said I would live and not die. You said what is impossible with men is possible with God. When you pray.
- Joel Olsteen
I do think a lot of people are trying to do important things still, and I think it is really a great thing that entrepreneurship is getting easier. When I started, it was just much harder to begin a company.
- Ben Horowitz
I’m for the Wall Street Occupiers. But will they accept me when they find out I sell packaged mortgage default instruments to children?
- Steve Martin
Always keep our eyes open for people with potential.
- John Maxwell
Residential properties that were sold by the Group summed up to around 5,800 units and amounted to approximately HK$12.8 billion.
- Lee Shau Kee
I have 2 million Twitter followers. Some of those people are also yogis and activists and people who really go out and make a difference. I do as much as I can with my voice. It’s effortless in some cases. I try to remind everybody that they have that kind of voice.
- Russell Simmons
We need to, you know, restore people. We need to show mercy. I mean, because as much mercy as you show people, that’s the mercy you’re going to be receiving.
- Joel Olsteen
Today people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They shouldn’t. They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that pays virtually nothing and is certain to depreciate in value.
- Warren Buffett
E – Energy
- Jack Welch
The thing about fashion – it’s like ducks going quack, quack quack. It’s being dictated from above, and it just makes me want to rebel against it.
- Sara Blakely
To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.
- Winston Churchill
Either people challenge each other to the point where they don’t like each other or they become complacent about each other’s feedback and no longer benefit from the relationship.
- Ben Horowitz
I think it’s fair to say that personal computers have become the most empowering tool we’ve ever created. They’re tools of communication, they’re tools of creativity, and they can be shaped by their user.
- Bill Gates
Demand is best measured in terms of spending. You know, I think in traditional economics, it’s a mistake to measure it in terms of the quantity of goods.
- Ray Dalio
If you do not see yourself as a winner, you cannot perform as a winner.
- Zig Ziglar
Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.
- Peter Drucker
They said it was only a ground shark, but I was not wholly reassured. It is as bad to be eaten by a ground shark as by any other.
- Winston Churchill
Regardless of who you are or what you have been, you can be what you want to be.
- W. Clement Stone
Man, alone, has the power to transform his thoughts into physical reality; man, alone, can dream and make his dreams come true.
- Napoleon Hill
What goes on in Europe concerns us greatly because, if Europe comes apart, the E.U. comes apart, then you’re going to have enormous impact on America, that’s a very big trading partner of ours, and people own securities around the world in this day and age.
- Michael Bloomberg
If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values – that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.
- Winston Churchill
I’m a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.
- Thomas Jefferson
After I met my partner, Mr. Protherow, we decided to start a banking project, and at the same time we started to think already about a business on a bigger scale. At the very beginning we thought more about gaining money, to have a normal life with our families, etc.
- Vladimir Potanin
Zero to One is about how to build companies that create new things. It draws on everything I’ve learned directly as a co-founder of PayPal and Palantir and then an investor in hundreds of startups, including Facebook and SpaceX.
- Peter Thiel
Weak desires bring weak results.
- Napoleon Hill
1. What is our mission?2. Who is our customer?3. What does the customer value?4. What are our results?5. What is our plan?
- Peter Drucker
People who read the tabloids deserve to be lied to.
- Jerry Seinfeld
Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes.
- Peter Drucker
Sometimes God will deliver you from the fire, and other times God will make you fireproof.
- Joel Olsteen
The future of Windows is to let the computer see, listen and even learn.
- Bill Gates
This I do know beyond any doubt, Regardless of what you are doing, if you PUMP LONG AND HARD ENOUGH and ENTHUSIASTICALLY ENOUGH, sooner or later the EFFORT will bring forth the REWARD.
- Zig Ziglar
Fail openly.
- Jack Dorsey
Some people don’t like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster.
- Elon Musk
Among the world’s 500 largest companies, not one has completely relied on its own growth to develop.
- Wang Jianlin
Microsoft’s an important partner for Dell, an important company in the industry.
- Michael Dell
That’s why encouragement is a much more effective teaching device than punishment.
- Dale Carnegie
Extraordinary benefits accrue to the tiny minority of people who are able to push just a tiny bit longer than most.
- Seth Godin
A story is at its best when it’s not intrusive, when it brings value to a platform’s consumers, and when it fits in as a natural step along the customer’s path to making a purchase.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Let the good work go on. We must ever remember we are refining oil for the poor man and he must have it cheap and good
- Ron Chernow
Many entrepreneurs focus only on short-term growth. They have an excuse: growth is easy to measure, but durability isn’t.
- Peter Thiel
Children astound me with their inquisitive minds. The world is wide and mysterious to them, and as they piece together the puzzle of life, they ask ‘Why?’ ceaselessly.
- John C. Maxwell
The only career worth pursuing is the one that turns your crank.
- Jack Welch
The first three-and-a-half months of calendar year 2001 have been extremely challenging for many of us in high-tech.
- John Chambers
How you see your future is much more important than what happened in your past.
- Zig Ziglar
If you don’t understand the details of your business you are going to fail.
- Jeff Bezos
I understand how every healthy child, every new road, puts a country on a better path, but instability and war will arise from time to time, and I’m not an expert on how you get out of those things.
- Bill Gates
In order for us to have a future that’s exciting and inspiring, it has to be one where we’re a space-bearing civilization.
- Elon Musk
Discipline is hard–harder than trustworthiness and skill and perhaps even than selflessness. We are by nature flawed and inconstant creatures. We can’t even keep from snacking between meals. We are not built for discipline. We are built for novelty and excitement, not for careful attention to detail. Discipline is something we have to work at.
- Atul Gawande
I believe that everyone is the keeper of a dream – and by tuning into one another’s secret hopes, we can become better friends, better partners, better parents, and better lovers.
- Oprah Winfrey
When I first started doing my comedy act, I just desperately needed material. So I took literally everything I knew how to do on stage with me, which was juggling, magic and banjo and my little comedy routines. I always felt the audience sorta tolerated the serious musical parts while I was doing my comedy.
- Steve Martin
Good leaders know that one secret to success is to staff their weaknesses.
- John Maxwell
I read the paper every day and the Bible every day, that way I know what both sides are up to.
- Zig Ziglar
At the same time, you have to look for detractors among the group because one bad seed can be like a leak in the dime that leads to a major flood. The best thing you can do when you find someone like that is to fire him as quickly as possible!
- David Novak
You may have made a lot of wrong choices, but you’ve also made a lot of choices that were right. Focus on your good qualities. Focus on your victories. Get off the treadmill of guilt.
- Joel Olsteen
If you concentrate on what you have, you will always end up having more. If you focus on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.
- Oprah Winfrey
