Notable Quotables

We expect all our businesses to have a positive impact on our top and bottom lines. Profitability is very important to us or we wouldn’t be in this business.

- Jeff Bezos

As a cure for worrying, work is far better than whiskey. I always found that, if I began to worry, the best thing I could do was focus upon doing something useful and then work very hard at it. Soon, I would forget what was troubling me.

- Thomas Edison

A lot of the evil in the world is actually not intentional. A lot of people in the financial system did a lot of damage without intending to.

- George Soros

When overtaken with the temporay feelings of potential failure, burn all of your bridges of retreat, thus making retreat impossible.

- Napoleon Hill

U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt has been described as founder of the Bull Moose Party, the man who led his troops up San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War, a big game hunter, family man, civic servant and a host of other things.

- Zig Ziglar

Storytelling is the game. It’s what we all do. It’s why Nike is Nike, it’s why Apple is Apple, it’s why Walt Disney built Disney World and it’s why Vince McMahon makes a billion dollars.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

If you don’t understand the details of your business you are going to fail.

- Jeff Bezos

I believe God is managing affairs and that He doesn’t need any advice from me. With God in charge, I believe everything will work out for the best in the end. So what is there to worry about.

- Henry Ford

Don’t live worried, frustrated or upset because of what somebody did or what didn’t work out. Come back to a place of peace. It’s not going to work against you; it’s going to work for you.

- Joel Olsteen

Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

Fact: If standard of living is your number one objective, quality of life almost never improves. But if quality of life is your number one objective, standard of living invariably improves.

- Zig Ziglar

If everybody is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by going exactly in the opposite direction.

- Sam Walton

If you don’t set a baseline standard for what you’ll accept in life, you’ll find it’s easy to slip into behaviors and attitudes or a quality of life that’s far below what you deserve.

- Anthony Robbins

Self-centered leaders manipulate when they move people for personal benefit. Mature leaders motivate by moving people for mutual benefit.

- John C. Maxwell

That was a great day in my life! Your time is too valuable to worry about pleasing everyone else or making them happy. I know people who spend more time worrying about what others think about them than they do focusing on their own dreams and goals. You’ve got to get free from that.

- Joel Olsteen

I wanted to be an artist. They see the world in a very different way.

- Jack Dorsey

If you’ll dare to take your mind off your troubles, get your mind off your own needs and, instead, seek to be a blessing to other people, God will do more for you than you could even ask or think.

- Joel Olsteen

Allowing your kids to watch TV doesn’t have to mean they have no choice but to see commercials for junk food and alcohol.

- Charles Ergen

The thing about information is that information is more valuable when people know it. There’s an exception for business information and super timely information, but in all other cases, ideas that spread win.

- Seth Godin

Selling your company to the media is a necessary part of selling it to everyone else.

- Peter Thiel

I think we are at the dawn of a new era in commercial space exploration.

- Elon Musk

Among the things you can give and still keep are your word, a smile, and a grateful heart.

- Zig Ziglar

Do you remember the things you were worrying about a year ago? How did they work out? Didn’t you waste a lot of fruitless energy on account of most of them? Didn’t most of them turn out all right after all?

- Dale Carnegie

[On the cost to found Nike] Six hundred dollars each. Twelve hundred dollars total investment.

- Phil Knight

Meetings are an addictive, highly self-indulgent activity that corporations and other organizations habitually engage in only because they cannot actually masturbate.

- Dave Barry

It’s extremely difficult to find smart people willing to start useful projects. Because sometimes what you start doesn’t work. The fact that it doesn’t work every time should give you confidence, because it means you’re doing something that frightens others.

- Seth Godin

Most fears of rejection rest on the desire for approval from other people. Don’t base your self-esteem on their opinions.

- Harvey Mackay

Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies – or else? The chain reaction of evil – hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars – must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

To be candid, some people have given positive thinking a bad name. I can’t stand to hear some gung-ho individual say that with positive thinking you can just do ‘anything.’ If you think about that one for a moment, you recognize the absurdity of it.

- Zig Ziglar

It’s hard to make a living when you are in school…

- Michael Dell

The funny thing is people won’t let me pay for things. I’ll be in a restaurant and the manager will say, ‘Oh nom it’s on the house.’

- Richard Branson

In a world of gigantic administrative bureaucracies both public and private, searching for a new path might seem like hoping for a miracle.

- Peter Thiel

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

My children – in many dimensions they’re as poorly behaved as many other children, but at least on this dimension I’ve got my kids brainwashed: You don’t use Google, and you don’t use an iPod.

- Steve Ballmer

After assessing the prospects of the various business segments of Henderson Cyber, the company, Henderson Investment, Hong Kong and China Gas and Henderson Cyber jointly announced in August 2005, the proposed privatisation of Henderson Cyber by Henderson Investment and Hong Kong and China Gas…

- Lee Shau Kee

The Successful leader must understand and apply the principle of cooperative effort and be able to induce his followers to do the same. Leadership calls for power and power calls for cooperation.

- Napoleon Hill

I believe God’s keeping the records, and I believe you will be rewarded even in this life. Somehow, someway, God will make it up to you. It may be He protected you from an accident you never knew. You can’t give God something without God giving you more in return, whether it’s peace or joy or satisfaction.

- Joel Olsteen

There are websites that any government wants to block. The truth about the Internet is that it’s extremely hard to block anything – extremely hard. You’ll never get perfect blocking.

- Bill Gates

…People have lived before you. You’re not the first person to dream big, so you’d be wise to study what others have learned first and then build you actions on the backs of their lessons.

- Gary Keller

I do think there is an important artistic component in what we do. As a technology company I’ve tried to really stress that.

- Larry Page

I think there are people out there writing original bluegrass songs, but it’s hard to get them out on the air.

- Steve Martin

El séptimo imperativo • El primer imperativo es estar al tanto; al tanto del mercado, de las oportunidades y de quién eres. • El segundo imperativo es estar preparados, para entender lo que sucede a tu alrededor. • El tercer imperativo es estar conectado, para que confíen en ti. • El cuarto imperativo es ser coherente, para que el sistema sepa qué esperar de ti. • El quinto imperativo es crear un valor, para tener algo que vender. • El sexto imperativo es ser productivo, para ofrecer un buen precio. No obstante, es posible que hagas todas estas cosas y aun así fracases. Un empleo no es suficiente, ni una fábrica, ni una industria. Solían serlo, pero ya no lo son. El mundo está cambiando muy rápido, y sin la chispa de la iniciativa te limitas a reaccionar ante lo que te rodea. Asimismo, sin la capacidad de incitar y experimentar estás estancado, a la deriva, esperando el empujón…

- Seth Godin

I vividly remember a conversation I had many years ago in 1974, which marked a turning point in my leadership journey. I was sitting at a Holiday Inn with my friend, Kurt Campmeyer, when he asked me if I had a personal growth plan. I didn’t. In fact, I didn’t even know you were supposed to have one.

- John C. Maxwell

I wasn’t satisfied just to earn a good living. I was looking to make a statement.

- Donald Trump

Consider this: you are today what you believed about yourself yesterday. And you will be tomorrow what you believe about yourself right now.

- Joel Olsteen

For good or for ill, air mastery is today the supreme expression of military power and fleets and armies, however vital and important, must accept a subordinate rank.

- Winston Churchill

Ultimately, we wanted Nike to be the world’s best sports and fitness company. Once you say that, you have a focus. You don’t end up making wing tips or sponsoring the next Rolling Stones world tour.

- Phil Knight

Mudhole? Slimy? My home this is!

- Yoda

Nonetheless, that know-how is often unmanageable. Avoidable failures are commmon and persistent, not to mention demoralizing and frustrating, across many fields – from medicine to finance, business to government. And the reason is increasingly evident: the volume and complexity of what we know has exceeded our individual ability to deliver its benefits correctly, safely, or reliably. Knowledge has both saved us and burdened us. That means we need a different strategy for overcoming failure, one that builds on experience and takes advantage of the knowledge people have but somehow also makes up for our inevitable human inadequacies. And there is such a strategy – though it will seem almost ridiculous in its simplicity, maybe even crazy to those of us who have spent years carefully developing ever more advanced skills and technologies. It is a checklist.

- Atul Gawande

Most of the reason we don’t do things is because we’re afraid to fail. I just made a decision one day that I was not going to do things in my life because of fear.

- Sara Blakely

It’s the power of the brand. We’ve never formally advertised.

- Sara Blakely

If you can’t retain the people after an acquisition, it’s not worth it.

- John Chambers

It was definitely kind of surprising to see us come out and run the ball because we usually like to pass to start the game and put up some quick points. But tonight, we had real good balance offensively. We ran and passed the ball well, which kept them off balance all night.

- Jack Taylor

We got so much better so quickly it was hard to believe. We totally stood Kmart off in those small towns of ours. Almost from the beginning, they weren’t very successful at taking our customers away in Jeff City and Poplar Bluff. Once Kmart arrived, we worked even harder at pleasing our customers, and they stayed loyal. This gave us a great surge of confidence in ourselves. But at that time our sales were 5 percent of Kmart’s. (through competition) Wal-Mart has lowered the gross margin in retailing from around 35 percent in the early 60s to only 22 percent today.

- Sam Walton

To win without risk is to triumph without glory.

- Confucius

You know what, Steve Jobs is real nice to me. He lets me be an employee and that’s one of the biggest honors of my life.

- Steve Wozniak

No matter how dark and gloomy it looks in your life right now, if you’ll release the weight of those burdens, you will see the sun break forth.

- Joel Olsteen

My parents were the same in the pulpit as they were at home. I think that’s where a lot of preachers’ kids get off base sometimes. Because they don’t see the same things at both places.

- Joel Olsteen

Globalization has made copper and other minerals more valuable, and Ghana and Kenya have recently discovered mineral resources.

- Bill Gates

When you look at the dark side, careful you must be. For the dark side looks back.

- Yoda

I should have liked to be asked to say what I knew. They always tried to ask what I did not know. When I would have willingly displayed my knowledge, they sought to expose my ignorance. This sort of treatment had only one result: I did not do well in examinations.

- Winston Churchill

As God himself, sir, does not propose to judge man until the end of his days.Why should you and I?

- Dr. Spencer Johnson

mean that you can’t do anything else but pray. But it does mean that you are always ready and willing to go before God with any concern or praise. Nothing is too small or too big for prayer. Prayer is simply opening your heart and connecting with God. It’s taking His promises and applying them to your life. Prayer processes the plan of God. You should bathe your life in prayer. Pray for wisdom, peace, and patience. Pray for your relationships, your job, and your children. Pray for your country and leaders. Pray with others, knowing that when two or more are gathered in His name, He is there.

- 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

Employees were invited to send complaints or suggestions directly to him and he always took an interest in their affairs. He was the best employer of his time, instituting hospitalization and retirement pensions. He was a fine boss if workers abided by the rules, but if they did something foolish, like show interest in a union, they promptly forfeited his sympathy. Rockefeller never acknowledged the legitamacy of organized labor, nor did he tolerate union organizers on his premises.

- Ron Chernow

Opportunity does not knock, it presents itself when you beat down the door.

- Kyle Chandler

Successful heretics create their own religions….You can recognize the need for faith in your idea, you can find the tribe you need to support you, and yes, you can create a new religion around your faith. Steve Jobs did it on purpose at Apple and Phil Knight is famous for doing it at Nike.

- Seth Godin

[In June 2011] I mean, what is Twitter? Ask 100 people, ‘what is the world?’ and you’ll get a thousand different answers. The same is true for Twitter. It’s different things to different people. Twitter is the world.

- Jack Dorsey

So many people label themselves a failure when they fail at something. Instead, the entrepreneurial spirit is realizing that these failures are a necessary part of the path to wherever you’re going to end up.

- Tony Hsieh

You cannot tailor make your situation in life, but you can tailor make your attitudes to those situations.

- Zig Ziglar

You’ve been destined to live in victory, destined to overcome, destined to leave your mark on this generation.

- Joel Olsteen

Today, not starting is far, far worse than being wrong. If you start, you’ve got a shot at evolving and adjusting to turn your wrong into a right. But if you don’t start, you never get a chance.

- Seth Godin

We could definitely make a flying car – but that’s not the hard part. The hard part is, how do you make a flying car that’s super safe and quiet? Because if it’s a howler, you’re going to make people very unhappy.

- Elon Musk

I’m an HBO subscriber, and I watch a bunch of great shows on HBO.

- Reed Hastings

See, when you drive home today, you’ve got a big windshield on the front of your car. And you’ve got a little bitty rearview mirror. And the reason the windshield is so large and the rearview mirror is so small is because what’s happened in your past is not near as important as what’s in your future.

- Joel Olsteen

You always hear the phrase, money doesn’t buy you happiness. But I always in the back of my mind figured a lot of money will buy you a little bit of happiness. But it’s not really true. I got a new car because the old one’s lease expired.

- Sergey Brin

FATHER FORGETS W. Livingston Larned Listen, son: I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside. There are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor. At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread. And as you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, ‘Goodbye, Daddy!’ and I frowned, and said in reply, ‘Hold your shoulders back!’ Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I came up the road I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles. There were holes in your stockings. I humiliated you before your boyfriends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Stockings were expensive – and if you had to buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that, son, from a father! Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you came in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes? When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you hesitated at the door. ‘What is it you want?’ I snapped. You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither. And then you were gone, pattering up the stairs. Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding – this was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years. And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your character. The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over the wide hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night. Nothing else matters tonight, son. I have come to your bedside in the darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed! It is a feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you during your waking hours. But tomorrow I will be a real daddy! I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: ‘He is nothing but a boy – a little boy!’ I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in your mother’s arms, your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much, too much. Instead of condemning people, let’s try to understand them. Let’s try to figure out why they do what they do. That’s a lot more profitable and intriguing than criticism; and it breeds sympathy, tolerance and kindness. ‘To know all is to forgive.

- Dale Carnegie

Make a point to continually search for a better way of doing things, even when things are going well, to ensure that a better alternative has not been overlooked and to keep your creative talents in practice.

- John C. Maxwell

Creative leaders inherently know when rules need to be challenged, and they can see when a more flexible approach should be taken.

- John C. Maxwell

Get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats.

- Jim Collins

The PC has improved the world in just about every area you can think of. Amazing developments in communications, collaboration and efficiencies. New kinds of entertainment and social media. Access to information and the ability to give a voice people who would never have been heard.

- Bill Gates

The Silver Spoon, the best-selling Italian cookbook of the last 50 years.

- Timothy Ferriss

To change somebody’s behavior, change the level of respect she receives by giving her a fine reputation to live up to. Act as though the trait you are trying to influence is already one of the person’s outstanding characteristics.

- Dale Carnegie

Instead of worrying about what people say of you, why not spend time trying to accomplish something they will admire.

- Dale Carnegie

Sometimes an organization doesn’t need a solution. It just needs clarity.

- Ben Horowitz

The future of humanity is going to bifurcate in two directions: Either it’s going to become multiplanetary, or it’s going to remain confined to one planet and eventually there’s going to be an extinction event.

- Elon Musk

The hard thing isn’t setting up an organizational chart. The hard thing is getting people to communicate within the organization that you just designed.

- Ben Horowitz

We’re really going after truly creating sustainability of a disease-free state, creating a complete system for managing cancer patients for life, so that you can manage from onset of disease all the way through.

- Patrick Soon-Shiong

Happiness is not a tangible thing, it’s a byproduct – a byproduct of achievement.

- Ray Kroc

Use what you have to run toward your best – that’s how I now live my life.

- Oprah Winfrey

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