Notable Quotables

It occurs to me, Jim, that you spend too much time trying to be interesting. Why don’t you invest more time being interested?

- James C. Collins

Meeting Coach Wooden, the most humble leader I’ve ever met, made me think about my ego, about as the wise John Weinberg once put it, the difference between growing and swelling.

- David Novak

Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.

- Jack Nadel

After Scour, I started a company called Red Swoosh. The idea was to take those litigants who sued us for a huge amount of money and turn them into customers with the same technology. I wanted to get them to pay me. It was a revenge business.

- Travis Kalanick

I declare to you, from the bottom of my heart, that no Socialist system can be established without a political police…No Socialist Government conducting the entire life and industry of the country could afford to allow free, sharp, or violently-worded expressions of public discontent. They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance.

- Winston Churchill

I was very interested in vaudeville. It was the only sort of discipline that was a five-minute act on stage, which is what I really enjoyed and saw myself doing. And I bought books on it.

- Steve Martin

This defines entrepreneur and entrepreneurship – the entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.

- Peter Drucker

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

- Dale Carnegie

My philosophy is that not only are you responsible for your life, but doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.

- Oprah Winfrey

Thinking (of how to improve your life and business) is the hardest thing there is. That is why so few people engage in it.

- Henry Ford

Like biological evolution, ‘survival of the fittest’ during the course of reformation is to adapt to changes in the surrounding environment and make changes accordingly.

- Cheng Yu-tung

My background educationally is physics and economics, and I grew up in sort of an engineering environment – my father is an electromechanical engineer. And so there were lots of engineery things around me.

- Elon Musk

It’s easier for our software to compete with Linux when there’s piracy than when there’s not.

- Bill Gates

Stepping back from almost any situation with an underperformer, it’s always easy to see the solution. They need to move on—sooner rather than later. Up close, however, organizations tend to draw out departures, as people fret about the employee’s emotional reaction to being let go. Oftentimes, managers feel guilty about putting a friend out of work, or remorseful they didn’t give candid enough feedback along the way, or both.

- Jack Welch

In business, just the opposite is often true; silence means dissent. Have you ever been in a meeting where you sense there is obvious disagreement, but the disagreement never really gets put on the table? This what I call the Slow No’s.

- David Novak

I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.

- Bishop Desmond TuTu

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

There are some important differences between me and Tony Stark, like I have five kids, so I spend more time going to Disneyland than parties.

- Elon Musk

Becoming a member of the NR is not just about working smarter. It’s about building a system to replace yourself.

- Timothy Ferriss

Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

- Bill Gates

If you can deny your talents, if you can conceal them from others or, even better, persuade yourself that they weren’t even given to you, you’re off the hook. And being off the hook is a key element of the industrialized school’s promise. It lets parents off the hook, certainly, since the institution takes over the teaching. It lets teachers off the hook, since the curriculum is preordained and the results are tested. And it lets students off the hook, because the road is clearly marked and the map is handed to everyone. If you stay on the path, do your college applications through the guidance office and your job hunting at the placement office, the future is not your fault. That’s the refrain we hear often from frustrated job seekers, frustrated workers with stuck careers, and frustrated students in too much debt. ‘I did what they told me to do and now I’m stuck and it’s not my fault.’ What they’ve exchanged for that deniability is their dreams, their chance for greatness. To go off the path is to claim responsibility for what happens next.

- Seth Godin

I DECLARE that God has a great plan for my life. He is directing my steps. And even though I may not always understand how, I know my situation is not a surprise to God. He will work out every detail to my advantage. In His perfect timing, everything will turn out right. This is my declaration.

- Joel Olsteen

The internet had yet to take off, partly because its commercial use was restricted until late 1992 and partly due to the lack of user-friendly web browsers.

- Peter Thiel

The bigger we get as a company, the more important it becomes for us to shift responsibility and authority toward the front lines, toward the department manager who’s stocking the shelves and talking to the customer. When we were much smaller, I probably wasn’t as quick to catch on to this idea as I do should have been. But as an avid student of management theory, back in the mid-seventies I started reading the work of W. Edwards Deming, the famous statistician who taught so much to the Japanese about improving their productivity and competitiveness.

- Sam Walton

Percentage margins don’t matter. What matters always is dollar margins: the actual dollar amount. Companies are valued not on their percentage margins, but on how many dollars they actually make, and a multiple of that.

- Jeff Bezos

It enriches those who receive, without impoverishing those who give. It happens in a flash and the memory of it sometimes lasts forever.

- Dale Carnegie

I want to get involved in things that makes a difference in peoples lives and lifts them up. I don’t want to be a part of anything that’s not inspiring or helpful to the community that I’m serving.

- Russell Simmons

The difference between blues, jazz, rock n’ roll and rap is that rap stayed poor. Even the white rappers are poor. It’s scarier to look at poor people; it makes everyone uncomfortable. Their pain is something that people would like to see swept under the rug.

- Russell Simmons

God created you to leave your mark on this generation. You have gifts and talents that you have not tapped into. There are new levels of your destiny still in front of you. But break out starts in your thinking. As you put these keys into action, making room for increase, expecting shifts of God’s favor, praying bold prayers, and keeping the right perspective, then God will release floods of His goodness that will thrust you beyond barriers of the past into the extraordinary life you were designed to live.

- Joel Olsteen

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

- Mark Twain

As you and I march across the decades of time, we are going to meet a lot of unpleasant situations that are so. They cannot be otherwise. We have our choice. We can either accept them as inevitable and adjust ourselves to them, or we can ruin our lives with rebellion and maybe end up with a nervous breakdown.

- Dale Carnegie

Any jerk can have short-term earnings. You squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, and the company sinks five years later.

- Jack Welch

You’ve got to visualize where you’re headed and be very clear about it. Take a polaroid picture of where you’re going to be in a few years

- Sara Blakely

Andy Andrews is the best speaker I have ever seen.

- Zig Ziglar

If that doesn’t seem dominant enough, consider the fact that the word “google” is now an official entry in the Oxford English Dictionary—as a verb.

- Peter Thiel

About 80% of our locations are second-generation. In other words, the building used to be, say, a Wal-Mart that moved out to become a Super Wal-Mart, or a Kmart that closed. It seems that such a site becomes available almost every year in every city.

- David Green

Twenty years ago, the top 100 companies in the Fortune 500 either dug something out of the ground or turned a natural resource (iron ore or oil) into something you could hold. Today, fewer than half of the companies on the list do that. The rest make unseemly profits by trafficking in ideas.

- Seth Godin

I will be liken to the rain drop which washes away the mountain; the ant that devours a tiger; the star which brightens the earth; the slave who builds a pyramid. I will build my castle one brick at a time for I know that small attemps, repeated will complete my undertaking.

- Og Mandino

You need to have extraordinary wisdom to be the forerunner.

- Ma Huateng

When someone we love is having difficulty and is giving us a bad time, it’s better to explore the cause than to criticize the action.

- Zig Ziglar

Ask yourself, what’s the one thing that I can do right now so I’m on track to achieve my someday goals?

- Gary Keller

You always have to give something when you get something.

- Jack Nadel

Keep costs low and spirits high, and the people of Southwest Airlines will keep LUV in the air.

- Herb Kelleher

I got my story, my dream, from America. The hero I had is Forrest Gump… I like that guy. I’ve been watching that movie about 10 times. Every time I get frustrated, I watch the movie. I watched the movie before I came here again to New York. I watched the movie again telling me that no matter whatever changed, you are you.

- Jack Ma

Regardless of who you are or what you have been, you can be what you want to be.

- W. Clement Stone

If your access to health care involves your leaving work and driving somewhere and parking and waiting for a long time, that’s not going to promote healthiness.

- Larry Page

As long as a person doesn’t know what he doesn’t know, he doesn’t grow.

- John Maxwell

The most successful companies make the core progression—to first dominate a specific niche and then scale to adjacent markets—a part of their founding narrative.

- Peter Thiel

Media companies focused on things like creating great stories whereas technology companies focused on creating a better way of doing things. We began to think about new ideas and about forming a new company.

- Ben Horowitz

Nations that went down fighting rose again, but those who surrendered tamely were finished.

- Winston Churchill

Failing forward” is the ability to get back up after you’ve been knocked down, learn from your mistake, and move forward in a better direction.

- John C. Maxwell

As an immigrant, I chose to live in America because it is one of the freest and most vibrant nations in the world. And as an immigrant, I feel an obligation to speak up for immigration policies that will keep America the most economically robust, creative and freedom-loving nation in the world.

- Rupert Murdoch

[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

Men sometimes stumble over the truth, but often pick themselves up and hurry off as though nothing had happened.

- Winston Churchill

If the terrorists have the sympathy of people, it’s much harder to find them. So we need people on our side, and that leads us to be responsible leaders of the world, show some concern with the problems.

- George Soros

[In 1998] The Nike product has become synonymous with slave wages, forced overtime, and arbitrary abuse.

- Phil Knight

Happens to every guy sometimes this does.

- Yoda

The legacy of Steve Jobs and the strength of Steve Jobs is that he established a company that’s clearly firing on all cylinders and clicking very well.

- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud

War metaphors invade our everyday business language: we use headhunters to build up a sales force that will enable us to take a captive market and make a killing. But really it’s competition, not business, that is like war:

- Peter Thiel

Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!

- Andrew Carnegie

When I cut the feet out of my pantyhose that one time, I saw it as my sign. I had been visualizing being self employed prior to this happening. It was my mental preparation meeting the opportunity in that moment.

- Sara Blakely

$1,000,000 in the bank isn’t the fantasy. The fantasy is the lifestyle of complete freedom it supposedly allows.

- Timothy Ferriss

Everything begins with a decision. Then, we have to manage that decision for the rest of your life.

- John C. Maxwell

Strange as it sounds, great leaders gain authority by giving it away.

- Napoleon Hill

Most people have bosses who hire them to fill a slot in the work chart and to do what they are told. And most people who are doing what they are told feel safe, it feels reliable.

- Seth Godin

Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.

- John F. Kennedy

The secret of his success? I will speak ill of no man, and speak all the good I know of everybody.

- Dale Carnegie

Why talk about what we want? That is childish. Absurd. Of course you are interested in what you want. You are eternally interested in it. But no one else is. The rest of us are just like you: we are interested in what we want.

- Dale Carnegie

I started thinking about joy. Everything in our society is so purposeful. Let’s bring joy back to the experience.

- Sara Blakely

In between goals is a thing called life, that has to be lived and enjoyed.

- Sid Caesar

[On American running shoes] They cost five bucks and gave you blood blisters after five miles. Adidas was taking advantage. And at $30 a pair, Adidas was making a killing.

- Phil Knight

Kickstarter isn’t a profit center, it’s an organizer and an instigator.

- Seth Godin

I do not believe a man can ever leave his business. He ought to think of it by day and dream of it by night.

- Henry Ford

Dios ve el valor que usted tiene, y sabe en lo que le está convirtiendo. A veces nos miramos a nosotros mismos y pensamos: Tengo muchas imperfecciones. Tengo mal genio. Tengo un problema con mi boca. No soy tan disciplinado”. Vemos el barro, pero Dios ve la hermosa taza. La buena noticia es que usted no es un producto terminado. Dios sigue obrando, y si trabaja usted con Dios y le permite eliminar esas impurezas, Él hará más con su vida de lo que usted nunca soñó.

- Joel Olsteen

Outstanding people have one thing in common: an absolute sense of mission.

- Zig Ziglar

The screwball. Humor can often be effective and with this style, it’s emphasized. Appeal to the journalist’s heightened sense of the unusual. Stunts, sideshows, ancillary themes are put to work here.

- Michael Levine

As long as people are clear on what they need to do and what’s going on, you’re very likely to succeed. When nobody is clear, then you’re guaranteed to fail.

- Ben Horowitz

The advance of technology is based on making it fit in so that you don’t really even notice it, so it’s part of everyday life.

- Bill Gates

In my own experience as a C.E.O., I would find myself laying awake at 3 A.M. asking questions about my business, and there weren’t management books out there that could help me.

- Ben Horowitz

A new road or a secret gate, And though we pass them by today, Tomorrow we may come this way And take the hidden paths that run Towards the Moon or to the Sun.

- Peter Thiel

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.

- Thomas Edison

Many people say the privatisation was unfair: that is true – it was unfair. That is a fact: some people became rich and others did not. Unfair does not mean illegal, but it was inevitably unfair.

- Vladimir Potanin

Monopolists can afford to think about things other than making money, non-monopolists can’t.

- Peter Thiel

We all need a check up from the neck up to avoid stinkin’ thinkin’ which ultimately leads to hardening of the attitude.

- Zig Ziglar

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

Social media requires that business leaders start thinking like small-town shop owners. This means taking the long view and avoiding short-term benchmarks to gauge progress. It means allowing the personality, heart and soul of the people who run all levels of the business to show.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

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