Every culture has a myth of decline from some golden age, and almost all peoples throughout history have been pessimists. Even today pessimism still dominates huge parts of the world. An indefinite pessimist looks out onto a bleak future, but he has no idea what to do about it. This describes Europe since the early 1970s, when the continent succumbed to undirected bureaucratic drift. Today the whole Eurozone is in slow-motion crisis, and nobody is in charge. The European Central Bank doesn’t stand for anything but improvisation: the U.S. Treasury prints “In God We Trust” on the dollar; the ECB might as well print “Kick the Can Down the Road” on the euro. Europeans just react to events as they happen and hope things don’t get worse.
- Peter Thiel
Notable Quotables
Poisonous people do not deserve your time. To think otherwise is masochistic. The best way to approach a potential break is simple: Confide in them honestly but tactfully and explain your concerns. If they bite back, your conclusions have been confirmed. Drop them like any other bad habit. If they promise to change, first spend at least two weeks apart to develop other positive influences in your life and diminish psychological dependency. The next trial period should have a set duration and consist of pass-or-fail criteria. If this approach is too confrontational for you, just politely refuse to interact with them. Be in the middle of something when the call comes, and have a prior commitment when the invitation to hang out comes. Once you see the benefits of decreased time with these people, it will be easier to stop communication altogether.
- Timothy Ferriss
Learn to listen and think.
- Jack Nadel
Rich countries can afford to overpay for things.
- Bill Gates
God is a good God, and He gives good things to his children. No matter who has denigrated you or how much pain you’ve experienced in life, no matter how many setbacks you have suffered, you cannot allow yourself to accept that as the way life is supposed to be. No, God has better things in store for you. You must reprogram your mind with God’s word; change that negative, defeated self-image, and start seeing yourself as winning, coming out on top. Start seeing that marriage as restored. See your business as flourishing. See your children as enjoying the good things of God. You must see it through your eyes of faith, and then it will begin to happen.
- Joel Olsteen
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
The chief function of the body is to carry the brain around.
- Thomas Edison
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
Maybe you’ve invested a lot of time, effort, money, emotion, and energy in a relationship; you did your best to make it work out. But for some reason, things got off course. And now you feel as though you have been robbed. When we focus on or disappointments, we stop God from ringing fresh new blessing into our lives.
- Joel Olsteen
If you can see the invisible, God will do the impossible.
- Joel Olsteen
And we know that in ALL things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
- Romans 8:28
The ultimate goal for a business owner is to build a company that he or she can one day sell, continue to scale, or even own passively. Most business owners reach for growth by working harder and personally trying to produce more. This is a flawed model that at best will lead to only moderate growth. At worst this strategy can literally put your entire company at risk.
- Jeff Hoffman
The connected economy of ideas demands that we contribute initiative. And yet we resist, because our lizard brain, the one that lives in fear, relentlessly exaggerates the cost of being wrong.
- Seth Godin
The real joy is in constructing a sentence. But I see myself as an actor first because writing is what you do when you are ready and acting is what you do when someone else is ready.
- Steve Martin
The most beautiful people I’ve known are those who have known trials, have known struggles, have known loss, and have found their way out of the depths.
- Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Get your fire back.
- Joel Olsteen
We shape our dwellings and afterwards our dwellings shape us.
- Winston Churchill
The more we thought, the more they all sounded boring compared to Apple. You didn’t have to have a real specific reason for choosing a name when you were a little tiny company of two people; you choose any name you want.
- Steve Wozniak
Our company has to be a company that enables its people.
- Steve Ballmer
Stick with the Dips that are likely to pan out, and quit the Cul-de-Sacs to focus your resources.
- Seth Godin
Shaw once remarked: If you teach a man anything, he will never learn.
- Dale Carnegie
Although I don’t have a prescription for what others should do, I know I have been very fortunate and feel a responsibility to give back to society in a very significant way.
- Bill Gates
Infrastructure web services had to happen.
- Jeff Bezos
What I know for sure is that what you give comes back to you.
- Oprah Winfrey
Most of a tech company’s value will come at least 10 to 15 years in the future.
- Peter Thiel
The only thing I understand deeply, because in my teens I was thinking about it, and every year of my life, is software. So I’ll never be hands-on on anything except software.
- Bill Gates
Don’t take anyone for granted.
- Jack Dorsey
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
- Mark Twain
Any fool can try to defend his or her mistakes – and most fools do – but it raises one above the herd and gives one a feeling of nobility and exultation to admit one’s mistakes.
- Dale Carnegie
Anger is a waste of energy. Steam which is used to blow off a safety valve would be better used to drive an engine.
- Winston Churchill
If you and I go around grumbling about ingratitude, who is to blame? Is it human nature—or is it our ignorance of human nature? Let’s not expect gratitude. Then, if we get some occasionally, it will come as a delightful surprise. If we don’t get it, we won’t be disturbed. Here is the first point I am trying to make in this chapter: It is natural for people to forget to be grateful; so, if we go around expecting gratitude, we are headed straight for a lot of heartaches.
- Dale Carnegie
We don’t know a millionth of one percent about anything.
- Thomas Edison
If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have the time to do it over?
- John Wooden
We enjoy the process far more than the proceeds
- Warren Buffett
I believe that success can be measured in the number of uncomfortable conversations you’re willing to have.
- Timothy Ferriss
Reality is negotiable.
- Timothy Ferriss
By improving health, empowering women, population growth comes down.
- Bill Gates
There’s a difference between telling people what to do and inciting a movement.
- Seth Godin
We let folks know we’re interested in them and that they’re vital to us. cause they are.
- Sam Walton
The foundation of the Germanic system was blood and kin.
- Winston Churchill
I’ve had great fun turning quite a lot of different industries on their head and making sure those industries will never be the same again, because Virgin went in and took them on.
- Richard Branson
A Carnegie or a Rockefeller or a James J. Hill or a Marshall Field accumulates a fortune through the applications of the same principles available to all of us, but we envy them and their wealth without ever thinking of studying their philosophy and applying it to ourselves. We look at a successful person in the hour of their triumph and wonder how they did it, but we overlook the importance of analyzing their methods. And we forget the price they had to pay in the careful, well-organized preparation that had to be made before they could reap the fruits of their efforts.
- Napoleon Hill
We all know now that the 747 became the flagship jumbo jet of the airline industry, but the decision looks much different from the perspective of the late 1960s. Yet—and this is the key point—Boeing was willing to make the bold move in the face of the risks. As in Boeing’s case, the risks do not always come without pain.
- James C. Collins
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
Wise men, when in doubt whether to speak or to keep quiet, give themselves the benefit of the doubt, and remain silent.
- Napoleon Hill
You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
- Jack London
Puffery makes you look weak and not very bright. Representation makes you look strong and smart.
- Jerry Vass
The concept of serviced apartments makes economic sense for tenancies of short to medium term duration – a fact many leading Hong Kong and overseas corporations now appreciate.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Managers will play every game in the book to avoid identifying their bottom 10. Sometimes they’ll sneak in people who were planning to retire that year or others who already have been told to leave the organization.
- Jack Welch
God is faithful to His word. All of His promises are Yes” and Amen.” That means if you will do your part and believe even though it looks impossible, and not let your mind, your emotions, or other people talk you out of it, then God promises in due season and at the right time He will bring it to pass. It may not happen the way you expect it or on your timetable, but God is a faithful God. It will happen.
- Joel Olsteen
Too often, sales reps simply regurgitate their presentations and expect to land the sale. It doesn’t work.
- Harvey Mackay
Each close you use should be an educational process by which you are able to raise the value in the prospect’s mind.
- Zig Ziglar
Success is a personal standard, reaching for the highest that is in us, becoming all that we can be.
- Zig Ziglar
Life can be boring unless you put some effort into it.
- John C. Maxwell
Treat your life like a game.
- Ray Dalio
Everybody is going to have their critics. It’s easy to get discouraged in life.
- Joel Olsteen
9 out of ten new businesses fail in the first five years.
- Robert Kiyosaki
I readily absorb ideas from every source, frequently starting where the last person left off.
- Thomas Edison
The problem with New Year’s resolutions – and resolutions to ‘get in better shape’ in general, which are very amorphous – is that people try to adopt too many behavioral changes at once. It doesn’t work. I don’t care if you’re a world-class CEO – you’ll quit.
- Timothy Ferriss
if you want to achieve consistent performance, you need both parts of a 20 Mile March: a lower bound and an upper bound, a hurdle that you jump over and a ceiling that you will not rise above, the ambition to achieve and the self-control to hold back.
- James C. Collins
If you want to reach the top, don’t run over others. Likely, the only way you’ll reach the top is to be carried there by others.
- John C. Maxwell
You need to live every day like it could be your last.
- Joel Olsteen
When screening engineers from other companies, its smart to value engineers from great companies more than those from mediocre companies.
- Ben Horowitz
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
Failure comes part and parcel with invention. It’s not optional. We understand that and believe in failing early and iterating until we get it right. When this process works, it means our failures are relatively small in size (most experiments can start small), and when we hit on something that is really working for customers, we double-down on it with hopes to turn it into an even bigger success.
- Jeff Bezos
The world is changing very fast. Big will not beat small anymore. It will be the fast beating the slow.
- Rupert Murdoch
Thank your opponents sincerely for their interest. Anyone who takes the time to disagree with you is interested in the same things you are. Think of them as people who really want to help you, and you may turn your opponents into friends.
- Dale Carnegie
Before spending time on a stress-inducing question or problem, consider this: If you can’t define it or act upon it, forget it.
- Timothy Ferriss
Well… I graduated from the business school of Northumberland University in Newcastle.
- Alexei Mordashov
Exercise is better than any medicine I can take, exercise and sleep.
- Aliko Dangote
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
If inflation-adjusted interest rates decline in a given country, its currency is likely to decline.
- Ray Dalio
Think global, but start local.
- Jack Nadel
Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.
- Warren Buffett
When life gives you lemons make lemonade!!
- Dale Carnegie
Checks should be endorsed immediately: FOR DEPOSIT ONLY.
- Robert Kiyosaki
Jim Cathcart is one of the brightest, dearest and most comprehensive speakers I know. In this powerful book he will help you discover and express your true self, accelerate your success and improve your quality of life.
- Jack Canfield
Resposibility is the price of greatness.
- Winston Churchill
If only the people who worry about their liabilities would think about the riches they do possess, they would stop worrying.
- Dale Carnegie
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Me and my dad are the biggest promoters of an estate tax in the US. It’s not a popular position.
- Bill Gates
I try to build a full personality for each of our cartoon characters – to make them personalities.
- Walt Disney
I don’t believe that government is good at picking technology, particularly technology that is changing. By the time you get it done and go through democracy, it’s so outdated.
- Michael Bloomberg
Differentiation favors people who are energetic and extroverted and undervalues people who are shy and introverted, even if they are talented.
- Jack Welch
Well, we’re about 24 million subscribers today, and that’s up from about 15 million a year ago, so it’s a very high rate of growth, and that’s what’s exciting about the business – more and more people are getting smart TVs, they’re watching Netflix on their iPads.
- Reed Hastings
To live your best life now, you must learn to trust God’s timing, you may not think He’s working, but you can be sure that right now, behind the scenes, God is arranging all the pieces to come together to work out His plan for your life.
- Joel Olsteen
You need to take pride in what God has given you.
- Joel Olsteen
I think I meant that, given the circumstances of my childhood, I had the illusion that it’s easier to be alone. To have your relationships be casual and also to pose as a solitary person, because it was more romantic. You know, I was raised on the idea of the ramblin’ man and the loner.
- Steve Martin
If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough.
- Mario Andretti
Similar to all of you, we would like to see higher growth.
- John Chambers
There are two main drivers of asset class returns – inflation and growth.
- Ray Dalio
When you give directives to a child, especially a teenager, you must consider the nature of your child.
- Zig Ziglar
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
We live in an age where everything is based on the short term.
- Howard Schultz
Look, we live in a very dangerous world. We know there are people who want to take away our freedoms. New Yorkers probably know that as much if not more than anybody else after the terrible tragedy of 9/11.
- Michael Bloomberg
Because there have been no settlements reached for the securities action with any of the less-involved banks, it is difficult to know what reserves are prudent.
- Ed Clark
The reason Steve Herrell’s shop did so well is that it was famous for having a line! People brought folks from out of town to have the experience.
- Seth Godin
Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it.
- Oprah Winfrey
Happiness can be bought with a bottle of wine and has become ambiguous through overuse.
- Timothy Ferriss
Sustaining faith is what sets you through those dark nights of the soul when you don’t know where to go or what to do, and it seems that you can’t last another day…but because of your faith in God, you do.
- Joel Olsteen
