Notable Quotables

The only way I can get you to do anything is by giving you what you want.

- Dale Carnegie

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

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

The greatest thing Jobs designed was his business. Apple imagined and executed definite multi-year plans to create new products and distribute them effectively. Forget “minimum viable products”—ever since he started Apple in 1976, Jobs saw that you can change the world through careful planning, not by listening to focus group feedback or copying others’ successes.

- Peter Thiel

Start calling yourself healed, happy, whole, blessed, and prosperous. Stop talking to God about how big your mountains are, and start talking to your mountains about how big your God is!

- Joel Olsteen

A lot of preachers’ kids are some of the most rebellious kids in the world. I never was like that.

- Joel Olsteen

Boeing just took $20 billion and 10 years to improve the efficiency of their planes by 10 percent. That’s pretty lame. I have a design in mind for a vertical liftoff supersonic jet that would be a really big improvement.

- Elon Musk

I don’t mind saying, you know, that I don’t take a salary from the church, and God has blessed me with more money than I could imagine from my books.

- Joel Olsteen

Simply changing one three-letter word can often spell the difference between failure and success in changing people without giving offense or arousing resentment. Many people begin their criticism with sincere praise followed by the word but” and ending with a critical statement. For example, in trying to change a child’s careless attitude toward studies, we might say, We’re really proud of you, Johnnie, for raising your grades this term. But if you had worked harder on your algebra, the results would have been better.” In this case, Johnnie might feel encouraged until he heard the word but.” He might then question the sincerity of the original praise. To him, the praise seemed only to be a contrived lead-in to a critical inference of failure. Credibility would be strained, and we probably would not achieve our objectives of changing Johnnie’s attitude toward his studies. This could be easily overcome by changing the word but” to and.” We’re really proud of you, Johnnie, for raising your grades this term, and by continuing the same conscientious efforts next term, your algebra grade can be up with all the others.

- Dale Carnegie

My theory is 98 percent of all human endeavor is killing time.

- Jerry Seinfeld

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

People are afraid of failure – they don’t like to work so hard and have people keep saying, ‘No.’ I think that’s what people fear most.

- Russell Simmons

I know something about how to build constituencies in an independent way.

- Michael Bloomberg

Sometimes I say ‘Go to Joe’s Diner’ and [Siri] doesn’t know where Joe’s Diner is. And very often usually I find out that Android does.

- Steve Wozniak

Talk to someone about themselves and they’ll listen for hours.

- Dale Carnegie

If we say it long enough eventually we’re going to reap a harvest. We’re going to get exactly what we’re saying.

- Joel Olsteen

The proposed abolishment of estate duty by the Hong Kong Government will contribute to establish Hong Kong as a regional financial centre as well as an asset management hub.

- Lee Shau Kee

We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s dam is the history we make today.

- Henry Ford

Any time a company grows as fast as Wal-Mart has, pockets of duplication are going to build up, and there will be areas of the business which we may no longer need. No boss or employee really likes to dwell on such matters; it’s only human nature not to want to have your job, or the jobs of the people who work for you, eliminated. But it is absolutely the responsibility of a company’s top management to be thinking about this issue all the time – to ensure the sound future for the overall company.

- Sam Walton

Let’s test the Shakespearean model in the real world. Imagine a production called Gates and Schmidt, based on Romeo and Juliet. Montague is Microsoft. Capulet is Google. Two great families, run by alpha nerds, sure to clash on account of their sameness.

- Peter Thiel

I try to live what I teach. A lot of things come against us in life, but we should try to find something to be grateful for, and see each day as a gift.

- Joel Olsteen

The POSITIVE THINKER sees the INVISIBLE, feels the INTANGIBLE, and achieves the IMPOSSIBLE.

- Winston Churchill

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

Most entrepreneurs are merely technicians with an entrepreneurial seizure. Most entrepreneurs fail because you are working IN your business rather than ON your business.

- Michael Gerber

I’m not a tech guy. I’m looking at the technology with the eyes of my customers, normal people’s eyes.

- Jack Ma

The beauty of this deal is bringing a clinical expertise. Medco had developed therapeutic resource centers, where they got their pharmacist to have specialties in things like diabetes, heart problems and asthma. Express Scripts took a different approach. We tried to understand why people do what they do with behavioral economics, which is: What drives human behaviors? What drives people to do what they did? By combining those two pieces, we get that much stronger.

- George Paz

I never called my work an ‘art’. It’s part of show business, the business of building entertainment.

- Walt Disney

Enduring great companies don’t exist merely to deliver returns to shareholders. Indeed, in a truly great company, profits and cash flow become like blood and water to a healthy body: They are absolutely essential for life, but they are not the very point of life.

- James C. Collins

There is no class so pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else.

- Andrew Carnegie

Three classes of factors affect what an organization can and cannot do: its resources, its processes, and its values.

- Clayton M. Christensen

Everything in life has some risk, and what you have to actually learn to do is how to navigate it.

- Reid Hoffman

The epidemic So many people are frozen in the face of uncertainty and paralyzed at the thought of shipping work that matters that one might think that the fear is hardwired into us. It is. Scientists can identify precisely where your lizard brain lives. This is your prehistoric early brain, the same brain that’s in the lizard or the deer. Filled with fear, intent on reproduction. Steven Pressfield gives the voice of the lizard brain a name: he calls it the resistance. And the resistance is talking to you as you read this, urging you to compromise, to not be an troublemaker, to avoid rash moves. For many of us, the resistance is always chattering away, frequently sabotaging our best opportunities and ruining our best chance to do great work. Naming it helps you befriend it, and befriending it helps you ignore it.

- Seth Godin

The jet stream is a very strong force and pushing a balloon into it is like pushing up against a brick wall, but once we got into it, we found that, remarkably, the balloon went whatever speed the wind went.

- Richard Branson

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 [Henderson] Group continuously strives to upgrade the quality of its development properties by applying new technologies and building materials to improve the efficiency and lower the cost of construction.

- Lee Shau Kee

I’ve come to believe that each of us has a personal calling that’s as unique as a fingerprint – and that the best way to succeed is to discover what you love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of service, working hard, and also allowing the energy of the universe to lead you.

- Oprah Winfrey

The greatest mistake we make is living in constant fear that we will make one.

- John C. Maxwell

Really I feel less keen about the Army every day. I think the Church would suit me better.

- Winston Churchill

Great companies have high cultures of accountability, it comes with this culture of criticism I was talking about before, and I think our culture is strong on that.

- Steve Ballmer

Reaching the top is a monumental achievement, but remaining there may be the most spectacular feat of all.

- John C. Maxwell

Take one cup of love, two cups of loyalty, three cups of forgiveness, four quarts of faith and one barrel of laughter. Take love and loyalty and mix them thoroughly with faith; blend with tenderness, kindness and understanding. Add friendship and hope. Sprinkle abundantly with laughter. Bake it with sunshine. Wrap it regularly with lots of hugs. Serve generous helpings daily.

- Zig Ziglar

Investing in courage and determination was an easy decision for me.

- Ben Horowitz

School districts in the US don’t adopt technology very quickly.

- Reed Hastings

Every day we have plenty of opportunities to get angry, stressed or offended. But what you’re doing when you indulge these negative emotions is giving something outside yourself power over your happiness. You can choose to not let little things upset you.

- Joel Olsteen

There are two kinds of cultures in this world: cultures where what you do matters and cultures where all that matters is who you are. You can be the former or you can suck.

- Ben Horowitz

Everybody says they want to be free. Take the train off the tracks and it’s free-but it can’t go anywhere.

- Zig Ziglar

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

I think so many people are reactive… they see things in a short term way they’re right up against it.

- Ray Dalio

I first thought maybe I’d do a banjo presentation record, where I’d play a couple of songs and get a bunch of other players to do the rest. Then I realized I had enough of my own songs to do an album of them.

- Steve Martin

Obstacles can’t stop you. Problems can’t stop you. Most of all, other people can’t stop you. Only you can stop you.

- J. Gitomer

I sent one e-mail in my life. I sent it to Jeff Raikes at Microsoft, and it ended up in court in Minneapolis, so I am one for one.

- Warren Buffett

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

When you import goods, you import poverty and you export jobs to other parts of the globe where such goods are produced.

- Aliko Dangote

You know, the diversity that America has is so special. It’s starting to really become a cool thing for young people.

- Russell Simmons

I am convinced that in order for you, as a patient, to be protected, it has to be transparent, evidence-based, objective information. Not self-serving information. Not pharma-driven information. Not ad-driven information. It is transparent, objective, evidence-based information.

- Patrick Soon-Shiong

If you run a business, if you are responsible for a lot of people, you come to grips with the reality that you have to have discipline. You have to protect the enterprise in order to take care of the employees. So, therefore, you can’t be wasteful. You can’t squander things, or you jeopardize other people.

- Stephen Wynn

Your job isn’t to do your job. Your job is to decide what to do next.

- Seth Godin

The companies that refused to make hard choices, or refused to admit that anything much was happening, fared badly. If they survive, it is only because their respective governments will not let them go under.

- Peter Drucker

Passion isn’t project-specific. It’s people-specific.

- Seth Godin

Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Just learn from the guys who have already done it well. You need a mentor, a seasoned coach who is willing to share his wisdom and experience with you. Ask someone who has already been successful to guide you.

- George Foreman

There will be no government that will be against business, so you can go ahead and invest.

- Aliko Dangote

My natural inclination to be improv rather than an educated character serves me well.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

One of the tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon – instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today.

- Dale Carnegie

What destroys more self-confidence than any other educational thing in America is being assigned to some remedial math when you get into some college, and then it’s not taught very well and you end up with this sense of, ‘Hey, I can’t really figure those things out.’

- Bill Gates

I have made the tough decisions, always with an eye toward the bottom line. Perhaps it’s time America was run like a business.

- Donald Trump

My little girls are the most beautiful women in the world. I am a lucky, lucky man. I will spend every day making sure that they know this.

- Russell Simmons

I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory. Victory at all costs—Victory in spite of all terror—Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival. But I take my task with buoyancy and hope. Come, then, let us go forward with our united strenght.

- Winston Churchill

If humanity doesn’t land on Mars in my lifetime, I would be very disappointed.

- Elon Musk

I’m surprised at the extent of the bigotry. But it really plays out when companies or schools take a side and prohibit the other platform at all. We Mac users should be good even when the other side is bad. We should do what we can to accept the other platforms.

- Steve Wozniak

During this time I learned the most important rule of raising money privately: Look for a market of one. You only need one investor to say yes, so it’s best to ignore the other thirty who say “no.”

- Ben Horowitz

Passion can overcome fear – the fear of losing, of failing, of being traditional.

- Seth Godin

Knowledge will not attract money, unless it is organized, and intelligently directed through practical plans of action…Knowledge is only potential power. It becomes power only when and if it is organized into definite plans of action, and directed to a definite end.

- Napoleon Hill

In view of the good progress made in respect of negotiations relating to Mainland China’s entry to the World Trade Organisation and the boost in local economic activities deriving from the emergence of the new economy, a great number of technology-related and international institutions have established and expanded their businesses in Hong Kong, bringing about substantial increases both in rentals as well as capital values for prime office properties and luxury residential properties.

- Lee Shau Kee

We did it Disneyland, in the knowledge that most of the people I talked to thought it would be a financial disaster – closed and forgotten within the first year.

- Walt Disney

People don’t believe what you tell them.They rarely believe what you show them.They often believe what their friends tell them.They always believe what they tell themselves.

- Seth Godin

His genius he was quite content in one brief sentence to define; Of inspiration one percent, of perspiration, ninety nine.

- Thomas Edison

Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway.

- Warren Buffett

There is a hidden blessing in the most traumatic things we go through in our lives. My brain always goes to, ‘Where is the hidden blessing? What is my gift?

- Sara Blakely

For Roosevelt knew, as all leaders know, that the royal road to a person’s heart is to talk about the things he or she treasures most.

- Dale Carnegie

I believe the scripture says that being gay is a sin.

- Joel Olsteen

There is plenty capital available, just a shortage of good ideas

- Napoleon Hill

The Arab League tells us to go in and take out Qaddafi. We’ve spent billions of dollars already with respect to the Arab League. Billions of dollars, because they told us to do it. Why aren’t they paying for it? They don’t like Qaddafi, Qaddafi’s been a terrible thorn in their side.

- Donald Trump

What tribes are, is a very simple concept that goes back 50 million years. It’s about leading and connecting people and ideas. And it’s something that people have wanted forever.

- Seth Godin

Silicon Valley has some of the smartest engineers and technology business people in the world.

- Elon Musk

Rich people have small TVs and big libraries, and poor people have small libraries and big TVs.

- Zig Ziglar

This society cannot go forward, the way we have been going forward, where the gap between the rich and the poor keeps growing. It’s not politically viable; it’s not morally right; it’s just not going to happen.

- Michael Bloomberg

Great companies are built on great products.

- Elon Musk

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