I never took classic business classes in college, so I don’t have the background that any of the people running large companies have.
- Howard Schultz
Notable Quotables
We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Waste is worse than loss. The time is coming when every person who lays claim to ability will keep the question of waste before him constantly. The scope of thrift is limitless.
- Thomas Edison
We have the brand, and we have the fulfillment capability. Now we had to get the Net, and that’s the easiest part of the game,
- Jack Welch
This morning did you wake up to an alarm clock, or an “opportunity” clock?
- Zig Ziglar
Every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust.
- Zig Ziglar
The problem we have with America is that you come over here and want to make a deal. We meet you and want to form a relationship from which we can make a deal. We meet you and want to form a relationship from which we can make many deals. Most importantly and the basis of everything is that we have a relationship where we honor and trust each other.
- Akio Morita
Learn to say ‘no’ to the good so you can say ‘yes’ to the best.
- John C. Maxwell
The most important aspect of my personality as far as determining my success goes; has been my questioning conventional wisdom, doubting experts and questioning authority. While that can be painful in your relationships with your parents and teachers, it’s enormously useful in life.
- Larry Ellison
What I was proud of was that I used very few parts to build a computer that could actually speak words on a screen and type words on a keyboard and run a programming language that could play games. And I did all this myself.
- Steve Wozniak
Our leaders in business, politics, research, and the arts are all great salespeople or they have great sales people on their payroll.
- Jerry Vass
You can be in the storm, but don’t let the storm get in you.
- Joel Olsteen
It’s not time,” “Take it easy,” “Wait and see,” “It’s someone else’s turn” – none of these stalls are appropriate for a leader in search of change. There’s a small price for being too early, but a huge penalty for being too late. The longer you wait to launch an innovation, the less your effort is worth.
- Seth Godin
China has many successful entrepreneurs and business people. I hope that more people of insight will put their talents to work to improve the lives of poor people in China and around the world, and seek solutions for them.
- Bill Gates
Whatever I engage in, I must push inordinately.
- Andrew Carnegie
If Alibaba cannot become a Microsoft or Wal-Mart, I will regret it for the rest of my life.
- Jack Ma
American democracy is spoiled by people buying everything in sight and then selling and buying everything in sight, including our politicians.
- Russell Simmons
The nuclear industry has this amazing record, even equipment from generations one and two. But nuclear mishaps tend to come in these big events – Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and now Fukushima – so it’s more visible.
- Bill Gates
We believe our growth rate indicates that Cisco continues to gain market share against our traditional competitors in most product sectors.
- John Chambers
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
You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is 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.
- Winston Churchill
Confidence in our own independence of mind. But advertising doesn’t exist to make you buy a product right away, it exists to embed subtle impressions that will drive sales later. Anyone who can’t acknowledge its likely effect on himself is doubly deceived.
- Peter Thiel
When I was in my 40s, Microsoft was my primary activity.
- Bill Gates
The constraint of 140 characters is easy to approach and consume, without a great deal of barriers to entry. One message and suddenly the whole world has access to that Tweet.
- Jack Dorsey
I would like to die on Mars. Just not on impact.
- Elon Musk
We live in an age where everything is based on the short term.
- Howard Schultz
In addition to building better products, a more open world will also encourage businesses to engage with their customers directly and authentically. More than four million businesses have Pages on Facebook that they use to have a dialogue with their customers. We expect this trend to grow as well.
- Mark Zuckerberg
Google’s not a real company. It’s a house of cards.
- Steve Ballmer
We let folks know we’re interested in them and that they’re vital to us. cause they are.
- Sam Walton
So at that stage you might as well keep growing, to get the advantages of scale.
- Sergey Brin
The thing that motivates me is a very common form of motivation. And that is, with other folks counting on me, it’s so easy to be motivated.
- Jeff Bezos
At the end of the day you have to keep emotions away.
- Lakshmi Mittal
I’m less interested in how people are following each other and more interested in how they are following topics and tweets themselves. People are following more key words and concepts and more ideas and acting on those rather than individuals or organizations.
- Jack Dorsey
In day-to-day life, you have stimulus to behave unethically, but in the long term, it always pays off to be ethical.
- Jorge Paulo Lemann
I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Money won’t make you happy… but everybody wants to find out for themselves.
- Zig Ziglar
Embrace what you don’t know, especially in the beginning because what you don’t know can become your greatest asset. It ensures that you will be doing things absolutely differently from everybody else.
- Sara Blakely
The Chinese people have always been determined to forge ahead.
- Cheng Yu-tung
I will everyday as just a blow from my blade against a mighty oak…strike until it falls quote.
- Og Mandino
We don’t know a millionth of one percent about anything.
- Thomas Edison
It’s nice to be important, but more important to be nice. You don’t know who your top customers will be five years from now or where you will be in 10 years. You may have a fancy title, but you will always need help from the people around you.
- Harvey Mackay
Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.
- John F. Kennedy
Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.
- Thomas Edison
I have had all of the disadvantages required for success.
- Larry Ellison
School districts in the US don’t adopt technology very quickly.
- Reed Hastings
In China anything less than 6% growth is a recession meaning that it also causes financial problems and it’s disruptive and it’s a problem.
- Ray Dalio
Enforce functional training by withholding new employee requisitions. As Andy Grove writes, there are only two ways for a manager to improve the output of an employee: motivation and training. Therefore, training should be the most basic requirement for all managers in your organization. An effective way to enforce this requirement is by withholding new employee requisitions from managers until they’ve developed a training program for the TBH, “To Be Hired.”
- Ben Horowitz
The interesting products out on the Internet today are not building new technologies. They’re combining technologies. Instagram, for instance: Photos plus geolocation plus filters. Foursquare: restaurant reviews plus check-ins plus geo.
- Jack Dorsey
The most important thing for a young man is to establish a credit… a reputation, character.
- John D. Rockefeller
Eventually I left City College in my senior year, just four or five credits short of a sociology degree. This really upset my father who thought that I was a fool. Over and over he lectured me that the only way for a black man to make it was to get a degree and a job. For a while there I felt like I was a failure in my father’s eyes, which hurt alot, but promoting felt right in my gut. I knew that to be a man I had to follow my heart. My mother was always more open to Danny, Joey and me pursuing a more non-traditional entrepreneurial way…Early in my promoting career I lost all the money I’d saved on a show in Harlem no one came to. I came out to Hollis and no one would help me. My father just wanted me to go back to school and told me so. What could I say? I had no money. Then my mother went back in the house and came with $2,000 in crisp $100 bills from her personal savings. It was that money that kept me afloat until Kurtis Blow broke and I entered the record business. That act of love and faith, which is what kept me in business at a key time, is my favorite memory of her.
- Russell Simmons
We always try to look three to five years out in the decisions we make and there’s no question that the Cisco brand, our opportunity in the commercial market and the evolution of our leaders are going to take us to the next level.
- John Chambers
Insufficient Education (not formal education).
- Napoleon Hill
1. It is better to risk boldness than triviality.2. A bad plan is better than no plan.3. Competitive markets destroy profits.4. Sales matters just as much as product.
- Peter Thiel
[On working at Nike for 48 years] In those 48 years, I have never had a promotion. but it had its other benefits.
- Phil Knight
I have a particular relationship with Vinod Khosla because he’s got a lot of very interesting science-based energy startups.
- Bill Gates
Never, never, never give up.
- Winston Churchill
There is tremendous stress these days on liking people, helping people, getting along with people, as qualifications for a manager. These alone are never enough. In every successful organization there is one boss who does not like people, who does not help them, and who does not get along with them. Cold, unpleasant, demanding, he often teaches and develops more men than anyone else. He commands more respect than the most likable man ever could. He demands exacting workmanship of himself as well as of his men. He sets high standards and expects that they will be lived up to. He considers only what is right and never who is right. And though often himself a man of brilliance, he never rates intellectual brilliance above integrity in others. The manager who lacks these qualities of character—no matter how likable, helpful, or amiable, no matter even how competent or brilliant—is a menace and should be adjudged “unfit to be a manager and a gentleman.
- Peter Drucker
We’ll see how that evolves. Obviously, it doesn’t mean we’ll just be willing to do anything that’s requested of us.
- Sergey Brin
Appreciate everything your associates do for the business.
- Sam Walton
Don’t confuse the complex with the difficult. Most situations are simple—many are just emotionally difficult to act upon.
- Timothy Ferriss
There are certain things I will automate, but when it comes to quality control, I want to keep a very close eye.
- Timothy Ferriss
Once you’ve engaged with an organization or a relationship or a community, you owe it to your team to start. To initiate. To be the one who makes something happen. To do less is to steal from them. If you hide your spark, bury your ideas, keep your questions and notions from the team, you have hurt them as badly as if you had stolen a laptop and fenced it on eBay.
- Seth Godin
Music plays a very important role in my life. I’m a frustrated musician. I play the drums.
- Ronald Perelman
When you’ve got a strong enough why, you can always find the how.
- Zig Ziglar
The Internet is the easiest thing to get into. To be an Internet retailer, you just get that URL.
- Bill Gates
I’ve been to Disneyland, like, 10 times. I’m getting really tired of Disneyland.
- Elon Musk
Contrary to popular belief, the price of real estate does go down on occasion.
- Robert Kiyosaki
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
A disagreement or incident involving someone who’s not that important to you, like a guy who cut you off in traffic or a rude cashier, is something that should roll off your shoulders. Save the effort for resolving conflicts with the people you cherish.
- Joel Olsteen
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
If you aim at nothing you will hit every time.
- Zig Ziglar
Permission marketing turns strangers into friends and friends into loyal customers. It’s not just about entertainment – it’s about education. Permission marketing is curriculum marketing.
- Seth Godin
You’ve probably heard about “first mover advantage”: if you’re the first entrant into a market, you can capture significant market share while competitors scramble to get started. But moving first is a tactic, not a goal. What really matters is generating cash flows in the future, so being the first mover doesn’t do you any good if someone else comes along and unseats you. It’s much better to be the last mover—that is, to make the last great development in a specific market and enjoy years or even decades of monopoly profits. The way to do that is to dominate a small niche and scale up from there, toward your ambitious long-term vision. In this one particular at least, business is like chess. Grandmaster José Raúl Capablanca put it well: to succeed, “you must study the endgame before everything else.
- Peter Thiel
greatness is first and foremost a matter of conscious choice and discipline.
- James C. Collins
You are responsible for your life. If you’re sitting around waiting on somebody to save you, to fix you, to even help you, you are wasting your time. Only you have the power to move your life forward.
- Oprah Winfrey
You’re either a Purple Cow or you’re not. You’re either remarkable or invisible. Make your choice.
- Seth Godin
People who understand the power law will hesitate more than others when it comes to founding a new venture: they know how tremendously successful they could become by joining the very best company while it’s growing fast.
- Peter Thiel
The most impressive person I’ve ever met? Elaine Wynn is no slouch. She’s a much better person than me. But I’ve got her. Finders keepers, losers weepers. And it’s been forty-seven years.
- Stephen Wynn
The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.
- Socrates
Man will occasionally stumble upon the truth but most times he will pick himself up and continue on.
- Winston Churchill
Anything that’s not necessary for you to do personally should be delegated or eliminated.
- John Maxwell
Chinese people, young people, they don’t go shopping a lot in department stores. All department store guys hate me. They say business is bad because of Jack.
- Jack Ma
Who told you that something was wrong with you?
- Joel Olsteen
The time to look for a new job is when you don’t need one. The time to switch jobs is before it feels comfortable.
- Seth Godin
Rockefeller succeeded because he believed in the long –term prospects of the business and never treated it as a mirage that would soon fade.
- Ron Chernow
Winning isn’t everything but wanting to win is.
- Zig Ziglar
Do you ever worry’ asked Dale Carnegie, I replied: ‘No. I believe God is managing affairs and that He doesn’t need any advice from me. With God in charge, I believe that every-thing will work out for the best in the end. So what is there to worry about?’
- Henry Ford
We’re not going to outgrow our need for information.
- Seth Godin
I refused to do a lot on mobile Internet until around 2009. But because we didn’t start early, it took us some time to figure out what’s the important thing, what’s the most relevant thing for Baidu.
- Robin Li
The man who does more than he is paid for will soon be paid for more than he does.
- Napoleon Hill
People work better when they know what the goal is and why. It is important that people look forward to coming to work in the morning and enjoy working.
- Elon Musk
But Governments and peoples do not always take rational decisions. Sometimes they take mad decisions, or one set of people get control who compel all others to obey and aid them in folly.
- Winston Churchill
The leaders who offer blood, toil, tears and sweat always get more out of their followers than those who offer safety and a good time. When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.
- George Orwell
Movies can and do have tremendous influence in shaping young lives in the realm of entertainment towards the ideals and objectives of normal adulthood.
- Walt Disney
[On Twitter] This company is bigger than any individual.
- Jack Dorsey
Although DJ Clay may never sleep, all of his dreams come true!
- Blake Fraley
Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.
- Warren Buffett
I believe that thrift is essential to well-ordered living.
- John D. Rockefeller
Satellite broadcasting makes it possible for information-hungry residents of many closed societies to bypass state-controlled television channels.
- Rupert Murdoch
For Africa to move forward, you’ve really got to get rid of malaria.
- Bill Gates
