Personally, I think the failure to really kind of get his arms around this company and this industry led to confusion on behalf of the management team. And I didn’t see that getting any better.
- Phil Knight
Notable Quotables
Clearly, as a CEO, you have other functions that are managed by other people.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
I’d say my mother made more of a difference to me than anyone else did. I know that’s a conventional and perhaps mundane answer, but my family was blown apart at the start of World War II.
- Herb Kelleher
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
Making small changes to things that already exist might lead you to a local maximum, but it won’t help you find the global maximum.
- Peter Thiel
As you get older, time speeds up but life slows down.
- John C. Maxwell
I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.
- Winston Churchill
It’s almost always harder to raise capital than you thought it would be, and it always takes longer. So plan for that.
- Richard Harroch
Encouragement to others is something everyone can give. Somebody needs what you have to give. It may not be your money, it may be your time. It may be your listening ear. It may be your arms to encourage. It may be your smile to uplift. Who knows?
- Joel Olsteen
Your attitude towards failure determines your altitude after failure.
- John C. Maxwell
From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.
- Winston Churchill
You may think you’ve got a long way to go, but you need to look back at how far you’ve already come. You may not be everything you want to be but atleast you can thank God that you’re not what you used to be.
- Joel Olsteen
If everything worth doing has already been done, you may as well feign an allergy to achievement and become a barista.
- Peter Thiel
You always have to give something when you get something.
- Jack Nadel
Here’s a quote from ultramarathoner Dick Collins: Decide before the race the conditions that will cause you to stop and drop out. You don’t want to be out there saying, “Well gee, my leg hurts, I’m a little dehydrated, I’m sleepy, I’m tired, and it’s cold and windy.” And talk yourself into quitting. If you are making a decision based on how you feel at that moment, you will probably make the wrong decision.
- Seth Godin
The world is changing… I don’t, as a consumer, want advertising that’s not relevant. If we’re going to take a side, let’s take the side of the consumer.
- Charles Ergen
At least three time per day at scheduled times, he had to ask himself the following question: Am I being productive or just active? Charney captured the essence of this with less-abstract wording: Am I inventing things to do to avoid the important? He eliminated all of the activities he used as crutches and began to focus on demonstrating results instead of showing dedication. Dedication is often just meaningless work in disguise. Be ruthless and cut the fat.
- Timothy Ferriss
I have a lot of things to prove to myself. One is that I can live my life fearlessly.
- Oprah Winfrey
We cannot continue. Our pension costs and health care costs for our employees are going to bankrupt this city.
- Michael Bloomberg
When you’ve got a strong enough why, you can always find the how.
- Zig Ziglar
If your watch is slow by just four minutes, that’s not much – unless you’ve been warned that if you’re even one minute late ever again you will be fired. Then four minutes make a big difference.
- Zig Ziglar
God wants us to live consistently, He wants us to enjoy every single day of our lives.
- Joel Olsteen
When enough people care about autism or diabetes or global warming, it helps everyone, even if only a tiny fraction actively participate.
- Seth Godin
Disneyland is the star, everything else is in the supporting role.
- Walt Disney
You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.
- Warren Buffett
Exploring how you could make a bad situation worse can sometimes tell you what not to do.
- Harvey Mackay
With the intensity of the first three NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races at Atlanta Motor Speedway, fans have been treated to exciting finishes each race. Fans can expect nothing less than the same for the John Deere 200.
- Ed Clark
You may have made a lot of wrong choices, but you’ve also made a lot of choices that were right. Focus on your good qualities. Focus on your victories. Get off the treadmill of guilt.
- Joel Olsteen
You could warm Mars up, over time, with greenhouse gases.
- Elon Musk
It used to be the case, like you’d switch jobs, and then maybe you wouldn’t keep in touch with all the people that you knew from that old job, just because it was too hard. But one of the things that Facebook does is it makes it really easy to just stay in touch with all these people.
- Mark Zuckerberg
The secret to successful hiring is this: look for the people who want to change the world.
- Marc Benioff
The New Rich ( NR) are those who abandon the deferred-life plan and create luxury lifestyles in the present using the currency of the New Rich: time and mobility.
- Timothy Ferriss
You are closer than you think.
- Joel Olsteen
innovation without discipline leads to disaster.
- James C. Collins
I want to promote poetry to the point where you got all the baldhead kids running around doing poetry, getting the music out of the way and having only words, the spoken word, and then see what happens.
- Russell Simmons
He listened closely to what people said and filed away as much information as he could, repeating valuable information to himself until it was memorized. There was humility in this eagerness to learn. As he said, It is very important to remember what other people tell you, not so much what you yourself already know.
- Ron Chernow
Success in its highest and noblest form calls for peace of mind and enjoyment and happiness which come only to the man who has found the work that he likes best.
- Napoleon Hill
The [Henderson] Group adopted a conservative approach in replenishing its land bank and focused its resources to convert agricultural land holdings in hand into development land in the past year with a view to bringing down the cost of land replenishment and good progress has been made in this respect.
- Lee Shau Kee
Bill Gates is the pope of the personal computer industry. He decides who’s going to build.
- Larry Ellison
We think we’re going to be especially strong in platform where we have our two platform brands: our database brand is the Oracle Database 12c, and our programming language brand is this thing called Java.
- Larry Ellison
Relaxation and Recreation The most relaxing recreating forces are a healthy religion, sleep, music, and laughter. Have faith in God—learn to sleep well— Love good music—see the funny side of life— And health and happiness will be yours.
- Dale Carnegie
And those of us who have business opportunities and the capital to do it are going to sit in fear of the President. And a lot of people don’t want to say that. They’ll say, God, don’t be attacking Obama. Well, this is Obama’s deal and it’s Obama that’s responsible for this fear in America.
- Stephen Wynn
Using people to leverage a refined process multiplies production, using people as a solution to a poor process multiplies problems.
- Timothy Ferriss
I don’t think you should spend your life praying for things, but I do believe you should thank God for what He’s given you… but I think the scripture teaches us that we can pray for our dreams, pray for the big things… he’s not a small God; this God is incredible.
- Joel Olsteen
Big companies have always needed and cooperated in areas where it made sense.
- Larry Page
A lot of preachers’ kids are some of the most rebellious kids in the world. I never was like that.
- Joel Olsteen
There’ll always be serendipity involved in discovery.
- Jeff Bezos
Pale ink is better than the most retentive memory.
- Harvey Mackay
Yes, it’s absolutely true that anything worth doing is worth doing poorly – until you can learn to do it well.
- Zig Ziglar
greatness is first and foremost a matter of conscious choice and discipline.
- James C. Collins
Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
If my job would have been to sell someone something they didn’t need, I would not have been very good at it.
- Pat McGovern
About half of our wives do not work outside the home. The number-one occupation for those wives who do work is teacher.
- Thomas J Stanley
Big companies have trouble with innovation. Innovation is about bad ideas, or ideas that look like bad ideas. That’s the fundamental thing.
- Ben Horowitz
Don’t worry that you can’t seem to come up with sure billion dollar winners at first. Just do projects for yourself for fun. You’ll get better and better.
- Steve Wozniak
I think one of the great dangers here is going and categorizing anybody from one religion as a terrorist. That’s not true… That would let the terrorists win. That’s what they want us to do.
- Michael Bloomberg
Personally, I enjoy working about 18 hours a day. Besides the short catnaps I take each day, I average about four to five hours of sleep per night.
- Thomas Edison
They that soar too high, often fall hard, making a low and level Dwelling preferable. The tallest Trees are most in the Power of the Winds, and Ambitious Men of the Blasts of Fortune. Buildings have need of a good Foundation, that lie so much exposed to the Weather.
- Dale Carnegie
Each failure to sell will increase your chances for success at your next attempt.
- Og Mandino
The real story of Facebook is just that we’ve worked so hard for all this time. I mean, the real story is actually probably pretty boring, right? I mean, we just sat at our computers for six years and coded.
- Mark Zuckerberg
Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely.
- Dale Carnegie
Back in high school, I really wanted to be a diesel mechanic. I was building pools and it was still working with my hands. I was installing the (reinforcement) bars, shaping the pools and then they’d bring the cement in. It was great. . . . Then I had my accident.
- Ed Clark
Many people who come to me with a business plan or to ask for money look like a mice that has been chewed by a cat. No matter how good their plan, their physical appearance is a limiting factor. In public speaking, it is said that body language accounts for approximately 55% of communication. Voice tone 35%, and words 10%. If you remember President Kennedy, JFK, he had 100% working for him and it physically attractive as he was, we can all do our best to dress and groom appropriately to make our points stronger.
- Robert Kiyosaki
Walking in circles Dr. Jan Souman, of the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, studied what happens to us when we have no map, no compass, no way to determine landmarks. I’m not talking about a metaphor—he researched what happens to people lost in the woods or stumbling around the Sahara, with no north star, no setting sun to guide them. It turns out we walk in circles. Try as we might to walk in a straight line, to get out of the forest or the desert, we end up back where we started. Our instincts aren’t enough. In the words of Dr. Souman, “Don’t trust your senses because even though you might think you are walking in a straight line when you’re not.” Human nature is to need a map. If you’re brave enough to draw one, people will follow.
- Seth Godin
Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.
- Alexander Graham Bell
Ultimately you want to have the entire world’s knowledge connected directly to your mind
- Sergey Brin
The Group will continue to press ahead steadily with an open mindset, a practical attitude, a broad vision and a unique insight, adhering to its ultimate objective of serving the nation and the wider community in the changing landscape.
- Cheng Yu-tung
When you go in for a job interview, I think a good thing to ask is if they ever press charges.
- Jack Handee
Use money to make money.
- Lee Shau Kee
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
When I first joined the Irvine Company, I realized that less than 11,000 acres were designated as open space in the original master plan, and that just didn’t seem adequate to me. So, I began the lengthy process working with public and community organizations to add more open space.
- Donald Bren
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
I will speak ill of no man, and speak all the good I know of everybody.
- Dale Carnegie
If there is any one secret of success,’ said Henry Ford, ‘it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.
- Dale Carnegie
Where does the family start? It starts with a young man falling in love with a girl – no superior alternative has yet been found.
- Winston Churchill
Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
The future is already here—it is just unevenly distributed.
- William Gibson
Brilliant thinking is rare, but courage is in even shorter supply than genius.
- Peter Thiel
Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.
- Jack Nadel
Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give.
- Winston Churchill
Look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself, what do I want to do everyday for the rest of my life…do that.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Remember happiness doesn’t depend upon who you are or what you have it depends solely on what you think.
- Dale Carnegie
All failed companies are the same: they failed to escape competition.
- Peter Thiel
DAY TWENTY I DECLARE that I am calm and peaceful. I will not let people or circumstances upset me. I will rise above every difficulty, knowing that God has given me the power to remain calm. I choose to live my life happy, bloom where I am planted, and let God fight my battles. This is my declaration.
- Joel Olsteen
Do I take criticism of Starbucks personally? Of course I do.
- Howard Schultz
Every day I meet people who have so much to give but have been bullied enough or frightened enough to hold it back. It’s time to stop complying with the system and draw your own map. You have brilliance in you, your contribution is essential, and the art you create is precious. Only you can do it, and you must.
- Seth Godin
What you keep before your eyes will affect you.
- Joel Olsteen
We want to be the most predictable, boring growth company.
- John Chambers
You will never fulfill your destiny doing work you despise.
- John C. Maxwell
People are always coming up to me and saying, ‘I heard your dad’s speech, and it’s really great.’ And they’ll mention some place I didn’t even know my dad was going to.
- Bill Gates
The belief that the world is getting worse, that we can’t solve extreme poverty and disease, isn’t just mistaken. It is harmful.
- Bill Gates
Oracle’s latest database, version 12c, was specifically designed for the cloud. Oracle 12c makes all your Oracle applications multitenant applications without you having to make any changes whatsoever to your applications.
- Larry Ellison
The best leaders are readers of people. They have the intuitive ability to understand others by discerning how they feel and recognizing what they sense.
- John C. Maxwell
I am surprised by how not-adopted the video reply has been. What keeps other people from doing it, I think, is that they think a video comes across as ‘I’m cool, look at how many e-mails I get.’ That perception doesn’t scare me, because I know who I am.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
The ideal thing would be to have a 100 percent effective AIDS vaccine. And to have broad usage of that vaccine. That would literally break the epidemic.
- Bill Gates
Be reactionary. React to what the market wants. And the market wants one-on-one real time engagement. Now that we have the tools to engage, I’m going to continue fighting for the end user.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
With integrity, you have nothing to fear, since you have nothing to hide. With integrity, you will do the right thing, so you will have no guilt.
- Zig Ziglar
When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.
- Elon Musk
It’s not the style of clothes one wears, neither the kind of automobiles one drives, nor the amount of money one has in the bank that counts. These mean nothing. It is simply service that measures success.
- George Washington Carver
