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
Notable Quotables
The CIA will only hire people with impeccable credentials to be a translator. ‘Impeccable credentials’ means you’ve never lived outside the United States.
- Michael Bloomberg
(after listening to people gripe and complain just smile and remember) Crows can’t hang with eagles.
- Joel Olsteen
Everything in life is luck.
- Donald Trump
At first, Uniqlo was a casual chain on the back streets of Hiroshima. Then… we became a national brand in Japan. So, the next step is to become a global brand.
- Tadashi Yanai
Now at this very moment I knew that the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all! … How long the war would last or in what fashion it would end no man could tell, nor did I at this moment care … We should not be wiped out. Our history would not come to an end … Hitler’s fate was sealed. Mussolini’s fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to a powder. All the rest was merely the proper application of overwhelming force.
- Winston Churchill
As a rule, theory does not precede practice. Its role is to structure and codify already proven practice. Its role is to convert the isolated and “atypical” from exception to “rule” and “system,” and therefore into something that can be learned and taught and, above all, into something that can be generally applied.
- Peter Drucker
Getting things straight in your head is a major achievement because there’s so much clutter out there. You’ve got to push aside the static to really hear the music.
- Stephen Wynn
E – Executions, how to get things done
- Jack Welch
Investors should remember that excitement and expenses are their enemies. And if they insist on trying to time their participation in equities, they should try to be fearful when others are greedy and greedy only when others are fearful.
- Warren Buffett
I think frugality drives innovation, just like other constraints do. One of the only ways to get out of a tight box is to invent your way out.
- Jeff Bezos
My son likes to go see mines and electric plants, or the Large Hadron Collider, and we’ve had a chance to see a lot of interesting stuff.
- Bill Gates
We got so much better so quickly it was hard to believe. We totally stood Kmart off in those small towns of ours. Almost from the beginning, they weren’t very successful at taking our customers away in Jeff City and Poplar Bluff. Once Kmart arrived, we worked even harder at pleasing our customers, and they stayed loyal. This gave us a great surge of confidence in ourselves. But at that time our sales were 5 percent of Kmart’s. (through competition) Wal-Mart has lowered the gross margin in retailing from around 35 percent in the early 60s to only 22 percent today.
- Sam Walton
If Wanda can control more than 20 per cent of the world’s three most important film markets – the United States, Europe and China – then it will have an empire with great voice in the industry.
- Wang Jianlin
Why does a 67-year-old guy who got his start running an athletic shoe company think he can enter a field famous for gobbling up fortunes.
- Phil Knight
Charity is injurious unless it helps the recipient to become independent of it.
- John D. Rockefeller
Investing in Chicago property is just Wanda’s first move into the U.S. real estate market.
- Wang Jianlin
Traditional corporations, particularly large-scale service and manufacturing businesses are organized for efficiency. Or consistency. But not joy. Joy comes from surprise and connection and humanity and transparency and new…If you fear special requests, if you staff with cogs, if you have to put it all in a manual, then the chances of amazing someone are really quite low. These organizations have people who will try to patch problems over after the fact, instead of motivated people eager to delight on the spot.The alternative, it seems, is to organize for joy. These are the companies that give their people the freedom (and the expectation) that they will create, connect and surprise. These are the organizations that embrace someone who make a difference, as opposed to searching the employee handbook for a rule that was violated.
- Seth Godin
Basically, our goal is to organize the world’s information and to make it universally accessible and useful.
- Larry Page
You know capitalism is this wonderful thing that motivates people, it causes wonderful inventions to be done. But in this area of diseases of the world at large, it’s really let us down.
- Bill Gates
Do I take criticism of Starbucks personally? Of course I do.
- Howard Schultz
If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.
- Thomas Edison
If you need to conceal your true nature to get in the door, understand that you’ll probably have to conceal your true nature to keep that job.
- Seth Godin
The squeaky wheel always getting the grease.
- James Taylor
What you are will show in what you do.
- Thomas Edison
What we discovered, counter-intuitively, is that when you start killing a cancer cell, one of the things it does in order to survive is to spread even further. It causes itself to form new blood vessels. We’ve termed this ‘reactionary angiogenesis.’
- Patrick Soon-Shiong
Indecision is the seedling of fear.
- Napoleon Hill
None of us got to where we are alone. Whether the assistance we received was obvious or subtle, acknowledging someone’s help is a big part of understanding the importance of saying thank you.
- Harvey Mackay
No part of the education of a politician is more indispensable than the fighting of elections.
- Winston Churchill
The protestor I think will speak up for the world’s poorest.
- Bill Gates
Chance made us sisters. Hearts made us friends.
- Zig Ziglar
Sometimes we look at gay being a bigger sin than being proud or not telling the truth. I don’t think God categorizes sins.
- Joel Olsteen
He declared he never stepped in front of the footlights without first saying to himself over and over: I love my audience. I love my audience.
- Dale Carnegie
The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.
- Winston Churchill
The secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not.
- Dale Carnegie
I was always a huge fan of E. E. Cummings. He did a series of lectures at Harvard or Princeton, and they were recorded. And they were incredibly moving.
- Steve Martin
Intellectual property has the shelf life of a banana.
- Bill Gates
You can be a control freak only when you have weak people around you.
- Ronald Perelman
When I hear something going wrong, I insist on it being put right.
- Rupert Murdoch
The way to stay ahead was through product innovation. We happened to be great at it.
- Phil Knight
Windows is probably the most important product in the entire PC industry. Everything we do in terms of supporting touch, new hardware, accessibility has incredible impact.
- Bill Gates
Encouragement and hope are the two most powerful qualities any person can provide to others.
- Zig Ziglar
[On the first twitter tweet] The first tweet that was actually written by a human was by me and it was inviting co-workers.
- Jack Dorsey
I’ve viewed myself as slightly above average in talent. And where I excel is ridiculous, sickening work ethic.
- Will Smith
I forgive all personal weaknesses except egomania and pretension.
- Herb Kelleher
When I was a comic in the 1980s, I was on the road somewhere every day, and I’d get back to the hotel, and it was Carson and Letterman, and I looked forward to that all day.
- Jerry Seinfeld
My wife and I tried to breakfast together, but we had to stop or our marriage would have been wrecked.
- Winston Churchill
Look at all the billionaires. If I know 15 billionaires, I know 13 unhappy people.
- Russell Simmons
Leadership is the ability to get someone to follow you even if only out of curiosity.
- Ben Horowitz
But innovation and change make inordinate time demands on the executive. All one can think and do in a short time is to think what one already knows and to do as one has always done.
- Peter Drucker
A company needs lots of smart, super-engaged employees who can identify its particular weaknesses and help it improve them.
- Ben Horowitz
The overall dynamic was net positive, unlike Napster’s negative-sum struggle with the U.S. recording industry. As you craft a plan to expand to adjacent markets, don’t disrupt: avoid competition as much as possible.
- Peter Thiel
It is theoretically possible to warp spacetime itself, so you’re not actually moving faster than the speed of light, but it’s actually space that’s moving.
- Elon Musk
Laughter is America’s most important export.
- Walt Disney
A productive employee who is kept busy working at his or her job is far more likely to be happy at that job and less likely to look for employment elsewhere.
- Zig Ziglar
The Internet moves very fast. In the old world, we could afford to sit and analyze forever. But in the new world, the first mover has the advantage.
- Raymond Kwok
When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.
- Winston Churchill
Don’t simply settle for what your parents had. You can go further than that. You can do more, have more, be more.
- Joel Olsteen
If you do not believe in your product or service enough to offer it to your own family and friends, then you should question the value of what you are selling.
- Zig Ziglar
There’s a finite market for DVD-by-mail, and the growth over the next 10 years will be in streaming.
- Reed Hastings
You can’t manage what you can’t measure.
- Peter Drucker
Top academic institutions are wonderful, but there are unrecognized benefits to not coming out of one. Grads from top schools are funneled into high-income 80-hour-per-week jobs, and 15–30 years of soul-crushing work has been accepted as the default path. How do I know? I’ve been there.
- Timothy Ferriss
Encourage yourself.
- Joel Olsteen
What really motivates people at Facebook is building stuff that they’re proud of.
- Mark Zuckerberg
A squirrel dying in front of your house may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa.
- Mark Zuckerberg
I founded Netflix. I’ve built it steadily over 12 years now, first with DVD becoming profitable in 2002, a head-to-head ferocious battle with Blockbuster and evolving the company toward streaming.
- Reed Hastings
Employers have decided that having the breadth of knowledge that’s associated with a four-year degree is often something they want to see in the people they give that job to.
- Bill Gates
What kind of business world are we living in?
- Jack Ma
Sweden is famous for many things – but not fashion.
- Stefan Persson
I’d be derelict in my duty if I didn’t go and continue to use every advantage that I can to promote New York’s cause.
- Michael Bloomberg
No matter who you are, you need two kinds of friends in your life. The first kind is one you can call when something good happens, and you need someone who will be excited for you. Not a fake excitement veiling envy, but a real excitement. You need someone who will actually be more excited for you than he would be if it had happened to him. The second kind of friend is somebody you can call when things go horribly wrong—when your life is on the line and you only have one phone call. Who is it going to be? Bill Campbell is both of those friends.
- Ben Horowitz
I go to yoga every day. I meditate every morning.
- Russell Simmons
The main thing that’s missing in energy is an incentive to create things that are zero-CO2-emitting and that have the right scale and reliability characteristics.
- Bill Gates
Don’t fight change; embrace it, and you will step into the fullness of what God has in store.
- Joel Olsteen
Strategy is empty without change, empty without passion, and empty without people willing to confront the void.
- Seth Godin
As you craft a plan to expand to adjacent markets, don’t disrupt: avoid competition as much as possible.
- Peter Thiel
Truly wonderful the mind of a child is.
- Yoda
I think they are fine. I don’t think you have a choice between iPad models so that’s just saying that the iPad is good … that’s a very different statement (and contrary to the implication) that, if I chose not to upgrade now, less than a year after my last upgrade, then I, Woz, am saying that the new Apple iPad is bad.
- Steve Wozniak
Faith activates God – Fear activates the Enemy.
- Joel Olsteen
If you decide that you’re going to do only the things you know are going to work, you’re going to leave a lot of opportunity on the table.
- Jeff Bezos
Insufficient Education (not formal education).
- Napoleon Hill
I sold my most valuable possession, but I knew that because I worked at Hewlett Packard, I could buy the next model calculator the very next month for a lower price than I sold the older one for!
- Steve Wozniak
Acquiring Sunseeker deepens Wanda’s international influence and represents an important step forward for the development of the business.
- Wang Jianlin
War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can’t smile, grin. If you can’t grin, keep out of the way till you can.
- Winston Churchill
It’s not Pinterest where people are putting up pins. You’re changing the way cities work, and that’s fundamentally a third rail. We’re in a political campaign, and the candidate is Uber and the opponent is an as—hole named Taxi.
- Travis Kalanick
You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.
- Zig Ziglar
As God himself, sir, does not propose to judge man until the end of his days.Why should you and I?
- Dr. Spencer Johnson
In almost every area of human endeavor, the practice improves over time. That hasn’t been the case for teaching.
- Bill Gates
A great business has to have a conscience. You have to know who you are and who you are not.
- Howard Schultz
So strong and impelling is the desire for sexual contact that men freely run the risk of life and reputation to indulge it…Fortunate indeed is the person who has discovered how to give sex emotion an outlet through some form of creative effort, for he has by that discovery lifted himself to the status of a genius…The majority of men lower themselves through misunderstanding and misuse of this great force to the status of the lower animals…Highly sexed people always have a plentiful supply of magnetism…Highly sexed people move briskly and with grace and ease…The public speaker, orator, preacher, laywer or salesman who is lacking in sex energy is a flop as far as being able to influence others is concerned…The salesman who knows how to take his mind off the subject of sex, and direct it in sales effort with as much enthusiasm and determination as he would apply to its original purpose, has acquired the art of sex transmutation, whether he knows it or not….Intemperance in sex habits is just as detrimental as intemperance in habits of drinking and eating…A sex-mad is not essentially different than a dope-mad man! Both have lost control over their their faculties of reason and will-power…When driven by his desire to please a woman based upon the motive of sex alone, a man may steal , cheat and even committ murder. But when the emotion of LOVE is mixed with the emotion of sex, that same sme man will guide his actions with more sanity, balance, and reason…The emotion of love, when mixe dwith the emotion of sex softens, modifies, and beautifies the facial expression. No character analyst is needed to tell you this, you may observe it for yourself.
- Napoleon Hill
Profitability is a shallow goal if it doesn’t have a real purpose, and the purpose has to be share the profits with others.
- Howard Schultz
A squirrel dying in your front yard may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa.
- Mark Zuckerberg
Leadership is not about titles, positions or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.
- John C. Maxwell
I believe in benevolent dictatorship provided I am the dictator.
- Richard Branson
If you want success, if you want wisdom, if you want to be prosperous and healthy, you’re going to have to do more than meditate and believe; you must boldly declare words of faith and victory over yourself and your family.
- Joel Olsteen
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.
I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.
- John D. Rockefeller
When you give directives to a child, especially a teenager, you must consider the nature of your child.
- Zig Ziglar
President Obama is riding the wrong horse on energy.
- Harold Hamm
We are set in our ways, bound by our perspectives and stuck in our thinking.
- Joel Olsteen
