Notable Quotables

There is nothing else that so kills the ambitions of a person as criticisms from superiors. I never criticize any-one. I believe in giving a person incentive to work. So I am anxious to praise but loath to find fault. If I like anything, I am hearty in my approbation and lavish in my praise.

- Dale Carnegie

There is only one excuse for a speaker’s asking the attention of his audience: he must have either truth or entertainment for them.

- Dale Carnegie

There is nothing either good or bad,” said Shakespeare, but thinking makes it so.

- Dale Carnegie

There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it.

- Dale Carnegie

Make sure your ego lies in the performance of the company, not in the performance of the stock.

- Warren Buffett

My new favorite word is ‘awkward.’…The reason we need to be in search of awkward is that awkward is the barrier between us and excellence, between where we are and the remarkable. If it were easy, everyone would have done it already, and it wouldn’t be worth the effort.

- Seth Godin

There is only one way under high heaven to get anybody to do anything. Did you ever stop to think of that? Yes, just one way. And that is by making the other person want to do it.

- Dale Carnegie

Winners are not afraid of losing. But losers are. Failure is part of the process of success. People who avoid failure also avoid success.

- Robert Kiyosaki

Good product managers know the market, the product, the product line, and the competition extremely well and operate from a strong basis of knowledge and confidence. A good product manager is the CEO of the product. Good product managers take full responsibility and measure themselves in terms of the success of the product.

- Ben Horowitz

(1) Define a to-do list and (2) define a not-to-do list. In general terms, there are but two questions:

- Timothy Ferriss

I think faith is incredibly important because you will become overwhelmed with what’s happening and you will have waves of grief, but when you turn to your faith, I believe God will give you waves of grace to get through it.”- Joel Osteen

- Joel Olsteen

I’m a positive person, so I don’t get bogged down with it. If you’re expecting that, if you wall in that, if you practice that, then you’ll attract what you fear.

- Denzel Washington

There is only one way… to get anybody to do anything. And that is by making the other person want to do it.

- Dale Carnegie

Really, the only thing that makes sense is to strive for greater collective enlightenment.

- Elon Musk

Half the battle is selling music, not singing it. It’s the image, not what you sing.

- Rod Stewart

I’m skeptical that the novel will be ‘re-invented.’

- Jeff Bezos

I like thinking big. If you’re going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big.

- Donald Trump

You shouldn’t focus on why you can’t do something, which is what most people do. You should focus on why perhaps you can, and be one of the exceptions.

- Steve Case

Cupcakes The first time you bake cupcakes, you will certainly follow the recipe with rigor. The third time, you might improvise and screw up. Learning your lesson, you will follow the recipe again and again as closely as you can. At this point, by the fifth time, some people actually learn to bake. They improvise successfully. They understand the science and the outcomes. They develop a kind of gracefulness in the kitchen. Others merely plod along. They’re cooks, not chefs. A cook follows a recipe. A chef invents one. We have too many cooks. The world is begging for chefs.

- Seth Godin

…People have lived before you. You’re not the first person to dream big, so you’d be wise to study what others have learned first and then build you actions on the backs of their lessons.

- Gary Keller

Spreading old ways to create wealth around the world will result in devastation, not riches. In a world of scarce resources, globalization without new technology is unsustainable

- Peter Thiel

Consider this: you are today what you believed about yourself yesterday. And you will be tomorrow what you believe about yourself right now.

- Joel Olsteen

Andy Andrews is the best speaker I have ever seen.

- Zig Ziglar

Let’s not allow ourselves to be upset by small things we should despise and forget. Remember Life is too short to be little.

- Dale Carnegie

Teams only succeed when the players have a unified vision, no matter how much talent or potential there is.

- John Maxwell

Monopoly is the condition of every successful business.

- Peter Thiel

In the context of body redesign, there are two fundamental MEDs to keep in mind: To remove stored fat → do the least necessary to trigger a fat-loss cascade of specific hormones. To add muscle in small or large quantities → do the least necessary to trigger local (specific muscles) and systemic (hormonal2) growth mechanisms.

- Timothy Ferriss

Who’s your Jedi master? WHO’S your Jedi Master?

- Yoda

I’m just always looking forwards. I spend very little time, looking backwards.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

We’ve got to lift our game tremendously. We’ll sell our business news and information in print, we’ll sell it to anyone who’s got a cable system, and we’ll sell it on the Web.

- Rupert Murdoch

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

Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.

- Thomas Edison

Creative leaders inherently know when rules need to be challenged, and they can see when a more flexible approach should be taken.

- John C. Maxwell

I was not naturally talented. I didn’t sing, dance or act, though working around that minor detail made me inventive.

- Steve Martin

I always wanted to find oil. It was always an irresistible calling.

- Harold Hamm

I always seem to get inspiration and renewed vitality by contact with this great novel land of yours which sticks up out of the Atlantic.

- Winston Churchill

Successful people find value in unexpected places, and they do this by thinking about business from first principles instead of formulas.

- Peter Thiel

Economists copied their mathematics from the work of 19th-century physicists: they see individuals and businesses as interchangeable atoms, not as unique creators.

- Peter Thiel

If you know you have to wait anyway, why not make a decision to enjoy your life while you’re waiting? Why not be happy while God is in the process of changing things? After all, there’s nothing we can really do to make it happen any faster. We might as well relax and enjoy our lives, knowing that at the appointed time God is going to bring his plan to pass.

- Joel Olsteen

Twitter in 2000 was something that was fun to play with but something I put on the shelf to play with for another day. And that day was 2006.

- Jack Dorsey

Really, truly, try to figure out what your palate is all about. If you’ve determined that you don’t like dirty old stinky wine – old-world flavors – you probably like new-world fruit bombs. Stick to Shirazes and California Cabernets or Zinfandels.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

He had realized something while arcing in slow circles toward the earth—risks weren’t that scary once you took them. His.

- Timothy Ferriss

The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn’t think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential.

- Steve Ballmer

We knew that Lyft was going to raise a ton of money. And we are going [to their investors], Just so you know, we’re going to be fund-raising after this, so before you decide whether you want to invest in them, just make sure you know that we are going to be fund-raising immediately after.

- Travis Kalanick

Daca ceea ce doriti sa faceti este corect si credeti in el, porniti spre implinire! Puneti visele inainte, si nu conteaza ce spune gura lumii daca va confruntati cu infrangerea temporara, caci poate ca lumea nu stie ca orice esec aduce cu el germenele unui eventual succes.

- Dale Carnegie

Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.

- Winston Churchill

I tell my employees that we’re in the service business, and it’s incidental that we fly airplanes.

- Herb Kelleher

I’d work in the store all day, then take off around closing and drive that windy road over the Mississippi River, and then into Tennessee with an old homemade trailer I had hitched to my car. I’d stuff that car and trailer with whatever I could get good deals on – usually on soft lines, ladies panties and nylons, men’s shirts and I’d bring them back, price them low and just blow that stuff out of the store.

- Sam Walton

The knowledge that we consider knowledge proves itself in action. What we now mean by knowledge is information in action, information focused on results.

- Peter Drucker

I believe that continued strong consumer acceptance of our products at retail and the strengthening of our organization will enable us to manage through the challenges in our U. S. footwear business and lay the foundation for another round of growth.

- Phil Knight

How was your day? If your answer was “fine,” then I don’t think you were leading.

- Seth Godin

For years we thought of ourselves as a production-oriented company, meaning we put all our emphasis on designing and manufacturing the products. But now we understand the most important thing we do is market the product… Nike is a marketing-oriented company, and the product is our most important marketing tool.

- Phil Knight

In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.

- Winston Churchill

Today is life – the only life you are sure of. Make the most of today. Get interested in something. Shake yourself awake. Develop a hobby. Let the winds of enthusiasm sweep through you. Live today with gusto.

- Dale Carnegie

By my count, more business leaders have failed and derailed because of arrogance than any other character flaw.

- Harvey Mackay

Historically, privacy was almost implicit, because it was hard to find and gather information. But in the digital world, whether it’s digital cameras or satellites or just what you click on, we need to have more explicit rules – not just for governments but for private companies.

- Bill Gates

The most amazing philanthropists are people who are actually making a significant sacrifice.

- Bill Gates

The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.

- Peter Drucker

As Google CEO Larry Page put it in his 2014 TED talk: “The main thing that has caused companies to fail, in my view, is that they missed the future.

- Jack Welch

And we are never too old to study the Bible. Each time the lessons are studied comes some new meaning, some new thought which will make us better.

- John D. Rockefeller

Named must your fear be before banish it you can.

- Yoda

Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.

- Albert Einstein

PEACETIME CEO/WARTIME CEO Peacetime CEO knows that proper protocol leads to winning. Wartime CEO violates protocol in order to win. Peacetime CEO focuses on the big picture and empowers her people to make detailed decisions. Wartime CEO cares about a speck of dust on a gnat’s ass if it interferes with the prime directive. Peacetime CEO builds scalable, high-volume recruiting machines. Wartime CEO does that, but also builds HR organizations that can execute layoffs. Peacetime CEO spends time defining the culture. Wartime CEO lets the war define the culture. Peacetime CEO always has a contingency plan. Wartime CEO knows that sometimes you gotta roll a hard six. Peacetime CEO knows what to do with a big advantage. Wartime CEO is paranoid. Peacetime CEO strives not to use profanity. Wartime CEO sometimes uses profanity purposefully. Peacetime CEO thinks of the competition as other ships in a big ocean that may never engage. Wartime CEO thinks the competition is sneaking into her house and trying to kidnap her children. Peacetime CEO aims to expand the market. Wartime CEO aims to win the market. Peacetime CEO strives to tolerate deviations from the plan when coupled with effort and creativity. Wartime CEO is completely intolerant. Peacetime CEO does not raise her voice. Wartime CEO rarely speaks in a normal tone. Peacetime CEO works to minimize conflict. Wartime CEO heightens the contradictions. Peacetime CEO strives for broad-based buy-in. Wartime CEO neither indulges consensus building nor tolerates disagreements. Peacetime CEO sets big, hairy, audacious goals. Wartime CEO is too busy fighting the enemy to read management books written by consultants who have never managed a fruit stand. Peacetime CEO trains her employees to ensure satisfaction and career development. Wartime CEO trains her employees so they don’t get their asses shot off in the battle. Peacetime CEO has rules like “We’re going to exit all businesses where we’re not number one or two.” Wartime CEO often has no businesses that are number one or two and therefore does not have the luxury of following that rule.

- Ben Horowitz

Expect to make some mistakes when you try new and different approaches. Sometimes colossal failures lead to spectacular successes.

- Harvey Mackay

[On a small business class taught at university by Frank Shallenberger] Shallenberger started by defining the type of person who was an entrepreneur, and I realized he was talking to me.

- Phil Knight

If you’re changing the world, you’re working on important things. You’re excited to get up in the morning.

- Larry Page

The reason why rivers and seas receive the homage of a hundred mountain streams is that they keep below them. Thus they are able to reign over all the mountain streams. So the sage, wishing to be above men, putteth himself below them; wishing to be before them, he putteth himself behind them. Thus, though his place be above men, they do not feel his weight; though his place be before them, they do not count it an injury.

- Dale Carnegie

The most important thing to understand is that the job of a big company executive is very different from the job of a small company executive. When I was managing thousands of people at Hewlett-Packard after the sale of Opsware, there was an incredible number of incoming demands on my time. Everyone wanted a piece of me. Little companies wanted to partner with me or sell themselves to me, people in my organization needed approvals, other business units needed my help, customers wanted my attention, and so forth. As a result, I spent most of my time optimizing and tuning the existing business. Most of the work that I did was “incoming.” In fact, most skilled big company executives will tell you that if you have more than three new initiatives in a quarter, you are trying to do too much. As a result, big company executives tend to be interrupt-driven. In contrast, when you are a startup executive, nothing happens unless you make it happen. In the early days of a company, you have to take eight to ten new initiatives a day or the company will stand still. There is no inertia that’s putting the company in motion. Without massive input from you, the company will stay at rest.

- Ben Horowitz

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

If you go back to 1800, everybody was poor. I mean everybody. The Industrial Revolution kicked in, and a lot of countries benefited, but by no means everyone.

- Bill Gates

And so I believe that God plays this enormous role in my life. And I believe that it’s my obligation to give back and to follow the rules that were set. And it also gives me an enormous sense of my own place and an enormous sense of stability.

- Ronald Perelman

The bottom line is that you need to do follow-up or you will be mediocre.

- Chet Holmes

The year I was born, 1955, the first big disease-eradication program in the world was declared for malaria. After about a decade of work, they realized that, at least in the tropical areas, they did not have the tools to get it done.

- Bill Gates

In life, you can blame a lot of people and you can wallow in self-pity, or you can pick yourself up and say, ‘Listen, I have to be responsible for myself.’

- Howard Schultz

A great man shows his greatness by the way he treats little men.

- Thomas Carlyle

If you’re looking for an abdominal exercise well-suited to power development without bulk, look no further than the Janda sit-up.

- Timothy Ferriss

You should learn from your competitor, but never copy. Copy and you die.

- Jack Ma

Perhaps your quest to be part of building something great will not fall in your business life. But find it somewhere. If not in corporate life, then perhaps in making your church great. If not there, then perhaps a nonprofit, or a community organization, or a class you teach. Get involved in something that you care so much about that you want to make it the greatest it can possibly be, not because of what you will get, but just because it can be done.

- James C. Collins

Creating value is not enough—you also need to capture some of the value you create.

- Peter Thiel

Social media requires that business leaders start thinking like small-town shop owners. This means taking the long view and avoiding short-term benchmarks to gauge progress. It means allowing the personality, heart and soul of the people who run all levels of the business to show.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

I look at every business and ask, How long can this last? How can I identify the status quo and change it?

- Sheldon Adelson

If you hold on to what you want so tightly, it almost becomes an idol.

- Joel Olsteen

Doing a mall is not only construction of the physical place, what’s important is the merchandising mix.

- Henry Sy

I heard about this man who fell into a pit, and while he was down there several people came by and offered their opinions. The Pharisee said, You deserve to be in the pit.” The Catholic said, You need to suffer while you’re in the pit.” The Baptist said, If you’d been saved, you wouldn’t have fallen into the pit.” The charismatic said, Just confess I’m not in the pit.” The mathematician said, Let me calculate how you fell into the pit.” The IRS agent said, Have you paid taxes on that pit?” The optimist said, Things could be worse.” The pessimist said, Things will get worse.

- Joel Olsteen

It occurs to me, Jim, that you spend too much time trying to be interesting. Why don’t you invest more time being interested?

- James C. Collins

Whenever a high-profile leader dies, people immediately attempt to summarize that person’s life in a sentence. Often, critics and commentators get caught up looking at the leader’s style, or which political or philosophical camp they represented.

- John C. Maxwell

GE’s businesses turned in a terrific first quarter. Our products and services are being well received in unusually robust global markets.

- Jack Welch

The AIDS is a disease that is hard to talk about.

- Bill Gates

The way of success is the way of continuous pursuit of knowledge.

- Napoleon Hill

Change almost never fails because it’s too early. It almost always fails because it’s too late.

- Seth Godin

Feedback

Let us know what's going on.

Get Started

Your first month is ONLY $1!

You will be redirected to your dashboard in a moment.

Fill out the information below to cancel your subscription