Notable Quotables

Share your profits with all your associates, and treat them as partners. In turn, they will treat you as a partner, and together you will all perform beyond your wildest expectations.

- Sam Walton

In those days he was wiser than he is now, he used to frequently take my advice.

- Winston Churchill

This is why so many small and medium-sized businesses don’t use tools that bigger firms take for granted. It’s not that small business proprietors are unusually backward or that good tools don’t exist: distribution is the hidden bottleneck.

- Peter Thiel

Marketing is a contest for people’s attention.

- Seth Godin

So sure, start with a slogan. But don’t bother wasting any time on it if you’re merely going for catchy. Aim for true instead.

- Seth Godin

It’s hard to say with 100 percent certainty that we’re totally out of it (the dry pattern), and it’s going to shift. But it’s leaning in that direction.

- Ed Clark

Every well built house started in the form of a definite purpose plus a definite plan in the nature of a set of blueprints.

- Napoleon Hill

My grandfather was an autoworker, and I have a weapon he manufactured to protect himself from the company that he would carry to work. It’s a big iron pipe with a hunk of lead on the head. I think about how far we’ve come as companies from those days, where workers had to protect themselves from the company.

- Larry Page

There’s been so much corruption and so much cronyism in the taxi industry and so much regulatory capture, that if you ask for permission upfront for something that’s already legal, you’ll never get it.

- Travis Kalanick

I never did anything by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.

- Thomas Edison

Creating a sense of urgency around change initiatives is especially hard to do. Human nature seems to be hardwired to adhor change, and people will do everything in their power to resist it. I once heard this explained to another Pepsi consultant. His philosophy was that in order to drive change, you need to create what he called, the burning platform. This burning-platform image was an oil rig in the North Sea that has caught fire and the only way to save yourself is to jump into the frigid water and swim to the lifeboat. You know the jump might kill you, but you jump anyway, not because you think it might be a good idea, but because you had no choice. That’s creating a sense of urgency.

- David Novak

While we remain cautious about the implications of a brief pause in the current 10-year expansion of the U.S. economy, we believe that Cisco has never been better positioned to help our customers solve their two most important business issues: Increasing productivity and creating new sources of revenue.

- John Chambers

In low-income countries, getting to a health post is hard. It’s very expensive.

- Bill Gates

I have had a long, long life full of troubles, but there is one curious fact about them-nine-tenths of them never happened.

- Andrew Carnegie

You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.

- Henry Ford

Humility is becoming a lost art, but it’s not difficult to practice. It means that you realize that others have been involved in your success.

- Harvey Mackay

If he actually looks like a salesman, he’s probably bad at sales and worse at tech.

- Peter Thiel

Once you start doing only what you’ve already proven you can do, you’re on the road to death.

- Jerry Seinfeld

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

First comes thought; then organization of that thought, into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination.

- Napoleon Hill

Think about what people are doing on Facebook today. They’re keeping up with their friends and family, but they’re also building an image and identity for themselves, which in a sense is their brand. They’re connecting with the audience that they want to connect to. It’s almost a disadvantage if you’re not on it now.

- Mark Zuckerberg

Yes, a Jedi’s strength flows from the Force. But beware of the dark side. Anger, fear, aggression; the dark side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan’s apprentice.

- Yoda

F-E-A-R has two meanings: ‘Forget Everything And Run’ or ‘Face Everything And Rise.’ The choice is yours.

- Zig Ziglar

I worry about losing a real talent. I hate losing a great leader more than anything. I also hate it when I have to manager out a good person for poor performance or for simply doing something that is not in sync with our values. One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life and I’ve had to do it more than once, is fire a friend.

- David Novak

But as an entrepreneur you have to feel like you can jump out of an aeroplane because you’re confident that you’ll catch a bird flying by. It’s an act of stupidity, and most entrepreneurs go splat because the bird doesn’t come by, but a few times it does.

- Reed Hastings

If you want your life to be more rewarding, you have to change the way you think.

- Oprah Winfrey

Life isn’t fair. It’s true, and you still have to deal with it. Whining about it rarely levels the playing field, but learning to rise above it is the ultimate reward.

- Harvey Mackay

Let’s realise that criticisms are like homing pigeons. They always return home. Let’s realise that the person we are going to correct and condemn will probably justify himself o herself, and condemn us in return.

- Dale Carnegie

Market leadership can translate directly to higher revenue, higher profitability, greater capital velocity, and correspondingly stronger returns on invested capital.

- Jeff Bezos

BLAMING IDIOTS FOR interruptions is like blaming clowns for scaring children—they can’t help it. It’s their nature. Then again, I had (who am I kidding—and have), on occasion, been known to create interruptions out of thin air. If you’re anything like me, that makes us both occasional idiots. Learn to recognize and fight the interruption impulse. This is infinitely easier when you have a set of rules, responses, and routines to follow.

- Timothy Ferriss

As knowledge is acquired it must be organized and put into use, for a definate purpose, through practical plans. Knowledge has no value except that which be gained from its application toward some worthy end.

- Napoleon Hill

We must not let our standards be determined by the gentlemen of the oposition.

- Winston Churchill

There are two kinds of pride, both good and bad. ‘Good pride’ represents our dignity and self-respect. ‘Bad pride’ is the deadly sin of superiority that reeks of conceit and arrogance.

- John C. Maxwell

Maintain ‘baseball cards’ and/or ‘believability matrixes’ for your people. Imagine if you had baseball cards that showed all the performance stats. You could see what they did well and poorly and call on the right people to play the right positions in a very transparent way.

- Ray Dalio

By getting your customers to agree with you in small steps along the way, you have a better chance of reaching agreement when it’s time to do business.

- Harvey Mackay

Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.

- Warren Buffett

Some questions that I’ve found to be very effective in one-on-ones: If we could improve in any way, how would we do it? What’s the number-one problem with our organization? Why? What’s not fun about working here? Who is really kicking ass in the company? Whom do you admire? If you were me, what changes would you make? What don’t you like about the product? What’s the biggest opportunity that we’re missing out on? What are we not doing that we should be doing? Are you happy working here?

- Ben Horowitz

The best solution is to use both together: Identify the few critical tasks that contribute most to income and schedule them with very short and clear deadlines.

- Timothy Ferriss

Gratitude is the single greatest treasure I will take with me from this experience.

- Oprah Winfrey

NO PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT OR EMPLOYEE FEEDBACK PROCESS Your company now employs twenty-five people and you know that you should formalize the performance management process, but you don’t want to pay the price. You worry that doing so will make it feel like a “big company.” Moreover, you do not want your employees to be offended by the feedback, because you can’t afford to lose anyone right now. And people are happy, so why rock the boat? Why not take on a little management debt? The first noticeable payments will be due when somebody performs below expectations: CEO: “He was good when we hired him; what happened?” Manager: “He’s not doing the things that we need him to do.” CEO: “Did we clearly tell him that?” Manager: “Maybe not clearly . . .” However, the larger payment will be a silent tax. Companies execute well when everybody is on the same page and everybody is constantly improving. In a vacuum of feedback, there is almost no chance that your company will perform optimally across either dimension. Directions with no corrections will seem fuzzy and obtuse. People rarely improve weakness they are unaware of. The ultimate price you will pay for not giving feedback: systematically crappy company performance.

- Ben Horowitz

The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective.

- Warren Buffett

You can be committed to Church but not committed to Christ, but you cannot be committed to Christ and not committed to church.

- Joel Olsteen

Thoughts mixed with definiteness of purpose, persistence, and a burning desire are powerful things.

- Napoleon Hill

Extraordinary results are directlydetermined by how narrow you can make your focus.

- Gary Keller

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

The problem is not getting rid of fear, but using it properly.

- Zig Ziglar

There’s room for another planet between Mars and Jupiter. Given that planets formed everywhere else, why couldn’t another planet have formed there?

- John Chambers

Pay attention, don’t let life go by you. Fall in love with the back of your cereal box.

- Jerry Seinfeld

Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish.

- Sam Walton

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

- Timothy Ferriss

China will become the IT (information technology) center of the world. We believe in giving something back and truly becoming a Chinese company.

- John Chambers

All of the people in my life whom I consider to be close friends or colleagues are good thinkers.

- John C. Maxwell

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

Document in writing every agreement or important conversation with suppliers and customers.

- Jack Nadel

The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater their power to harm us.

- Voltaire

People shouldn’t have to spend a lot of money to get high-quality clothing.

- Tadashi Yanai

Eventually we’ll be able to sequence the human genome and replicate how nature did intelligence in a carbon-based system.

- Bill Gates

We had been kicked out of one bank… The second, it was touch and go…

- Phil Knight

All men have fears, but the brave put down their fears and go forward, sometimes to death, but always to victory’ was the motto of the King’s Guard in ancient Greece.

- Dale Carnegie

You read these management books that say, ‘These are the hard things about running a company.’ But those aren’t really the hard things. The hard things are when you have to layoff half your company, or you have to fire your best friend. Or you have to figure out a way not to go bankrupt.

- Ben Horowitz

I have no use for people who throw their weight around as celebrities, or for those who fawn over you just because you are famous.

- Walt Disney

If we don’t allow ourselves to make mistakes, we will never invest in things that are radical.

- Jeff Clavier

2006, I started ‘WineLibrary TV.’ To build ‘WineLibrary TV,’ I started using Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter in 2008.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

On this basis, we intend to increase the dividend for the third time in a row. We are proposing a distribution of €3.25 per share, corresponding to a dividend payout ratio of 27.4 percent, which is again up slightly on the previous year’s level.

- Elmar Degenhart

People are chasing cash, not happiness. When you chase money, you’re going to lose. You’re just going to. Even if you get the money, you’re not going to be happy.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

The industrialist (your boss, perhaps) demands that everything be proven, efficient, and risk free. The artist seeks none of these. The value of art is in your willingness to stare down the risk and to embrace the void of possible failure.

- Seth Godin

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

PR is gift-wrapping. If you package a bracelet in a Tiffany box, it will have a higher perceived value than if you presented it in a Kmart box.

- Michael Levine

The time will never be right to start. Today is your day. Study successful people, do what they do, and you too will be successful.

- Clay Clark

The greatest decision of all time, as far as any American citizen is concerned was reached in Philadelphia, July 4th 1776, when 56 men signed their names to a document, which they well knew would bring freedom to all Americans, or leave every one of the fifty-six hanging from the gallows. On July 4th 1776 Thomas Jefferson stood before the Assembly and fearlessly read the most momentus Decision ever placed upon paper.

- Napoleon Hill

As an entrepreneur, I try to push the limits. Pedal to the metal.

- Travis Kalanick

We let folks know we’re interested in them and that they’re vital to us. cause they are.

- Sam Walton

I wouldn’t ever say if you’re having tough times then there must be something wrong with you or your attitude. Life’s a fight. It’s a good fight of faith. I encourage people to stay up, stay hopeful, stay faith-filled.

- Joel Olsteen

It’s paradoxical, but you want to identify the things that can kill you and engage them sooner. This is part of the metric behind fail fast. Of course, you’re not actually trying to fail; you want to succeed. But failing fast is much better than failing slowly, since it enables you to quickly to pivot, iterate, and redeploy capital. The one key mistake is that people tend to work first on the problems that they have the most confidence they can solve. In a good startup strategy you actually want to face death soonest because then you fail fast or get on a great path to success fast. Identify the hardest problems and try to solve those as soon as you can.

- Reid Hoffman

Good shareholder activists have incredible interest in the company because they own a lot of it.

- Ben Horowitz

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

Let’s do as General Eisenhower does: let’s never waste a minute thinking about people we don’t like.

- Dale Carnegie

It is those who concentrate on but one thing at a time who advance in this world. The great man or woman is the one who never steps outside his or her specialty or foolishly dissipates his or her individuality.

- Og Mandino

Forty-five years ago, when I was 18, I came to San Francisco by boat and took two weeks to get here. I had a great impression. I think San Francisco is the welcoming gate for people from Asia.

- Tadashi Yanai

Surprises and reverses can serve as an incentive for great accomplishment. There are no rules here, we’re just trying to accomplish something.

- Thomas Edison

The ultimate connection is when you are connected to the creator of the universe.

- Joel Olsteen

We’re really going after truly creating sustainability of a disease-free state, creating a complete system for managing cancer patients for life, so that you can manage from onset of disease all the way through.

- Patrick Soon-Shiong

You can also make a 10x improvement through superior integrated design.

- Peter Thiel

All was there—the programme of German resurrection, the technique of party propaganda; the plan for combating Marxism; the concept of a National-Socialist State; the rightful position of Germany at the summit ofthe world. Here was the new Koran of faith and war: turgid, verbose, shapeless, but pregnant with its message.

- Winston Churchill

When you look at the dark side, careful you must be. For the dark side looks back.

- Yoda

I’d always try to remind managers at every level that they had to share my passion for developing people.

- Jack Welch

Nobody in the heavens above or on the earth beneath or in the waters under the earth will ever object to your saying: ‘I may be wrong. Let’s examine the facts.

- Dale Carnegie

Why don’t we have enough teachers of math and science in the public schools? One answer is well, if they knew the subject well, they’d also know enough to work for Google or Goldman Sachs or God knows where.

- James Simons

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