Starbucks is not an advertiser; people think we are a great marketing company, but in fact we spend very little money on marketing and more money on training our people than advertising.
- Howard Schultz
Notable Quotables
I’m a genetic optimist.
- Jeff Bezos
The man who cannot control himself, can never control others. Self-control sets a mighty example for one’s followers, which the more intelligent will emulate.
- Napoleon Hill
The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams.
- Oprah Winfrey
Wealth, like happiness, is never attained when sought after directly. It comes as a by-product of providing a useful service.
- Henry Ford
Definiteness of purpose is the starting point from which one must begin. He recognized, too that definiteness of purpose of takes on animation, life, and power when backed by a burning desire to translate that purpose into its material equivalent. – Napoleon Hill (on leadership and vision)
- Napoleon Hill
Excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism.
- Oprah Winfrey
A wartime C.E.O. may not delegate. They make every decision based on the next product release. They may use a lot of profanity.
- Ben Horowitz
The earnings from Hong Kong and China Gas and rental property portfolio serve as a solid base for the Group’s sustainable growth.
- Lee Shau Kee
My training of cold-calling and everyone under the sun telling me no, and my keeping going, was a huge part of the first two years of Spanx.
- Sara Blakely
How much of what you know about business is shaped by mistaken reactions to past mistakes?
- Peter Thiel
I’m enamored with the art world. Anytime you look at anything that’s considered artistic, there’s a commercial world around it: the ballet, opera, any kind of music. It can’t exist without it.
- Steve Martin
I believe in innovation and that the way you get innovation is you fund research and you learn the basic facts.
- Bill Gates
Obviously everyone wants to be successful, but I want to be looked back on as being very innovative, very trusted and ethical and ultimately making a big difference in the world.
- Sergey Brin
Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.
- Dale Carnegie
That’s one of our biggest challenges – getting the people to the product immediately in a consistent way.
- Jack Dorsey
A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.
- Henry Ford
Cisco will be well placed to continue building our presence in India as a critical part of our research and development efforts and as domestic market for networking products and solutions continues to expand.
- John Chambers
I once dieted so religiously I quit eating in church.
- Zig Ziglar
When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more toward your coveted goal.
- Napoleon Hill
When companies fail, or fail to grow, it’s almost always because they don’t invest in the people, the systems, and the processes they need.
- Howard Schultz
And I think the more money you put in people’s hands, the more they will spend. And if they don’t spend it, they invest it. And investing it is another way of creating jobs. It puts money into mutual funds or other kinds of banks that can go out and make loans, and we need to do that.
- Michael Bloomberg
Every one of my positions cuts – out half the country. I’m pro-choice, I’m pro-gay rights, I’m pro-immigration, I’m against guns, I believe in Darwin.
- Michael Bloomberg
Money is like manure, its only good if you spread it around.
- Winston Churchill
Giving feels good, but it’s also good for the bottom line. Charity is a viable growth strategy for a lot ofcompanies. Our customers get excited to be a part of what we’re doing. If you ask anyone wearing Toms how they first heard about us, most won’t mention an advertisement; they’ll say a friend told them our story.
- Blake Mycoskie
Take the attitude of a student, never be too big to ask questions, never know too much to learn something new.
- Og Mandino
Look at our society. Everyone wants to be thin, but nobody wants to diet. Everyone wants to live long, but few will exercise. Everybody wants money, yet seldom will anyone budget or control their spending.
- John C. Maxwell
Politics and government are certainly among the most important of practical human interests.
- P.T. Barnum
In War: Resolution,In Defeat: Defiance,In Victory: MagnaminityIn Peace: Good Will.
- Winston Churchill
For now, if the Hong Kong environment doesn’t change, then in the long term, investing in Hong Kong is best.
- Lee Shau Kee
It took 23 years from Abraxane being conceived to us showing now with conclusiveness that it works in pancreatic cancer. We cannot afford as a society to wait another 23 years to make sure that the patients get the right care, at the right time, at the right place.
- Patrick Soon-Shiong
One does not leave a convivial party before closing time.
- Winston Churchill
Trying to read our DNA is like trying to understand software code – with only 90% of the code riddled with errors. It’s very difficult in that case to understand and predict what that software code is going to do.
- Elon Musk
One evening, intending to ask my host mother to wake me the next morning (okosu), I ask her to violently rape me (okasu). She is very confused.
- Timothy Ferriss
If I could drink only one wine, it would be Champagne.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
After Scour, I started a company called Red Swoosh. The idea was to take those litigants who sued us for a huge amount of money and turn them into customers with the same technology. I wanted to get them to pay me. It was a revenge business.
- Travis Kalanick
We shall see how the counsels of prudence and restraint may become the prime agents of mortal danger, how the middle course adopted from desires for safety and a quiet life may be found to lead direct to the bull’s-eye of disaster.
- Winston Churchill
A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom.
- Bob Dylan
My job is making money, helping other people make money. I am spending money, trying to make sure more people get rich, because you cannot spend a lot of money, right? So my job is spending money, helping others. This is a headache.
- Jack Ma
I do think that religion has turned a lot of people off. Part of it is because it was all about the rules and was political. I think now people have a hunger for God, they want to have a relationship, but they don’t want to be called religious. I’m not trying to get them to join my religion, I’m just trying to plant a seed of hope in their heart.
- Joel Olsteen
Money motivates neither the best people nor the best in people.
- Dee Hock
A company needs lots of smart, super-engaged employees who can identify its particular weaknesses and help it improve them.
- Ben Horowitz
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
- Winston Churchill
“Everyone will think it’s stupid!””Everyone says it’s impossible.”Guess what? Everyone works in the balloon factory and everyone is wrong.
- Seth Godin
There is only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them.
- Winston Churchill
People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people – and that social norm is just something that has evolved over time.
- Mark Zuckerberg
We think when God speaks to us, there’s going to be a boom out of Heaven or we’re going to get some chill bumps, but I really believe God’s talking to us all the time. He’s talking to us right in here. I call it our heart, our conscience, but it’s the Holy Spirit talking to us.
- Joel Olsteen
Our teachers deserve better feedback.
- Bill Gates
I had a will to win that come from being raised poor.
- Sam Huff
Happy the man, and happy he alone, He, who can call today his own: He who, secure within, can say: Tomorrow, do thy worst, for I have lived today.
- Dale Carnegie
Never let a good crisis go to waste.
- Winston Churchill
One clear-cut result is worth a dozen wise precautions.
- Winston Churchill
My own center, my Kingdom Center, which is the highest priced tower in Saudi Arabia, was vacated twice because of terrorist attacks, terrorist threats.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
I think there will be PCs at every price point.
- Bill Gates
Motivation gets you going and habit gets you there.
- Zig Ziglar
People ask me all the time, ‘How can I become a successful entrepreneur?’ And I have to be honest: It’s one of my least favorite questions, because if you’re waiting for someone else’s advice to become an entrepreneur, chances are you’re not one.
- Michael Dell
I’m telling you, you can’t compare Saudi Arabia to other countries.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
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
There are only two kinds of employees that I’ve run across in 30 years. There are ones that get results, and ones that make excuses. If you’re in that second camp, you’re not going to like Dish.
- Charles Ergen
You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.
- Henry Ford
Money is in some respects life’s fire: it is a very excellent servant, but a terrible master.
- P.T. Barnum
An Enemy Called Average
- Jim Collins
We don’t have the luxury of time. We spend more because of how we live, but it’s important to be with our family and friends.
- Sara Blakely
We remain confident about the market opportunity ahead of us over the next three to five years.
- John Chambers
Since we happened to be good at shoes, we thought we could be successful with casual shoes. But we got our brains beat out.
- Phil Knight
Change means opportunity for those with the experience and confidence to look to the future.
- Cheng Yu-tung
The principle is competing against yourself. It’s about self-improvement, about being better than you were the day before.
- Steve Young
We will invest 1.1 billion dollars in India, of which 150 million dollars would be for providing leasing and financial solutions to the company’s customers and partners.
- John Chambers
Being a good husband is like being a good stand-up comic – you need ten years before you can even call yourself a beginner.
- Jerry Seinfeld
At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
[On the three keys to Twitter’s success.] The first lesson: Draw. The most important thing you can do with an idea: get it out of your head. Second lesson: Luck. Be able to recognize when luck is happening around you. Third lesson: iteration. Originally Twitter asked ‘What’s your status?’ Bonus fourth lesson: know when to stop. Sometimes put the idea away, that idea will often emerge later.
- Jack Dorsey
After my death, I want to be remembered as Africa’s greatest industrialist.
- Aliko Dangote
Seeing is not always believing.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Most kids cannot ask questions. They can memorize, but they cannot learn.
- Terry Fischer
If you want to build a dynasty, you need to always be focused on getting better and beating last year’s performance in everything you do. You want to eliminate peaks and valleys, what we call boom, splat, and go for a good steady incline.
- David Novak
[On Twitter] We believe that fundamentally we are building a utility.
- Jack Dorsey
Markets are constantly in a state of uncertainty and flux and money is made by discounting the obvious and betting on the unexpected.
- George Soros
As an entrepreneur, remove obstacles for your team. If there is anything that is holding the team back, get it out of the way.
- David Nilssen
Marriot does not own the hotels, they market and run the real estate, they run the business
- John Kluken
Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.
- Oprah Winfrey
I had to pick myself up and get on with it, do it all over again, only even better this time.
- Sam Walton
By the time we see that climate change is really bad, your ability to fix it is extremely limited… The carbon gets up there, but the heating effect is delayed. And then the effect of that heat on the species and ecosystem is delayed. That means that even when you turn virtuous, things are actually going to get worse for quite a while.
- Bill Gates
Storytelling is the game. It’s what we all do. It’s why Nike is Nike, it’s why Apple is Apple, it’s why Walt Disney built Disney World and it’s why Vince McMahon makes a billion dollars.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
If you can’t communicate and talk to other people and get across your ideas, you’re giving up your potential.
- Warren Buffett
One of the talents of the [late] great Steve Jobs is that he [knew] how to design Medusa-like products. While every Macintosh model has had flaws (some more than others), most of them have has a sexiness and a design sensibility that has turned many consumers into instant converts. Macintosh owners upgrade far more often than most computer users for precisely this reason.
- Seth Godin
He wants to do something amazing in your life. Get in agreement and say, God, this is for me today. I’m raising my expectations. I’m shaking off doubt, negativity, disappointments, self-pity, little dreams, and little goals, and God, I will make room for a flood of Your goodness.
- Joel Olsteen
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? Maybe just like that little baby, putting your arm around somebody and letting him or her know that you care can help begin to heal that person’s heart. Maybe you can give a rescuing hug.
- Joel Olsteen
Love to learn—hate to be taught.
- Winston Churchill
What products in the marketplace are similar? Who else in the marketplace is doing this successfully? How big is the market?
- Jack Nadel
One must never forget when misfortunes come that it is quite possible they are saving one from something much worse; or that when you make some great mistake, it may very easily serve you better than the best-advised decision. Life is a whole, and luck is a whole, and no part of them can be separated from the rest.
- Winston Churchill
No company has a culture, every company is a culture.
- Peter Thiel
If you can’t retain the people after an acquisition, it’s not worth it.
- John Chambers
The purpose of process is communication. If there are five people in your company, you don’t need process, because you can just talk to each other.
- Ben Horowitz
It’s what we wrestle with every single day. The intersection of comfort, danger, and safety. The balancing act between vulnerability and shame. The opportunity (or the risk) to do art. The willingness to take responsibility for caring enough to make a difference and to have a point of view.
- Seth Godin
We live well below our means. We wear inexpensive suits and drive American-made cars. Only a minority of us drive the current-model-year automobile. Only a minority ever lease our motor vehicles.
- Thomas J Stanley
‘I don’t know’ has become ‘I don’t know yet’.
- Bill Gates
The Monopoly Question Are you starting with a big share of a small market?
- Peter Thiel
I think of myself more as a sportsman than I do an artist.
- Jerry Seinfeld
When my sister and I came along, my father’s political life was completely over. He ran for president the year I was born. So that was the end of it. He had been congressman first, then governor, before all that. So when we came along, he was running the Dayton newspaper.
- Anne Cox Chambers
Sound managerial decisions are at the very root of their impending fall from industry leadership.
- Clayton M. Christensen
