An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.
- Niels Bohr
Notable Quotables
Niklas Zennstroem has a thorough background as a successful entrepreneur with extensive expertise in areas such as IT and online.
- Stefan Persson
The way to become rich is to put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.
- Andrew Carnegie
A company can seize extra-ordinary opportunities only if it is very good at the ordinary operations.
- Marcel Herrmann Telles
We found that for leaders to make something great, their ambition has to be for the greatness of the work and the company, rather than for themselves.
- James C. Collins
The interview process takes twelve to fifteen hoursof your team’s time. This process is expensive for your team, so you should vet people in advance. A technique I use is to email the references and say, Rate this person one to ten. No one’s going to reply a five or a three by email; that means they hate the candidate. Call me is usually the response for a sub-seven rating. At the same time, nobody is going to reply with a ten. What you’re really looking for is a bunch of eights and nines. This is an exceptionally quick referencing system when you’re trying to triage a list.
- Reid Hoffman
Those people behind the mosque have to respect, have to appreciate and have to defer to the people of New York. The wound is still there. Just because the wound is healing you can’t say, ‘Let’s just go back to where we were pre-9/11.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
Cutting prices or putting things on sale is not sustainable business strategy. The other side of it is that you can’t cut enough costs to save your way to prosperity.
- Howard Schultz
Adults are always asking kids what they want to be when they grow up because they are looking for ideas.
- Paula Poundstone
No matter what’s happening, choose to be happy. Don’t focus on what’s wrong. Find something positive in your life. Thank God for the small things.
- Joel Olsteen
The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
The man who has no imagination has no wings.
- Muhammad Ali
You might well remember that nothing can bring you success but yourself.
- Napoleon Hill
Information is useless if it is not applied to something important or if you will forget it before you have a chance to apply it.
- Timothy Ferriss
Take the first step in faith, you don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
May the Force be with you.
- Yoda
Let’s find and remedy all our weaknesses before our enemies get a chance to say a word. That is what Charles Darwin did. …When Darwin completed the manuscript of his immortal book The Origin Of Species he realized that the publication of his revolutionary concept of creation would rock the intellectual and religious worlds. So he became his own critic and spent another 15 years checking his data, challenging his reasoning, and criticizing his conclusions.
- Dale Carnegie
It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.
- Seneca
If everybody is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by going exactly in the opposite direction.
- Sam Walton
I would say the most satisfying thing actually is watching my three children each pick up on their own interests and work many more hours per week than most people that have jobs at trying to intelligently give away that money in fields that they particularly care about.
- Warren Buffett
You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.
- Zig Ziglar
It had been a ‘grow, grow, grow’ era, and some people, especially young people who’d never been through a downturn before, didn’t like being told to suddenly get very conservative. But I insisted we were facing a very risky environment
- Debra Cafaro
Don’t waste your time trying to win people over that can never be won over.
- Joel Olsteen
To reach your full potential, you have to set goals that will stretch you.
- Zig Ziglar
Even though about 60% of our product is bought by people who don’t use it for the actual sport, everything we did was aimed at the top.
- Phil Knight
Winning ‘Motor Trend’ Car of the year is probably the closest thing to winning the Oscar or Emmy of the car industry.
- Elon Musk
In my lifetime, Mitt Romney is the most qualified leader I’ve ever seen run for the presidency of the United States.
- Jack Welch
I have found from costly experience that it is much easier to analyze the facts after writing them down. In fact, merely writing the facts on a piece of paper and stating our problem clearly goes a long way toward helping us reach a sensible decision. As Charles Kettering puts it: A problem well stated is a problem half solved.
- Dale Carnegie
Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.
- Stephen R. Covey
The difference between blues, jazz, rock n’ roll and rap is that rap stayed poor. Even the white rappers are poor. It’s scarier to look at poor people; it makes everyone uncomfortable. Their pain is something that people would like to see swept under the rug.
- Russell Simmons
We need to reinvent food at Starbucks. Less could be more.
- Howard Schultz
Live creatively, friends. . . . Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others” (Galatians 6:1, 4).
- Zig Ziglar
I’m concerned a little bit with the culture of celebrating the fundraise. My dad taught me that when you borrow money it’s the worst day of your life.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Every twenty-four hours God has a fresh new supply of grace, of favor, of wisdom, of forgiveness.
- Joel Olsteen
Every entrepreneur should plan to be the last mover in her particular market. That starts with asking yourself: what will the world look like 10 and 20 years from now, and how will my business fit in?
- Peter Thiel
Although prepared for martyrdom, I prefer that it be postponed.
- Winston Churchill
The evolving social and digital media platforms and highly innovative and relevant payment capabilities are causing seismic changes in consumer behavior and creating equally disruptive opportunities for business.
- Howard Schultz
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
It may look like the difficulty is going to defeat you. But you need to keep telling yourself, This sickness can’t take my life.” This cancer can’t defeat me.” No bad break, no disappointment, no accident can shorten one second of my divine destiny.
- Joel Olsteen
Let us work together to take Hong Kong to new heights.
- Cheng Yu-tung
To add value to others, one must first value others.
- John C. Maxwell
Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire and begin at once, whether you are ready or not to put this plan into action.
- Napoleon Hill
Kickstarter eliminates the risk that publishers and booksellers face. They have limited resources and limited shelf space, and Kickstarter is proof to them that something is going to work.
- Seth Godin
One out of every five page views in the United States is on Facebook!
- Gary Vaynerchuk
In setting goals and executing a strategy, Wanda is sophisticated. We have good systems and departments. If targets are not reached, a yellow light goes off.
- Wang Jianlin
Our household’s total annual realized (taxable) income is $131,000 (median, or 50th percentile), while our average income is $247,000. Note that those of us who have incomes in the $500,000 to $999,999 category (8 percent) and the $1 million or more category (5 percent) skew the average upward.
- Thomas J Stanley
Art is the unique work of a human being, work that touches another.
- Seth Godin
Different is better when it is more effective or more fun.
- Timothy Ferriss
Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.
- Robert Kennedy
No one drifts to success.
- Napoleon Hill
Before success comes in any man’s life, he’s sure to meet with much temporary defeat and, perhaps some failures. When defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and the most logical thing to do is to quit. That’s exactly what the majority of men do.
- Napoleon Hill
The more you complain about your problems, the more problems you will have to complain about.
- Zig Ziglar
You can make an internet company with 10 people and it can have billions of users. It doesn’t take much capital and it makes a lot of money — a really, really lot of money — so it’s natural for everyone to focus on those kinds of things.
- Larry Page
You cannot perform in a manner inconsistent with the way you see yourself.
- Zig Ziglar
I encourage active skepticism – when people are being skeptical because they’re trying to identify the best course of action. They’re trying to identify the next step for themselves or other people.
- Timothy Ferriss
[On his son Matt dying in 2004 in a scuba diving accident] It aged me much faster than anything you can imagine…
- Phil Knight
I come back to the same thing: We’ve got the greatest pipeline in the company’s history in the next 12 months, and we’ve had the most amazing financial results possible over the last five years, and we’re predicting being back at double-digit revenue growth in fiscal year ’06.
- Steve Ballmer
We take the hamburger business more seriously than anyone else.
- Ray Kroc
A lot of preachers’ kids are some of the most rebellious kids in the world. I never was like that.
- Joel Olsteen
Converting a decision into action requires answering several distinct questions: Who has to know of this decision? What action has to be taken? Who is to take it? And what does the action have to be so that the people who have to do it can do it? The first and the last of these are too often overlooked—with dire results.
- Peter Drucker
It is a mistake to hire huge numbers of people to get a complicated job done. Numbers will never compensate for talent in getting the right answer (two people who don’t know something are no better than one), will tend to slow down progress, and will make the task incredibly expensive.
- Elon Musk
Stock market bubbles don’t grow out of thin air. They have a solid basis in reality, but reality as distorted by a misconception.
- George Soros
Working on the right things is what makes knowledge work effective.
- Peter Drucker
No matter what any of us has—and how grateful we are for what we have—no one has it all.
- Sheryl Sandberg
Well, it’s the last step of the civil rights movement: You know, wrap your hands around some money, right?
- Russell Simmons
Companies, exist and evolve over time and in fact they have multiple founding moments.
- Jack Dorsey
Ideas are the beginning points of all fortunes.
- Napoleon Hill
The more seriously you take your growth, the more seriously your people will take you.
- John C. Maxwell
Be courageous. I have seen many depressions in business. Always America has emerged from these stronger and more prosperous. Be brave as your fathers before you. Have faith! Go forward!
- Thomas Edison
You have everything you need to build something far bigger than yourself.
- Seth Godin
The quality of research in the U.S. is absolutely the best.
- Bill Gates
I love doing a lot of things I’m told I can’t do. I think that’s what drives me and keeps me awake every day.
- Patrick Soon-Shiong
The outpouring of support from millions of people in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti has been impressive.
- Bill Gates
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
[As a child] I would just question things…
- Elon Musk
But at the Lychgate we may all pass our own conduct and our own judgments under a searching review. It is not given to human beings, happily for them, for otherwise life would be intolerable, to foresee or to predict to any large extent the unfolding course of events. In one phase men seem to have been right, in another they seem to have been wrong. Then again, a few years later, when the perspective of time has lengthened, all stands in a different setting. There is a new proportion. There is another scale of values. History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days. What is the worth of all this? The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honor.
- Winston Churchill
Victory is always possible for the person who refuses to stop fighting.
- Napoleon Hill
Do you mind if I sit back a little? Because your breath is very bad.
- Donald Trump
To boil water, the MED is 212°F (100°C) at standard air pressure. Boiled is boiled. Higher temperatures will not make it more boiled.” Higher temperatures just consume more resources that could be used for something else more productive.
- Timothy Ferriss
Capital punishment is as fundamentally wrong as a cure for crime as charity is wrong as a cure for poverty.
- Henry Ford
E – Energy
- Jack Welch
I hate recording all the shows for the week in one day, because I want to be able to mention current events and pop culture. If Madonna punches Britney in the face today, I want to reference that on ‘Wine Library TV’ tomorrow. Monday’s episode is always the best, because it’s hot off the press.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
I’m not a fan of the cursing method of management.
- David Robinson
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
Understanding science and pushing the boundaries of science is what makes me immensely satisfied.
- Bill Gates
A new road or a secret gate, And though we pass them by today, Tomorrow we may come this way And take the hidden paths that run Towards the Moon or to the Sun.
- Peter Thiel
I have a lot of things to prove to myself. One is that I can live my life fearlessly.
- Oprah Winfrey
New information makes new and fresh ideas possible.
- Zig Ziglar
I believe you should have a world where you’ve got to license something at a fair price. There are good things I see on Samsung phones that I wish were in my iPhone. I wish Apple would use them and could use them, and I don’t know if Samsung would stop us.
- Steve Wozniak
Japanese tend to put sales and market share first. They make many products with the aim of raising sales. But then profits decline, and companies find themselves falling into debt… I changed the mindset at Canon by getting people to realize that profits come first.
- Fujio Mitarai
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
Are you committed to a life of continual counseling, growth, and education? Are you committed to a life of consistently receiving truth, of renewing your mind? From what sources do you receive your counseling? Are you reading books by authors who speak wisdom? Are you listening to music and watching movies that have redemptive and edifying themes? Are you involved in a small group or community of people that can offer you support, guidance, and encouragement, and in which you give back that which you have been given? Do you know of professional counselors you can see when needed? Are you asking God for wisdom about life on a regular basis? (He says if you will ask, He will provide [see James 1:5–8].)
- Zig Ziglar
Everybody at home speaks mandarin except me.
- Rupert Murdoch
Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes. Even between the land and the ship.
- Yoda
The way to achieve happiness is to try for perfection that is impossible to achieve, and spend the rest of your life trying to achieve it.
- Winston Churchill
Well, you know, News Corp is the only real media global – that has a global presence that’s involved in TV production, in movies, in publishing, in newspapers, digital media, et cetera. So for a company like that to function, clearly it does not depend only on Rupert Murdoch or James Murdoch.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
A company shouldn’t get addicted to being shiny, because shiny doesn’t last.
- Jeff Bezos
When we began Starbucks, what I wanted to try to do was to create a set of values, guiding principles, and culture.
- Howard Schultz
It’s nice to be important, but more important to be nice. You don’t know who your top customers will be five years from now or where you will be in 10 years. You may have a fancy title, but you will always need help from the people around you.
- Harvey Mackay
You cannot expect to live a positive life if you hang with negative people.
- Joel Olsteen
