Some of us learn from other people’s mistakes and the rest of us have to be other people.
- Zig Ziglar
Notable Quotables
You can’t fault government for seizing that opportunity. But it has an impact on Barbados’ current account deficit and it does bring with it attended risks. And, therefore, you have to ask whether or not the tourism business that is going to be generated from the publicity around the cricket matches will be sustained after the cricket matches are over.
- John Chambers
Go as far as you can see. When you get there, you’ll be able to see farther.
- Zig Ziglar
Then he fell on his knees and cried out, Lord do not hold this sin against them. When he said this, he fell asleep (he died).
- Acts 7:60
Lay out what you’re doing to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
- David Novak
Encouragement is the fuel on which hope runs.
- Zig Ziglar
[On Square in July 2011] We’re going to make it amazing.
- Jack Dorsey
The internet had yet to take off, partly because its commercial use was restricted until late 1992 and partly due to the lack of user-friendly web browsers.
- Peter Thiel
She said, ‘My family is OK, John, but we lost everything.
- John Chambers
Innovation comes from long-term thinking and iterative execution.
- Reid Hoffman
There’s no difference between a pessimist who says, Oh, it’s hopeless, so don’t bother doing anything and an optimist who says, Don’t bother doing anything, it’s going to turn out fine anyway. Either way, nothing happens.
- Yvon Chouinard
If you always think about your dreams or goals, work steadfastly towards them and continue to challenge yourself, you will definitely be able to realise those dreams or goals.
- Tadashi Yanai
Level 5 leaders channel their ego needs away from themselves and into the larger goal of building a great company. It’s not that Level 5 leaders have no ego or self-interest. Indeed, they are incredibly ambitious—but their ambition is first and foremost for the institution, not themselves.
- James C. Collins
The length of this document defends it well against the risk of its being read.
- Winston Churchill
Eventually I left City College in my senior year, just four or five credits short of a sociology degree. This really upset my father who thought that I was a fool. Over and over he lectured me that the only way for a black man to make it was to get a degree and a job. For a while there I felt like I was a failure in my father’s eyes, which hurt alot, but promoting felt right in my gut. I knew that to be a man I had to follow my heart. My mother was always more open to Danny, Joey and me pursuing a more non-traditional entrepreneurial way…Early in my promoting career I lost all the money I’d saved on a show in Harlem no one came to. I came out to Hollis and no one would help me. My father just wanted me to go back to school and told me so. What could I say? I had no money. Then my mother went back in the house and came with $2,000 in crisp $100 bills from her personal savings. It was that money that kept me afloat until Kurtis Blow broke and I entered the record business. That act of love and faith, which is what kept me in business at a key time, is my favorite memory of her.
- Russell Simmons
In a company, hundreds of decisions get made, but objectives and goals are thin.
- Ben Horowitz
It’s disappointing, but it’s still a really good book. I’m glad Kenny did it, and I’m glad it’s going to get out. … I still endorse the book. I think everybody should buy it. I think he did a great job on a very complicated topic.
- Phil Knight
Five percent of the people think;ten percent of the people think they think;and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think.
- Thomas Edison
I hate nobody except Hitler–and that is professional.
- Winston Churchill
The most important persuasion tool you have in your entire arsenal is integrity.
- Zig Ziglar
Any product that needs a manual to work is broken.
- Elon Musk
about 15 percent of one’s financial success is due to one’s technical knowledge and about 85 percent is due to skill in human engineering—to personality and the ability to lead people.
- Dale Carnegie
If your watch is slow by just four minutes, that’s not much – unless you’ve been warned that if you’re even one minute late ever again you will be fired. Then four minutes make a big difference.
- Zig Ziglar
True leadership cannot be awarded, appointed or assigned. It comes only from influence, and that can’t be mandated. It must be earned. The only thing that a title can buy is a little time.
- Napoleon Hill
The public is upset. If they haven’t lost their job, they know somebody that has. If they haven’t lost their house, they know somebody that has. What do you do? When something’s wrong, it’s government’s job to fix it, it must be government that’s responsible for causing it.
- Michael Bloomberg
Quality is much better than quantity. One home run is much better than two doubles.
- Steve Jobs
When the PC was launched, people knew it was important.
- Bill Gates
God wants you to have a good life, a life filled with love, joy, peace, and fulfillment. That doesn’t mean it will always be easy, but it does mean that it will always be good.
- Joel Olsteen
Level 5 leaders display a workmanlike diligence – more plow horse than show horse.
- James C. Collins
The choice is between two ways of life: between individual liberty and State domination, between concentration of ownership in the hands of the State and the extension of ownership over the widest number of individuals, between the dead hand of monopoly and the stimulus of competition, between a policy of increasing restraint and a policy of liberating energy and ingenuity, between a policy of levelling down and a policy of opportunity for all to rise upwards from a basic standard.
- Winston Churchill
When I cut the feet out of my pantyhose that one time, I saw it as my sign. I had been visualizing being self employed prior to this happening. It was my mental preparation meeting the opportunity in that moment.
- Sara Blakely
If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.
- Winston Churchill
Authors by the hundreds can tell you stories by the thousands of those rejection slips before they found a publisher who was willing to ‘gamble’ on an unknown.
- Zig Ziglar
I hate the photo shoots. I hate all that stuff.
- Reed Hastings
We would betray our values and play into our enemies’ hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists, and we should not stand for that.
- Michael Bloomberg
It’s a mystery to me the way that contemporary art galleries function.
- Steve Martin
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
Too many companies think they want to do a video blog to sell merchandise, but if you turn your site into QVC, you lose. I have an audience that trusts me. It’s about building a global brand – not selling four more bottles of Pinot Grigio.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
God didn’t make a mistake when He made you. You need to see yourself as God sees you.
- Joel Olsteen
I love creating partnerships; I love not having to bear the entire burden of the creative storytelling, and when I have unions like with George Lucas and Peter Jackson, it’s really great; not only do I benefit, but the project is better for it.
- Steven Spielberg
Internet TV and the move to the digital approach is quite revolutionary. TV has historically has been a broadcast medium with everybody picking from a very finite number of channels.
- Bill Gates
When you reach out to hurting people, that’s when God is going to make sure your needs are supplied. When you focus on being a blessing, God makes sure that you are always blessed in abundance.”
- Joel Olsteen
The fastest and best way to build value for your business is to build your people
- Clay Clark
There is a huge need and a huge opportunity to get everyone in the world connected, to give everyone a voice and to help transform society for the future. The scale of the technology and infrastructure that must be built is unprecedented, and we believe this is the most important problem we can focus on.
- Mark Zuckerberg
For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them” (Matthew 25:29).
- Peter Thiel
Whenever you go out-of-doors, draw the chin in, carry the crown of the head high, and fill the lungs to the utmost; drink in the sunshine; greet your friends with a smile, and put soul into every handclasp. Do not fear being misunderstood and do not waste a minute thinking about your enemies. Try to fix firmly in your mind what you would like to do; and then, without veering off direction, you will move straight to the goal. Keep your mind on the great and splendid things you would like to do, and then, as the days go gliding away, you will find yourself unconsciously seizing upon the opportunities that are required for the fulfillment of your desire, just as the coral insect takes from the running tide the element it needs. Picture in your mind the able, earnest, useful person you desire to be, and the thought you hold is hourly transforming you into that particular individual . . . Thought is supreme. Preserve a right mental attitude – the attitude of courage, frankness, and good cheer. To think rightly is to create. All things come through desire and every sincere prayer is answered. We become like that on which our hearts are fixed. Carry your chin in and the crown of your head high. We are gods in the chrysalis.
- Dale Carnegie
I’m a cynic about corporate democracy and boards.
- Carl Icahn
Very important people have told me that they prefer good listeners to good talkers, but the ability to listen seems rarer than almost any other good trait.
- Dale Carnegie
Startup CEOs should not play the odds. When you are building a company, you must believe there is an answer and you cannot pay attention to your odds of finding it. You just have to find it. It matters not whether your chances are nine in ten or one in a thousand; your task is the same.
- Ben Horowitz
Timid salesmen have skinny kids.
- Zig Ziglar
If your customer base is aging with you, then eventually you are going to become obsolete or irrelevant. You need to be constantly figuring out who are your new customers and what are you doing to stay forever young.
- Jeff Bezos
My first professional job was to sell heavy-duty waterless cookware.
- Zig Ziglar
No one lives long enough to learn it all..
- Brian Tracy
There are certain things I will automate, but when it comes to quality control, I want to keep a very close eye.
- Timothy Ferriss
When you give everyone a voice and give people power, the system usually ends up in a really good place. So, what we view our role as, is giving people that power.
- Mark Zuckerberg
Being too humble can cost you. Not talking about your accomplishments can hit you in the pocketbook. It’s those who visibly take credit for accomplishments who are rewarded with promotions and gem assignments, writes Klaus. As our economy has resulted in less job stability, self-promotion has become more important. Even if you aren’t an entrepreneur, says Klaus, you need to think like one and start talking up your most valuable product: you.
- Peggy Klaus
Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage.
- Sam Walton
Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Youths of today aspire to be like me but they want to achieve it overnight. It’s not going to work.
- Aliko Dangote
The idea of lying on a beach as my main thing just sounds like the worst. It sounds horrible to me. I would go bonkers. I would have to be on serious drugs. I’d be super-duper bored. I like high intensity.
- Elon Musk
A healthy company culture encourages people to share bad news. A company that discusses its problems freely and openly can quickly solve them.
- Ben Horowitz
Any fool can try to defend his or her mistakes – and most fools do – but it raises one above the herd and gives one a feeling of nobility and exultation to admit one’s mistakes.
- Dale Carnegie
A lady came up to me one day and said ‘Sir! You are drunk’, to which I replied ‘I am drunk today madam, and tomorrow I shall be sober but you will still be ugly.
- Winston Churchill
The most contrarian thing of all is not to oppose the crowd but to think for yourself.
- Peter Thiel
I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.
- Thomas Edison
What you need to keep most in the U.S. is the entrepreneurial spirit.
- Alexei Mordashov
Google’s search algorithms, for example, return results better than anyone else’s. Proprietary technologies for extremely short page load times and highly accurate query autocompletion add to the core search product’s robustness and defensibility.
- Peter Thiel
I get energy from one-on-one conversations most often, and I lose energy from group conversations most often.
- Reid Hoffman
When you want to do your homework, fill out your tax return, or see all the choices for a trip you want to take, you need a full-size screen.
- Bill Gates
People respond when you tell them there is a great future in front of you, you can leave your past behind.
- Joel Olsteen
After the decline in the past few years, the worst moment in the economy of Hong Kong is now behind us. The local property market is expected to show a steady upward trend as from this point.
- Lee Shau Kee
There is no such thing as Something for nothing.
- Napoleon Hill
These two chefs will play an important role in managing the company’s growing appetites.
- Sergey Brin
Yeah, well I think anyone who likes fast cars will love the Tesla. And it has fantastic handling by the way. I mean this car will crush a Porsche on the track, just crush it. So if you like fast cars, you’ll love this car. And then oh, by the way, it happens to be electric and it’s twice the efficiency of a Prius.
- Elon Musk
Every day were saying, ‘How can we keep this customer happy?’ How can we get ahead in innovation by doing this, because if we don’t, somebody else will.
- Bill Gates
Blind we are, if creation of this clone army we could not see.
- Yoda
It is a very big exaggeration to say I am a friend of Mr. Putin.
- Alexei Mordashov
If you don’t understand the details of your business you are going to fail.
- Jeff Bezos
When you develop yourself to the point where your belief in yourself is so strong that you know that you can accomplish anything you put your mind to, your future will be unlimited.
- Brian Tracy
Whatever your views on thermodynamics, it’s a powerful metaphor: in business, equilibrium means stasis, and stasis means death.
- Peter Thiel
Ohhh. Great warrior.Wars not make one great.
- Yoda
One of my biggest personal holdings is Rotana. That company has a very dominant force in the Middle East. It has around 45% of all the movie industry and around 75% of all the music.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
The thorough man of business knows that only by years of patient, unremitting attention to affairs can he earn his reward, which is the result, not of chance, but of well-devised means for the attainment to ends.
- Andrew Carnegie
I would hope that , where possible, the newspaper will devote more thought to our commercial interests. In my view, there are sometimes news items that require a lot of caution. For instance, articles that talk about contracts being negotiated. There is some news that does more harm than good. The risk is that it threatens the commercial or industrial interests of our country.
- Serge Dassault
You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years of trying to get other people interested in you.
- Dale Carnegie
I’ve actually made a prediction that within 30 years a majority of new cars made in the United States will be electric. And I don’t mean hybrid, I mean fully electric.
- Elon Musk
Don’t count the things you do. Do the things that count.
- Zig Ziglar
Friends are made my many acts and lost by only one.
- Harvey Mackay
The strongest oak of the forest is not the one that is protected from the storm and hidden from the sun. It’s the one that stands in the open where it is compelled to struggle for its existence against the winds and rains and the scorching sun.
- Napoleon Hill
Everything in our society is so purposeful.
- Sara Blakely
We have to realize that our lives could be gone in a moment. There are no guarantees that we will be here at this time next year. Learn to live each day to the fullest. Don’t complain. Don’t focus on what’s wrong. Be grateful for the opportunity to experience each day.
- Joel Olsteen
The cost of being wrong is less than the cost of doing nothing.
- Seth Godin
I think like a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. Failure is a great teacher. At the same time, you must remember, success will never last… Whether it’s tech or fashion, it must be for the customer.
- Tadashi Yanai
When screening engineers from other companies, its smart to value engineers from great companies more than those from mediocre companies.
- Ben Horowitz
Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
- Dale Carnegie
My children – in many dimensions they’re as poorly behaved as many other children, but at least on this dimension I’ve got my kids brainwashed: You don’t use Google, and you don’t use an iPod.
- Steve Ballmer
What’s interesting about Twitter and the influencers that someone follows – like, say, Shaquille O’Neal – is that they see someone who is using the exact same tools that they have access to, and I think that inspires this hope to be able to really engage with someone like him.
- Jack Dorsey
Unhappy Barnes & Noble filed a lawsuit three days before Amazon’s IPO, claiming that Amazon was unfairly calling itself a “bookstore” when really it was a “book broker”.
- Peter Thiel
I’m a big believer than a great bit is a great bit – if I go and see someone I love, like Robert Klein. I want to hear some classics and some new stuff. But a great stand-up bit takes a long time to really polish and perfect, and they’re beautiful things when they’re done.
- Jerry Seinfeld
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
