Today our challenge is to both imagine and create the new technologies that can make the 21st century more peaceful and prosperous than the 20th.
- Peter Thiel
Notable Quotables
I do know this… I seem to reach a lot of previously unchurched people. So many people have told me they never went to church until they heard our message of hope that God is a good God who desires to bless those who are faithful and obedient to Him through Jesus Christ.
- Joel Olsteen
You measure your people and you take action on those that don’t measure up.
- Jack Welch
Software innovation, like almost every other kind of innovation, requires the ability to collaborate and share ideas with other people, and to sit down and talk with customers and get their feedback and understand their needs.
- Bill Gates
When I first discovered in the early 1980s the Italian espresso bars in my trip to Italy, the vision was to re-create that for America – a third place that had not existed before. Starbucks re-created that in America in our own image; a place to go other than home or work. We also created an industry that did not exist: specialty coffee.
- Howard Schultz
SPAM is taking e-mail, which is a wonderful tool, and exploiting the idea that it’s very inexpensive to send mail.
- Bill Gates
No crime is so great as daring to excel.
- Winston Churchill
U.K. companies are in very international and very competitive markets. If you look at PC penetration in the U.K., it is very similar to the United States market.
- Bill Gates
Don’t let any opportunity lead you away from serving God. That’s a price that’s too high to pay.
- George Foreman
I agree with people like Richard Dawkins that mankind felt the need for creation myths. Before we really began to understand disease and the weather and things like that, we sought false explanations for them. Now science has filled in some of the realm – not all – that religion used to fill.
- Bill Gates
They are, therefore, not overly impressed by speed in decision-making. Rather they consider virtuosity in manipulating a great many variables a symptom of sloppy thinking. They want to know what the decision is all about and what the underlying realities are which it has to satisfy. They want impact rather than technique, they want to be sound rather than clever.
- Peter Drucker
We are the masters of our fate.
- Winston Churchill
Investing in Chicago property is just Wanda’s first move into the U.S. real estate market.
- Wang Jianlin
I refused to do a lot on mobile Internet until around 2009. But because we didn’t start early, it took us some time to figure out what’s the important thing, what’s the most relevant thing for Baidu.
- Robin Li
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
Les tengo buenas noticias: Usted no se tiene que mantener a la par de nadie. Usted puede correr su propia carrera y ser un individuo. Dios le ha dado la gracia para hacer lo que Él le ha llamado a hacer y no le ha dado la gracia para hacer lo que todos los demás están haciendo. Usted no tiene que ser la mejor mamá del mundo, sólo sea la mejor mamá que usted puede ser. Posiblemente, yo nunca seré el mejor pastor del mundo. Quizá no seré el mejor esposo ni el mejor padre, pero he decidido ser lo mejor que yo puedo ser y no me sentiré mal conmigo. Si otra persona puede hacer lo que hago mejor que yo, que bueno, yo no estoy en una competencia ni me estoy comparando con nadie. A mi manera de pensar, ¡yo soy el mejor! Y sé que estoy haciendo lo mejor que puedo. Eso es lo que nos enseña la Escritura. Dice: Así que, cada uno someta a prueba su propia obra…1.
- Joel Olsteen
The librarian isn’t a clerk who happens to work in a library. A librarian is a data hound, a guide, a sherpa and a teacher. The librarian is the interface between reams of data and the untrained but motivated user.
- Seth Godin
Mature company is founded on a broader perspective, an entrepreneurial perspective, a more intelligent point of view. About building a business that works not because of you but without you.
- Michael Gerber
The worse a situation becomes the less it takes to turn it around, the bigger the upside.
- George Soros
I have a particular relationship with Vinod Khosla because he’s got a lot of very interesting science-based energy startups.
- Bill Gates
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
One of the huge mistakes people make is that they try to force an interest on themselves. You don’t choose your passions, your passions choose you.
- Jeff Bezos
Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare.
- Dale Carnegie
I think that both parties should declare the debt limit as a political weapon of mass destruction which can’t be used. I mean, it is silly to have a country that has 237 years building up its reputation and then have people threaten to tear it down because they’re not getting some other matter.
- Warren Buffett
Never, give in! Never give in! Never, never, never… In nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions or honor and good sense!
- Winston Churchill
There comes a time in every company’s life where it must fight for its life. If you find yourself running when you should be fighting, you need to ask yourself, “If our company isn’t good enough to win, then do we need to exist at all?
- Ben Horowitz
A lot of the evil in the world is actually not intentional. A lot of people in the financial system did a lot of damage without intending to.
- George Soros
Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.
- Aristotle
This implies two very strange rules for VCs. First, only invest in companies that have the potential to return the value of the entire fund. This is a scary rule, because it eliminates the vast majority of possible investments. (Even quite successful companies usually succeed on a more humble scale.) This leads to rule number two: because rule number one is so restrictive, there can’t be any other rules.
- Peter Thiel
I think when companies are struggling, they don’t want to talk to the press. The guys who write business books aren’t interested in it because nobody wants to learn what it’s like to be a mess, you want to learn how to be successful. That’s slanted the whole thing quite a bit.
- Ben Horowitz
The more you like yourself, the less you are like anyone else, which makes you unique.
- Walt Disney
If anything, taxes for the lower and middle class and maybe even the upper middle class should even probably be cut further. But I think that people at the high end – people like myself – should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we’ve ever had it.
- Warren Buffett
In the journey of entrepreneurship, tenacity of purpose is supreme.
- Aliko Dangote
The future is in green energy, it’s in making steel for energy-efficient cars.
- Alexei Mordashov
That’s why encouragement is a much more effective teaching device than punishment.
- Dale Carnegie
When I hear people debate the ROI of social media? It makes me remember why so many business fail. Most businesses are not playing the marathon. They’re playing the sprint. They’re not worried about lifetime value and retention. They’re worried about short-term goals.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
In my banjo show with the Steep Canyon Rangers, I do do comedy during that show. It’d be absurd just to stand there mute and play 25 banjo songs.
- Steve Martin
In a dark place we find ourselves, and a little more knowledge lights our way.
- Yoda
The most important persuasion tool you have in your entire arsenal is integrity.
- Zig Ziglar
Whether it’s Google or Apple or free software, we’ve got some fantastic competitors and it keeps us on our toes.
- Bill Gates
I felt that it’s best just to be as transparent as possible.
- Rupert Murdoch
our skills and talent, but above all, be tenacious. See yourself as victorious–which means never giving up
- Donald Trump
If you argue and rankle and contradict, you may achieve a victory sometimes; but it will be an empty victory because you will never get your opponent’s good will.
- Dale Carnegie
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy and Jill a rich widow.
- Evan Esar
Little phrases such as ‘I’m sorry to trouble you,’ ‘Would you be so kind as to –?’ ‘Won’t you please?’ ‘Would you mind?’ ‘Thank you’ – little courtesies like these oil the cogs of the monotonous grind of everyday life – and incidentally, they are the hallmark of good breeding.
- Dale Carnegie
I’ve actually not read any books on time management.
- Elon Musk
One might think that the money value of an invention constitutes its reward to the man who loves his work. But… I continue to find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls success.
- Thomas Edison
Your purpose is to make your audience see what you saw, hear what you heard, feel what you felt. Relevant detail, couched in concrete, colorful language, is the best way to recreate the incident as it happened and to picture it for the audience.
- Dale Carnegie
If you’re only willing to do what’s easy, life will be hard. But if you’re willing to do what’s hard, life will be easy.
- T. Harv Eker
-It is possible to vastly compress most learning. In a surprising number of cases, it is possible to do something in 1-10 months that is assumed to take 1-10 years.-The more you compress things, the more physical limiters become a bottleneck. All learning is physically limited. The brain is dependent on finite quantities of neurotransmitters, memories require REM and non-REM (NREM) sleep for consolidation, etc. The learning graph is not unlike the stress-recovery-hyperadaptation curves of weight training.-The more extreme your ambition, just as in sports, the more you need performance enhancement via unusual schedules, diet, drugs, etc.-Most important: due to the bipolar nature of the learning process, you can forecast setbacks. If you don’t, you increase the likelihood of losing morale and quitting before the inflection point.
- Timothy Ferriss
There is an immeasurable distance between late and too late.
- Og Mandino
The person who has technical knowledge plus the ability to express ideas, to assume leadership, and to arouse enthusiasm among people—that person is headed for higher earning power.
- Dale Carnegie
It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link of the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.
- Winston Churchill
This is not a book for the wild-haired crazies your company keeps in a corner. It is a book for you, your boss, and your employees, because the best future available to us is a future where you contriubute your true self and your best work. Are you up for that?
- Seth Godin
TECHNIQUES IN HANDLING PEOPLE Principle 1—Don’t criticize, condemn or complain. Principle 2—Give honest and sincere appreciation. Principle 3—Arouse in the other person an eager want.
- Dale Carnegie
A good culture is like the old RIP routing protocol: Bad news travels fast. Good news travels slow.
- Ben Horowitz
Media companies focused on things like creating great stories whereas technology companies focused on creating a better way of doing things. We began to think about new ideas and about forming a new company.
- Ben Horowitz
The most frightful of all spectacles is the strength of the civilization without its mercy.
- Winston Churchill
We can be certain that cities around the world will compete for the jobs that the next revival of the financial services industry will bring.
- Michael Bloomberg
I… had no need for cheering dreams,” he wrote. Facts are better than dreams.
- James C. Collins
There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues, the most dominating virtues of human, are created, strengthened and maintained.
- Winston Churchill
You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who cannot pay you back. Make a decision that you will live to give. Be on the lookout each day for somebody you can bless. Don’t’ live for yourself; learn to give yourself away, and your life will make a difference.
- John Bunyan
You have to know what sparks the light in you so that you, in your own way, can illuminate the world.
- Oprah Winfrey
There is a difference between what technology enables and what historical business practices enable.
- Bill Gates
I still get up fairly early around six, but I work out for an hour every morning, I read often while excercising and give myself some private team. I’ll speak with administrative my administrative assistant, Donna Hughes, who is an organizational genus on the way into the office and go through the day, so by the time I get to the office around 8:30 or 9:00 I can hit the ground running…In both my workday and my life, what I try to achieve is balance.
- David Novak
Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.
- Oprah Winfrey
It’s not one of the enduring mysteries of all time. A motivated employee treats the customer well. A customer is happy so they’ll keep coming back, which pleases the shareholder. It’s just the way it works.
- Herb Kelleher
I wasn’t satisfied just to earn a good living. I was looking to make a statement.
- Donald Trump
He looks like a female llama who has just been surprised in her bath.
- Winston Churchill
Decide you must, how to serve them best. If you leave now, help them you could; but you would destroy all for which they have fought, and suffered.
- Yoda
Today the financial market is no good, but the money is there.
- Jack Ma
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
Real leaders don’t care [about receiving credit]. If it’s about your mission, about spreading the faith, about seeing something happen, not only do you not care about credit, you actually want other people to take credit…There’s no record of Martin Luther King, Jr. or Gandhi whining about credit. Credit isn’t the point. Change is.
- Seth Godin
You have to believe in what you do in order to get what you want.
- Larry Ellison
Pay attention to those employees who respectfully ask why. They are demonstrating an interest in their jobs and exhibiting a curiosity that could eventually translate into leadership ability.
- Harvey Mackay
Out that expending emotional labor, working without a map, and driving in the dark involve confronting fear and living with the pain of vulnerability. The artist comes to a détente with these emotions and, instead of fighting with them, dances with them. The linchpin connects as a result of the indispensable nature of her contribution. The artist, on the other hand, connects because that’s what art is. The artist touches part of what it means to be truly human and does that work again and again.
- Seth Godin
I look at Facebook as being more conscientious about operator concerns, we are not 100 percent there, but we are finding consensus.
- Jon Fredrik Baksaas
If there is any one secret of success,’ said Henry Ford, ‘it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.
- Dale Carnegie
Life, we learn too late, is in the living, in the tissue of every day and hour.
- Dale Carnegie
“What would you do if capital were free?” is a dangerous question to ask an entrepreneur. It’s kind of like asking a fat person, “What would you do if ice cream had the exact same nutritional value as broccoli?”
- Ben Horowitz
Write like you talk. Often.
- Seth Godin
My philosophy is that if I have any money I invest it in new ventures and not have it sitting around.
- Richard Branson
From my experience, there are so many regulations for investing in the United States that they become an impediment, a barrier to investing.
- Michael Otto
I have plenty of money to do what I want to do, and I have the relationships.
- Timothy Ferriss
We shall show mercy, but we shall not ask for it.
- Winston Churchill
On balance, I am a supporter of the minimum wage going up. We’ve got to be very careful what we wish for because some employers – and there could be a lot of them – will be scared away from hiring new people or creating incremental hours for part-time people as a result of that wage going up.
- Howard Schultz
Xiaomi looks a bit like Apple but is really more like Amazon with some elements of Google.
- Lei Jun
But there seems to be little correlation between a man’s effectiveness and his intelligence, his imagination or his knowledge.
- Peter Drucker
I once asked General Eisenhower’s son, John, if his father ever nourished resentments. No,” he replied, Dad never wastes a minute thinking about people he doesn’t like.
- Dale Carnegie
Play long enough and you might get lucky. In the technology game, tomorrow looks nothing like today. If you survive long enough to see tomorrow, it may bring you the answer that seems so impossible today.
- Ben Horowitz
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 like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.
- Winston Churchill
It’s no fun to protest on an empty stomach.
- Michael Bloomberg
Don’t kill competition. Competition is healthy for businesses. It keeps you – the entrepreneur – on your toes.
- Aliko Dangote
Part of company culture is path-dependent – it’s the lessons you learn along the way.
- Jeff Bezos
Training is, quite simply, one of the highest-leverage activities a manager can perform. Consider for a moment the possibility of your putting on a series of four lectures for members of your department. Let’s count on three hours preparation for each hour of course time—twelve hours of work in total. Say that you have ten students in your class. Next year they will work a total of about twenty thousand hours for your organization. If your training efforts result in a 1 percent improvement in your subordinates’ performance, your company will gain the equivalent of two hundred hours of work as the result of the expenditure of your twelve hours.
- Ben Horowitz
The Apple Stores’ sleek minimalist design and close control over the consumer experience, the omnipresent advertising campaigns, the price positioning as a maker of premium goods, and the lingering nimbus of Steve Jobs’s personal charisma all contribute to a perception that Apple offers products so good as to constitute a category of their own.
- Peter Thiel
A third of the people who rush to psychiatrists for help could probably cure themselves if they could only do as Margaret Yates did: get interested in helping others. My idea? No, that is approximately what Carl Jung said. And he ought to know—if anybody does. He said: About one third of my patients are suffering from no clinically definable neurosis, but from the senselessness and emptiness of their lives.” To put it another way, they are trying to thumb a ride through life—and the parade passes them by. So they rush to a psychiatrist with their petty, senseless, useless lives. Having missed the boat, they stand on the wharf, blaming everyone except themselves and demanding that the world cater to their self-centered desires.
- Dale Carnegie
Nonetheless, that know-how is often unmanageable. Avoidable failures are commmon and persistent, not to mention demoralizing and frustrating, across many fields – from medicine to finance, business to government. And the reason is increasingly evident: the volume and complexity of what we know has exceeded our individual ability to deliver its benefits correctly, safely, or reliably. Knowledge has both saved us and burdened us. That means we need a different strategy for overcoming failure, one that builds on experience and takes advantage of the knowledge people have but somehow also makes up for our inevitable human inadequacies. And there is such a strategy – though it will seem almost ridiculous in its simplicity, maybe even crazy to those of us who have spent years carefully developing ever more advanced skills and technologies. It is a checklist.
- Atul Gawande
Don’t ally your personal interests with the development of the company.
- Wang Jianlin
