Notable Quotables

I realized that comedians of the day were operating on jokes and punch lines. The moment you say the punch line, the audience either laughs sincerely or they laugh automatically or they don’t laugh. The thing that bothered me was that automatic laugh. I said, that’s not real laughter.

- Steve Martin

If salespeople don’t probe well for background information, they don’t know how to launch the presentation.

- Jerry Vass

I’ve never preached one sermon on money, on just finances. I want to stay away from it.

- Joel Olsteen

You have no ability, if you’re a financial institution and you’re threatened with criminal prosecution, you have no ability to negotiate.

- Warren Buffett

The challenge with being an initiator of projects is that you are never, ever done.

- Seth Godin

Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction.

- Sam Walton

You cannot hang out with negative people and expect to live a positive life.

- Joel Olsteen

To all of us comes that moment in life when we are literally tapped on the shoulder to do a very special thing unique to ourselves and our talents. What a pity if that moment finds us unprepared.

- Winston Churchill

Don’t use your energy to worry. Use your energy to believe.

- Joel Olsteen

I still get real nervous when I go in front of more than two people.

- Phil Knight

Take every opportunity to inject self-confidence into those who have earned it. Use ample praise, the more specific the better.

- Jack Welch

Physics is really figuring out how to discover new things that are counterintuitive, like quantum mechanics. It’s really counterintuitive.

- Elon Musk

The Global Fund is a central player in the progress being achieved on HIV, TB and malaria. It channels resources to help countries fight these diseases. I believe in its impact because I have seen it firsthand.

- Bill Gates

I’m trying to construct a world that maximises the probability that SpaceX continues its mission without me.

- Elon Musk

When you look at a company that’s already succeeded or is at the very top of its game, it isn’t necessarily when it’s executing well. It tends to be peacetime – you’ve defeated the competition, you have the highest margins, the highest multiple.

- Ben Horowitz

God wouldn’t have given you the dream unless He already had a way to bring it to pass.

- Joel Olsteen

Remember you’re not entitled to anything. You have to earn your success every day, and you will make mistakes like everyone else.

- Harvey Mackay

I love great music and art, but I think ‘cubist’ songs and paintings are hideous.

- Thomas Edison

Microsoft Research has a thing called the Sense Cam that, as you walk around, it’s taking photos all the time. And the software will filter and find the ones that are interesting without having to think, ‘Let’s get out the camera and get that shot.’ You just have that, and software helps you pick what you want.

- Bill Gates

The 1980s will seem like a walk in the park when compared to new global challenges, where annual productivity increases of 6% may not be enough. A combination of software, brains, and running harder will be needed to bring that percentage up to 8% or 9%.

- Jack Welch

The smartest business decision you can make is to hire qualified people. Bringing the right people on board saves you thousands, and your business will run smoothly and efficiently.

- Brian Tracy

There is a good saying to the effect that when a new book appears one should read an old one.

- Winston Churchill

I think it’d be crazy not to have the plan encompass the entire reservoir. If we have (the smaller map), we’ve got a bunch of other folks telling us what they want to see happen in our community.

- Jack Taylor

Share your experiences, tell your stories, and inspire others along the way.

- Blake Mycoskie

The real benefit of having goals is what you become by reaching them.

- Zig Ziglar

Many of America’s and New York’s sons and daughters are around the world fighting for the freedoms that the Statue of Liberty stands for.

- Michael Bloomberg

During this time I learned the most important rule of raising money privately: Look for a market of one. You only need one investor to say yes, so it’s best to ignore the other thirty who say “no.”

- Ben Horowitz

It’s really complex to make something simple…

- Jack Dorsey

When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened

- Winston Churchill

Pick the best people, face the reality (the way it is), speak with candor to everything, never lose sight of the relationship with the constituency.

- Jack Welch

All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.

- Walt Disney

In early 2009, the property market was still being driven by pessimistic sentiment and a wait-and-see attitude, leading to a further drop in the transaction volume.

- Lee Shau Kee

Apple has always leveraged technologies that the PC industry has driven to critical mass – the bus structures, the graphics cards, the peripherals, the connection networks, things like that – so they’re kind of in the PC ecosystem and kind of not.

- Bill Gates

Strategy is empty without change, empty without passion, and empty without people willing to confront the void.

- Seth Godin

If you will live like no one else, later you can live like no one else.

- Dave Ramsey

We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.

- Walt Disney

Many companies today are reducing hours of full-time people to get under the minimum so they don’t have to pay health care costs. I just shake my head because that’s not going to build long-term value and trust with your people.

- Howard Schultz

Sooner or later, you will see a China-based company that really has a global impact, and I think Baidu has a chance to become one of those companies. We should be able to compete on a global basis.

- Robin Li

With the right pitch, you’ll get no argument. This is where the salesmanship comes in…It requires of you a substantial degree of self-confidence to pull it off, but your belief in your own project will help you muster that.

- Michael Levine

Japanese businesspeople and companies are lacking in individuality.

- Tadashi Yanai

Velocity and drive comes from your desire to achieve.

- Jim Cathcart

The first real thought that I had of something that I might do was to write for car magazines, because I always had a car thing.

- Jerry Seinfeld

If you complain you will remain, if you praise you will be raised.

- Joel Olsteen

A company needs lots of smart, super-engaged employees who can identify its particular weaknesses and help it improve them.

- Ben Horowitz

This first time through has been hectic, but I expect it to be more stream-lined next year.

- Jack Taylor

I think the move by Mr. Greenspan was welcomed by everyone here.

- Jack Welch

But the vast majority of books ever written are not accessible to anyone except the most tenacious researchers at premier academic libraries. Books written after 1923 quickly disappear into a literary black hole.

- Sergey Brin

I don’t think there is any philosophy that suggests having polio is a good thing.

- Bill Gates

In a dark place we find ourselves, and a little more knowledge lights our way.

- Yoda

Some people do really find fault like there’s a reward for it.

- Zig Ziglar

I believe the returns on investment in the poor are just as exciting as successes achieved in the business arena, and they are even more meaningful!

- Bill Gates

A leader is one who sees more than others see, who sees farther than others see and who sees before others see.

- Leroy Eimes

Politeness and civility are the best capital ever invested in business. Large stores, gilt signs, flaming advertisements, will all prove unavailing if you or your employees treat your patrons abruptly. The truth is, the more kind and liberal a man is, the more generous will be the patronage bestowed upon him.

- P.T. Barnum

Each close you use should be an educational process by which you are able to raise the value in the prospect’s mind.

- Zig Ziglar

I know there’s a farmer out there somewhere who never wants a PC and that’s fine with me.

- Bill Gates

Only engage in mutually beneficial relationships.

- Clay Clark

When you’re building a business or joining a company, you have to be transparent; you can’t have two sets of information for two sets of people.

- Howard Schultz

A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him.

- Winston Churchill

John D. Rockefeller said that he found friendships based on business to be far more long lasting and profitable than the reverse. I think there’s something to that. A company can end up being very Confucian, where the good of the individual is subjugated to the good of the whole.

- Ben Horowitz

Fortunately for India, it has got a growing economy. If it is doing the right things with taxation and focusing on the right areas for human development, it is going to have no problem, over a period of time, taking care of its own needs.

- Bill Gates

Networking is one of the most valuable uses of your time in terms of return—and not just in monetary terms.

- Business Insider.com

I’m very, very bullish about our prospects, and as I tell our board, as I tell our employees, this is the time to invest. There’s so much opportunity. Let’s just invest in that opportunity, and really get after it.

- Steve Ballmer

You have to have your heart in the business and the business in your heart.

- Thomas J Watson

I tell people that we must have the courage to share what we feel, but no one follows me.

- Tadashi Yanai

The final relationship that cannot be ignored is with disrupters: They are individuals who cause trouble for sport – inciting opposition to management for a variety of reasons, most of them petty. Usually these people have good performance – that’s their cover – and so they are endured or appeased. A company that manages people well takes disrupters head-on. First they give them very tough evaluations, naming their bad behaviour and demanding it change. Usually it won’t. Disrupters are a personality type. If that’s the case, get them out of the way of people trying to do their jobs. They’re poison.

- Jack Welch

We remain confident about the market opportunity ahead of us over the next three to five years.

- John Chambers

I DECLARE a legacy of faith over my life. I declare that I will store up blessings for future generations. My life is marked by excellence and integrity. Because I’m making right choices and taking steps of faith, others will want to follow me. God’s abundance is surrounding my life today. This is my declaration.

- Joel Olsteen

Luck plays a role in business but whether you succeed or fail depends on many other factors. I haven’t really had a failure.

- Lui Che Woo

This may sound a bit naive, but I got here by believing in big dreams.

- Howard Schultz

We’re still in a recession. We’re not gonna be out of it for a while, but we will get out.

- Warren Buffett

My wife and I tried to breakfast together, but we had to stop or our marriage would have been wrecked.

- 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

How dare you settle for less when the world has made it so easy for you to be remarkable?

- Seth Godin

People still think of me as a cartoonist, but the only thing I lift a pen or pencil for these days is to sign a contract, a check, or an autograph.

- Walt Disney

Dios ve el valor que usted tiene, y sabe en lo que le está convirtiendo. A veces nos miramos a nosotros mismos y pensamos: Tengo muchas imperfecciones. Tengo mal genio. Tengo un problema con mi boca. No soy tan disciplinado”. Vemos el barro, pero Dios ve la hermosa taza. La buena noticia es que usted no es un producto terminado. Dios sigue obrando, y si trabaja usted con Dios y le permite eliminar esas impurezas, Él hará más con su vida de lo que usted nunca soñó.

- Joel Olsteen

When we try to drill and practice someone into subservient obedience, we’re stamping out the artist that lives within.

- Seth Godin

God would not have put a dream in your heart if He had not already given you everything you need to fulfill it.

- Joel Olsteen

My experiences have been, from the very beginning, cultural and creative. And my business has been a way of exposing the culture, exposing the artists so that the world could hear and see them.

- Russell Simmons

I believe that one of life’s greatest risks is never daring to risk.

- Oprah Winfrey

By the end of the war (the civil war) John D. Rockefeller had established the foundations of his personal and professional life and was set to capitalize on the extraordinary opportunities beckoning him in postwar America. From this point forward, there would be no zigzags, or squandered energy, only a single-minded focus on objectives that would make him both the wonder and terror of American business.

- Ron Chernow

The typical factory-centric organization places a premium on not-wrong, and spends no time at all weeding out those who don’t start. In the networked economy, the innovation-focused organization has no choice but to obsess about those who don’t start. Today, not starting is far, far worse than being wrong. If you start, you’ve got a shot at evolving and adjusting to turn your wrong into a right. But if you don’t start, you never get a chance.

- Seth Godin

You can achieve difficult things, but you can’t achieve the impossible.

- Peter Thiel

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.

- Richard P. Feynman

If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success.

- James Cameron

It’s easier for investors and bosses to spend time and money going after a proven market, even though proven markets are the hardest to break into.

- Seth Godin

Dealing with people is probably the biggest problem you face, especially if you are in business.

- Dale Carnegie

The length of this document defends it well against the risk of its being read.

- Winston Churchill

Like technical debt, management debt comes in too many different forms to elaborate entirely, but a few salient examples will help explain the concept. Here are three of the more popular types among startups: 1. Putting two in the box 2. Overcompensating a key employee, because she gets another job offer 3. No performance management or employee feedback process

- Ben Horowitz

Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.

- Aristotle

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