Notable Quotables

Monopolists downplay their monopoly status to avoid scrutiny, while competitive firms strategically exaggerate their uniqueness.

- Peter Thiel

It was character that got us out of bed, commitment that moved us into action, and discipline that enabled us to follow through.

- Zig Ziglar

I think Yahoo is a great company, with great assets.

- Jack Ma

I think the positive competition between states in India is one of the most positive dynamics that the country has.

- Bill Gates

In my experience, an effective mission statement basically answers one question: How do we intend to win in this business?

- Jack Welch

I like to live in the past. I don’t think people are going to get much fun in the future.

- Winston Churchill

I’m a cynic about corporate democracy and boards.

- Carl Icahn

When you’re in comedy, people always come up and say, ‘Oh, it must be so hard.’ It really isn’t hard unless you’re not good at it. If you can do it, its really kind of fun and easy.

- Jerry Seinfeld

Good management consists in showing average people how to do the work of superior people.

- John D. Rockefeller

Nike is a marketing-oriented company, and the product is our most important marketing tool.

- Phil Knight

When you become a leader success is all about growing others.

- Jack Welch

I don’t think we like the precedent of it, and so we’re fighting it. I think we’re right.

- Sergey Brin

The Group launched the ‘Create a New World for Children’ Corporate Alliance Campaign with UNICEF in August 2003 to help and ease the plight of the underprivileged in our society. We both share the same commitment in creating a better environment for disadvantaged children and improving their education opportunities.

- Cheng Yu-tung

You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war. – To Neville Chamberlain

- Winston Churchill

I don’t know why you should be proud of something. It doesn’t make you any better or worse. You are what you are.

- Michael Bloomberg

Tom Paine has almost no influence on present-day thinking in the United States because he is unknown to the average citizen. Perhaps I might say right here that this is a national loss and a deplorable lack of understanding concerning the man who first proposed and first wrote those impressive words, ‘the United States of America.’But it is hardly strange.Paine’s teachings have been debarred from schools everywhere and his views of life misrepresented until his memory is hidden in shadows, or he is looked upon as of unsound mind.We never had a sounder intelligence in this Republic. He was the equal of Washington in making American liberty possible. Where Washington performed Paine devised and wrote. The deeds of one in the Weld were matched by the deeds of the other with his pen.Washington himself appreciated Paine at his true worth. Franklin knew him for a great patriot and clear thinker. He was a friend and confidant of Jefferson, and the two must often have debated the academic and practical phases of liberty.I consider Paine our greatest political thinker. As we have not advanced, and perhaps never shall advance, beyond the Declaration and Constitution, so Paine has had no successors who extended his principles. Although the present generation knows little of Paine’s writings, and although he has almost no influence upon contemporary thought, Americans of the future will justly appraise his work. I am certain of it.Truth is governed by natural laws and cannot be denied. Paine spoke truth with a peculiarly clear and forceful ring. Therefore time must balance the scales. The Declaration and the Constitution expressed in form Paine’s theory of political rights. He worked in Philadelphia at the time that the first document was written, and occupied a position of intimate contact with the nation’s leaders when they framed the Constitution.Certainly we may believe that Washington had a considerable voice in the Constitution. We know that Jefferson had much to do with the document. Franklin also had a hand and probably was responsible in even larger measure for the Declaration. But all of these men had communed with Paine. Their views were intimately understood and closely correlated. There is no doubt whatever that the two great documents of American liberty reflect the philosophy of Paine….Then Paine wrote ‘Common Sense,’ an anonymous tract which immediately stirred the fires of liberty. It flashed from hand to hand throughout the Colonies. One copy reached the New York Assembly, in session at Albany, and a night meeting was voted to answer this unknown writer with his clarion call to liberty. The Assembly met, but could find no suitable answer. Tom Paine had inscribed a document which never has been answered adversely, and never can be, so long as man esteems his priceless possession.In ‘Common Sense’ Paine flared forth with a document so powerful that the Revolution became inevitable. Washington recognized the difference, and in his calm way said that matters never could be the same again. It must be remembered that ‘Common Sense’ preceded the declaration and affirmed the very principles that went into the national doctrine of liberty. But that affirmation was made with more vigor, more of the fire of the patriot and was exactly suited to the hour… Certainly [the Revolution] could not be forestalled, once he had spoken.

- Thomas Edison

If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old.

- Peter Drucker

Entrepreneurs are like visionaries. One of the ways they run forward is by viewing the thing they’re doing as something that’s going to be the whole world.

- Reid Hoffman

Understand that the right to choose your own path is a sacred privilege. Use it. Dwell in possibility.

- Oprah Winfrey

Outsiders are fascinated by the great fortunes being made inside China, but they pay less attention to the wealthy Chinese trying hard to get their money out of the country. Poorer Chinese just save everything they can and hope it will be enough. Every class of people in China takes the future deadly seriously.

- Peter Thiel

The decent method you follow is better than the perfect method you quit.

- Timothy Ferriss

Certainly there’s a phenomenon around open source. You know free software will be a vibrant area. There will be a lot of neat things that get done there.

- Bill Gates

If you treat your wife like a thoroughbred, you’ll never end up with a nag.

- Zig Ziglar

Money doesn’t change you, it reveals who you are when you no longer have to be nice.

- Timothy Ferriss

And people who take risk intelligently can usually actually make a lot more progress than people who don’t.

- Reid Hoffman

Decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.

- Winston Churchill

Every time I find myself stressed out, it’s because I do things primarily driven by growth.

- Timothy Ferriss

While formal schooling is an important advantage, it is not a guarantee of success nor is its absence a fatal handicap.

- Ray Kroc

People always fear change. People feared electricity when it was invented, didn’t they? People feared coal, they feared gas-powered engines… There will always be ignorance, and ignorance leads to fear. But with time, people will come to accept their silicon masters.

- Bill Gates

Faith is about trusting God when you have unanswered questions.

- Joel Olsteen

Innovations that are guided by smallholder farmers, adapted to local circumstances, and sustainable for the economy and environment will be necessary to ensure food security in the future.

- Bill Gates

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

Nobody believes in completely unadulterated capitalism.

- Bill Gates

The companies that work are the ones that people really care about and have a vision for the world so do something you like.

- Mark Zuckerberg

I learned about why startups should train their people when I worked at Netscape. People at McDonald’s get trained for their positions, but people with far more complicated jobs don’t. It makes no sense.

- Ben Horowitz

Nobody wants to buy a $60,000 electric Civic. But people will pay $90,000 for an electric sports car.

- Elon Musk

If you aim at nothing you will hit every time.

- Zig Ziglar

What consumerism really is, at its worst is getting people to buy things that don’t actually improve their lives.

- Jeff Bezos

Like any well designed software product, Windows is designed, developed and tested as an integrated whole.

- Bill Gates

Winning is better than losing, but everybody loses when the war isn’t one worth fighting.

- Peter Thiel

We were trading things before we were using language to communicate.

- Jack Dorsey

Start believing today that things are going to change for the better. Your best days are still out in front of you.

- Joel Olsteen

He listened closely to what people said and filed away as much information as he could, repeating valuable information to himself until it was memorized. There was humility in this eagerness to learn. As he said, It is very important to remember what other people tell you, not so much what you yourself already know.

- Ron Chernow

There is no man living that can not do more than he thinks he can.

- Henry Ford

Vince McMahon is one of the greatest storytellers of all time, but WWE’s not striving for the kind of innovation it’s capable of.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

We just tried to get our shoes on the feet of runners.

- Phil Knight

A valuable business must start by finding a niche and dominating a small market.

- Peter Thiel

The smarter the journalists are, the better off society is. For to a degree, people read the press to inform themselves – and the better the teacher, the better the student body.

- Warren Buffett

When you have no one to answer to, vendetta as investment strategy is as legitimate as anything.

- Carl Icahn

U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt has been described as founder of the Bull Moose Party, the man who led his troops up San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War, a big game hunter, family man, civic servant and a host of other things.

- Zig Ziglar

Un cambio de actitud Lo que diferencia a los individuos exitosos de aquellos que languidecen es exactamente lo mismo que separa a las organizaciones innovadoras y en crecimiento de aquellas que se estancan y mueren. Los ganadores han convertido la iniciativa en una pasión y en una práctica. Adelante, prepara una lista de las personas y organizaciones a las que admiras. Apuesto a que el séptimo imperativo es lo que las hace destacar. Como ves, el reto no consiste en perfeccionar tu capacidad de saber cuándo empezar o cuándo mantenerte al margen, sino en adoptar la costumbre de empezar.

- Seth Godin

I have plenty of money to do what I want to do, and I have the relationships.

- Timothy Ferriss

Younglings, younglings gather ’round.

- Yoda

Good executives never put off until tomorrow what they can get someone else to do today.

- John C. Maxwell

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

Where my reason, imagination or interest were not engaged, I would not or I could not learn.

- Winston Churchill

The goal is to get the buyer to like and trust you.

- Clay Clark

My mother taught me something at a young age – she said ‘you are the company you keep’. To define yourself by some label or some level of resources – that’s pretty shallow.

- Howard Schultz

I hope you will take good care of your health, this is religious duty, and you can accomplish so much for the world if you keep well and strong.

- John D. Rockefeller

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

The timing of your decision is just as important as the decision you make.

- John C. Maxwell

I’m trying to make God more relevant in our society.

- Joel Olsteen

You can dramatize your ideas in business or in any other aspect of your life. It’s easy.

- Dale Carnegie

Only the Dark Lord of the Sith knows of our weakness. If informed the senate is, multiply our adversaries will.

- Yoda

Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it.

- Oprah Winfrey

Another challenge is a phenomenon that I call the Law of Crappy People. The Law of Crappy People states: For any title level in a large organization, the talent on that level will eventually converge to the crappiest person with the title.

- Ben Horowitz

I can’t give you a surefire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time.

- Herbert Bayard Swope

I said, ‘I’m not asking your permission, I’m just telling you, I need someone to look up to. You’re my new hero.’

- Phil Knight

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

Most of us have never felt at a disadvantage because we did not receive any inheritance. About 80 percent of us are first-generation affluent.

- Thomas J Stanley

No one knows more about the way you think than you do.

- Seth Godin

My role has been to pick good people and give them the maximum authority and responsibility.

- Sam Walton

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

the best possible way to prepare for tomorrow is to concentrate with all your intelligence, all your enthusiasm, on doing today’s work superbly today. That is the only possible way you can prepare for the future.

- Dale Carnegie

The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.

- Richard Branson

Don’t make excuses, don’t blame the past. The rest of your life can be the best of your life!

- Joel Olsteen

Because there have been no settlements reached for the securities action with any of the less-involved banks, it is difficult to know what reserves are prudent.

- Ed Clark

A movement is thrilling. It’s the work of many people, all connected, all seeking something better.

- Seth Godin

Being educated in the United States gave me a good understanding of American culture. I think I got a lot of influence from the entrepreneurial mind in the United States.

- Masayoshi Son

I have the favor of God. I can do all things through Christ. I am blessed. I’m strong. I’m healthy.

- Joel Olsteen

If you believe you will fail, there is no hope for you. You will.

- Dale Carnegie

There are a lot of things that go into creating success. I don’t like to do just the things I like to do. I like to do things that cause the company to succeed. I don’t spend a lot of time doing my favorite activities.

- Michael Dell

Feedback

Let us know what's going on.

Get Started

Your first month is ONLY $1!

You will be redirected to your dashboard in a moment.

Fill out the information below to cancel your subscription