Notable Quotables

Heretics must believe. More than anyone else in an organization, it’s the person who’s challenging the status quo, the one who is daring to be great, who is truly present and not just punching a clock who must have confidence in her beliefs.Can you imagine Steve Jobs showing up for the paycheck? It’s nice to get paid. It’s essential to believe.

- Seth Godin

Thinking about what might happen if we ran completely out of money—laying off all the employees that I’d so carefully selected and hired, losing all my investors’ money, jeopardizing all the customers who trusted us with their business—made it difficult to concentrate on the possibilities. Marc Andreessen attempted to cheer me up with a not-so-funny-at-the-time joke: Marc: “Do you know the best thing about startups?” Ben: “What?” Marc: “You only ever experience two emotions: euphoria and terror. And I find that lack of sleep enhances them both.

- Ben Horowitz

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, learning from failure.

- Colin Powell

I was reading an article in the ‘New York Times;’ it talked about being in the zone, and being in the zone you’re so focused that time ceases to exist. It’s when you think, ‘Oh, I’ve been doing this for five hours and didn’t even know it.’ It’s the difference between hard work and going, ’12 o’clock, not moving.’

- Steve Martin

Social entrepreneurs aim to combine the best of both worlds and “do well by doing good.” Usually they end up doing neither.

- Peter Thiel

Negative results are just what I want. They’re just as valuable to me as positive results. I can never find the thing that does the job best until I find the ones that don’t.

- Thomas Edison

God can do in a split second what might otherwise take you many years.

- Joel Olsteen

The politics of partisanship and the resulting inaction and excuses have paralyzed decision-making, primarily at the federal level, and the big issues of the day are not being addressed, leaving our future in jeopardy.

- Michael Bloomberg

For me, learning to my control my temper has been a lifelong process. So has the process of being will to take risks, make mistakes and be grateful for the other person, even if I may no longer speak to or do business with that person. When I reflect back on my life, I would say that it is this mental attitude that has made me the most money, has brought me the most success, and has ultimately allowed me to have the most magic in my life.

- Robert Kiyosaki

In order to lead a country or a company, you’ve got to get everybody on the same page and you’ve got to be able to have a vision of where you’re going. America can’t have a vision of health care for everybody, green economy, regulations – can’t have a bunch of piece-meal activities. It’s got to have a vision.

- Jack Welch

Owners don’t fire all the players. They fire the leader and bring in someone they hope the players will buy into.

- Napoleon Hill

Every enterprise requires commitment to common goals and shared values. Without such commitment there is no enterprise; there is only a mob. The enterprise must have simple, clear, and unifying objectives. The mission of the organization has to be clear enough and big enough to provide common vision. The goals that embody it have to be clear, public, and constantly reaffirmed. Management’s first job is to think through, set, and exemplify those objectives, values, and goals. Management.

- Peter Drucker

A little boy went out to the backyard to play with a baseball bat and a ball. He said to himself, I am the best hitter in the world.” Then he threw the ball up in the air and took a swing at it, but he missed. Without a moment’s hesitation, he picked up the ball and tossed it in the air again, saying as he swung the bat, I’m the best hitter in all the world.” He swung and missed. Strike two. He tossed the ball up again, concentrating more intensely, even more determined, saying, I am the best hitter in all the world!” He swung the bat with all his might. Whiff! Strike three. The little boy laid down his bat and smiled real big. What do you know?” he said. I’m the best pitcher in all the world!

- Joel Olsteen

You know you’re getting old when you get that one candle on the cake. It’s like, ‘See if you can blow this out.’

- Jerry Seinfeld

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

It takes a leader to create momentum. Followers catch it. And managers are able to continue it once it has begun. But creating it requires someone who can motivate others, not who needs to be motivated. Harry Truman once said, If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. But for leaders, that statement should be changed to, If you can’t make some heat, get out of the kitchen.

- John Maxwell

I have a calendar life that is complicated, so I use BusyCal and Google Calendar. I keep two different browsers open to avoid some confusion.

- Steve Wozniak

Slow Dance: Have you ever watched kids, On a merry-go-round? Or listened to the rain, Slapping on the ground? Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight? Or gazed at the sun into the fading night? You better slow down. Don’t dance too fast. Time is short. The music won’t last. Do you run through each day, On the fly? When you ask: How are you? Do you hear the reply? When the day is done, do you lie in your bed, With the next hundred chores, Running through your head? You’d better slow down, Don’t dance too fast. Time is short, The music won’t last. Ever told your child we’ll do it tomorrow? And in your haste, Not see his sorrow? Ever lost touch, Let a good friendship die, Cause you never had time, To call and say Hi? You’d better slow down. Don’t dance so fast. Time is short. The music won’t last. When you run so fast to get somewhere, You miss half the fun of getting there. When you worry and hurry through your day, It is like an unopened gift thrown away. Life is not a race. Do take it slower. Hear the music, Before the song is over.

- Timothy Ferriss

Good advertising should give the reader essential facts about the product or company advertised and should do so engagingly without trickery or hogwash.

- Leo Burnett

Poor people ride the bus, because they value money more than time.

- Robert Kiyosaki

In order to sell a product or a service, a company must establish a relationship with the consumer. It must build trust and rapport. It must understand the customer’s needs, and it must provide a product that delivers the promised benefits.

- Jay Conrad Levinson

Certainly I’ll never be able to put myself in the situation that people growing up in the less developed countries are in. I’ve gotten a bit of a sense of it by being out there and meeting people and talking with them.

- Bill Gates

You can live your life angry, bitter, mad at somebody or even guilty, not letting go of your own mistakes, but you won’t receive the good things God has in store.

- Joel Olsteen

People who have good relationships at home are more effective in the marketplace.

- Zig Ziglar

The fight against AIDS in China is already well underway. The Chinese government and other funders are providing major support, and they’ll continue to bear primary responsibility for delivering prevention and treatment.

- Bill Gates

Regulating and taxing marijuana would simultaneously save taxpayers billions of dollars in enforcement and incarceration costs, while providing many billions of dollars in revenue annually.

- George Soros

If you are satisfied with the results you are now getting, why change? If you are not satisfied, why not experiment?

- Dale Carnegie

If you look – look at – I mean, look at what’s going on with your gasoline prices. They’re going to go to $5, $6, $7 and we don’t have anybody in Washington that calls OPEC and says, ‘Fellas, it’s time. It’s over. You’re not going to do it anymore.’

- Donald Trump

Entrepreneurship is “risky” mainly because so few of the so-called entrepreneurs know what they are doing.

- Peter Drucker

Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war.

- Donald Trump

Money is not the motivating force. It’s nice to have money, but I don’t live high. What I enjoy is running the business.

- Rupert Murdoch

You can be committed to Church but not committed to Christ, but you cannot be committed to Christ and not committed to church.

- Joel Olsteen

In the States, there’s ESPN3, and each country has different options, and other than premiere league football, there tends to be very little global content. And movie and TV rights are pretty broad content.

- Reed Hastings

This is just going to be a great event and we have an outstanding speaker.

- Jack Taylor

Every time I read a management or self-help book, I find myself saying, “That’s fine, but that wasn’t really the hard thing about the situation.” The hard thing isn’t setting a big, hairy, audacious goal. The hard thing is laying people off when you miss the big goal. The hard thing isn’t hiring great people. The hard thing is when those “great people” develop a sense of entitlement and start demanding unreasonable things. The hard thing isn’t setting up an organizational chart. The hard thing is getting people to communicate within the organization that you just designed. The hard thing isn’t dreaming big. The hard thing is waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat when the dream turns into a nightmare.

- Ben Horowitz

What we want to watch is whether this is a short-term bump or not.

- John Chambers

The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

Quoting from Chapter 2 of the Sayings Of Confucius, ‘At 30, I stood firm; at 40, I had no more doubts.’ Time has its role to play in one’s behavior and how one conducts himself in society. With the passage of time, we master our lives better and become more refined and polished, step by step. At the age of 30, one can overcome difficulties. By the age of 40, one has thorough appreciation of and insights into the world and becomes firmly self-assured without being carried away by all those irregularities in life.

- Cheng Yu-tung

That’s why hiring consultants doesn’t work. Part-time employees don’t work. Even working remotely should be avoided, because misalignment can creep in whenever colleagues aren’t together full-time, in the same place, every day. If you’re deciding whether to bring someone on board, the decision is binary. Ken Kesey was right: you’re either on the bus or off the bus.

- Peter Thiel

Its never too late…to start heading in the right direction.

- Seth Godin

The Effective Executive itself is not a book on what people at the top do or should do. It is addressed to everyone who, as a knowledge worker, is responsible for actions and decisions which are meant to contribute to the performance capacity of his organization

- Peter Drucker

I could never have imagined that firing 67 people on national television would actually make me more popular, especially with the younger generation.

- Donald Trump

If you are a big company, a big website, and lots of users come to your website, you will have attacks, and you have to deal with that. It just cannot be a reason to take actions to exit certain markets.

- Robin Li

Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it yourself. Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To convince them, you must yourself, believe.

- Winston Churchill

The truth of Moore’s law has made remarkable things possible. On the software side, I think natural user interfaces in all their forms are equally significant.

- Bill Gates

In his rigidgly compartmentalized life, each hour was tightly budgeted, whether for business, religion, family or exercise. Perhaps those daily rituals helped him deal with the underlying tensions that might otherwise have become ungovernable, for although he tried to project to an air of unhurried calm, he was under terrific strain the surface, was constantly on edge. In one of his few admissions of weakness he recalled, for years on end I never had a solid night’s sleep, worrying about how it was to come out…I tossed about in bed night after night worrying over the outcome…All the fortune that I have made has not served to compensate for the anxiety of that period.

- Ron Chernow

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

People who enjoy what they are doing invariably do it well.

- Joe Gibbs

What is Oracle? It’s people. We rely on our HR department to build this organization, to help find those people, to help grow those people.

- Larry Ellison

If everything worth doing has already been done, you may as well feign an allergy to achievement and become a barista.

- Peter Thiel

Losing an A is a sin. Love ‘em, hug ‘em, kiss ‘em, don’t lose them! We conduct postmortems on every A we lose and hold management accountable for losses.

- Jack Welch

We are more fascinated today by statistical predictions of what the country will be thinking in a few weeks’ time than by visionary predictions of what the country will look like 10 or 20 years from now.

- Peter Thiel

A false transaction using my own people to buy the flat? I’ll make a bet with you. For every $10,000 you put down, I’ll wager $1 million.

- Lee Shau Kee

One thing is certain in business. You and everyone around you will make mistakes.

- Richard Branson

In contrast, investing time and energy in your relationship with your spouse and children typically doesn’t offer that same immediate sense of achievement. Kids misbehave every day. It’s really not until 20 years down the road that you can put your hands on your hips and say, “I raised a good son or a good daughter.” You can neglect your relationship with your spouse, and on a day-to-day basis, it doesn’t seem as if things are deteriorating. People who are driven to excel have this unconscious propensity to underinvest in their families and overinvest in their careers—even though intimate and loving relationships with their families are the most powerful and enduring source of happiness.

- Clayton M. Christensen

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

- Joel Olsteen

PRINCIPLE 1 The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it. PRINCIPLE 2 Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, You’re wrong.” PRINCIPLE 3 If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically. PRINCIPLE 4 Begin in a friendly way. PRINCIPLE 5 Get the other person saying yes, yes” immediately. PRINCIPLE 6 Let the other person do a great deal of the talking. PRINCIPLE 7 Let the other person feel that the idea.

- Dale Carnegie

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

Planning is arrogant and inflexible. Instead you should try things out.

- Peter Thiel

At the age of 30, one can overcome difficulties. By the age of 40, one has thorough appreciation of and insights into the world and becomes firmly self-assured without being carried away by all those irregularities in life.

- Cheng Yu-tung

For me, privacy and security are really important. We think about it in terms of both: You can’t have privacy without security.

- Larry Page

Our goal is very simply to become the desktop for e-businesses.

- Larry Ellison

and the rare individual who honestly satisfies this heart hunger will hold people in the palm of his or her hand”

- Dale Carnegie

Leadership is not about titles, positions or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.

- John C. Maxwell

I believe entertainment can aspire to be art, and can become art, but if you set out to make art you’re an idiot.

- Steve Martin

I don’t think of myself as a poor deprived ghetto girl who made good. I think of myself as somebody who from an early age knew I was responsible for myself, and I had to make good, but on a practical level having dealt with being abandoned by your father, being raised by your alcoholic mom and having severe physical disabilities even today, How do you choose to have the right thoughts?

- Oprah Winfrey

The Four Levels of Comedy: Make your friends laugh, Make strangers laugh, Get paid to make strangers laugh, and Make people talk like you because it’s so much fun.

- Jerry Seinfeld

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

After my death, I want to be remembered as Africa’s greatest industrialist.

- Aliko Dangote

You know, the diversity that America has is so special. It’s starting to really become a cool thing for young people.

- Russell Simmons

Note to self: It’s a good idea to ask, “What am I not doing?”

- Ben Horowitz

Rich is my word for someone who can afford to make choices, who has enough resources to do more than merely survive.

- Seth Godin

The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail.

- Napoleon Hill

God can cause opportunity to find you. He has unexpected blessings where you suddenly meet the right person, or suddenly your health improves, or suddenly you’re able to pay off your house. That’s God shifting things in your favor.

- Joel Olsteen

An enterprise shall take care of the people’s livelihood, through thick and thin…

- Cheng Yu-tung

We cannot start over, but we can begin now, and make a new beginning.

- Zig Ziglar

As you begin changing your thinking, start immediately to change your behavior. Begin to act the part of the person you would like to become. Take action on your behavior. Too many people want to feel, then take action. This never works.

- John C. Maxwell

With the addition of these volumes, our Gulf Coast region is off to a good start for 2006 in its effort to grow its production. Combined, all regions are now showing growth in both production and reserves which is very attractive, especially considering the organic strategy on which we have predominately focused.

- Dan Dinges

Man was designed for accomplishment, engineered for success, and endowed with the seeds of greatness.

- Zig Ziglar

Where does the family start? It starts with a young man falling in love with a girl – no superior alternative has yet been found.

- Winston Churchill

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