Notable Quotables

I will speak ill of no man, and speak all the good I know of everybody.

- Dale Carnegie

Failure comes part and parcel with invention. It’s not optional. We understand that and believe in failing early and iterating until we get it right. When this process works, it means our failures are relatively small in size (most experiments can start small), and when we hit on something that is really working for customers, we double-down on it with hopes to turn it into an even bigger success.

- Jeff Bezos

When you focus on being a blessing, God makes sure that you are always blessed in abundance.

- Joel Olsteen

I’m not an actor who appears on the stage and gives people advice on how to live or what to do and entertains them. It is not my specialty.

- Vagit Alekperov

The future of the world’s film industry is in China because we have 1.3 billion people.

- Wang Jianlin

Letting the other person feel that the idea is his or hers not only works in business and politics, it works in family life as well.

- Dale Carnegie

It’s Microsoft versus mankind, with Microsoft having only a slight lead.

- Larry Ellison

Trying to read our DNA is like trying to understand software code – with only 90% of the code riddled with errors. It’s very difficult in that case to understand and predict what that software code is going to do.

- Elon Musk

The real question for me is, do people have the tools that they need in order to make those decisions well? And I think that it’s actually really important that Facebook continually makes it easier and easier to make those decisions… If people feel like they don’t have control over how they’re sharing things, then we’re failing them.

- Mark Zuckerberg

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

- Carl Icahn

A successful manager told me that stopped wearing a watch. She found that the work was so immersive, anchoring it to whatever hour it happened to be was pointless. The watch reminded her of the rigors of appointments and the status quo, while her goal was to be there, right here, right now, in the moment, and to do the work in front of her. The watch had no role in doing that right, so, for now, it’s gone.

- Seth Godin

If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians.

- Warren Buffett

The ideal thing would be to have a 100 percent effective AIDS vaccine. And to have broad usage of that vaccine. That would literally break the epidemic.

- Bill Gates

To be sure, the fundamental task of management remains the same: to make people capable of joint performance through common goals, common values, the right structure, and the training and development they need to perform and to respond to change.

- Peter Drucker

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

The more you like yourself, the less you are like anyone else, which makes you unique.

- Walt Disney

A magnificent blueprint, a loyal team and a well-coordinated organization… the same applies from ruling a country to maintaining a family.

- Cheng Yu-tung

This morning did you wake up to an alarm clock, or an “opportunity” clock?

- Zig Ziglar

I loved doing ‘Pennies from Heaven.’ Because you have to understand that I’d been doing comedy for 15 to 20 years, and suddenly along came the opportunity to do this beautiful film. It was so emotional to me. I loved it. I don’t think it was a good career move, but I have no regrets about doing it.

- Steve Martin

I spend a lot of time reading.”-Bill Gates, Entrepreneur and founder of Microsoft

- Bill Gates

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, and do more and become more, you are a leader.

- John Quincy Adams

Without the computer, Sam Walton could not have done what he’s done. HE could not have built it. He’s done a lot of other things right too, but he could have done it without the computer,. It would have been possible.

- Abe Marks

So the rare individual who unselfishly tries to serve others has an enormous advantage.

- Dale Carnegie

If you believe in what you are doing, then let nothing hold you up in your work. Much of the best work of the world has been done against seeming impossibilities. The thing is to get the work done.

- Dale Carnegie

The difference between blues, jazz, rock n’ roll and rap is that rap stayed poor. Even the white rappers are poor. It’s scarier to look at poor people; it makes everyone uncomfortable. Their pain is something that people would like to see swept under the rug.

- Russell Simmons

The malaria parasite has been killing children and sapping the strength of whole populations for tens of thousands of years. It is impossible to calculate the harm malaria has done to the world.

- Bill Gates

It is expected that Mainland China’s entry to the World Trade Organisation will materialise in the near future and the country will see further growth in its economy unfolding at a faster pace.

- Lee Shau Kee

Do extremely difficult work.That seems obvious, right? If you do something that’s valued but scarce because it’s difficult, you’re more likely to be in demand and to be compensated fairly for what you do.The implication is stunning, though: When designing a project or developing a skill, seek out the most difficult parts to master and contribute. If it’s easy, it’s not for you.

- Seth Godin

I support health care for people. I want people well taken care of. But I also want health care that we can afford as a country. I have people and friends closing down their businesses because of Obamacare.

- Donald Trump

Some people, through luck and skill, end up with a lot of assets. If you’re good at kicking a ball, writing software, investing in stocks, it pays extremely well.

- Bill Gates

In my experience as CEO, I found that the most important decisions tested my courage far more than my intelligence.

- Ben Horowitz

The polar opposite business cliché warns that “the best product doesn’t always win.

- Peter Thiel

If you can’t be a pine on the top of the hill.Be a scrub in the valley-but beThe best little scrub by the side of the rill;Be a bush, if you can’t be a tree.If you can’t be a bush, be a bit of the grass.If you can’t be a muskie, then just be a bass-But the liveliest bass in the lake!We can’t all be captains, we’ve got to be crew.There’s something for all of us here.There’s big work to do and there’s lesser to doAnd the task we must do is the near.If you can’t be a highway, then just be a trail,If you can’t be the sun, be a star;It isn’t by the size that you win or you fail-Be the best of whatever you are!

- Douglas Malloch

Don’t kill competition. Competition is healthy for businesses. It keeps you – the entrepreneur – on your toes.

- Aliko Dangote

God is a good God, and He gives good things to his children. No matter who has denigrated you or how much pain you’ve experienced in life, no matter how many setbacks you have suffered, you cannot allow yourself to accept that as the way life is supposed to be. No, God has better things in store for you. You must reprogram your mind with God’s word; change that negative, defeated self-image, and start seeing yourself as winning, coming out on top. Start seeing that marriage as restored. See your business as flourishing. See your children as enjoying the good things of God. You must see it through your eyes of faith, and then it will begin to happen.

- Joel Olsteen

Transparency is terribly important in a situation like this, as a quick reaction time, because news today is not immediate. It travels globally on the Internet. In our YouTube culture, dramatic videos take on a life of their own, beyond anyone’s control. – (on crisis management)

- David Novak

It’s almost always harder to raise capital than you thought it would be, and it always takes longer. So plan for that.

- Richard Harroch

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

He has always been like this. His mind works ten times faster than everybody’s else’s. I mean he just gets going and stays two or three jumps ahead, and he’s quick to go with what’s on his mind. If he gets something in his mind that needs to be done – regardless of what else might have been planned – the new idea takes priority, and it has to be done now. Everybody has their angenda already scheduled, and then bang! He just calls a meeting on something. (on CEO leadership and management with speed)

- Loretta Boss Parker

The cost of being wrong is less than the cost of doing nothing.

- Seth Godin

I very much believe the Internet is indeed all it is cracked up to be.

- Jeff Bezos

Animation can explain whatever the mind of man can conceive. This facility makes it the most versatile and explicit means of communication yet devised for quick mass appreciation.

- Walt Disney

If only the people who worry about their liabilities would think about the riches they do possess, they would stop worrying.

- Dale Carnegie

Success (a win) doesn’t make you, and failure (a loss) doesn’t make you.

- Zig Ziglar

But the three rules I always stuck with were 1) Be on time 2) No profanity and 3) Never criticize a teammate.

- David Novak

Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body; it calls attention to the development of an unhealthy state of things. If it is heeded in time, danger may be averted; if it is suppressed, a fatal distemper may develop.

- Winston Churchill

Today, if you want to access a typical out-of-print book, you have only one choice – fly to one of a handful of leading libraries in the country and hope to find it in the stacks.

- Sergey Brin

It does matter what you do. You should focus relentlessly on something you’re good at doing, but before that you must think hard about whether it will be valuable in the future.

- Peter Thiel

The most contrarian thing of all is not to oppose the crowd but to think for yourself.

- Peter Thiel

My biggest crisis is that I don’t understand what young people like.

- Ma Huateng

He possessed a sense of calling in both religion and business, with Christianity and capitalism forming the twin pillars of his life.

- Ron Chernow

Look after the customers and the business will take care of itself.

- Ray Kroc

Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.

- Oprah Winfrey

Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure.

- Thomas J Watson

The moral systems of religion, I think, are super important.

- Bill Gates

India has rapidly risen to become a major force in the global economy.

- John Chambers

My ultimate dream is for the Irvine Ranch to be known and celebrated as much for the outstanding communities we’ve planned and built as it is for what is not developed. The beneficiary being the 50,000 acres of undeveloped land that is now permanently preserved and conserved as Open Space and parklands.

- Donald Bren

We have more than six and one-half times the level of wealth of our non-millionaire neighbors, but, in our neighborhood, these non-millionaires outnumber us better than three to one. Could it be that they have chosen to trade wealth for acquiring high-status material possessions?

- The Millionaire Next Door

You can’t build a strong corporation with a lot of committees and a board that has to be consulted every turn. You have to be able to make decisions on your own.

- Rupert Murdoch

You’ve been destined to live in victory, destined to overcome, destined to leave your mark on this generation.

- Joel Olsteen

Strive to make every person feel special. After all, every person you meet is made in the image of God.

- Joel Olsteen

It was much easier to reach a few thousand people who really needed our product than to try to compete for the attention of millions of scattered individuals.

- Peter Thiel

Now at this very moment I knew that the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all! … How long the war would last or in what fashion it would end no man could tell, nor did I at this moment care … We should not be wiped out. Our history would not come to an end … Hitler’s fate was sealed. Mussolini’s fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to a powder. All the rest was merely the proper application of overwhelming force.

- Winston Churchill

If you don’t let people flourish in their jobs, why are they going to stay?

- Joel Olsteen

Why settle for the ‘get by’ when in the long run the good costs less?

- Zig Ziglar

The first step in solving a problem is to recognize that it does exist.

- Zig Ziglar

In a world where wealth is growing, you can get away with printing money. Doubling the debt over the next 20 years is not a problem.

- Peter Thiel

Obviously I knew it was a great opportunity but I wasn’t expecting something as big as right now, what we see in Macau.

- Lui Che Woo

What this implies at a deeper level is that many of what are now widely accepted principles of good management are, in fact, only situationally appropriate. There are times at which it is right not to listen to customers, right to invest in developing lower-performance products that promise lower margins, and right to aggressively pursue small, rather than substantial, markets.

- Clayton M. Christensen

People define Christianity differently. I think a large portion of our population are Christians, they’re not all growing in their faith, they’re not all active, but I believe that a lot of people believe in Jesus and believe that he is their Lord and Savior.

- Joel Olsteen

True happiness… is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

- Helen Keller

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

Just because something doesn’t do what you planned it to do doesn’t mean it’s useless.

- Thomas Edison

What kind of business world are we living in?

- Jack Ma

A man must choose his own way of life, and…it is only by following out one’s own bent that there can be the really harmonious life.

- Winston Churchill

Disruptive companies often pick fights they can’t win.

- Peter Thiel

Windows 8 is key to the future, the Surface computer.

- Bill Gates

[B]y being so long in the lowest form I gained an immense advantage over the cleverer boys. They all went on to learn Latin and Greek and splendid things like that. But I was taught English. We were considered such dunces that we could learn only English. Mr. Somervell — a most delightful man, to whom my debt is great — was charged with the duty of teaching the stupidest boys the most disregarded thing — namely, to write mere English. He knew how to do it. He taught it as no one else has ever taught it. Not only did we learn English parsing thoroughly, but we also practised continually English analysis. . . Thus I got into my bones the essential structure of the ordinary British sentence — which is a noble thing. And when in after years my schoolfellows who had won prizes and distinction for writing such beautiful Latin poetry and pithy Greek epigrams had to come down again to common English, to earn their living or make their way, I did not feel myself at any disadvantage. Naturally I am biased in favour of boys learning English. I would make them all learn English: and then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honour, and Greek as a treat. But the only thing I would whip them for would be not knowing English. I would whip them hard for that.

- Winston Churchill

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

- Ben Horowitz

In Riyadh, there’s going to be a huge project that will house at least 12,000 units with inhabitants of approximately 150,000 people. It’s like a city within a city.

- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud

I come back to the same thing: We’ve got the greatest pipeline in the company’s history in the next 12 months, and we’ve had the most amazing financial results possible over the last five years, and we’re predicting being back at double-digit revenue growth in fiscal year ’06.

- Steve Ballmer

Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

- Winston Churchill

Level 5 leaders are a study in duality: modest and willful, humble and fearless.

- James C. Collins

Well, I am a Republican, and I would run as a Republican. And I have a lot of confidence in the Republican Party. I don’t have a lot of confidence in the president. I think what’s happening to this country is unbelievably bad. We’re no longer a respected country.

- Donald Trump

The real estate market in mainland China, however, experienced a dramatic change during the past year. In the second half of 2007, transacted prices in many cities had been repeatedly bid up to all time highs as a result of fierce competition at land auctions. The subsequent upsurge in housing prices, which were beyond the affordability of the general public, resulted in an overheated property market.

- Lee Shau Kee

What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts to each new twist of fate.

- Donald Trump

The job isn’t to catch up to the status quo, the job is to invent the status quo.

- Seth Godin

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

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