A long while ago, a great warrior faced a situation which made it necessary for him to make a decision which insured his success on the battlefield. He was about to send his armies against a powerful foe, whose men outnumbered his own. He loaded his soldiers into boats, sailed to the enemy’s country, unloaded soldiers and equipment, then gave the order to burn the ships that had carried them. Addressing his men before the first battle, he said, ‘You see the boats going up in smoke. That means that we cannot leave these shores alive unless we win! We now have no choice—we win, or we perish!’ They won. Every person who wins in any undertaking must be willing to burn his ships and cut all sources of retreat. Only by so doing can one be sure of maintaining that state of mind known as a burning desire to win, essential to success.
- Napoleon Hill
Notable Quotables
Getting fired, despite sometimes coming as a surprise and leaving you scrambling to recover, is often a godsend. Most people aren’t lucky enough to get fired and die a slow spiritual death over 30-40 years of tolerating the mediocre.
- Timothy Ferriss
The average person puts only 25% of his energy and ability into his work. The world takes off its hat to those who put in more than 50% of their capacity, and stands on its head for those few and far between souls who devote 100%.
- Andrew Carnegie
Gays are some of the nicest, kindest, most loving people in the world.
- Joel Olsteen
I want to be able to speak with errors in my wording, errors in my grammar. When you type things into Google search, it corrects your words. With speech, I want it to be general enough, smart enough, to know ‘No, he couldn’t have meant these words that I think he said. He must have really meant something similar.’
- Steve Wozniak
China and India will, separately and together, unleash an explosion of demand.
- Mukesh Ambani
Markets are constantly in a state of uncertainty and flux and money is made by discounting the obvious and betting on the unexpected.
- George Soros
I move onward, the only direction Can’t be scared to fail in search of perfection.
- Jay-Z
Stand-up is hard. Or to keep it at a certain level is hard: I have no writers but me.
- Jerry Seinfeld
After all God doesn’t want you to be an imitation of someone else. You should be the original you were created to be. There is an anointing on your life, an empowerment. Not to be somebody else, but to be you. If you let people squeeze you into their molds and you bow down to their pressure to try to please your critics, it not only takes away your uniqueness, but it also lessens the favor on your life.
- Joel Olsteen
I was born on the other side of the tracks, in public housing in Brooklyn, New York. My dad never made more than $20,000 a year, and I grew up in a family that lost health insurance. So I was scarred at a young age with understanding what it was like to watch my parents lose access to the American dream.
- Howard Schultz
just like most nightmares, it’s not that big a deal and is reversible.
- Timothy Ferriss
If that doesn’t seem dominant enough, consider the fact that the word “google” is now an official entry in the Oxford English Dictionary—as a verb.
- Peter Thiel
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
I’m not looking for a legacy, and you’ll never shut up the critics. I’ve been around 50 years. When you’re a catalyst for change, you make enemies – and I’m proud of the ones I’ve got.
- Rupert Murdoch
If you’re going through hell, keep going.
- Winston Churchill
People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.
- Andrew Carnegie
I find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls success.
- Thomas Edison
The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee and I will pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun.
- John D. Rockefeller
You learn how to be book smart in school, but you better not forget that you also need to be street smart.
- Harvey Mackay
This approach appeals to the media’s innate curiosity.Whereas a fastball stresses logic over emotion, the curveball stresses emotion over logic.
- Michael Levine
Every day were saying, ‘How can we keep this customer happy?’ How can we get ahead in innovation by doing this, because if we don’t, somebody else will.
- Bill Gates
The passion for art is, as for believers, very religious. It unites people, its message is of common humanity. Art has become my religion – others pray in church. It’s a banality, but you don’t possess art, it possesses you. It’s like falling in love.
- Francois Pinault
There are two ways to extend a business. Take inventory of what you’re good at and extend out from your skills. Or determine what your customers need and work backward, even if it requires learning new skills. Kindle is an example of working backward.
- Jeff Bezos
If people like you they’ll listen to you, but if they trust you they’ll do business with you.
- Zig Ziglar
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
The wars of people will be more terrible than those of kings.
- Winston Churchill
Self-centered leaders manipulate when they move people for personal benefit. Mature leaders motivate by moving people for mutual benefit.
- John C. Maxwell
You never know when a moment and a few sincere words can have an impact on a life.
- Zig Ziglar
In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might.
- Winston Churchill
For every ailment under the sun, There is a remedy, or there is none; If there be one, try to find it; If there be none, never mind it.
- Dale Carnegie
Sam hired me in 1970 as a district manager in charge of new store openings. He had eighteen Wal-Marts and some variety stores doing about $31 million a year. I moved my family and as the van was unloading furniture into our rented house, they called from the office and said, Can you set up this new store in Missouri? My wife, who had three babies and a moving van to deal with, helped me find some clothes and I left. I didn’t see her again for two weeks. Then there was a managers’ meeting so I didn’t see her again for two more weeks. It would be safe to say that in those days we all worked a minimum of 16 hours a day.
- Jack Shewmaker
If you don’t set the tone for the day, the devil will set it for you.
- Joel Olsteen
There is no class so pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else.
- Andrew Carnegie
The thing you fear most has no power. Your fear of it is what has the power. Facing the truth really will set you free.
- Oprah Winfrey
Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Don’t Walter Cronkite me!
- Jack Welch
If you go back to 1800, everybody was poor. I mean everybody. The Industrial Revolution kicked in, and a lot of countries benefited, but by no means everyone.
- Bill Gates
Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
We just want to have great people working for us.
- Sergey Brin
when the fierce, burning winds blow over our lives-and we cannot prevent them-let us, too, accept the inevitable. And then get busy and pick up the pieces.
- Dale Carnegie
We are making these changes at a time when we are beginning to see signs that our business is stabilizing.
- John Chambers
There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
A man has not right to occupy another man’s time unnnecessary
- Ron Chernow
I believe that everyone is the keeper of a dream – and by tuning into one another’s secret hopes, we can become better friends, better partners, better parents, and better lovers.
- Oprah Winfrey
It would be nice to design a real briefcase – you open it up and it’s your computer but it also stores your books.
- Steve Wozniak
It is those who concentrate on but one thing at a time who advance in this world. The great man or woman is the one who never steps outside his or her specialty or foolishly dissipates his or her individuality.
- Og Mandino
If it’s a good idea, someone has already probably thought about it first.
- Jack Nadel
Call it the emergence of a “world’s bank” – a system built by and for the people, delivering credit in America and across the globe in a radically decentralized, highly scalable, and crucially equitable way. The World Bank funds institutions.The world’s bank funds people.
- Reid Hoffman
The lizard isn’t listening and the lizard doesn’t care.
- Seth Godin
It’s not how much money you make, but how much money you keep, how hard it works for you, and how many generations you keep it for.
- Robert Kiyosaki
As a rule, theory does not precede practice. Its role is to structure and codify already proven practice. Its role is to convert the isolated and “atypical” from exception to “rule” and “system,” and therefore into something that can be learned and taught and, above all, into something that can be generally applied.
- Peter Drucker
No leader enjoys making the tough decision. We constantly faced severe resistence from even the best people in our organization. I’ve struggled with this problem myself and have often been guilty of not being rigorous enough. Every impulse is to look the other way.
- Jack Welch
If my mother hadn’t been the most patient person in the world, I might never have gone to school.
- Ben Horowitz
What has changed is that people have stopped working together.
- Michael Bloomberg
The world is changing… I don’t, as a consumer, want advertising that’s not relevant. If we’re going to take a side, let’s take the side of the consumer.
- Charles Ergen
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
Profitability is a shallow goal if it doesn’t have a real purpose, and the purpose has to be share the profits with others.
- Howard Schultz
It will change the way we work, live, play and learn.
- John Chambers
Relatively few people should start companies.
- Reid Hoffman
I started thinking about joy. Everything in our society is so purposeful. Let’s bring joy back to the experience.
- Sara Blakely
What you receive is directly connected to what you believe.
- Joel Olsteen
Making small changes to things that already exist might lead you to a local maximum, but it won’t help you find the global maximum.
- Peter Thiel
I am amazed that CNN can’t get its act together.
- Rupert Murdoch
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism.
- Winston Churchill
For all of the most important things, the timing always sucks. Waiting for a good time to quit your job? The stars will never align and the traffic lights of life will never all be green at the same time. The universe doesn’t conspire against you, but it doesn’t go out of its way to line up the pins either. Conditions are never perfect. ‘Someday’ is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. Pro and con lists are just as bad. If it’s important to you and you want to do it ‘eventually’, just do it and correct course along the way.
- Timothy Ferriss
It is important that all of us, however old or young, have a mindset that enables us to capture all the opportunities that changes in the world are bringing to us. A mindset that is characterized by creativity and initiative, harnessed by focus and discipline. In our company, this mindset is requisite and indelible.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Time is your most precious asset.
- Robert Kiyosaki
People are basically the same the world over. Everybody wants the same things – to be happy, to be healthy, to be at least reasonably prosperous, and to be secure. They want friends, peace of mind, good family relationships, and hope that tomorrow is going to be even better than today.
- Zig Ziglar
Leadership is hard to train on.
- Ben Horowitz
China is the new horizon.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Competition means no profits for anybody, no meaningful differentiation, and a struggle for survival.
- Peter Thiel
It partly depends on the currency regimes in place in the country.
- John Chambers
The greatest decision of all time, as far as any American citizen is concerned was reached in Philadelphia, July 4th 1776, when 56 men signed their names to a document, which they well knew would bring freedom to all Americans, or leave every one of the fifty-six hanging from the gallows. On July 4th 1776 Thomas Jefferson stood before the Assembly and fearlessly read the most momentus Decision ever placed upon paper.
- Napoleon Hill
The only purpose of starting is to finish, and while the projects we do are never really finished, they must ship.
- Seth Godin
Obviously Tesla is about helping solve the consumption of energy in a sustainable manner, but you need the production of energy in a sustainable manner.
- Elon Musk
Customers tend to avoid a restaurant that’s going aswamp in its own sludge.
- Ray Kroc
I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.
- Winston Churchill
I’m a Silicon Valley guy. I just think people from Silicon Valley can do anything.
- Elon Musk
That was so much fun. It’s been such a neat experience racing with these guys.
- Ed Clark
We all need a daily checkup from the neck up to avoid stinkin’ thinkin’ which ultimately leads to hardening of the attitudes.
- Zig Ziglar
With DNA, you have to be able to tell which genes are turned on or off. Current DNA sequencing cannot do that. The next generation of DNA sequencing needs to be able to do this. If somebody invents this, then we can start to very precisely identify cures for diseases.
- Elon Musk
IN A NUTSHELL FUNDAMENTAL 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
People are more comfortable learning about wine because now they can just Google, you know, ‘Soave,’ and say, ‘Oh, O.K., cool.’
- Gary Vaynerchuk
On all open platforms, regardless of whether it’s Facebook or the Apple App Store, the largest segment is entertainment and games. It’s the largest revenue segment. And it’s the same for Tencent.
- Ma Huateng
There’s a difference between telling people what to do and inciting a movement.
- Seth Godin
IN A NUTSHELL SIX WAYS TO MAKE PEOPLE LIKE YOU PRINCIPLE 1 Become genuinely interested in other people. PRINCIPLE 2 Smile. PRINCIPLE 3 Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language. PRINCIPLE 4 Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves. PRINCIPLE 5 Talk in terms of the other person’s interests. PRINCIPLE 6 Make the other person feel important—and do it sincerely.
- Dale Carnegie
A much better idea would have been to give the problem to the people who could not only fix it, but who would also be personally excited and motivated to do so.
- Ben Horowitz
Always will I take another step. If that is of no avail I will take another, and yet another. In truth, one step at a time is not too difficult.
- Og Mandino
And in urology, it could be drugs or devices for bladder and prostate problems.
- David Pyott
Think of your life as an hourglass. You know there are thousands of grains of sand in the top of the hourglass; and they all pass slowly and evenly through the narrow neck in the middle. Nothing you or I could do would make more than one grain of sand pass through this narrow neck without impairing the hourglass. You and I and everyone else are like this hourglass…if we do not take [tasks] one at a time and let them pass…slowly and evenly, then we are bound to break our own…structure.
- Dale Carnegie
I know I could be the host of ‘SportsCenter’ in two years if I changed my show today to sports.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
As you heat the planet up, it’s just like boiling a pot.
- Elon Musk
Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.
- Thomas Edison
Meetings are an addictive, highly self-indulgent activity that corporations and other organizations habitually engage in only because they cannot actually masturbate.
- Dave Barry
If you’re less sensitive to social cues, you’re less likely to do the same things as everyone else around you.
- Peter Thiel
If you cannot read all your books…fondle them—peer into them, let them fall open where they will, read from the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on the shelves with your own hands, arrange them on your own plan so that you at least know where they are. Let them be your friends; let them, at any rate, be your acquaintances.
- Winston Churchill
There are websites that any government wants to block. The truth about the Internet is that it’s extremely hard to block anything – extremely hard. You’ll never get perfect blocking.
- Bill Gates
People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude.
- John C. Maxwell
Saying yes makes you fail to meet expectations of theobligation.
- David Nilssen
