Exceptionally hard decisions can deplete your energy to the point at which you finally cave in. If you mentally crumble and degenerate into negative thinking, you’ll magnify the problem to the point where it can haunt you.
- John C. Maxwell
Notable Quotables
The purpose of bureaucracy is to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline–a problem that largely goes away if you have the right people in the first place.
- James C. Collins
If you double the number of experiments you do per year you’re going to double your inventiveness.
- Jeff Bezos
I don’t generally read a lot of fiction.
- Bill Gates
Remember to celebrate milestones as you prepare for the road ahead.
- Nelson Mandela
The best—perhaps even the only—way to predict the future is to create it.
- Peter Drucker
There’s an entire universe in every single tweet, and it all really depends on the content as far as how it’s going to spread.
- Jack Dorsey
Advances in the technology of telecommunications have proved an unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes everywhere.
- Rupert Murdoch
We have a go-to-hell fund. In other words, we have accumulated enough wealth to live without working for ten or more years. Thus, those of us with a net worth of $1.6 million could live comfortably for more than twelve years. Actually, we could live longer than that, since we save at least 15 percent of our earned income.
- Thomas J Stanley
The buck stops with the guy who signs the checks.
- Rupert Murdoch
Wherever smart people work, doors are unlocked.
- Steve Wozniak
If you tell me how you get your feeling of importance, I’ll tell you what you are.
- Dale Carnegie
What we expect with confidence becomes our own self-fulfilling prophecy.
- Brian Tracy
The job is what you do when you are told what to do. The job is showing up at the factory, following instructions, meeting spec, and being managed.Someone can always do your job a little better or faster or cheaper than you can.The job might be difficult, it might require skill, but it’s a job.Your art is what you do when no one can tell you exactly how to do it. Your art is the act of taking personal responsibility, challenging the status quo, and changing people.I call the process of doing your art ‘the work.’ It’s possible to have a job and do the work, too. In fact, that’s how you become a linchpin.The job is not the work.
- Seth Godin
I don’t like typing messages on my phone. Some people get used to it.
- Bill Gates
I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.
- Warren Buffett
My dad encouraged us to fail. Growing up, he would ask us what we failed at that week. If we didn’t have something, he would be disappointed. It changed my mindset at an early age that failure is not the outcome, failure is not trying. Don’t be afraid to fail.
- Sara Blakely
I’m not an economist and we all know economists were created to make weather forecasters look good.
- Rupert Murdoch
A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he was born with.
- Alexander Graham Bell
There are more people dying of malaria than any specific cancer.
- Bill Gates
A penguin cannot become a giraffe, so just be the best penguin you can be.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
In order for the United States to do the right things for the long term, it appears to be helpful for us to have the prospect of humiliation. Sputnik helped us fund good science – really good science: the semiconductor came out of it.
- Bill Gates
If God says I’m highly favored, then I will not talk myself out of it. I believe I’m highly favored. If God says the impossible can happen, then I believe the impossible will happen.
- Joel Olsteen
Social networks do best when they tap into one of the seven deadly sins. Facebook is ego. Zynga is sloth. LinkedIn is greed.
- Reid Hoffman
I’m not ashamed of any of my papers at all and I’m rather sick of snobs that tell us that they’re bad papers, snobs who only read papers that no one else wants. I doubt if they read many papers at all.
- Rupert Murdoch
I consider my ability to arouse enthusiasm among my people the greatest asset I possess, and the way to develop the best that is in a person is by appreciation and encouragement. There is nothing else that so kills the ambitions of a person as criticisms from superiors. I never criticize anyone. I believe in giving a person incentive to work. So I am anxious to praise but loath to find fault. If I like anything, I am hearty in my approbation and lavish in my praise.
- Charles M. Schwab
When I am myself, I am happy and have a good result.
- Jack Ma
Art allows people a way to dream their way out of their struggle.
- Russell Simmons
To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.
- Winston Churchill
But iteration without a bold plan won’t take you from 0 to 1.
- Peter Thiel
Hong Kong has remained a strong financial centre. It has a solid business environment and geographically, it is well located, being next to China. During this time, there is no city that can match it.
- Lee Shau Kee
People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.
- Zig Ziglar
The industrial age is ending, and a new one is beginning. It produces art instead of stuff and it rewards gracefulness.
- Seth Godin
I don’t believe that government is good at picking technology, particularly technology that is changing. By the time you get it done and go through democracy, it’s so outdated.
- Michael Bloomberg
Backed by our conviction, we remain committed to investing wholeheartedly to improve the people’s living conditions, regardless of all uncertainties.
- Cheng Yu-tung
I’ve never been one to dwell on reverses.
- Sam Walton
Social entrepreneurs aim to combine the best of both worlds and “do well by doing good.” Usually they end up doing neither.
- Peter Thiel
I just want to do God’s will. And he’s allowed me to go to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the promised land! I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
There’s no point in… just giving them money
- Lee Shau Kee
Japan’s biggest problems are conservatism and cowardice.
- Tadashi Yanai
I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained.
- Walt Disney
I think what’s happening for me, it’s fun to see other things besides Facebook and Twitter take hold. The maturity of Tumblr as a real player is exciting. I think Pinterest has proved to be a major player. It’s fun to see Instagram become a major player. It’s fun to watch things like SnapChat, and Vine, try to vie to be the next thing.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
Authors by the hundreds can tell you stories by the thousands of those rejection slips before they found a publisher who was willing to ‘gamble’ on an unknown.
- Zig Ziglar
We are fastidious investors. On average, we investnearly 20 percent of our household realized income each year. Most of us invest at least 15 percent. Seventy-nine percent of us have at least one account with a brokerage company. But we make our own investment decisions.
- Thomas J Stanley
Simply put, your job is to prepare yourself and your business for growth.
- Michael Gerber
Success is determined by your daily agenda
- John Maxwell
The secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not.
- Dale Carnegie
The first key factor, I believe, is unity. If a family is not united, how then can we unite our colleagues? If we don’t love our brothers or our family, how then can we go ahead to love our colleagues. So our tradition really is about the human factor and talents, and we are dependent on the human factor. Therefore we have this corporate slogan – The markets of the world can belong to our corporation, and so can the world’s foremost human talents; The markets of the world belongs to us, and so are the world’s vast resources of raw materials. Similarly, if we can gain access to it, then the world’s financial funding belongs to us as well. Therefore, of foremost importance is access to human talents. Of course, a slogan is only something that we speak of. Of greater importance, is to truly have access to human talents. Towards that purpose, we must first be united and possess love. Our family is very united. And for the sake of the company, we innovated – we introduced western-style (corporate) culture into our company 30 years ago.
- Dhanin Chearavanont
There’s very little advice in men’s magazines, because men don’t think there’s a lot they don’t know. Women do. Women want to learn. Men think, ‘I know what I’m doing, just show me somebody naked.’
- Jerry Seinfeld
Velocity and drive comes from your desire to achieve.
- Jim Cathcart
When you are tough on yourself, life is going to be infinitely easier on you.
- Zig Ziglar
Winning is better than losing, but everybody loses when the war isn’t one worth fighting.
- Peter Thiel
I think George Will is somebody that said recently that the Republicans will not lose, as a Republican, that the Republicans will not win the election. I think it was a terrible statement.
- Donald Trump
If this is the only thing I accomplish today, will I be satisfied with my day?
- Timothy Ferriss
If everything worth doing has already been done, you may as well feign an allergy to achievement and become a barista.
- Peter Thiel
Husbands and wives, have fun with each other. I’m convinced it makes all the difference in the world.
- Zig Ziglar
We know more about the physics of faraway stars than we know about human nutrition.
- Peter Thiel
The Cult of Done Bre Pettis wrote this manifesto on his blog: 1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion. 2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done. 3. There is no editing stage. 4. Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so accept that you know what you’re doing even if you don’t and do it. 5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it. 6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done. 7. Once you’re done you can throw it away. 8. Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done. 9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right. 10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes. 11. Destruction is a variant of done. 12. If you have an idea and publish it on the Internet, that counts as a ghost of done. 13. Done is the engine of more.
- Seth Godin
There is plenty capital available, just a shortage of good ideas
- Napoleon Hill
Your best days are still out in front of you.
- Joel Olsteen
If you sell business-to-business, get a letter off to your client within an hour or two of your meeting…Start with something personal from the meeting and include a compliment.
- Chet Holmes
The strongest oak of the forest is not the one that is protected from the storm and hidden from the sun. It’s the one that stands in the open where it is compelled to struggle for its existence against the winds and rains and the scorching sun.
- Napoleon Hill
To reach your full potential, you have to set goals that will stretch you.
- Zig Ziglar
Too often, we have tended to fall into a trap of creating plain hamburgers.
- Tadashi Yanai
My belief and goal is that every professional in the world should be on a service liked LinkedIn.
- Reid Hoffman
Bad decisions made with good intentions, are still bad decisions.
- James C. Collins
Great vision without great people is irrelevant.
- Jim Collins
Sometimes I look out there and I get goosebumps…
- Phil Knight
If you think about computing, there isn’t just one way to compute, just like there’s not just one way to move around. You can have shoes, you can have a car, you can have a bicycle, submarine, rocket, plane, train, glider, whatever. Because you have one doesn’t mean you get rid of another one… But PCs continue to be important.
- Michael Dell
You know, we love stories and we love narrative; we love to get lost in an author’s world.
- Jeff Bezos
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
I would like to be remembered, if I am remembered at all, as being a catalyst for change in the world, change for good.
- Rupert Murdoch
Three out of four of us who are self-employed consider ourselves to be entrepreneurs. Most of the others are self-employed professionals, such as doctors and accountants.
- Thomas J Stanley
Common mission trap for companies: trying to be all things to all people at all times.
- Jack Welch
Rockefeller’s supreme insight was that he could solve the oil industry’s problems by solving the railroad’s problems at the same time, creating a double cartel in oil and rails. One of Rockefeller’s strength in bargaining situations was that he figured out what he wanted and what the other party wanted and then crafted mutually advanteous terms. Instead of ruining the railroads, Rockefeller tried to help them prosper, albeit in away that fortified his own position.
- Ron Chernow
When you set down the path to create art, whatever sort of art it is, understand that the path is neither short not easy. That means you must determine if the route is worth the effort. If it’s not, dream bigger.
- Seth Godin
If you’re a person struggling to eat and stay healthy, you might have heard about Michael Jordan or Muhammad Ali, but you’ll never have heard of Bill Gates.
- Bill Gates
Contrary to popular belief, my experience has shown me that the people who are exceptionally good in business aren’t so because of what they know but because of their insatiable need to know more.
- Michael Gerber
No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit for doing it.
- Andrew Carnegie
Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
- Zig Ziglar
We expect all our businesses to have a positive impact on our top and bottom lines. Profitability is very important to us or we wouldn’t be in this business.
- Jeff Bezos
Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility.
- Peter Drucker
This is no time for ease and comfort. It is time to dare and endure.
- Winston Churchill
The best way to prepare [to be a programmer] is to write programs, and to study great programs that other people have written. In my case, I went to the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and fished out listings of their operating system.
- Bill Gates
But the three rules I always stuck with were 1) Be on time 2) No profanity and 3) Never criticize a teammate.
- David Novak
Next to doing the right thing, the most important thing is to let people know you are doing the right thing.
- John D. Rockefeller
Hong Kong has gone through many ups and downs in the past. Unavoidably, one needs to go through the lowest point before reaching the peak again.
- Cheng Yu-tung
Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. HEBREWS 11:1.
- Joel Olsteen
A love for tradition has never weakened a nation, indeed it has strengthened nations in their hour of peril.
- Winston Churchill
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.
- Matthew 7:12
Most governments are pragmatic, most people are logical. There are pockets of extremism in Israel, in the U.S. and in the Muslim world. But we have to fight them with reason, with logic and with compassion.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
On my grandfather’s tombstone, you will find his favorite Marx quote: “Life is struggle.” I believe that within that quote lies the most important lesson in entrepreneurship: Embrace the struggle.
- Ben Horowitz
In the U.S. there are many people willing to work on $9 per hour, which is causing Tasmania to lose its famous apple industry and Australia to import more and more of its fruit and food from lower cost countries. In fact, all over Australia there are warning signs of us killing or restricting our own industries.
- Gina Rinehart
You can’t buy a good reputation, you must earn it.
- Harvey Mackay
As technology continues to virtualize money, brick ‘n mortar banks have become as superfluous as traditional bookstores.
- Reid Hoffman
All a bliss state like California does is spoil you.
- Phil Knight
All of the great empires of the future will be empires of the mind.
- Winston Churchill
This is like the Six Sigma approach to quality. Six Sigma refers to the quest for continuous improvement, ultimately leading to 3.4 defects per million units. The problem is that once you’re heading down this road, there’s no room left for amazing improvements and remarkable innovations. Either you rolled ten strikes or you didn’t. Organizations that earn dramatic success always do it in markets where asymptotes don’t exist, or where they can be shattered. If you could figure out how to bowl 320, that would be amazing. Until that happens, pick a different sport if you want to be a linchpin.
- Seth Godin
The future of publishing is about having connections to readers and the knowledge of what those readers want.
- Seth Godin
Lots of people will give you advice… and depending upon how well they know you, the advice might be valid or not so valid.
- Abigail Johnson
