Notable Quotables

Visionary companies are so clear about what they stand for and what they’re trying to achieve that they simply don’t have room for those unwilling or unable to fit their exacting standards.

- James C. Collins

[Medco] had a different culture with respect to spending money. I believe health care demands that we be as frugal as possible and pay money for things that matter. We’re pretty frugal. Everybody has the same size offices. Everybody has the same size cube. There are no perks.

- George Paz

For Starbucks, there will be no shortage of the highest-quality arabica beans. I suspect that for some others there could potentially be a problem, not in the near term, but over time.

- Howard Schultz

I actually think that the economy has got some positives. It’s got the market. It’s got consumer confidence and it’s got banks throwing – I mean central bankers throwing money at it around the world.

- Jack Welch

Most business people today are not going to invest in the uncertainty that exists in America.

- Howard Schultz

The end product of the shorter deadline is almost inevitable of equal or higher quality due to greater focus.

- Timothy Ferriss

The question isn’t ‘What do we want to know about people?’ It’s, ‘What do people want to tell about themselves?

- Mark Zuckerberg

A disagreement or incident involving someone who’s not that important to you, like a guy who cut you off in traffic or a rude cashier, is something that should roll off your shoulders. Save the effort for resolving conflicts with the people you cherish.

- Joel Olsteen

I meet people overseas that know five languages – that the only language I’m comfortable in is English.

- Bill Gates

This generation… they have a different attitude. Instead of sitting and watching something, they want to be a part of it – they’re very hedonistic and sensual.

- Stephen Wynn

If I had to do it over again, I would have done the same but earlier. It is never too early to start something. The sooner you begin, the sooner you get your experience.

- Warren Buffett

Strange as it sounds, great leaders gain authority by giving it away.

- Napoleon Hill

I think the thing we see is that as people are using video games more, they tend to watch passive TV a bit less. And so using the PC for the Internet, playing video games, is starting to cut into the rather unbelievable amount of time people spend watching TV.

- Bill Gates

Throughout this quarter of a century, the entrepreneurial outlook, versatility and vision of our employees have remained the crucial elements of our success…

- Cheng Yu-tung

My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them.

- Winston Churchill

I have come to the conclusion that there is only one way under high heaven to get the best of an argument— and that is to avoid it. Avoid it as you would avoid rattlesnakes and earthquakes.

- Dale Carnegie

Flying cars are not a very efficient way to move things from one point to another.

- Bill Gates

We live in an age where everything is based on the short term.

- Howard Schultz

Stealing Coach Wooden’s sets of three, I have come up with a formula for success no matter what kind of business you happen to be in: 1) Make sure you have the right people around you; 2) Have fun and drive results by recognizing the achievements of others; and 3) Be a passionate learner, and pass on what you know to others. Not only will this make you a success in business, but it will make you a success in life.

- David Novak

I enjoy the hunt much more than the ‘good life’ after the victory.

- Carl Icahn

The most terrifying phrase in the English language is ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help’

- Ronald Reagan

Well… I graduated from the business school of Northumberland University in Newcastle.

- Alexei Mordashov

Urm. Put a shield on my saber I must.

- Yoda

I want to sit with 80- and 90-year-old people more than anyone. They have played this game before. Not one of them has told me, ‘I wish I had more money.’

- Gary Vaynerchuk

Every failure brings with it the seed of an equivalent benefit.

- Napoleon Hill

Sure I am this day we are masters of our fate, that the task which has been set before us is not above our strength; that its pangs and toils are not beyond our endurance. As long as we have faith in our own cause and an unconquerable will to win, victory will not be denied us.

- Winston Churchill

If You Want to Gather Honey, Don’t Kick Over the Beehive.

- Dale Carnegie

The most frightful of all spectacles is the strength of the civilization without its mercy.

- Winston Churchill

Most kids cannot ask questions. They can memorize, but they cannot learn.

- Terry Fischer

To remain a credible leader, I must always work first, hardest, and longest on changing myself. This is neither easy nor natural, but it is essential.

- John C. Maxwell

I am placed in situations with opportunities in those situations that others are not. I don’t believe that that is happenstance. I believe that there is a God that has a plan for me.

- Ronald Perelman

Actually, if American business is going to succeed, we are going to need hundreds, or even thousands, of miracles.

- Peter Thiel

The evolving social and digital media platforms and highly innovative and relevant payment capabilities are causing seismic changes in consumer behavior and creating equally disruptive opportunities for business.

- Howard Schultz

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

- James C. Collins

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

As I have heard said, a person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have. Resolve to do one thing every day that you fear. I got into this habit by attempting to contact celebrities and famous businesspeople for advice.

- Timothy Ferriss

We had gotten people’s attention. So a lot of American shoe distributors were going to Japan and telling Onitsuka, ‘Well, if this two-bit outfit up in the woods in Oregon can do this kind of business, wait till you get somebody that’s really in the business.

- Phil Knight

When you give up yourself, that’s when you will feel the true spirit of Christmas. And that’s giving that’s serving others and that’s when you feel fulfilled.

- Joel Olsteen

If you find yourself plagued by a recurrent worry, train yourself to think of something else. Your conscious mind can concentrate on only one thought at a time, and driving the negativity away will free you up to move forward again.

- Harvey Mackay

Every sale has 5 basic obstacles: need, money, hurry, desire, trust.

- Zig Ziglar

I had a TV set and a typewriter and that made me think a computer should be laid out like a typewriter with a video screen.

- Steve Wozniak

Sales is what you do in person, one on one. Marketing is sales done via a system. Most (Self-Employed) S quadrant businesspeople are very good at one-on-one sales. For them to make the transition to the B quadrant, they need to learn how to sell through a system which is called marketing.

- Robert Kiyosaki

The single greatest danger for a founder is to become so certain of his own myth that he loses his mind. But an equally insidious danger for every business is to lose all sense of myth and mistake disenchantment for wisdom.

- Peter Thiel

Kids instinctively know – although they will argue to the contrary – that they really are not mature enough to make good decisions on some important issues.

- Zig Ziglar

The road doesn’t have to be infinite after all. Take the hidden paths.

- Peter Thiel

Do not look for approval except for the consciousness of doing your best.

- Andrew Carnegie

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

If something is important enough, even if the odds are against you, you should still do it.

- Elon Musk

To make an embarrassing admission, I like video games. That’s what got me into software engineering when I was a kid. I wanted to make money so I could buy a better computer to play better video games – nothing like saving the world.

- Elon Musk

You know capitalism is this wonderful thing that motivates people, it causes wonderful inventions to be done. But in this area of diseases of the world at large, it’s really let us down.

- Bill Gates

The torch relay is an excellent embodiment of all that the Olympic Games have come to symbolise – a celebration of the human spirit. Personally to me, it represents striving to be the best in whatever we do, never giving up despite the odds, and a commitment to health and fitness.

- Lakshmi Mittal

When the PC was launched, people knew it was important.

- Bill Gates

I actually thought that it would be a little confusing during the same period of your life to be in one meeting when you’re trying to make money, and then go to another meeting where you’re giving it away. I mean is it gonna erode your ability, you know, to make money? Are you gonna somehow get confused about what you’re trying to do?

- Bill Gates

The New Rich ( NR) are those who abandon the deferred-life plan and create luxury lifestyles in the present using the currency of the New Rich: time and mobility.

- Timothy Ferriss

No one has any idea what’s next… the uncertainty of the business climate in America is frightening, frightening to everybody, and it’s delaying the recovery.

- Stephen Wynn

Once we finished Christmas Rappin’ we began shopping it around town. There was interest, but no one was biting. The industry’s attitude was that Rapper’s Delight despite its U.S. sales and international appeal was an unrepeatable fluke. We identified Polygram which had a great roster of funk and R&B acts (Kool and the Gang, the Gap Band, Parliament) as the best place for Kurtis, so we made up a gang of test pressings and took them to clubs all over the city. Response in the street from DJs and club goers was great. So to hype up PolyGram we placed fake orders for the record into their system by telling retailers and wholesalers to order the 12 inch through PolyGram. PolyGram didn’t own it yet, but we created an appetite for Christmas Rappin that led them to buy it…So in the fall of 1979 Kurtis Blow signed with Mercury Records a division of Polygram Records, making him the first rapper on a major label…Christmas eve 1979 was the first time that I heard Christmas Rappin’ on the radio; I was upstairs at my family’s house. Frankie Crocker the biggest radio DJ in New York played it on WBLS.

- Russell Simmons

It’s never paid to bet against America. We come through things, but its not always a smooth ride.

- Warren Buffett

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.

- Winston Churchill

In the world of education, the more mistakes a person makes, the less intelligent that person is thought to be. In the world of entrepreneurship, mistakes are opportunities to learn something new, something not known previously. In the world of entrepreneurship, the more mistakes a person makes, the more a person learns. There is a bit of magic in every mistakes, so when you make mistakes, take the time to learn from them, and you’ll have more magic in your life.

- Robert Kiyosaki

The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.

- Peter Drucker

The air of the English is down-to-earth. They care about details; there’s a tradition, but there’s also a counter-culture: the younger generation versus the older generation and so on. But then that’s well blended into a happy balance and crystallised into common sense.

- Tadashi Yanai

I always try to put a seed of hope into people’s hearts. I’m not there to teach them doctrine necessarily, but to let them know that God is a good God, and has a plan for their lives. Hopefully, that will restore their faith, or draw them into faith.

- Joel Olsteen

Brilliant thinking is rare, but courage is in even shorter supply than genius.

- Peter Thiel

Everybody has equal opportunity, and I think that is true for everything.

- Mukesh Ambani

In retirement, Smith reflected on his exceptional performance, saying simply, I never stopped trying to become qualified for the job.

- James C. Collins

Rivalry causes us to overemphasize old opportunities and slavishly copy what has worked in the past.

- Peter Thiel

I really believed that I said then, and I still do. But we figured out a way to grow, and stay profitable, and there was no logical place to stop. The way I approached managing the business, I always tried to maintain a sense of hands-on, personal supervision – usually flying around to take a look at our stores on a regular basis. But from the very beginning, even on my paper routes in college, I have also been a delegator, trying to hire the best possible people to manage the stores. That’s been the case since back in Newport….We’re big now. We’re really big. That’s not something I like to focus on. I always wanted to be the best retailer in the world, not necessarily the biggest…(being big poses opportunities), but being big also poses big dangers. It has ruined many a fine company – including some giant retailers – who started out strong and got bloated or out of touch or were slow to react to the needs of their customers. Here’s the point: the biggest Wal-Mart gets, the more essential it is that we think small. Because that is exactly how we have become a big corporation.

- Sam Walton

Japanese tend to put sales and market share first. They make many products with the aim of raising sales. But then profits decline, and companies find themselves falling into debt… I changed the mindset at Canon by getting people to realize that profits come first.

- Fujio Mitarai

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

- Dale Carnegie

When you view marketing from the vantage point of the guerrilla, you realize that it’s your opportunity to help your prospects and customers succeed. They want to succeed at earning more money, building their company, losing weight, attracting a mate, becoming more fit, or quitting smoking. You can help them. You can show them how to achieve their goal. Marketing is not about you. It’s about them. I hope you never forget that.

- Jay Conrad Levinson

The fallout from the US sub-prime issue, turbulence on global financial markets and the resulting credit tightening, slow-down in the global economies and increasing inflationary pressure all threaten to pose a drag on the economic growth in Hong Kong.

- Lee Shau Kee

The warrior mentality, the very fight to survive, is truly what created our culture.

- Herb Kelleher

BLAMING IDIOTS FOR interruptions is like blaming clowns for scaring children—they can’t help it. It’s their nature. Then again, I had (who am I kidding—and have), on occasion, been known to create interruptions out of thin air. If you’re anything like me, that makes us both occasional idiots. Learn to recognize and fight the interruption impulse. This is infinitely easier when you have a set of rules, responses, and routines to follow.

- Timothy Ferriss

Don’t use your words to describe the situation. Use your words to change the situation.

- Joel Olsteen

People in general, and knowledge workers in particular, grow according to the demands they make on themselves. They grow according to what they consider to be achievement and attainment. If they demand little of themselves, they will remain stunted. If they demand a good deal of themselves, they will grow to giant stature—without any more effort than is expended by the nonachievers.

- Peter Drucker

The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil.

- Thomas Edison

A business that looks orderly says to your customer that your people know what they’re doing.

- Michael Gerber

People begin to become successful the minute they decide to be.

- Harvey Mackay

The single most powerful pattern I have noticed is that successful people find value in unexpected places,

- Peter Thiel

Get the right people on the bus and get the wrong people off of the bus.

- Jim Collins

The earnings from Hong Kong and China Gas and rental property portfolio serve as a solid base for the Group’s sustainable growth.

- Lee Shau Kee

It is true that integrity alone won’t make you a leader, but without integrity you will never be one.

- Zig Ziglar

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

It is more productive to convert an opportunity into results than to solve a problem – which only restores the equilibrium of yesterday.

- Peter Drucker

Understand this law and you will then know, beyond room for the slightest doubt, that you are constantly punishing yourself for every wrong you commit and rewarding yourself for every act of constructive conduct in which you indulge.

- Napoleon Hill

I do not believe that people want to work hard enough and they want to find the quick Twitter, SEO. Anybody who’s obsessed with SEO has lost already, period. I believe that firmly.

- Gary Vaynerchuk

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