I never get the accountants in before I start up a business. It’s done on gut feeling, especially if I can see that they are taking the mickey out of the consumer.
- Richard Branson
Notable Quotables
Save your first bucket of gold… then use it for investments.
- Lee Shau Kee
Marketing is a contest for people’s attention.
- Seth Godin
Trust your gut.
- Sara Blakely
My first transistor radio was the heart of my gadget love today. It fit in my hand and brought me a world of music 24 / 7.
- Steve Wozniak
You never know with these things when you’re trying something new what can happen. This is all experimental.
- Richard Branson
Getting over the war was biggest adversity I have ever faced.
- Jack Nadel
I still get up fairly early around six, but I work out for an hour every morning, I read often while excercising and give myself some private team. I’ll speak with administrative my administrative assistant, Donna Hughes, who is an organizational genus on the way into the office and go through the day, so by the time I get to the office around 8:30 or 9:00 I can hit the ground running…In both my workday and my life, what I try to achieve is balance.
- David Novak
Good leadership consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people.
- John D. Rockefeller
Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions.
- Winston Churchill
We’ve got to lift our game tremendously. We’ll sell our business news and information in print, we’ll sell it to anyone who’s got a cable system, and we’ll sell it on the Web.
- Rupert Murdoch
The global economy has experienced considerable slowdown in recent times. However there has been one notable exception: China.
- Cheng Yu-tung
The first thing I ever invested in was Twitter. Blaine Cook, former CTO, was leaving the company and asked me if I wanted to buy his stock.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
If you want to build a dynasty, you need to always be focused on getting better and beating last year’s performance in everything you do. You want to eliminate peaks and valleys, what we call boom, splat, and go for a good steady incline.
- David Novak
You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
- Wayne Gretzky
It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.
- Winston Churchill
Stopped they must be; on this all depends. Only a fully-trained Jedi Knight, with the Force as his ally, will conquer Vader and his Emperor.
- Yoda
Yields will rise with prices, and this will generate steady income.
- Lee Shau Kee
I’ve learned that people will seldom let you down if they understand that your destiny is in their hands, and vice versa.
- Harvey Mackay
In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.
- David Ogilvy
All human beings are the same. In the United States, people come from all over the world, all races, all backgrounds. And they’re all doing what they want, many scoring huge successes. When I saw that, I became more open. It freed my soul.
- Masayoshi Son
If one dream dies, dream another dream. If you get knocked down, get back up and go again.
- Joel Olsteen
The sudden attacks on the United States of America brought about adverse effects on the global economy in the short term. However, Mainland China has until now been able to maintain its economic growth on a steady course.
- Lee Shau Kee
Run your business in harmony with God’s laws.
- David Green
You know the funny thing, I don’t get along with rich people. I get along with the middle class and the poor people better than I get along with the rich people.
- Donald Trump
The techniques that worked so extraordinarily well when applied to sustaining technologies, however, clearly failed badly when applied to markets or applications that did not yet exist.
- Clayton M. Christensen
There is no elevator to success…you have to take the stairs.
- Zig Ziglar
Teaching is the only major occupation of man for which we have not yet developed tools that make an average person capable of competence and performance. In teaching we rely on the ‘naturals’, the ones who somehow know how to teach.
- Peter Drucker
What we want to be is something completely new. There is no physical analog for what Amazon.com is becoming.
- Jeff Bezos
From age 16, I lived and breathed wine. I read every magazine and book about wine.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
There’s no mystery in business success. If you do each day’s task successfully and stay faithfully within these natural operations of commercial laws which I talk so much about and keep your head clear, you will come out all right.
- John D. Rockefeller
I buy expensive suits. They just look cheap on me.
- Warren Buffett
I’ve always been at the intersection of computers and whatever they can revolutionize.
- Jeff Bezos
Transparency in the traditional school might destroy it.
- Seth Godin
I want to be the white man’s brother, not his brother-in-law.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
If you’ve invented something new but you haven’t invented an effective way to sell it, you have a bad business—no matter how good the product.
- Peter Thiel
A squirrel dying in your front yard may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa.
- Mark Zuckerberg
In a dark place we find ourselves, and a little more knowledge lights our way.
- Yoda
Give your subconscious a chance to work by turning your brain off from time to time. Don’t focus on work or solving problems constantly.
- Harvey Mackay
Every setback is a setup for a comeback.
- Joel Olsteen
I love being the underdog.
- Howard Schultz
If you are a prospective entrepreneur with the desire to start and build a visionary company but have not yet taken the plunge because you don’t have a great idea,” we encourage you to lift from your shoulders the burden of the great-idea myth. Indeed, the evidence suggests that it might be better to not obsess on finding a great idea before launching a company. Why? Because the great-idea approach shifts your attention away from seeing the company as your ultimate creation.
- James C. Collins
I am a huge bull on this country. We will not have a double-dip recession at all. I see our businesses coming back almost across the board.
- Warren Buffett
The successful business executive can handle challenges and solve problems at a remarkable clip.
- Zig Ziglar
Feeling sorry for yourself, and your present condition, is not only a waste of energy but the worst habit you could possibly have.
- Dale Carnegie
Management by objective works – if you know the objectives. Ninety percent of the time you don’t.
- Peter Drucker
When screening engineers from other companies, its smart to value engineers from great companies more than those from mediocre companies.
- Ben Horowitz
Duty makes us do things well, but love makes us do them beautifully.
- Zig Ziglar
The road to comfort is crowded and it rarely gets you there. Ironically, it’s those who seek out discomfort that are able to make a difference and find their footing.
- Seth Godin
No company should depend on one person no matter how that person is smart or genius, whether it’s Apple or News Corp, or Citibank or any other company in the world.
- Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Alsaud
You can accomplish anything in life, provided that you do not mind who gets the credit.
- Harry Truman
When I started working on Southwest Airlines, I kid you not, only people flying on business and very wealthy people ever flew.
- Herb Kelleher
We found that for leaders to make something great, their ambition has to be for the greatness of the work and the company, rather than for themselves.
- James C. Collins
The cold harsh reality is that we have to balance the budget.
- Michael Bloomberg
We have merely scratched the surface of the store of knowledge which will come to us. I believe that we are now, a-tremble on the verge of vast discoveries – discoveries so wondrously important they will upset the present trend of human thought and start it along completely new lines .
- Thomas Edison
Success is one thing — but impact is another.
- Ray Lewis
He spoke with more eloquence than wisdom.
- Winston Churchill
The very important thing you should have is patience.
- Jack Ma
My interest in life comes from setting myself huge, apparently unachievable challenges and trying to rise above them.
- Richard Branson
Great music and art are earthly wonders, but I think ‘cubist’ songs and paintings are hideous.
- Thomas Edison
Lack of ambition to aim above mediocrity.
- Napoleon Hill
If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce.
- Winston Churchill
The memory of my mother will always be a blessing to me….
- Thomas Edison
When I came into office, people said, ‘Billionaire? How do they live? What do they eat? How do they sleep?’ Today, they see me on the subway coming uptown. A couple of people say hi, some people smile and nod. Some people just sleep. It’s not an issue.
- Michael Bloomberg
It is going to be a little, if you will, laboratory for sustainability in businesses of small scale
- Larry Ellison
As technology continues to virtualize money, brick ‘n mortar banks have become as superfluous as traditional bookstores.
- Reid Hoffman
Money without brains is always dangerous.
- Napoleon Hill
Keep thy heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life’ (Prov. 4:23 KJV).
- Joel Olsteen
Nations that went down fighting rose again, but those who surrendered tamely were finished.
- Winston Churchill
The breadth and maturity of our own businesses is allowing us to weather the prevailing storms.
- Cheng Yu-tung
The first rule is not to lose. The second rule is not to forget the first rule.
- Warren Buffett
I think my story says that, when women are given the chance and the opportunity, that we can achieve a lot. We deliver.
- Sara Blakely
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
You cannot hang out with negative people and expect to live a positive life.
- Joel Olsteen
In the beginning, I thought mobile search was not much different from Web search. It’s just a smaller screen, a slower speed; it’s all the bad things. When I thought about mobile Internet, it’s all the disadvantages.
- Robin Li
I just think that – when a country needs more income and we do, we’re only taking in 15 percent of GDP, I mean, that – that – when a country needs more income, they should get it from the people that have it.
- Warren Buffett
Know what your brand stands for an exaggerate it in everything you do.
- David Novak
God would not have put a dream in your heart if He had not already given you everything you need to fulfill it.
- Joel Olsteen
Millions of people were inspired by the Apollo Program. I was five years old when I watched Apollo 11 unfold on television, and without any doubt it was a big contributor to my passions for science, engineering, and exploration.
- Jeff Bezos
Everyone must have a shot at the American Dream.
- Howard Schultz
As much as possible, avoid hiring MBAs. MBA programs don’t teach people how to create companies. At my companies, our position is that we hire someone in spite of an MBA, not because of one.
- Elon Musk
We, we – as I say, ,we go in and shake up other industries and I think, you know, we do it differently and I think that indutjrises are not quite the same as a result of Virgin attacking the market.
- Richard Branson
Capitalism will save us.
- Steve Forbes
Repetition is the mother of learning, the father of action, which makes it the architect of accomplishment.
- Zig Ziglar
Antitrust is the way that the government promotes markets when there are market failures. It has nothing to do with the idea of free information.
- Bill Gates
Life is a classroom — only those who are willing to be lifelong learners will move to the head of the class.
- Zig Ziglar
Intemperance.
- Napoleon Hill
Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.
- Stephen R. Covey
The Group sold an attributable HK$3,434.6 million worth of properties in Hong Kong as compared with HK$6,810.9 million for the year before. In light of the then cautious market sentiment, the Group decided to defer the launch of a few new developments…
- Lee Shau Kee
Capitalism works.
- Michael Bloomberg
Out of intense complexities, intense simplicities emerge.
- Winston Churchill
If you run a corporation, your job is to maximize the return on investment for your investors. Good for you. But by the same token, we have to remember that corporations have no compassion. That’s why legislation and regulations are necessary.
- Russell Simmons
Brilliant thinking is rare, but courage is in even shorter supply than genius.
- Peter Thiel
Law has become a business. Health care has become a business. Unfortunately, politics has also become a business. That really undermines society.
- George Soros
If anyone thinks they’d rather be in a different part of history, they’re probably not a very good student of history. Life sucked in the old days. People knew very little, and you were likely to die at a young age of some horrible disease. You’d probably have no teeth by now. It would be particularly awful if you were a woman.
- Elon Musk
And those of us who have business opportunities and the capital to do it are going to sit in fear of the President. And a lot of people don’t want to say that. They’ll say, God, don’t be attacking Obama. Well, this is Obama’s deal and it’s Obama that’s responsible for this fear in America.
- Stephen Wynn
My principal business consists of giving commercial value to the brilliant, but misdirected, ideas of others…. Accordingly, I never pick up an item without thinking of how I might improve it.
- Thomas Edison
There’s room for another planet between Mars and Jupiter. Given that planets formed everywhere else, why couldn’t another planet have formed there?
- John Chambers
Whatever your income, always live below your means.
- Thomas J Stanley
The dreams and passions stored within hearts are powerful keys which can unlock a wealth of potential.
- John C. Maxwell





