I love being the underdog.
- Howard Schultz
Notable Quotables
Ready are you? What know you of ready? For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi. My own counsel will I keep on who is to be trained. A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away… to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph. Adventure. Heh. Excitement. Heh. A Jedi craves not these things. You are reckless.
- Yoda
Once you hit the critical mass, you can’t push it much further. Otherwise the meaning gets fuzzy and confused, and before long, the brand is on the way out.
- Phil Knight
Don’t let any opportunity lead you away from serving God. That’s a price that’s too high to pay.
- George Foreman
Duty makes us do things well, but love makes us do them beautifully.
- Zig Ziglar
A third of the people who rush to psychiatrists for help could probably cure themselves if they could only do as Margaret Yates did: get interested in helping others. My idea? No, that is approximately what Carl Jung said. And he ought to know—if anybody does. He said: About one third of my patients are suffering from no clinically definable neurosis, but from the senselessness and emptiness of their lives.” To put it another way, they are trying to thumb a ride through life—and the parade passes them by. So they rush to a psychiatrist with their petty, senseless, useless lives. Having missed the boat, they stand on the wharf, blaming everyone except themselves and demanding that the world cater to their self-centered desires.
- Dale Carnegie
For the first time we’re allowing developers who don’t work at Facebook to develop applications just as if they were. That’s a big deal because it means that all developers have a new way of doing business if they choose to take advantage of it. There are whole companies that are forming whose only product is a Facebook Platform application.
- Mark Zuckerberg
If you don’t change the direction you are going, then you’re likely to end up where you’re heading…
- John C. Maxwell
Exceed your customer’s expectations. If you do, they’ll come back over and over. Give them what they want – and a little more.
- Sam Walton
I’m glad to see that BMW is bringing an electric car to market. That’s cool.
- Elon Musk
We are the most powerful nation on earth. No external power, no terrorist organization, can defeat us. But we can defeat ourselves by getting caught in a quagmire.
- George Soros
Good leadership consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people.
- John D. Rockefeller
If a man’s heart is rankling with discord and ill feeling toward you, you can’t win him to your way of thinking with all the logic in Christendom. Scolding parents and domineering bosses and husbands and nagging wives ought to realize that people don’t want to change their minds. They can’t be forced or driven to agree with you or me. But they may possibly be led to, if we are gentle and friendly, ever so gentle and ever so friendly.
- Dale Carnegie
Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.
- Winston Churchill
A CEO’s job is to supervise all systems and to indentify weaknesses before the weaknesses turn into system failures. This can happen in many different ways, but it is exceptionally disconcerting when you company is growing rapidly. Your sales are increasing, your product of service is getting attention from the media, and suddenly you can’t deliver. Why? Uusually, it’s because your systems imploded from the increased demand. You didn’t have enough phone lines, or operators answering the phones. You didn’t have enough production capacity or enough hours in the week to meet the demand; or you didn’t have the money to build the product or hire additional help. Whatever the reason, you missed the opportunity to move your business to the next level of success due to failure of one of your systems…At each new level of growth, the CEO must start planning the systems needed to support the next level of growth, from phone lines to lines of credit for production needs. Systems drive both cash flow management and communication. As your systems get better, you or your employees will have to exert less and less effort. Without well-designed and successful operating systems, your business will be labor intensive. Once you have well-designed and successful operating systems, you will have a saleable business asset.
- Robert Kiyosaki
Decisiveness is a characteristic of high performing men and women. Almost any decision is better than no decision at all.
- Brian Tracy
The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It’s as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.
- Nolan Bushnell
Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them do not. Miss them do not. Attachment leads to jealously. The shadow of greed, that is.
- Yoda
One of my biggest flaws is I don’t take advice.
- Gary Vaynerchuk
The experience of pain or loss can be a formidably motivating force.
- John C. Maxwell
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
The secret of your success is determined by your daily agenda.
- John C. Maxwell
Most of our lives in public are spent papering over, rationalizing, and otherwise denying our fear. We go to war because we’re afraid, and we often go to spiritual events for the very same reason.
- Seth Godin
For get this quite clear, every time we have to decide between Europe and the open sea, it is always the open sea we shall choose. Every time I have to decide between you [Charles de Gaulle] and Roosevelt, I shall always choose Roosevelt.
- Winston Churchill
The essence of all art is to have pleasure in giving pleasure.
- Dale Carnegie
When you have got a thing where you want, it is a good thing to leave it where it is.
- Winston Churchill
In life, everybody faces choices between doing what’s popular, easy, and wrong vs. doing what’s lonely, difficult, and right. These decisions intensify when you run a company, because the consequences get magnified 1,000 fold. As in life, the excuses for CEOs making the wrong choice are always plentiful.
- Ben Horowitz
I wouldn’t say I have a lack of fear. In fact, I’d like my fear emotion to be less because it’s very distracting and fries my nervous system.
- Elon Musk
If he trips he must be sustained. If he makes mistakes they must be covered. If he sleeps he must not be wantonly disturbed. If he is no good he must be pole-axed.
- Winston Churchill
I have never, honestly, thrown a chair in my life.
- Steve Ballmer
most people go through college and learn to read Virgil and master the mysteries of calculus without ever discovering how their own minds function.
- Dale Carnegie
Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery..
- Winston Churchill
A fundamentalist is a person who considers whether a fact is acceptable to his religion before he explores it.
- Seth Godin
I wrote an article on a new Porsche for ‘Automobile Magazine.’ I knew the editor, and she asked me to write this article. So I’m more proud of that than anything.
- Jerry Seinfeld
After the Apple II was introduced, then came the Commodore and the Tandy TRS-80.
- Steve Wozniak
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
It is exactly because we are a city that embraces freedom, that welcomes everyone and encourages their dreams, that New York remains on the front lines in the war on terror.
- Michael Bloomberg
Many people say the privatisation was unfair: that is true – it was unfair. That is a fact: some people became rich and others did not. Unfair does not mean illegal, but it was inevitably unfair.
- Vladimir Potanin
[In January 2011] I think the important thing for Twitter is that it works on any technology.
- Jack Dorsey
Whatever your views on thermodynamics, it’s a powerful metaphor: in business, equilibrium means stasis, and stasis means death.
- Peter Thiel
God will not pour fresh, creative ideas and blessing into old attitudes.
- Joel Olsteen
In fact, technology has been the story of human progress from as long back as we know. In 100 years people will look back on now and say, ‘That was the Internet Age.’ And computers will be seen as a mere ingredient to the Internet Age.
- Reed Hastings
If standard of living is your major objective, quality of life almost never improves, but if quality of life is your number one objective, your standard of living almost always improves.
- Zig Ziglar
Pure hell forces action, but anything less can be endured with enough clever rationalization.
- Timothy Ferriss
The unsuccessful person is burdened by learning, and prefers to walk down familiar paths. Their distaste for learning stunts their growth and limits their influence.
- John C. Maxwell
The highest use of capital is not to make more money, but to make money do more for the betterment of life.
- Henry Ford
I don’t yell at people, I don’t mistreat people. I don’t talk down to people, so no one else in this building, in this vicinity, has the right to do it.
- Oprah Winfrey
I think we have a duty to maintain the light of consciousness to make sure it continues into the future.
- Elon Musk
When my sister and I came along, my father’s political life was completely over. He ran for president the year I was born. So that was the end of it. He had been congressman first, then governor, before all that. So when we came along, he was running the Dayton newspaper.
- Anne Cox Chambers
God, You said Your favor is not for a season but for a lifetime.
- Joel Olsteen
Leadership is a combination of strategy and character. If you must be without one, be without the strategy.”
- General H. Norman Schwarzkopf
You can sing only what you are. You can paint only what you are. You must be what your experiences, your environment, and your heredity have made you. For better or for worse, you must play your own little instrument in the orchestra of life.
- Dale Carnegie
If your customer base is aging with you, then eventually you are going to become obsolete or irrelevant. You need to be constantly figuring out who are your new customers and what are you doing to stay forever young.
- Jeff Bezos
Ideas have a short shelf life. You must act on them before the expiration date.
- John C. Maxwell
Listen to everyone in your company. And figure out ways to get them talking. The folks on the front lines, the one who actually talk to the customer, are the only ones who really know what’s going on out there. You’d better find out what they know. This really is what total quality is all about. To push responsibility down in your organization, and to force good ideas to bubble within it, you must listen to what your associates are telling you.
- Sam Walton
Times and conditions change so rapidly that we must keep our aim constantly focused on the future.
- Walt Disney
I believe that when you think of the negative, and you get up discouraged – ‘There’s nothing good in my future’ – I really believe it almost ties the hands of God. God works where there’s an attitude of faith. I believe faith is all about hope.
- Joel Olsteen
Competition is a sin.
- John D. Rockefeller
When you walk in God’s favor, His blessings will chase you down and overtake you.
- Joel Olsteen
You’ll never achieve real success unless you like what you’re doing.
- Dale Carnegie
I think it’d be crazy not to have the plan encompass the entire reservoir. If we have (the smaller map), we’ve got a bunch of other folks telling us what they want to see happen in our community.
- Jack Taylor
We have a mantra: don’t be evil, which is to do the best things we know how for our users, for our customers, for everyone. So I think if we were known for that, it would be a wonderful thing.
- Larry Page
When we recognize the fraud for what it is, we feel incredibly stupid. Something more than our bank accounts is damaged—our egos are damaged. As a result, it’s almost impossible for the marketer to regain our trust.
- Seth Godin
Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.
- Oscar Wilde
Learn to be difficult when it counts. In school as in life, having a reputation for being assertive will help you receive preferential treatment without having to beg or fight for it every time.
- Timothy Ferriss
Saying yes makes you fail to meet expectations of theobligation.
- David Nilssen
The key thing about a book is that you lose yourself in the author’s world.
- Jeff Bezos
Being excellent is hard. So when you have something hard to do, remember you are being excellent. Do you want to be remembered for being good or great?
- Lee Cockerell
My wife thinks she’s better than me at puzzles. I haven’t given in on that one yet.
- Bill Gates
How we respond to the opportunities and challenges of the outside world now determines how much the outside world values us.
- Seth Godin
In taking Dell private, we plan to go back to our roots, focusing on the entrepreneurial spirit that made Dell one of the fastest-growing and most successful companies in history.
- Michael Dell
A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be.
- Rosalynn Carter
I don’t think there’s anything unique about human intelligence.
- Bill Gates
Every monopoly is unique, but they usually share some combination of the following characteristics: proprietary technology, network effects, economies of scale, and branding.
- Peter Thiel
What if there were no longer only two sides? Not just capital versus labor, but a third team, one that straddled elements of both? I think there’s a huge opportunity for a third kind of participant, a linchpin, and now there is an opportunity to change all the rules that we’ve lived with all our lives. There is a shortage of this third kind of worker, and that shortage means that the market needs you desperately. The con game is ending, at least for people passionate enough to do something about it.
- Seth Godin
Beverages have to be created. And they’re created by looking at what trend is in, say, the fashion industry – what color’s hot right now.
- Howard Schultz
People are more comfortable learning about wine because now they can just Google, you know, ‘Soave,’ and say, ‘Oh, O.K., cool.’
- Gary Vaynerchuk
A good thing to remember is somebody’s got it a lot worse than we do.
- Joel Olsteen
I’m a voracious reader.
- Howard Schultz
The foundation stones for a balanced success are honesty, character, integrity, faith, love and loyalty.
- Zig Ziglar
PRINCIPLE 1 The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it. PRINCIPLE 2 Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, You’re wrong.” PRINCIPLE 3 If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically. PRINCIPLE 4 Begin in a friendly way. PRINCIPLE 5 Get the other person saying yes, yes” immediately. PRINCIPLE 6 Let the other person do a great deal of the talking. PRINCIPLE 7 Let the other person feel that the idea.
- Dale Carnegie
Do not let spacious plans for a new world divert your energies from saving what is left of the old.
- Winston Churchill
A healthy company culture encourages people to share bad news. A company that discusses its problems freely and openly can quickly solve them.
- Ben Horowitz
We do not covet anything from any nation except their respect.
- Winston Churchill
Management is all about managing in the short term, while developing the plans for the long term.
- Jack Welch
You’re going to go through tough times – that’s life. But I say, ‘Nothing happens to you, it happens for you.’ See the positive in negative events.
- Joel Olsteen
A road that leads to nowhere is hard to build.
- David Novak
People don’t want to believe that technology is broken. Pharmaceuticals, robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology – all these areas where the progress has been a lot more limited than people think. And the question is why.
- Peter Thiel
This is just the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put.
- Winston Churchill
You can make something big when young that will carry you through life. Look at all the big startups like Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. They were all started by very young people who stumbled on something of unseen value. You’ll know it when you hit a home run.
- Steve Wozniak
I really don’t think in the past. I sit down with many friends at dinner, and they like to talk about the good old days. I’m respectful of the good old days, but I find myself spending very little time reminiscing. I’m really looking forward.
- Donald Bren
I want to be the white man’s brother, not his brother-in-law.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Success is the maximum utilization of the ability you have.
- Zig Ziglar
You have to be responsible when you’re running an organization, and firing people who are your friends is part of that responsibility.
- Ben Horowitz
Philanthropy should be voluntary.
- Bill Gates
Unemployment in America today is too high. And part of the reason, unfortunately, is that many companies cannot fill the high-skilled jobs increasingly at risk of going overseas.
- Michael Bloomberg
The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity is because it usually goes around wearing overalls looking like hard work.
- Thomas Edison
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
Governments will always play a huge part in solving big problems. They set public policy and are uniquely able to provide the resources to make sure solutions reach everyone who needs them. They also fund basic research, which is a crucial component of the innovation that improves life for everyone.
- Bill Gates
We’re at maybe 1% of what is possible. Despite the faster change, we’re still moving slow relative to the opportunities we have. I think a lot of that is because of the negativity… Every story I read is Google vs someone else. That’s boring. We should be focusing on building the things that don’t exist.
- Larry Page
