Notable Quotables

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

- Winston Churchill

It’s too easy, as a team grows, to put up with a few B players, and they then attract a few more B players, and soon you will even have some C players. A players like to work only with other A players, which means you can’t indulge B players.

- Steve Jobs

If the broadcasters were to win on their claims, they’d outlaw the DVR.

- Charles Ergen

I went to a public school through sixth grade, and being good at tests wasn’t cool.

- Bill Gates

People are more comfortable learning about wine because now they can just Google, you know, ‘Soave,’ and say, ‘Oh, O.K., cool.’

- Gary Vaynerchuk

the Mach3—leaving hundreds of millions of people to a more painful daily battle with stubble.19

- James C. Collins

A business with a good definite plan will always be underrated in a world where people see the future as random.

- Peter Thiel

Extraordinary benefits accrue to the tiny minority of people who are able to push just a tiny bit longer than most.

- Seth Godin

My dream was to set up my own e-commerce company. In 1999, I gathered 18 people in my apartment and spoke to them for two hours about my vision. Everyone put their money on the table, and that got us $60,000 to start Alibaba. I wanted to have a global company, so I chose a global name.

- Jack Ma

Most of my job and most of what I do is to mentor people. There are a lot of people I work with that I don’t have investments in.

- Ben Horowitz

Listening is just as important in one’s home life as in the world of business.

- Dale Carnegie

My friend didn’t understand what it means to be in the world, to be present and aware.

- Seth Godin

The led must not be compelled. They must be able to choose their own leader.

- Albert Einstein

You don’t drown by falling into water. You only drown if you stay there.

- Zig Ziglar

Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, Napster’s then-teenage founders, credibly threatened to disrupt the powerful music recording industry in 1999. The next year, they made the cover of Time magazine. A year and a half after that, they ended up in bankruptcy court.

- Peter Thiel

What is school for? If you’re not asking that, you’re wasting time and money.

- Seth Godin

Good thinkers always prime the pump of ideas. They always look for things to get the thinking process started, because what you put in always impacts what comes out.

- John C. Maxwell

Great foresight is required to run a multinational corporation. A magnificent blueprint, a loyal team and a well-coordinated organization are the three indispensable factors, and the same applies from ruling a country to maintaining a family.

- Cheng Yu-tung

God wants us to live consistently, He wants us to enjoy every single day of our lives.

- Joel Olsteen

The lesson of the Ford story is that managers and management are the specific need of the business enterprise, its specific organ, and its basic structure. We can say dogmatically that enterprise cannot do without managers. One cannot argue that management does the owner’s job by delegation. Management is needed not only because the job is too big for any one man to do himself, but because managing an enterprise is something essentially different from managing one’s own property.

- Peter Drucker

What we expect with confidence becomes our own self-fulfilling prophecy.

- Brian Tracy

I would rather have people think we’re confused than let our competitors know what we’re going to do.

- Larry Page

To do what you wanna do, to leave a mark – in a way that you think is important and lasting – that’s a life well-lived.

- Laurene Powell Jobs

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

- Peter Drucker

It occurs to me,Jim,that you spend too much time trying to be interesting. Why don’t you invest more time being interested? Collin’s advice from John Gardner that he took to heart.

- James C. Collins

I took a Fear of Flying class, and I always missed the class, because I was always flying.

- Sara Blakely

The tragedy is that society (your school, your boss, your government, your family) keeps drumming the genius part out. The problem is that our culture has engaged in a Faustian bargain, in which we trade our genius and artistry for apparent stability.

- Seth Godin

Cultures, for better or worse, are very stable.

- Jeff Bezos

You have to be willing to be misunderstood if you’re going to innovate.

- Jeff Bezos

The prizes of life are at the end of each journey, not near the beginning, and it is not given to me to know how many steps are necessary in order to reach my goal. Failure I may still encounter at the thousandth step, yet success hides behind the next bend in the road. Never will I know how close it lies unless I turn the corner.

- Og Mandino

I had a feeling once about Mathematics – that I saw it all. Depth beyond depth was revealed to me – the Byss and Abyss. I saw – as one might see the transit of Venus or even the Lord Mayor’s Show – a quantity passing through infinity and changing its sign from plus to minus. I saw exactly why it happened and why the tergiversation was inevitable but it was after dinner and I let it go.

- Winston Churchill

Management always bears in mind to ‘lend a hand’ to Hong Kong and Mainland China while we are working hard for shareholders’ benefits.

- Cheng Yu-tung

Juggling is about throwing, not catching That’s why it’s so difficult to learn how to juggle. We’re conditioned to make the catch, to hurdle whatever is in our way to save the day, to—no matter what—not drop the ball. If you spend your time and energy and focus on catching, it’s inevitable that your throws will suffer. You’ll get plenty of positive feedback for the catches you make, but you’ll always be behind, because the throws you manage to make will be ever less useful. Paradoxically, if you get better at throwing, the catches take care of themselves. The only way to get better at throwing, though, is to throw.

- Seth Godin

Judgment of the people in the situation is not helpful. How can you help them is the question.

- Russell Simmons

The best ideas in a company are the ones that people come up with themselves because then they really own their ideas and are committed to making them work. – David Novak CEO of YUM Brands

- David Novak

The British nation is unique in this respect. They are the only people who like to be told how bad things are, who like to be told the worst.

- Winston Churchill

Earn the right to be heard by listening to others. Seek to understand a situation before making judgments about it.

- John C. Maxwell

From an evolutionary standpoint, human consciousness has not been around very long. A little light just went on after four and a half billion years. How often does that happen? Maybe it is quite rare.

- Elon Musk

Speakers who talk about what life has taught them never fail to keep the attention of their listeners.

- Dale Carnegie

If you concentrate on what you have, you will always end up having more. If you focus on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.

- Oprah Winfrey

If you’re competitor-focused, you have to wait until there is a competitor doing something. Being customer-focused allows you to be more pioneering.

- Jeff Bezos

The quality of research in the U.S. is absolutely the best.

- Bill Gates

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

We sold ‘Seinfeld’ all over the world but it was a very specific kind of show. In some countries it went down really well, in others they hated it.

- Jerry Seinfeld

Americans reading the paper, listening to the news every single day, and all you hear is things are getting worse and worse. And that has a psychological effect on consumer confidence. That’s what consumer confidence is.

- Howard Schultz

I love comedy. That’s what got me into the arts. I don’t even know how to categorize myself anymore.

- Steve Martin

The rumours of the demise of the U.S. manufacturing industry are greatly exaggerated.

- Elon Musk

I cut the feet out of my control top pantyhose one night, threw them on under my white pants and realized that the toning and shaping was perfect and that the hosiery material is thin enough that I could make shape wear out of it.

- Sara Blakely

Level 5 leaders channel their ego needs away from themselves and into the larger goal of building a great company. It’s not that Level 5 leaders have no ego or self-interest. Indeed, they are incredibly ambitious—but their ambition is first and foremost for the institution, not themselves.

- James C. Collins

Oh, I think there are a lot of people who would be buying and selling online today that go up there and they get the information, but then when it comes time to type in their credit card they think twice because they’re not sure about how that might get out and what that might mean for them.

- Bill Gates

Life’s most soothing things are a child’s goodnight and sweet music….

- Thomas Edison

Positional leaders ignore the fact that every person has hopes, dreams, desires, and goals of his own. And leaders must bring their vision and the aspirations of the people they lead together in a way that benefits everyone.”

- John C. Maxwell

Abe Lincoln once remarked that most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

- Dale Carnegie

Happens to every guy sometimes this does.

- Yoda

Hong Kong has gone through countless difficult moments in the past. Our belief in our abilities and our determination to work for a better future have helped us overcome all obstacles.

- Cheng Yu-tung

Success is a personal standard, reaching for the highest that is in us, becoming all that we can be.

- Zig Ziglar

When you learn to listen to your fear, you’ve found a compass that can show you what matters.

- Seth Godin

Globally, business and government leaders are beginning to dramatically transform their traditional business models into Internet economy business models, … Customers are increasingly seeking Cisco’s expertise to help them through this transformation.

- John Chambers

To my mind the old masters are not art, their value is in their scarcity.

- Thomas Edison

We sell tea in Starbucks, but I think the experience is very different. I think coffee is something that is quick – it’s transactional. I think tea is more Zen-like. It requires a different environment.

- Howard Schultz

Hong Kong has, throughout it’s history, experienced periods of uncertainties… I believe that the virtues of Hong Kong people – diligent, flexible and entrepreneurial – will once again overcome the obstacles before us.

- Cheng Yu-tung

I realized that comedians of the day were operating on jokes and punch lines. The moment you say the punch line, the audience either laughs sincerely or they laugh automatically or they don’t laugh. The thing that bothered me was that automatic laugh. I said, that’s not real laughter.

- Steve Martin

Put everything you’ve got into what you’re doing. Be totally focused–nothing should be haphazard.

- Donald Trump

Don’t just accept whatever comes your way in life. You were born to win, you were born for greatness, you were created to be a champion in life.

- Joel Olsteen

If you do not conquer self, you will be conquered by self.

- Napoleon Hill

We have the necessary foundations that will enable us to weather the current storm and enter into a new era of growth.

- Cheng Yu-tung

Unleash the power of people. No involvement means no committment.

- David Novak

If the merit of the idea is strong, it spreads really quickly no matter who you are or where you are from.

- Jack Dorsey

I’m convinced that what kids need today are parents – not buddies. They need someone who will exercise mature judgment.

- Zig Ziglar

I had no idea that being your authentic self could make me as rich as I’ve become. If I had, I’d have done it a lot earlier.

- Oprah Winfrey

I just want to build stuff that really simplifies our base human interaction.

- Jack Dorsey

I was an All-American in wrestling in high school, was National Champion in Chinese kickboxing in 1999 and have spent a lot of time around professional athletes, which includes my eight-plus years as CEO of a sports nutrition company.

- Timothy Ferriss

Selling is problem solving, not hustling. Aggressiveness propels you into the mean streets, but ruin sales.

- Jerry Vass

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

- Bill Gates

Funny is the world I live in. You’re funny, I’m interested. You’re not funny, I’m not interested.

- Jerry Seinfeld

Money has no utility to me beyond a certain point.

- Bill Gates

Let go of yesterday. Let today be a new beginning and be the best that you can, and you’ll get to where God wants you to be.

- Joel Olsteen

Remember that this is what separates the women from the girls. If you want to be great, this is the challenge. If you don’t want to be great, then you never should have started a company.

- Ben Horowitz

I think long term you can see Tesla establishing factories in Europe, in other parts of the U.S. and in Asia.

- Elon Musk

No individual may have great power without availing himself of the Master Mind.

- Napoleon Hill

The Negro needs the white man to free him from his fears. The white man needs the Negro to free him from his guilt.

- Martin Luther King Jr.

You can take from every experience what it has to offer you. And you cannot be defeated if you just keep taking one breath followed by another.

- Oprah Winfrey

I agree with people like Richard Dawkins that mankind felt the need for creation myths. Before we really began to understand disease and the weather and things like that, we sought false explanations for them. Now science has filled in some of the realm – not all – that religion used to fill.

- Bill Gates

People tend to over-weigh risks on a personal level. It’s one thing if you’ve got a mortgage to pay and kids to support, so that if you were to deviate from your job, well, how are you going to feed your family and pay the rent? That’s understandable, but let’s say you’re young and you’re just coming out of college, what are your risks? You’re not going to starve, certainly not in any kind of modern economy. It’s so easy to earn enough money just to live somewhere and eat food. Very easy to do. So I don’t know what they’re afraid of. Mostly afraid of failure, I think, but people should be less risk averse, when there’s not much at risk.

- Elon Musk

If no mistake have you made, yet losing you are … a different game you should play.

- Yoda

Amateurs wait for inspiration. The real pros get up and go to work.

- Harvey Mackay

In almost every job now, people use software and work with information to enable their organisation to operate more effectively.

- Bill Gates

When it’s too easy to get money, then you get a lot of noise mixed in with the real innovation and entrepreneurship. Tough times bring out the best parts of Silicon Valley.

- Sergey Brin

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