Quotes
“It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.” – Steve Jobs
“Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” ― Steve Jobs
“You need to hold onto fundamental belief that you don’t know what’s going on with the other person.” - Carol Robin
"Computers are like a bicycle for our minds." - Steve Jobs
"Replace judgment with curiosity" - Lynn Nottage
“Never, ever, think about something else when you should be thinking about the power of incentives.” - Charlie Munger
"Steve Jobs told employees a short story when they were promoted to vice president at Apple. Jobs would tell the VP that if the garbage in his office was not being emptied, Jobs would naturally demand an explanation from the janitor. "Well, the lock on the door was changed,' the janitor could reasonably respond. "And I couldn't get a key." The janitor's response is reasonable. It's an understandable excuse. The janitor can't do his job without a key. As a janitor, he's allowed to have excuses. "When you're the janitor, reasons matter," Jobs told his newly-minted VPs. "Somewhere between the janitor and the CEO, reasons stop mattering."
"In other words,' (Jobs continued,) "when the employee becomes a vice president, he or she must vacate all excuses for failure. A vice president is responsible for any mistakes that happen, and it doesn't matter what you say." - Steve Jobs
"It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently." - Warren Buffett
"Play long-term games with long-term people." - Naval Ravikant
"I'm convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance. It is so hard. You put so much of your life into this thing. There are such rough moments in time that I think most people give up." - Steve Jobs
“In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn't read all the time -- none, zero. You'd be amazed at how much Warren reads--and at how much I read. My children laugh at me. They think I'm a book with a couple of legs sticking out.” - Charles T. Munger
"Never delegate understanding" - Charles Eames
"They may forget what you said — but they will never forget how you made them feel." - Carl Buechner
"A company’s value is the sum total of all of its interactions with consumers. Each interaction is an opportunity where the brand promise was either realized or not realized." - A.G. Lafley
"If one customer is reporting a problem, assume there are a hundred more who did not report it. Never underestimate even the most trivial bug." - Brian de Haaff
"I'd learned that all decisions were objective until the first line of code was written. After that, all decisions were emotional." - Ben Horowitz
"Between the stimulus and the response there is a space, and in this space lies our power and freedom." - Viktor Frankl
"In the long run we are all dead." - John Maynard Keynes
"Computer games are the gateway to computer science. A lot of kids code because they play games. Give your daughters games. Ask them to play them." - Sheryl Sandberg
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” – Chinese Proverb
"My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—all idealism is mendaciousness in the face of what is necessary—but love it" --
Friedrich Nietzsche
"I always understood 'managing up' to mean making/helping your manager do their job better." - Pete Seibel
"Cherish some man of high character and keep him always with you as if he is watching over you." - Seneca
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." - Thomas A. Edison
"[Inject] random noise into a system to improve its functioning." - Nassim Taleb
“In my whole life, I have known no wise people who didn't read all the time -- none, zero." ― Charles T. Munger
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony." - Mahatma Gandhi
"Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking of it." - Daniel Kahneman
"We’re in a world now where it’s not enough to be smart. You have to be curious. Curiosity is rare. That level of intelligence is rare. Probably the further up in a business you are, the less intelligent you need to be. At the entry stage, the sieve grows ever tighter and education can only do so much. The truth is we don’t manufacture that many really smart people."
- Barry Diller
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” - Albert Einstein
"Have strong opinions, weakly held." - Paul Saffo
"If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading." – Lao Tzu
"I have a great respect for incremental improvement, and I've done that sort of thing in my life, but I've always been attracted to the more revolutionary changes. I don't know why. Because they're harder. They're much more stressful emotionally. And you usually go through a period where everybody tells you that you've completely failed." - Steve Jobs
"In the field of observation, chance favors only the prepared mind." - Louis Pasteur
"The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus." - Bruce Lee
“Debate, discussion, disagreement and dialogue are the lifeblood of vibrant and adaptive organizations.” — Michael Feiner
"A leader is best when people barely know he exists, not so good when people obey and acclaim him, worst when they despise him. But of a good leader, who talks little, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say, 'We did this ourselves.'"— Lao-Tse
"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary." - Steve Jobs
“The more information you give bosses, the more reason you give them to trust you, and the more they will feel part of your world.” - Michael Feiner
“If a leader withholds feedback out of a desire not to de-motivate, that leader actually retards improvement in a subordinate's performance.” - Michael Feiner
"The more dramatic the change in skill demands, the more severe the personnel problems, the more bottom line pressure, and the more sinuous and unexpected the turns in the road, the more opportunity there is for learning. For future executives, comfortable circumstances are hardly the road to the top." - McCall
"Life is the sum total of what you focus on" - Winifred Gallagher
"A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week." - General George S. Patton
"If there is any one ‘secret’ to effectiveness, it is concentration. Effective executives do first things first and they do one thing at a time." - Peter Drucker
"I have been asked by a number of people what secrets the Blumkins bring to their business. These are not very esoteric. All members of the family:
1. Apply themselves with an enthusiasm that would make Ben Franklin and Horatio Alger look like dropouts;
2. Define with extraordinary realism their area of special competence and act decisively on all matters within it;
3. Ignore even the most enticing propositions falling outside of that area of special competence; and
4. Unfailingly behave in a high grade manner with everyone they deal with." - Warren Buffett:
“Likewise if we wish to understand our mind, we must slow down our thinking - not put a stop to it - slow it down in order to study it, to follow it to its fullest extent.” - Jiddu Krishnamurti
“Smile, breathe and go slowly” - Thich Nhat Hanh
“Do not worry; eat three square meals a day…exercise; go slow and easy. Maybe there are other things your special case requires to make you happy, but my friend, these I reckon will give you a good lift.” - Abraham Lincoln
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” - Aristotle
"There's no sense in being precise when you don't even know what you're talking about" - John Von Neumann
"We don’t make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies" - Walt Disney
"Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings." -Jane Austen
"Doing nothing is better than being busy doing nothing." -Lao Tzu
"Anything that won’t sell, I don’t want to invent. Its sale is a proof of utility, and utility is success." - Thomas Edison
"Understand: the greatest generals, the most creative strategists, stand out not because they have more knowledge but because they are able, when necessary, to drop their preconceived notions and focus intensely on the present moment. That is how creativity is sparked and opportunities are seized. Knowledge, experience, and theory have limitations: no amount of thinking in advance can prepare you for the chaos of life, for the infinite possibilities of the moment. The great philosopher of war Carl von Clausewitz called this "friction": the difference between our plans and what actually happens. Since friction is inevitable, our minds have to be capable of keeping up with change and adapting to the unexpected. The better we can adapt our thoughts to the current circumstances, the more realistic our responses to them will be....
Think of the mind as a river: the faster it flows, the better it keeps up with the present and responds to change. The faster it flows, also the more it refreshes itself and the greater its energy. Obsessional thoughts, past experiences (whether traumas or successes), and preconceived notions are like boulders or mud in this river, settling and hardening there and damming it up. The river stops moving; stagnation sets in. You must wage constant war on this tendency in the mind."
-Robert Greene, 33 Strategies of War, page 22
"Ego is the greatest enemy of leadership." -H Lee Scott – Former CEO of Wal-mart
"Memories...are like smoke, changing, ephemeral, and if they're not written down they fade into oblivion." -Isabel Allende
"He who labors diligently need never despair, for all things are accomplished by diligence and labor." -Menander
"I’m an impatient optimistic." - Bill Gates
"Never neglect details. When everyone's mind is dulled or distracted, the leader must be doubly vigilant." - Colin Powell
"Whenever anything is…being done, I have learned, it is being done by a monomaniac with a mission." - Peter Drucker
"If Your Actions Inspire People to Dream More, Learn More, Do More and Become More, Then You Are A Leader." - John Quincy Adams
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” - Margaret Mead
“In business as in life, you don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate.” - Chester L. Karrass
“Greatness is not where we stand but in what direction we are moving.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes
“But I think it is very important for you to do two things: act on your temporary conviction as if it was a real conviction; and when you realize that you are wrong, correct course very quickly." -Andy Grove
“Your reputation and integrity are everything. Follow through on what you say you’re going to do. Your credibility can only be built over time, and it is built from the history of your words and actions.”
~Maria Razumich-Zec
“Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood.”
-Daniel Burnham
“Be around people who can keep your energy and inspiration high. While you can make progress alone, it’s so much easier when you have support.”
-Dr. Joe Vitale
“If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.” - Epictetus
“He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.”
-Tao Te Ching
"Perhaps the best test of a man's intelligence is his capacity for making a summary." -- Lytton Strachey
“Meetings are indispensable when you don’t want to do anything.” - John Kenneth Galbraith
“Every time you interact with a customer, you’re engaging in marketing.” - Seth Godin
"Things should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." -- Albert Einstein
"Efficiency, which is doing things right, is irrelevant until you work on the right things." -Peter Drucker
"In important matters, a 'strong' effort usually results in only mediocre results. Whenever we are attempting anything truly worthwhile our effort must be as if our life is at stake, just as if we were under a physical attack! It is this extraordinary effort - an effort that drives us beyond what we thought we were capable of - that ensures victory in battle and success in life's endeavors." -- Flashing Steel: Mastering Eishin-Ryu Swordsmanship
"The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving." -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
"Indecision is often worse than wrong action." - Henry Ford
“There is nothing that wastes the body like worry” – Mahatma Gandhi
“Simplicity is a virtue. Simple messages travel faster, and the elimination of clutter allows faster decision-making.” – Jack Welch
"The smallest of actions is always better than the noblest of intentions." - Robin Sharma
“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.” - Henry Ford
"Failure is the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently."
-- Henry Ford, Founder of the Ford Motor Company
"If you are not moving closer to what you want in sales (or in life), you probably aren't doing enough asking."
-- Jack Canfield, Inspirational Self Help Author and Success Coach
“The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” -- Theodore Roosevelt
"Character is what you have left when you've lost everything you can lose." -- Evan Esar
"I know the price of success: dedication, hard work, and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen." -- Franklin Lloyd Wright
“I take notes like some people take drugs…” – Tim Ferriss
"Perhaps the very best question that you can memorize and repeat, over and over, is, 'what is the most valuable use of my time right now?'" -- Brian Tracy
"If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants." -- David Ogilvy, Ogilvy & Mather founder
“The one word that makes a good manager - decisiveness.” –Lee Iacocca
“Determine never to be idle…It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.” -- Thomas Jefferson
"The point is to develop the childlike inclination for play and the childlike desire for recognition and to guide the child over to important fields for society. Such a school demands from the teacher that he be a kind of artist in his province." -- Albert Einstein
"It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste time." -- Henry Ford
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” -George Bernard Shaw
"Procrastination is the thief of time,” Edward Young, Night Thoughts, 1742
"To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often." – Winston Churchill
"People of mediocre ability sometimes achieve outstanding success because they don't know when to quit. Most men succeed because they are determined to." -- George Allen, football coach
“If I had asked people what they wanted, I would have built a faster horse” -- Henry Ford
“It is a funny thing about life: if you refuse to accept anything but the best you very often get it. “ -- W. Somerset Maugham
"Energy and persistence conquer all things" - Benjamin Franklin
"Don't be afraid to be unique or speak your mind, because that's what makes you different from everyone else." - Dave Thomas, Wendy's founder
"Your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing." - Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. president
“We have a ‘strategic’ plan. It’s called doing things.”—Herb Kelleher, founder, Southwest Airlines
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”—Charles Darwin
"Progress is made by lazy [people] looking for easier ways to do things." - Robert A. Henlein