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Business Quotes

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Business Quotes

“You're missing it. This is not a one-man show. What's reinvigorating this company is two things: One, there's a lot of really talented people in this company who listened to the world tell them they were losers for a couple of years, and some of them were on the verge of starting to believe it themselves. But they're not losers. What they didn't have was a good set of coaches, a good plan. A good senior management team. But they have that now.”

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Author:Steve Jobs
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“You could transfer Congress over to run Standard Oil or General Motors, and they would have both things bankrupt in two years.”

YearsTwoRunningBusinessStandardsCongressOilTwo YearsMotorTransfersGeneral MotorsStandard Oil
Book:Will Rogers Speaks: Over 1,000 Timeless Quotations for Public Speakers (writers, Politicians, Comedians, Browsers ...)
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“We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Don't let yourself be lulled into inaction.”

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Book:Business @ the Speed of Thought: Succeeding in the Digital Economy
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“Detachment doesn't mean I'm trying less hard. It just means that fears and emotions that used to torment and paralyze me no longer have the same power over me. Getting to this point hasn't always been easy; it took me years to really learn to silence my mind. But as you move through your career and your life, you will have to learn that if you're not what you do, then what you do has no business keeping you entertained at night.”

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Author:Kelly Cutrone
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“For twenty years it had been generally known that an insidious Lobby was maintained in Washington to influence legislation and executive action on behalf of vested interests. ... The lobby was a creature of darkness. It worked behind closed doors and whispered in corners. This ancient industry was one form of invisible government.”

YearsGovernmentActionFormPoliticsInterestBusinessBehindsKnownDarknessDoorsInfluenceIndustryCreaturesTwentiesAncientCornersInvisibleExecutivesLegislationBehalfInsidiousClosed DoorsVested InterestsBehind Closed Doors
Author:Margaret Case Harriman
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“Well, years and years ago, I started to ask myself three very simple questions, which dominated my life for many years. One of them was, "Why are organizations everywhere, whether commercial, social, or religious, increasingly unable to manage their affairs?" The second question was, "Why are individuals throughout the world increasingly in conflict with and alienated from the organizations of which they're a part?" And the third was, "Why are society and the biosphere increasingly in disarray?"”

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Author:Dee Hock
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“Today, National Geographic has a membership side with a magazine and some television side, and they generate about a billion dollars in revenue, and they're profitable. And so at the end of the year they have some bottom line profit which they can then reinvest, because they're running it as a not-for-profit in charitable endeavors.”

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Author:Steve Case
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“...one of the most inventive forms of creative capitalism involves someone we all know very well. A few years ago, I was sitting in a bar here in Davos with Bono. Late at night, after a few drinks, he was on fire, talking about how we could get a percentage of each purchase from civic-minded companies to help change the world. He kept calling people, waking them up, and handing me the phone to show me the interest.”

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Author:Bill Gates
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“The start of the New Year is a perfect time to start a stop doing list and to make this the cornerstone of your New Year resolutions, be it for your company, your family or yourself. It also is a perfect time to clarify your three circles, mirroring at a personal level the three questions... 1) What are you deeply passionate about? 2) What are you are genetically encoded for - what activities do you feel just "made to do"? 3) What makes economic sense - what can you make a living at?”

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Author:James C. Collins
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“Yes, I am optimistic about the environment. If you assume business is exerting the most negative influence on the environment and also has the possibility to impact it positively, there are a bunch of forces that are impacting business that are fundamentally different from the situation 3 or 4 years ago.”

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Author:Jeffrey Hollender
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“Oh Lord, there it is again. The question;" What kind of business should I start?" Incidentially, it has a twin that also sets me off: "What should I specialize in during the second year of my MBA studies?" Sorry, but those are two of the most profoundly upsetting questions anyone can ask - upsetting because the answer should be obvious: Do what turns you on, not what the statistics say is best.”

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Book:The Pursuit of Wow!: Every Person's Guide to Topsy-Turvy Times
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“I was 21 and had spent the last few years in Stanford University Engineering School at California. Many people advised me to take up a nice, cushy job rather than face the challenges of running a hydrogenated oil business. Looking back, I am glad I decided to take charge instead. Essentially leadership begins from within. It is a small voice that tells you where to go when you feel lost. If you believe in that voice, you believe in yourself.”

PeopleIfsInspirationalFeelsYearsBelieveRunningSchoolJobsLastsFacesLostVoiceChallengesBusinessNiceDecidedUniversityOilGladCaliforniaBelieve In YourselfEngineeringLooking BackBelieve In YouIf You BelieveStanfordSmall VoiceStanford UniversityOil Business
Author:Azim Premji
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“The status quo is a very powerful opiate and when you have a system that seems to be working and producing profits by the conventional way of accounting for profits. It's very hard to make yourself change. But we all know that change is an inevitable part of business. Once you have ridden a wave just so far, you have to get another wave. We all know that. For us, becoming restorative has been that new wave and we have been riding it for 13 years now. It's been incredibly good for business.”

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Author:Ray Anderson
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“Preserve the core, and let the rest flux. In their wonderful bestseller Built to Last, authors James Collins and Jerry Porras make a convincing argument that long-lived companies are able to thrive 50 years or more by retaining a very small heart of unchanging values, and then stimulating progress in everything else. At times "everything" includes changing the business the company operates in, migrating, say, from mining to insurance. Outside the core of values, nothing should be exempt from flux. Nothing.”

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Author:Kevin Kelly
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“During the last five years, those four advantages-costs, products, people, goodwill-have been the salvation of Interface during a recession that saw our primary marketplace shrink by 38% from peak to trough-38%! As a heavily leveraged company with over $400 million in debt, we might not have made it without the sustainability initiative and, especially, the support of our customers. This revised definition of success-this new paradigm-has a name: "Doing well by doing good". It is a better way to bigger profits.”

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Author:Ray Anderson
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“Competition is. In every business, no matter how small or how large, someone is just around the corner forever trying to steal your ideas and build his success out of your imagination, struggling after that which you have toiled endless years to secure, striving to outdo you in each and every way. If such a competitor would work as hard to originate as he does to copy, he would much more quickly gain success.”

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Author:Alice Foote MacDougall
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“Microsoft has had two goals in the last 10 years. One was to copy the Mac, and the other was to copy Lotus' success in the spreadsheet - basically, the applications business. And over the course of the last 10 years, Microsoft accomplished both of those goals. And now they are completely lost.”

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Book:Motivating Thoughts of Steve Jobs
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“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

LifeInspirationalYearsWisdomDreamHumorInspirationMotivationalActionHappinessSuccessPeaceChangeLeadershipInspiringBusinessCouragePositiveAdventureWindInspirational LifeRegretConfidenceSafeTravelDepressionTwentiesBraveryTradeDisappointmentPersistenceLife ChangingBelieve In YourselfDisappointedTime TravelSailTraveledGraduationComfort ZoneEncouragingSailingEnjoy LifeOur DreamsNot Giving UpFollow Your DreamsNo FearMaking ChangesFollow Your HeartHarborsAdventurousTrust YourselfBe True To YourselfListen To Your HeartGreat TravelInspiring TravelWords Of EncouragementTravel The WorldTravel AdventureAdventure And TravelSeeing The WorldListen To YourselfDreams You HaveLife Is An AdventureNauticalGreat RiskInspirational AdventureGreat AdventureLife AdventureAdventure And LifeLive Life HappyWant To TravelNomadicBoats And SailingFollowing My DreamsNext AdventureFear NoneNew AdventureInspirational VacationAdventurous LifeTravel LightForeign TravelSafe HarborSailing And WindChasing SuccessGreatest AdventureDiscovering ThingsWorld Is YoursExploring The WorldLost Your MindSetting Sail
Author:H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
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“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.”

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Book:Warren Buffett on Business: Principles from the Sage of Omaha
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“I loved getting my M. B. A., and I really enjoyed being an accountant and financial analyst before I quit my day job twenty-five years ago to write full time. I just liked writing more…plus, I knew even then that as a full-time writer, I'd get plenty of chances to do business-type stuff, while as an accountant, I probably wouldn't get a lot of opportunities to write about dragons.”

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Author:Patricia C. Wrede
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“One of the things I have learned over 26 years in the business is that the most productive place to focus new business efforts on is current clients. Think about it you have the relationship, you have inside knowledge of the company, the people and often, the brand, so it's a much less diverting exercise. Simply put, the odds of getting a higher share with current clients is much better than getting in the front door with new ones.”

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Author:Rochelle B Lazarus
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“It has taken more than a hundred scientists two years to find out how to make the product in question; I have been given thirty days to create its personality and plan its launching. If I do my job well, I shall contribute as much as the hundred scientists to the success of this product.”

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Book:Confessions of an advertising man
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