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Famous Speeches | All Topics | Fill-In Quotations |
I have never compared myself to my managers ... although I have made some big financial decisions on my own and decided on new investments, I have never involved myself in managerial decisions.
A mediocre idea that generates enthusiasm will go further than a great idea that inspires no one.
For every failure, there's an alternative course of action. You just have to find it. When you come to a roadblock, take a detour.
If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can't, you're right.
Sandwich every bit of criticism between two layers of praise.
When you apply the word power to a man, it means strong and bold - very positive attributes. When you use it to describe a woman, it suggests bitchy, insensitive, hard.
You can't permit a honeymoon of small changes over a year or two. A long series of small changes just prolongs the pain.
Executives are like joggers. If you stop a jogger, he goes on running on the spot. If you drag an executive away from his business, he goes on running on the spot, pawing the ground, talking business.
The largest profits go to those businesses which most devotedly follow a policy of insisting on a competitive advantage, no matter how small, for every product or service they market.
If someone thinks they are being mistreated by us, they won't tell 5 people, they'll tell 5000.
The common question that gets asked in business is,why?That's a good question, but an equally valid question is,why not?
Grand business plans are all very well, but nothing beats dipping your toe in the water.
Only through curiosity can we discover opportunities, and only through gambling can we take advantage of them.
The one thing computers have done is let us make bigger mistakes. We have to be careful not to depend on our machines.
Doing the things we do now and doing them better, cheaper and faster will take us so far. But it will not take us far enough. We're going to have to do new things in new ways.
Start with your own money and value your intuition. It's all about endurance in the beginning. Your dream and passion to succeed must be stronger than your fear of failure.
Growth does not always lead a business to build on success. All too often it converts a highly successful business into a mediocre large business.
I believe in benevolent dictatorships, provided I am the dictator.
In a restless, creative business with an emphasis on experiment and development, ideas are the lifeblood.
No one has ever accused us of lagging behind. In fact, I am willing to turn an entire company upside down if it's time to do that. We're in perpetual evolution.
The kinds of people we employ are not afraid of taking risks. If someone mucks up, they don't get a bollocking from me. They know they've mucked up and they redouble their efforts.
We spend most of our lives working. So why do so few people have a good time doing it?
I don't pay attention to what the stock does. If the business does well, the stock eventually follows.
I've learned the perimeter of my circle of confidence.
Of one thing be certain: if a CEO is enthused about a particularly foolish acquisition, both his internal staff and his outside advisors will come up with whatever projections are needed to justify his stance. Only in fairy tales are emperors told that they are naked.
Take Wrigley's Chewing Gum. I don't think the Internet is going to change how people chew gum.
The attitude of disrespect that many executives have today for accurate reporting is a business disgrace. And auditors ... have done little on the positive side. Though auditors should regard the investing public as their client, they tend to kowtow instead to the managers who choose them and dole out their pay.
The fact that people will be full of greed, fear, or folly is predictable. The sequence is not predictable.
The market will pay better to entertain than educate.
The true investor welcomes volatility ... a wildly fluctuating market means that irrationally low prices will periodically be attached to solid businesses.
The truly big investment idea can usually be explained in a short paragraph. We like a business with enduring competitive advantages that is run by able and owner-oriented people. When these attributes exist, and when we can make purchases at sensible prices, it is hard to go wrong.
Wall Street is the only place people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from people who take the subway.
Your goal as an investor ... to purchase, at a rational price, a part interest in an easily-understandable business whose earnings are virtually certain to be materially higher ... years from now. Over time, you will find only a few companies that meet these standards - so when you see one ... buy a meaningful amount of stock.
If you are having as much fun running a big corporation as you did running a piece of it, then you are probably interfering too much with the people who really make it happen.
A good manager is a man who isn't worried about his own career but rather the careers of those who work for him. My advice: Don't worry about yourself. Take care of those who work for you and you'll float to greatness on their achievements.
IBM is like the Stepford Wives. It takes the best people from the best universities and colleges and then snips out some part of the brain so that they become mindless clones.
And while the law of competition may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it ensures the survival of the fittest in every department.
Men who continue hoarding great sums all their lives, the proper use of which for the public ends would work good to the community, should be made to feel that the community, in the form of the state, cannot thus be deprived of its proper share. By taxing estates heavily at death the state marks its condemnation of the selfish millionaire's unworthy life.
Never speculate ... if you have savings, invest them in solid securities, lands, or property. The man who gambles upon the exchanges is in the condition of the man who gambles at the gaming table. He rarely, if ever, makes a permanent success.
The man who dies rich dies disgraced.
I say what I mean, you hear what I say. That is the end of it.
How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone.
Success is often achieved by those who don't know that failure is inevitable.
Accountants and market researchers may be brilliant at examining and analysing facts about the past, but they have no forward vision.
That's what I say about restaurants - the back part is manufacturing, the front part is retailing, the theatre is what holds the whole thing together.
I believe that you have to understand the economics of a business before you have a strategy, and you have to understand your strategy before you have a structure. If you get these in the wrong order, you will probably fail.
Ideas are a commodity. Execution of them is not.
If you limit a company by its structure or by the people in the company, you will, by definition, limit the full potential of that business. It sounds basic, but a lot of companies don't follow the idea that the structure should be last and not first.
It's fun to do things that people don't think are possible or likely.
We're fast approaching the point at which there is really no distinction between the .com companies and traditional businesses. The only distinction will be between the winners and losers, and of course, the pace of change at which companies become winners or losers.
Of all the things I've done, the most vital is coordinating the talents of those who work for us and pointing them towards a certain goal.
If you look after the customers and look after the people who look after the customers, you should be successful.
Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling five balls in the air. You name them - work, family, health, friends, and spirit - and you're keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls - family, health, friends, and spirit are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged, or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for balance in your life.
First get in, then get rich, then get respectable.
People are the lifeblood of any airline, and it is the people of BA who will deliver its future success.
Failing is good as long as it doesn't become a habit.
I find that no matter how long a meeting goes on, the best ideas always come during the final five minutes, when people drop their guard and I ask them what they really think.
We will ship them our garbage. We believe in full disclosure.
You can't win without being completely different. When everyone else says we are crazy, I say, gee we really must be on to something.
The decision to do that extra bit must be embedded in the company's culture.
Business shouldn't be like sports, separating the men from the women.
I realised that if you want to change something, nine times out of ten you can change it more effectively from within.
If you don't drive your business, you will be driven out of business.
Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
To measure the man, measure his heart.
Growth is like creativity, it doesn't go along very neat, precise plans. You get clogged highways before you figure out a way to open up capacity. You get pollution before you figure out a way to fight it.
A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.
A handful of men have become very rich by paying attention to details that most others ignored.
A manufacturer is not through with his customer when a sale is completed. He has then only started with his customer.
Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.
Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.
Sometimes it is the menhigher upwho most need revamping - and they themselves are the last to recognize it.
There are only two fools in this world. One is the millionaire who thinks that by hoarding money he can somehow accumulate real power, and the other is the penniless reformer who thinks that if only he can take the money away from one class and give it to another, all the world's ills will be cured.
Whether you believe you can, or whether you believe you can't, you're absolutely right.
A company needs smart young men with the imagination and the guts to turn everything upside down if they can. It also needs old figures to keep them from turning upside down those things that ought to be rightside up.
A little blindness is necessary when you undertake risk.
I'm not an educator ... I'm a learner.
If the 1980s were about quality and the 1990s were about reengineering, then the 2000s will be about velocity.
Passionate leadership won't succeed if contradictory signals are sent out.
Take our 20 best people away, and I will tell you that Microsoft would become an unimportant company.
The CEO's role in raising a company's corporate IQ is to establish an atmosphere that promotes knowledge sharing and collaboration.
We rely on skilled foreign workers for their math, science, and creative abilities as well as their cultural knowledge, which helps when localizing products for world markets.
Every company has two organizational structures: The formal one is written on the charts; the other is the everyday relationships of the men and women in the organization.
In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: cash and experience. Take the experience first; the cash will come later.
It is practically impossible for a top management man, or even middle management, to be doing the degree and level of work that he should be doing and, at the same time, have a clean desk.
You can know a person by the kind of desk he keeps ... If the president of a company has a clean desk ... then it must be the executive vice president who is doing all the work.
There is a misconception that small is always more beautiful than big.
I think a man is a business failure who lets his family life interfere with his business record ... business is no place for him.
If businessmen always made the right decisions, business wouldn't be business.
The truly successful businessman is essentially a dissenter, a rebel who is seldom if ever satisfied with the status quo.
Praise should always be given in public, criticism should always be given in private.
The truly successful businessman is essentially a dissenter, a rebel who is seldom if ever satisfied with the status quo.
It's the classic case of being at the party too early. Nobody was there yet and nobody had had a drink. By the time we got there, the party was raging.
It is extremely important that you show some insensitivity to your past in order to show the proper respect for the future.
The world is first a Coke world, then an orange world, then a lemon-lime world.
You can only stumble if you're moving.
A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on.
Bromidic though it may sound, some questions don't have answers, which is a terribly difficult lesson to learn.
If one is rich and one's a woman, one can be quite misunderstood.
I believe in the value of paranoia. Business success contains the seeds of its own destruction. The more successful you are, the more people want a chunk of your business and then another chunk and then another until there is nothing left.
Let chaos reign, then rein in chaos.
The essence of a company like Intel is execution and strategy. Intel, looked at in another way, is a three-legged stool. One leg is technology - design and silicon technology - another leg is manufacturing, and the third leg is marketing. Whenever Intel did well it was because the three legs were equal. Whenever one of those legs was shorter than the others, we wobbled.
The new environment dictates two rules; first everything happens faster; second, anything that can be done will be done, if not by you, then by someone else, somewhere.
You can't treat your people like an expense item.
Without an appropriate vision, a transformation effort can easily dissolve into a list of confusing, incompatible and time-consuming projects that go in the wrong direction or nowhere at all.
You have to penetrate a woman's defenses. Getting into her head is a prerequisite to getting into her body.
Bury your ego. Don't be the star. Be the star maker!
Failure is a learning experience. It can be a gravestone or a stepping stone.
Greed is even more contagious than fear.
When it's time to make a decision about a person or problem ... trust your intuition ... act.
I'm not an entrepreneur. I like rules too much and entrepreneurs break rules.
Change is an attitude of mind and the place to start is within ourselves.
Keeping dreams alive and trying to make them come true is crucial in the watch business. We're in the business of selling emotional products.
To me success can only be achieved through repeated failure and introspection. In fact, success represents 1 per cent of your work which results from the 99 per cent that is called failure.
The Japanese are masters at making you peel the onion. You get through one layer and you are looking at another one just like it.
Your legacy should be that you made it better than it was when you got it.
Don't study the idea to death with experts and committees. Get on with it and see if it works.
The real impediment to producing a higher-quality product more efficiently isn't the workers, union or nonunion, it's management.
I found that there were these incredibly great people at doing certain things, and you couldn't replace one of these people with 50 average people. They could just do stuff that no number of average people could do.
We have a very simple, clear organization. It's very easy to know who has authority for what, who has responsibility for what. There's no politics about it, they're virtually politics-free organizations.
When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something ... That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things.
If you're not happy with yourself, how can you make the customer happy?
People are ambitious and unrealistic. They set targets for themselves that are higher than what you would set for them. And because they set them, they hit them.
What did it for me? It wasn't my education or experience. It was my passion.
Customers provide you with the most accurate barometer of what's right and wrong.
I think leadership is valuing the time you spend with your people more than anything else you do.
The more time I spend with our people, the more I find out about our business.
I feel sorry for those who live without competition ... fat, dumb, and unhappy in cradle-to-grave security.
Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage.
I don't like to hire consultants. They're like castrated bulls: all they can do is advise.
I see nothing wrong with power as long as I am the fellow who has it.
Our vision controls the way we think and, therefore, the way we act ... the vision we have of our jobs determines what we do and the opportunities we see or don't see.
What do you do when your competitor's drowning? Get a live hose and stick it in his mouth.
Observing your own and your competitor's successes and failures makes your inner business voice more sure and vivid.
Business today is about making decisions amid ambiguity.
The man who whispers down a well
About the goods he has to sell
Will not make as many dollars
As the man who climbs the tree and hollers!
I've found that when it came to doing something I loved and fighting for it, things worked out. If you're going to kill yourself to develop something, you've got to enjoy it.
You're fired!No other words can so easily and succinctly reduce a confident, self-assured executive to an insecure, groveling shred of his former self.
In business a reputation for keeping absolutely to the letter and spirit of an agreement, even when it is unfavorable, is the most precious of assets, although it is not entered in the balance sheet.
Big things and little things are my job. Middle level management can be delegated.
The tail tracks the head. If the head moves fast the tail will keep up the same pace. If the head is sluggish, the tail will drop.
Shifting toward management meant greater responsibility and influence, but it also meant giving up programming day-to-day in my role, which was hard because it took me out of my comfort zone.
I can tell more about how someone is likely to react in a business situation from one round of golf than I can from a hundred hours of meetings.
If new ideas are the lifeblood of any thriving organization ... managers must learn to revere, not merely tolerate, the people who come up with the ideas.
If you aren't afraid to fail, then you probably don't care enough about success.
Never wrestle with a pig. You get dirty and only the pig enjoys himself.
Today, if someone showed me a five-year plan, I'd toss out the pages detailing Years Three, Four, and Five as pure fantasy ... Anyone who thinks he or she can evaluate business conditions five years from now, flunks.
We seriously undervalue the passion ... a person brings to an enterprise. You can rent a brain, but you can't rent a heart.
When I find an employee who turns out to be wrong for a job, I feel it is my fault because I made the decision to hire him.
I don't give a damn what the media critics say. It's what your readers say. If you haven't got any readers, you're only talking to yourself.
I try to keep in touch with the details - you can't keep in touch with them all, but you've got to have a feel for what's going on.
Monopoly is a terrible thing, till you have it.
We're not going global because we want to or because of any megalomania, but because it's really necessary.
Human resources are the greatest assets of any company. You can raise tariffs or prevent MNCs from entering, but one can't stop the employees from leaving if they are dissatisfied.
I do not really understand the stock market.
It is better to underpromise and overdeliver than vice versa. For this one need not break the law of the land. One has to only think global. Otherwise success will disappear like the dew in the morning sun.
Organizations with decision-making speed and imagination will thrive as nobody can claim to have a monopoly over creativity.
You do not have to be the son of a rich man to be an entrepreneur. Today kids are far more willing to take risks because they've seen high rewards.
Generally, large companies are so inwardly directed that staff memorandums about growing bureaucracy get more attention than the dwindling competitive advantage of being big in the first place. David, who has a life, needn't use a slingshot. Goliath, who doesn't, is too busy reading office memos.
The best way to guarantee a steady stream of new ideas is to make sure that each person in your organization is as different as possible from the others. Under these conditions, and only these conditions, will people maintain varied perspectives and demonstrate their knowledge in different ways.
Show me a man who enjoys firing people and I'll show you a charlatan or sadist.
Truly great brands are far more than just labels for products; they are symbols that encapsulate the desires of consumers; they are standards that are held aloft under which the masses congregate.
A chairman who never wanders about his agency becomes a hermit, out of touch with his staff.
Advertising is only evil when it advertises evil things.
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.
If it doesn't sell, it isn't creative.
Anyone can build market share and, if you set your prices low enough, you can get the whole damn market.
We have a technique at Hewlett-Packard for helping managers and supervisors know their people and understand the work their people are doing ... Management by Walking About.
You have a responsibility to shape the vision of a company, and you know whatever process you choose will determine ultimately the well-being of the organization.
Chief executives, who themselves own few shares of their companies, have no more feeling for the average stockholder than they do for baboons in Africa.
Stop competing on price; compete on value. Deliver total consumer solutions, rather than just your piece of the solution.
Women are becoming enormously successful ... They're running their businesses on what we call a familial model, a family, instead of a hierarchical top-down military model. They work with, not over or for.
Having money is rather like being a blond. It is more fun but not vital.
In a small company, one person's hunch can be enough to launch a new product. In a big company, the same concept is likely to be buried in committee for months.
The customer is never wrong.
A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship.
By creating conversation, we let our customers spread our message by word of mouth.
If I had to name a driving force in my life, I'd name passion every time.
The kind of brain-dead, gum chewing assistant you find in so many shops drives me wild. I want everyone who works for me to feel the same excitement that I feel.
To run this business ... you need ... optimism, humanism, enthusiasm, intuition, curiosity, love, humour, magic and fun, and that secret ingredient - euphoria.
To succeed you have to believe in something with such a passion that it becomes a reality.
I believe in hard work. It keeps the wrinkles out of the mind and spirit.
People who are successful simply want it more than people who are not.
Instead of giving contracts to strangers, we decided we could just as well give contracts to our own employees. We would encourage them to leave ... and start their own satellite enterprises.
It's better to be the head of a chicken than the tail of a cow.
Leadership is the process of achieving a dream together, especially when that dream seems impossible to achieve.
Whenever we have compromised on our principles, we and our customers have been the losers.
Of all business activities, 99% are routine ... The entire 100% can be handled by managing the 1% of exceptions.
Administrators are cheap and easy to find and cheap to keep. Leaders - risk takers: they are in very short supply. And ones with vision are pure gold.
I would say that hardware is the bone of the head, the skull. The semiconductor is the brain within the head. The software is the wisdom and data is the knowledge.
As an anonymous participant in financial markets, I never had to weigh the social consequences of my actions ... I felt justified in ignoring them on the grounds that I was playing by the rules.
Financial markets ... resent any kind of government interference but they hold a belief deep down that if conditions get really tough the authorities will step in.
I am cautious about going against the herd. I am liable to be trampled on.
The priority in life is to keep an eye on the business and not to get lured into the high social life with groupie-type poseurs who wish to be seen with the new blue-eyed boy.
There should be some professional exam for these analysts. Most of the time they talk through their backsides.
Don't be afraid to be unique or speak your mind because that's what makes you different from everyone else.
Whether it's choosing a career or deciding what charity to get involved with, the choice should come from your heart. Ultimately, you are the one who has to get up every morning and enjoy what you are doing, so make sure it matters to you.
Nobody should be chief executive officer of anything for more than five or six years. By then he's stale, bored, and utterly dependent upon his own cliches.
No manufacturing company will ever do well if they are concerned only with calculating profits.
I wasn't satisfied just to earn a good living. I was looking to make a statement.
If you don't have passion ... you might as well give up ... you have no chance of making it. Passion is the essence of life, and certainly the essence of success.
My style of dealmaking is quite simple and straightforward. I just keep pushing and pushing to get what I'm after.
Sometimes your best investments are the ones you don't make.
If you have an olive, you want an olive tree. You want a little more. You want the whole tree.
The more good I do, the more money has come in. You have to learn to give. You're not born to give. You're born selfish.
Business doesn't have to choose between making profit and protecting the environment, between economic success and ethical responsibility, between satisfying the customer and meeting the demands of other stakeholders. In other words, we don't have to make a choice between profits and principles.
I didn't realize it then, but everything I ever needed to know about selling I was learning at my kitchen table: I was learning how to identify, find, and keep customers.
I like to dress egos.
We need a can-do, vibrant, innovation-driven culture. Not wearing a tie is just a snippet of that.
Our philosophy is that management's role is simply to get the right people in the right places to do a job, and to encourage them to use their own inventiveness to accomplish the task at hand.
We learned from everybody else's book and added a few pages of our own.
Success is more a function of consistent common sense than it is of genius.
An environment which calls for perfection is not likely to be easy. But aiming for it is always good for progress.
I want to begin with what I think is the most important factor: our respect for the individual. This is a simple concept, but in IBM it occupies a major portion of management time.
If you stand up and be counted, from time to time you may get yourself knocked down. But remember this: A man flattened by an opponent can get up again. A man flattened by conformity stays down for good.
Look, you can take anything away from IBM ... but leave our people and this business will re-create itself overnight.
There aren't any categories of problems here. There's just one problem. Some of us aren't paying enough attention to our customers.
You cannot be a success in any business without believing that it is the greatest business in the world ... You have to put your heart in the business and the business in your heart.
You have to put your heart in the business and the business in your heart.
I don't like the word empowerment. I think the word we're really talking about is involvement ... We want everyone to have a say.
Insecure managers create complexity.
The point of work-out is to give people better jobs. When people see that their ideas count, their dignity is raised. Instead of feeling numb, like robots, they feel important.
When the rate of change outside exceeds the rate of change inside, the end is in sight.
My own success was attended by quite a few failures along the way. But I refused to make the biggest mistake of all: worrying too much about making mistakes.
Sometimes the first step is the hardest: coming up with an idea. Coming up with an idea should be like sitting on a pin - it should make you jump up and do something.
The most successful people are those who take pride in their work, pride in their family ... It is great to attain wealth, but money is really just one way - and hardly the best way - to keep score.
Not everyone is capable of being a CEO It means you don't get to pal around with all your employees and that you leave the sorority/fraternity approach to life behind, and you take on a role that is, in some respects, lonely.
I believe in my own possibilities, and I feel I can do it all.
I was like a hit album waiting to be released. I knew my day would come.
You have to surround yourself with people you trust, and people that are good. But they also have to be people who will tell the emperor you have no clothes.
A few yes men may be born, but mostly they are made. Fear is a great breeder of them.
Real salesmen stick until the buyer has used up his lastNo.
When two men always agree, one of them is unnecessary.
From leaders, we need clear, consistent and honest attention to the identity of the organization. Identity shows up in our actions, our visions, our relationships inside and out of the organization. Identity gets deepened as we do the work.
Jugment comes from experience - and experience comes from bad judgment.
They have this wonderful process of learning from direct experience calledAfter Action Review,in which everyone who was involved sits down and the three questions are: What happened? Why do you think it happened? And what can we learn from it? If you were ... able to get those three questions as part of your process, you could become a learning organization.
When you retire ... you go from who's who to who's that, like stepping off the pier (or) achieving statutory senility.
There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.
For I was an hungred,
and ye gave me meat: I was
thirsty, and ye gave me drink:
I was a stranger, and ye took
me in.
Naked, and ye clothed
me: I was sick, and ye visited
me: I was in prison, and ye
came to me.
The mother's heart is the child's schoolroom.
No man can tell another his faults so as to benefit him, unless he loves him.
Too often we under estimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone.
People never care how much you know until they know how much you care.
I'm hungrier than all of them. They didn't put in the effort that I did to get the title. So I don't care what it takes - I'm not giving up that title. I worked too hard to get it, and I'm not going to lose it.
It should be noted that children at play are not playing about; their games should be seen as their most serious-minded activity.
The real sin against life is to abuse and destroy beauty, even one's own-even more, one's own, for that has been put in our care and we are responsible for its well-being.
You cry and you scream and you stomp your feet and you shout. You say,You know what? I'm giving up, I don't care.And then you go to bed and you wake up and it's a brand new day, and you pick yourself back up again.
The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted.
To lose one parent...may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
Tomorrow's typical career will be neither linear nor continuous, nor will it always be upwards. Instead, one's life work will take more of a zig-zag course.
A new type of woman arises. She is called a career woman. A man is never a career man. That is his right and privilege. But the woman is called career woman because hercareer... demands that she ... even renounce normal life.
The power of the position is giving way to the power of the person. A formal title and its placement on an organization chart have less to do with career prospects and success ... than the skills and ideas a person brings to that work.
My best career decision was probably not giving up when I wanted to. God as well as my family and friends were there for me during my toughest times.
People don't choose their careers; they are engulfed by them.
Whether it's choosing a career or deciding what charity to get involved with, the choice should come from your heart. Ultimately, you are the one who has to get up every morning and enjoy what you are doing, so make sure it matters to you.
I got my start by giving myself a start.
Never burn bridges. Today's junior prick, tomorrow's senior partner.
When you retire ... you go from who's who to who's that, like stepping off the pier (or) achieving statutory senility.
To lose one parent...may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
Young women with ambitions should be very crafty and cautious, lest mayhap they be caught in the soft, silken mesh of a happy marriage, and go down to oblivion, dead to the world.
The timid man calls himself cautious, the sordid man thrifty.
Be careful, be cautious, do not rush into negotiations ... be careful what you give away now, you may wish you had not done so should in future the balance of forces turn in your favour.
A celebrity is one who works hard all his life to become well-known and then goes through back streets wearing dark glasses so he won't be recognized.
A conference is a gathering of important people who, singly, can do nothing but together can decide that nothing can be done.
A molehill man is a pseudo-busy executive who comes to work at 9 a.m. and finds a molehill on his desk. He has until 5 p.m. to make this molehill into a mountain. An accomplished molehill man will often have his mountain finished before lunch.
More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.
If you look at films about becoming a man, coming-of-age movies are made with 12-, 16-, 40-, 50-year-olds... For a guy to feel like he's a 100 percent grown-up is almost like giving up. Like admitting that you're on your way into the grave.
Beauty comes in all sizes - not just size 5.
Life, you know, is rather like opening a tin of sardines. We're all of us looking for the key.
All the pictures that hung in my memory before I knew you have faded and given place to our radiant moments together. Now I cannot live apart from you ... Your words are my food, your breath my wine. You are everything to me.
Words are so futile, so feeble.
When he said we were trying to make a fool of him, I could only murmur that the Creator had beat us to it.
If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play.
Last night I dreamt I ate a ten-pound marshmallow. When I woke up the pillow was gone.
I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.
The thing that best defines a child is the total inability to receive information from anything not plugged in.
To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people. I've known sheep that could outwit you. I've worn dresses with higher IQs. But you think you're an intellectual, don't you, ape?
I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally.
Never give a sucker an even break.
A cousin of mine who was a casualty surgeon in Manhattan tells me that he and his colleagues had a one-word nickname for bikers: Donors.
For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.
Life is very insistent; and it always seems to be so when friends sadly leave us.
My momma always said, life was like a box of chocolates - you never know what you're gonna get.
For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.
I don't think that work ever really destroyed anybody. I think that lack of work destroys them a hell of a lot more.
If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.
Being in jail is by far the hardest thing I have ever done. During the past several days, I have had a lot of time to think and I believe that I am learning and growing from this experience ... I would hope going forward that the public and the media will focus on more important things like the men and women serving our country in Iraq and other places around the world.
I'd love to make a movie with Tom Hardy. If we ever got the chance to make a Venom movie together, that would be super-cool, but his movie would have to take place in the MCU because I'm not giving up my ticket in the MCU.
If you haven't struck oil in your first three minutes, stop boring!
When I appear in public, people expect me to neigh, grind my teeth, paw the ground, and swish my tail.
It is a characteristic of committee discussions and decisions that every member has a vivid recollection of them and that every member's recollection differs violently from every other member's recollection.
I grew up with a lot of brothers and sisters. I did all I could do to really stand out and that nurtured a lot of confidence and drive and ambition.
I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception.
Show me the man who has enjoyed his schooldays and I will show you a bully and a bore.
There are interesting failures. There are prestige failures, and there are financial failures, but this is the sort of failure that gives failures a bad name.
A woman is like a teabag. It's only when she's in hot water that you realize how strong she is.
Diplomats are just as essential to starting a war as soldiers are for finishing it.
I don't make jokes; I just watch the government and report the facts.
Outside of traffic, there is nothing that has held this country back as much as committees.
You can't say civilization don't advance... in every war they kill you in a new way.
Education is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don't.
You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.
The only thing that endures is character. Fame and wealth - all that is illusion.
I think giving up people is a difficult thing.
You see yourself as a good product that sits on a shelf and sells well, and people make a lot of money out of you.
What winning is to me is not giving up, is no matter what's thrown at me, I can take it. And I can keep going.
The trouble with being in the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.
I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you like best, they are merely the people who got there first.
We used to have lots of questions to which there were no answers. Now, with the computer, there are lots of answers to which we haven't thought up the questions.
Lawyers should never marry other lawyers. This is called inbreeding, from which comes idiot children and more lawyers.
Never burn bridges. Today's junior prick, tomorrow's senior partner.
Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?
When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before.
I've met a lot of hardboiled eggs in my time, but you're twenty minutes.
I believe in my own possibilities, and I feel I can do it all.
I was like a hit album waiting to be released. I knew my day would come.
If money is your motivation, forget it.
The greatest contribution you can make to women's rights, is to be the absolute ... best at what you do.
Though I am grateful for the blessings of wealth, it hasn't changed who I am. My feet are still on the ground. I'm just wearing better shoes.
I'd like to introduce you to some friends of mine. I want to break off with them.
My wife is a light eater. As soon as it's light, she starts eating.
My wife wanted her face lifted. They couldn't do that. But for $80, they lowered her body.
Now she's on a diet. Coconuts and bananas. She hasn't lost any weight. But she can climb a tree!
When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.
Everybody favours free speech in the slack moments when no axes are being ground.
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
They have a right to censure that have a heart to help.
One of the best ways of enslaving a people is to keep them from education... The second way of enslaving a people is to suppress the sources of information, not only by burning books but by controlling all the other ways in which ideas are transmitted.
What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.
Those who want the Government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men who are afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide to avoid assassination.
The Khomeini cry for the execution of Rushdie is an infantile cry. From the beginning of time we have seen that. To murder the thinker does not murder the thought.
If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainty.
When dealing with complexity and uncertainty, trust and openness become critical.
Organizations that are change leaders are designed for change. But people need continuity ... they do not function well if the environment is not predictable, not understandable, not known.
In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.
If businessmen always made the right decisions, business wouldn't be business.
My momma always said, life was like a box of chocolates - you never know what you're gonna get.
A rolling stone gathers no moss, but it gains a certain polish.
Oh, if only it were possible to find understanding,Joseph exclaimed.
If only there were a dogma to believe in. Everything is contradictory, everything tangential; there are no certainties anywhere. Everything can be interpreted one way and then again interpreted in the opposite sense. The whole of world history can be explained as development and progress and can also be seen as nothing but decadence and meaninglessness. Isn't there any truth? Is there no real and valid doctrine?
There is truth, my boy. But the doctrine you desire, absolute, perfect dogma that alone provides wisdom, does not exist. Nor should you long for a perfect doctrine, my friend. Rather, you should long for the perfection of yourself. The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught. Be prepared for conflicts, Joseph Knecht - I can see that they already have begun.
There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.
It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.
Creativity can be described as letting go of certainties.
I don't see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty.
'Tis better to have fought and lost,
Than never to have fought at all.
The important thing in life is not the victory but the contest; the essential thing is not to have won, but to have fought well.
The truly successful businessman is essentially a dissenter, a rebel who is seldom if ever satisfied with the status quo.
Yesterday's success formula is often today's obsolete dogma ... We must continually challenge the past so that we can renew ourselves each day.
One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
You can't fight against the future. Time is on our side.
Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it... It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for.... and the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.
It is not enough to fight. It is the spirit which we bring to the fight that decides the issue. It is morale that wins the victory.
Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in that grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.
The Difficult is that which can be done immediately; the Impossible that which takes a little longer.
When the sea was calm, all boats alike
Show'd mastership in floating.
There is no such thing as a man being too proud to fight.
I'd love to make a movie with Tom Hardy. If we ever got the chance to make a Venom movie together, that would be super-cool, but his movie would have to take place in the MCU because I'm not giving up my ticket in the MCU.
As women, we know that we must always find ways to change the process because the present institutions want to hold on to power and keep the status quo.
We are bringing women into politics to change the nature of politics, to change the vision, to change the institutions. Women are not wedded to the policies of the past. We didn't craft them. They didn't let us.
Women will change the nature of power, rather than power changing the nature of women.
Change means movement. Movement means friction.
It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.
The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.
By the structure of the world we often want, at the sudden occurrence of a grave tempest, to change the helmsman - to replace the pilot of the calm by the pilot of the storm.
You can't permit a honeymoon of small changes over a year or two. A long series of small changes just prolongs the pain.
Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.
No one has ever accused us of lagging behind. In fact, I am willing to turn an entire company upside down if it's time to do that. We're in perpetual evolution.
Take Wrigley's Chewing Gum. I don't think the Internet is going to change how people chew gum.
The dinosaurs disappeared because they could not adapt to their changing environment. We shall disappear if we cannot adapt to an environment that now contains spaceships, computers and thermonuclear weapons.
It is only the very wisest and the very stupidest who cannot change.
The first step toward change is acceptance. Once you accept yourself, you open the door to change.
Variety's the very spice of life, that gives it all its flavour.
We're fast approaching the point at which there is really no distinction between the .com companies and traditional businesses. The only distinction will be between the winners and losers, and of course, the pace of change at which companies become winners or losers.
Organizations that are change leaders are designed for change. But people need continuity ... they do not function well if the environment is not predictable, not understandable, not known.
The most common cause of executive failure is inability or unwillingness to change with the demands of a new position. The executive who keeps on doing what he has done successfully before is almost bound to fail.
Nature repairs her ravages, but not all. The uptorn trees are not rooted again; the parted hills are left scarred; if there is a new growth, the trees are not the same as the old, and the hills underneath their green vesture bear the marks of the past rending. To the eyes that have dwelt on the past, there is no thorough repair.
I realised that if you want to change something, nine times out of ten you can change it more effectively from within.
Administrative purpose usually outruns the facts. Indeed the administrative official's ardor for facts usually begins when he wants to change the facts!
Sometimes it is the menhigher upwho most need revamping - and they themselves are the last to recognize it.
A company needs smart young men with the imagination and the guts to turn everything upside down if they can. It also needs old figures to keep them from turning upside down those things that ought to be rightside up.
Change is inevitable, but it is in us to control its content and directions.
You should be the change that you want to see in the world.
If the 1980s were about quality and the 1990s were about reengineering, then the 2000s will be about velocity.
The truly successful businessman is essentially a dissenter, a rebel who is seldom if ever satisfied with the status quo.
You can't fight against the future. Time is on our side.
It is extremely important that you show some insensitivity to your past in order to show the proper respect for the future.
Let chaos reign, then rein in chaos.
The new environment dictates two rules; first everything happens faster; second, anything that can be done will be done, if not by you, then by someone else, somewhere.
Without an appropriate vision, a transformation effort can easily dissolve into a list of confusing, incompatible and time-consuming projects that go in the wrong direction or nowhere at all.
Change is an attitude of mind and the place to start is within ourselves.
A woman's mind is cleaner than a man's; she changes it more often.
Others appear frozen in the headlights - aware of the likely impact, yet paralysed by the fear of major transformations.
In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.
If your religion does not change you, then you should change your religion.
Only man is not content to leave things as they are but must always be changing them, and when he has done so, is seldom satisfied at the result.
I am captivated more by dreams of the future than by history of the past.
If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.
Companies that stay ahead of change are ones in which their people see change as something they themselves accomplish and not something that is imposed on them. They see lots of opportunities to take initiative.
Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality.
If you want truly to understand something, try to change it.
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
We can pay the ecological debt by changing economic models, and by giving up luxury consumption, setting aside selfishness and individualism, and thinking about the people and the planet Earth.
Wisdom lies neither in fixity nor in change, but in the dialectic between the two.
I don't need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better.
While animals survive by adjusting themselves to their background, man survives by adjusting his background to himself.
Throughout the world, change is the order of the day.
Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
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.
If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we aren't really living.
If you can't change your fate change your attitude.
When the rate of change outside exceeds the rate of change inside, the end is in sight.
The art of progress is to preserve order amid change, and to preserve change amid order.
Though I am grateful for the blessings of wealth, it hasn't changed who I am. My feet are still on the ground. I'm just wearing better shoes.
Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.
The rough broad difference between the American and the European business man is that the latter is anxious to leave his work, while the former is anxious to get to it.
If you are not yourself, if you surrender your personality, you have nothing left to give the world. You have no pleasure, no use, nothing which will attract and charm me, for by the suppression of your individuality, you lose your distinctive character.
Watch how a man takes praise and there you have the measure of him.
You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.
Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation. Your character is what you really are, while your reputation is what others think you are.
He was a verray, parfit gentil knyght.
Men's natures are alike; it is their habits that carry them apart.
Men are like plants; the goodness and flavour of the fruit proceeds from the peculiar soil and exposition in which they grow.
A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize the truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself as well as for others.
Our deeds still travel with us from afar, and what we have been makes us what we are.
A character is like an acrostic or Alexandrian stanza; read it forward, backward, or across, it still spells the same thing.
Character is higher than intellect ... A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think.
To measure the man, measure his heart.
Seven social sins: politics without principles, wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, and worship without sacrifice.
Bury your ego. Don't be the star. Be the star maker!
Character is power; it makes friends, draws patronage and support, and opens the way to wealth, honor, and happiness.
Character is the result of a system of stereotyped principals.
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
Sincerity is impossible unless it pervades the whole being, and the pretense of it saps the very foundation of character.
For every five well-adjusted and smoothly functioning Americans, there are two who never had the chance to discover themselves. It may well be because they have never been alone with themselves.
I recognize that I am made up of several persons and that the person that at the moment has the upper hand will inevitably give place to another. But which is the real one? All of them or none?
When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character.
I can tell more about how someone is likely to react in a business situation from one round of golf than I can from a hundred hours of meetings.
The great man does not think beforehand of his words that they may be sincere, nor of his actions that they may be resolute - he simply speaks and does what is right.
Simplicity of character is no hindrance to subtlety of intellect.
You've got to learn to survive a defeat. That's when you develop character.
The best index to a person's character is (a) how he treats people who can't do him any good, and (b) how he treats people who can't fight back.
It is with narrow-souled people as with narrow-necked bottles: the less they have in them, the more noise they make in pouring it out.
Acting isn't always about the amount of talent you have, or your ability to cry on command. The point is, how well can you take direction? How well can you put aside your own ideas or ego and listen to the ideas of the director and the people above you, while not giving up the passion and drive of that character?
A woman is like a teabag. It's only when she's in hot water that you realize how strong she is.
You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by the way he eats jelly beans.
Where the character is not great, there is no great man ... Never mind success. It is a question of being great, not seeming it.
Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.
He looked like the kind of a guy that wouldn't talk to you much unless he wanted something off you. He had a lousy personality.
Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.
You can tell the character of every man when you see how he receives praise.
The only thing that endures is character. Fame and wealth - all that is illusion.
Don't be afraid to be unique or speak your mind because that's what makes you different from everyone else.
The depths and strength of a human character are defined by its moral reserves. People reveal themselves completely only when they are thrown out of the customary conditions of their life, for only then do they have to fall back on their reserves.
I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.
I've met a lot of hardboiled eggs in my time, but you're twenty minutes.
Character is a by-product; it is produced in the great manufacture of daily duty.
If you will think about what you ought to do for other people, your character will take care of itself. Character is a by-product, and any man who devotes himself to its cultivation in his own case will become a selfish pig.
Slice him where you like, a hellhound is always a hellhound.
The three grades of character are superior, medium and inferior: the superior is just good, the medium is capable of development either in an upward or a downward direction, and the inferior is just evil.
What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as who you become (by achieving your goals).
But when thou doest alms, let
not thy left hand know what thy
right hand doeth:
Jesus said unto him, If thou
wilt be perfect, go and sell that
thou hast, and give to the poor,
and thou shalt have treasure in
heaven: and come and follow me.
For I was an hungred,
and ye gave me meat: I was
thirsty, and ye gave me drink:
I was a stranger, and ye took
me in.
Naked, and ye clothed
me: I was sick, and ye visited
me: I was in prison, and ye
came to me.
I have shewed you all things,
how that so labouring ye ought to
support the weak, and to remem-
ber the words of the Lord Jesus,
how he said, It is more blessed to
give than to receive.
Every man according as he
purposeth in his heart, so let him
give; not grudgingly, or of neces-
sity: for God loveth a cheerful
giver.
Any one can get angry - that is easy - or give or spend money; but to do this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not for every one, nor is it easy.
The living need charity more than the dead.
He is rich who hath enough to be charitable.
Men who continue hoarding great sums all their lives, the proper use of which for the public ends would work good to the community, should be made to feel that the community, in the form of the state, cannot thus be deprived of its proper share. By taxing estates heavily at death the state marks its condemnation of the selfish millionaire's unworthy life.
The man who dies rich dies disgraced.
The more we ask, the more we have.
And, it is fair enough: asking is not always easy.
And it is said to be hard to accept ...
So no wonder we have so little.
There are only two fools in this world. One is the millionaire who thinks that by hoarding money he can somehow accumulate real power, and the other is the penniless reformer who thinks that if only he can take the money away from one class and give it to another, all the world's ills will be cured.
It is better to give than to lend, and it costs about the same.
Teach us, good Lord, to serve Thee as Thou deservest;
To give and not to count the cost;
To fight and not to heed the wounds;
To toil and not to seek for rest;
To labour and not to ask for any reward
Save that of knowing that we do Thy will.
A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.
Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.
People often feed the hungry so that nothing may disturb their own enjoyment of a good meal.
Money is like manure. If you spread it around, it does a lot of good, but if you pile it up in one place, it stinks like hell.
Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it's always just my luck to get
One perfect rose.
No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions. He had money as well.
Whether it's choosing a career or deciding what charity to get involved with, the choice should come from your heart. Ultimately, you are the one who has to get up every morning and enjoy what you are doing, so make sure it matters to you.
The more is given the less the people will work for themselves, and the less they work the more their poverty will increase.
The more good I do, the more money has come in. You have to learn to give. You're not born to give. You're born selfish.
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
Simple rules for saving money: To save half, when you are fired by an eager impulse to contribute to charity, wait, and count to forty. To save three-quarters, count sixty. To save it all, count sixty-five.
The Master has no possessions. The more he does for others, the happier he is. The more he gives to others, the wealthier he is.
Behold, I do not give lectures or a little charity, When I give I give myself.
If you will think about what you ought to do for other people, your character will take care of itself. Character is a by-product, and any man who devotes himself to its cultivation in his own case will become a selfish pig.
You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.
Age, like distance lends a double charm.
Modesty: the gentle art of enhancing your charm by pretending not to be aware of it.
Every man according as he
purposeth in his heart, so let him
give; not grudgingly, or of neces-
sity: for God loveth a cheerful
giver.
More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.
Once thewhatis decided thehowalways follows. We must not make thehowan excuse for not facing and accepting thewhat.
When a person is born, he can embark on only one of three roads of life: if you go right, the wolves will eat you; if you go left, you'll eat the wolves; if you go straight, you'll eat yourself.
It is your own conviction which compels you; that is, choice compels choice.
We should never allow ourselves to be bullied by an either-or. There is often the possibility of something better than either of these two alternatives.
Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.
The best taxes are such as are levied upon consumptions, especially those of luxury ... They seem, in some measure, voluntary; since a man may chuse how far he will use the commodity which is taxed.
Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality.
When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character.
I would have been a success in anything. But I have chosen an activity that was socially useful and that aspect gives me extra satisfaction.
We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe.
One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And, the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.
There is always a multitude of reasons both in favour of doing a thing and against doing it. The art of debate lies in presenting them; the art of life lies in neglecting ninety-nine hundredths of them.
Even children learn in growing up thatbothis not an admissible answer to a choice ofwhich one?
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?
Whether it's choosing a career or deciding what charity to get involved with, the choice should come from your heart. Ultimately, you are the one who has to get up every morning and enjoy what you are doing, so make sure it matters to you.
Business doesn't have to choose between making profit and protecting the environment, between economic success and ethical responsibility, between satisfying the customer and meeting the demands of other stakeholders. In other words, we don't have to make a choice between profits and principles.
When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before.
Be careful to choose your enemies well. Friends don't much matter. But the choice of enemies is very important.
I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies. I have not one who is a fool. They are all men of some intellectual power, and consequently they all appreciate me.
And I'm suppose to sit by while you date boys and fall in love with someone else, get married...?His voice tightened.
And meanwhile, I'll die a little bit more every day, watching.
And now I'm looking at you,he said,
and you're asking me if I still want you, as if I could stop loving you. As if I would want to give up the thing that makes me stronger than anything else ever has. I never dared give much of myself to anyone before - bits of myself to the Lightwoods, to Isabelle and Alec, but it took years to do it - but, Clary, since the first time I saw you, I have belonged to you completely. I still do. If you want me.
I am a manhe told her,
and men do not consume pink beverages. Get thee gone woman, and bring me something brown.
Is this the part where you say if I hurt her, you'll kill me?
NoSimon said,
If you hurt Clary she's quite capable of killing you herself. Possibly with a variety of weapons.
I don't remember the Clave inviting you into the Glass City, Magnus Bane.
They didn't,Magnus said.
Your wards are down.
Really?the Consul's voice dripped sarcasm.
I hadn't noticed.
That's terrible. Someone should have told you.He glanced at Luke.
Tell him the wards are down.
Not everything is about you,Clary said furiously.
Possibly,Jace said,
but you do have to admit that the majority of things are.
People aren't born good or bad. Maybe they're born with tendencies either way, but its the way you live your life that matters.
There is no pretending,Jace said with absolute clarity.
I love you, and I will love you until I die, and if there is life after that, I'll love you then.
You could have had anything else in the world, and you asked for me.
But I don't want anything else in the world.
You said you were going for a walk!? What kind of walk takes six hours?
A long one?
I feel like I just have such the blood and bones of a New Yorker that I can almost imagine better, like, giving up the fight and not being able to afford the city and going out West, keeping a small place here, and then when I'm like 80, coming back here, living on the park and going to the theater.
A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.
In civilised society, personal merit will not serve you so much as money will. Sir, you may make the experiment. Go into the street, and give one man a lecture on morality, and another a shilling, and see which will respect you the most.
Ours is not so much an age of vulgarity as of vulgarization; everything is tampered with or touched up, or adulterated or watered down, in an effort to make it palatable, in an effort to make it pay.
The earth we abuse and the living things we kill will, in the end, take their revenge; for in exploiting their presence we are diminishing our future.
You can't say civilization don't advance... in every war they kill you in a new way.
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.
The 1 to 2 billion poorest in the world, who don't have food for the day, suffer from the worst disease: globalization deficiency. The way globalization is occurring could be much better, but the worst thing is not being part of it. For those people, we need to support good civil societies and governments.
To save the world requires faith and courage: faith in reason, and courage to proclaim what reason shows to be true.
We need every human gift and cannot afford to neglect any gift because of artificial barriers of sex or race or class or national origin.
Negotiation in the classic diplomatic sense assumes parties more anxious to agree than to disagree.
Women will not simply be mainstreamed into the polluted stream. Women are changing the stream, making it clean and green and safe for all - every gender, race, creed, sexual orientation, age, and ability.
When I first became a lawyer, only 2% of the bar was women. People would always think I was a secretary. In those days, professional women in the business world wore hats. So I started wearing hats.
Working women wore hats. It was the only way they would take you seriously.
Her hat is a creation that will never go out of style; it will just look ridiculous year after year.
What the brassière said to the top hat:You go on ahead while I give these two a lift.
Clothes are our weapons, our challenges, and our visible insult.
Computers are like bikinis. They save people a lot of guesswork.
The sense of being well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquility which religion is powerless to bestow.
Only men who are not interested in women are interested in women's clothes; men who like women never notice what they wear.
A man has his clothes made to fit him; a woman makes herself fit her clothes.
I wear glasses and suits, so I guess I am an indie artist.
Haute Couture should be fun, foolish, and almost unwearable.
When a woman is wearing shorts her charms are enlarged without being enhanced.
Middle age is when, wherever you go on holiday, you pack a sweater.
We Bishops, in our proper dress, originated the mini-skirt. But we allowed Mary Quant to steal the thunder and make three million quid out of it last year.
Fashion is something barbarous for it produces innovation without reason and imitation without benefit.
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society.
I like to dress egos.
Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear.
What is a committee? A group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit, to do the unnecessary.
A committee is a thing which takes a week to do what one good man can do in an hour.
Don't study the idea to death with experts and committees. Get on with it and see if it works.
It is a characteristic of committee discussions and decisions that every member has a vivid recollection of them and that every member's recollection differs violently from every other member's recollection.
In a small company, one person's hunch can be enough to launch a new product. In a big company, the same concept is likely to be buried in committee for months.
Outside of traffic, there is nothing that has held this country back as much as committees.
The first steps to becoming a really great manager are simply common sense; but common sense is not very common.
The common wisdom is that ... managers have to learn to motivate people. Nonsense. Employees bring their own motivation.
The first steps to becoming a really great manager are simply common sense; but common sense is not very common.
Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.
No brilliance is needed in the law. Nothing but common sense, and relatively clean finger nails.
Common sense (which, in truth, is very uncommon) is the best sense I know of.
Success is more a function of consistent common sense than it is of genius.
If we all say the same thing, then I think the government has to listen. But because no one is saying it, I become singled out, even though what I'm saying is common sense. It's very essential values that we all have to protect. But in Chinese society, people are giving up on protecting these values.
Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover, when it is too late, that the only thing one never regrets are one's mistakes.
A fine glass vase goes from treasure to trash, the moment it is broken. Fortunately, something else happens to you and me. Pick up your pieces. Then, help me gather mine.
He that lies down with dogs shall rise up with fleas.
Human resources are the greatest assets of any company. You can raise tariffs or prevent MNCs from entering, but one can't stop the employees from leaving if they are dissatisfied.
Founding a company is hard. Most of it isn't smooth. You'll have to make very hard decisions. You have to fire a few people. Therefore, if you don't believe in your mission, giving up is easy. The majority of founders give up. But the best founders don't give up.
I feel that the essence of spiritual practice is your attitude toward others. When you have a pure, sincere motivation, then you have right attitude toward others based on kindness, compassion, love and respect.
Crying is almost a ritual that male politicians must do to prove they are compassionate, but women are supposed to wear iron britches.
Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.
This is not an age of castles, moats, and armor where people can sustain a competitive advantage for very long.
The largest profits go to those businesses which most devotedly follow a policy of insisting on a competitive advantage, no matter how small, for every product or service they market.
Copying other organizations' activities sounds like industrial espionage to some people, but the truth is that benchmarking is perfectly legal and ethical.
Managerial intellect wilted in competition with managerial adrenaline. The thrill of the chase blinded pursuers to the consequences of the chase.
There are two ways to compete - in stable conditions, you plan and you compete on scale. In unstable times, you live by your wits.
'Tis better to have fought and lost,
Than never to have fought at all.
Though shalt not covet; but tradition
Approves all forms of competition.
The important thing in life is not the victory but the contest; the essential thing is not to have won, but to have fought well.
Just aslocation, location, locationdefines value in real estate, in business today it's connectivity that equals competitiveness.
You can't win without being completely different. When everyone else says we are crazy, I say, gee we really must be on to something.
To win against opponents, companies need strategies for three related tasks: outwitting, outmaneuvering, and outperforming competitors.
Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.
He that falls in love with himself, will have no rivals.
It's the classic case of being at the party too early. Nobody was there yet and nobody had had a drink. By the time we got there, the party was raging.
The new environment dictates two rules; first everything happens faster; second, anything that can be done will be done, if not by you, then by someone else, somewhere.
Never corner an opponent, and always assist him to save his face ... Avoid self-righteousness like the devil - there is nothing so self-blinding.
The Japanese are masters at making you peel the onion. You get through one layer and you are looking at another one just like it.
To stay ahead, you must have your next idea waiting in the wings.
I feel sorry for those who live without competition ... fat, dumb, and unhappy in cradle-to-grave security.
Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
What do you do when your competitor's drowning? Get a live hose and stick it in his mouth.
Observing your own and your competitor's successes and failures makes your inner business voice more sure and vivid.
I grew up with a lot of brothers and sisters. I did all I could do to really stand out and that nurtured a lot of confidence and drive and ambition.
It is not enough to fight. It is the spirit which we bring to the fight that decides the issue. It is morale that wins the victory.
Never wrestle with a pig. You get dirty and only the pig enjoys himself.
I treat everything as a learning experience; then you become detached from the result and more interested in the experience itself.
The world is divided into people who do things and people who get the credit. Try, if you can, to belong to the first class. There's far less competition.
Monopoly is a terrible thing, till you have it.
We're not going global because we want to or because of any megalomania, but because it's really necessary.
We strive to be Number One ... But win or lose, it is the competition which gives us pleasure.
Stop competing on price; compete on value. Deliver total consumer solutions, rather than just your piece of the solution.
Competitive strategy is about being different. It means deliberately choosing a different set of activities to deliver a unique mix of values.
Wages should be left to the fair and free competition of the market, and should never be controlled by the interference of the legislature.
When the sea was calm, all boats alike
Show'd mastership in floating.
The trouble with being in the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.
There is no such thing as a man being too proud to fight.
Woe betide the man who dares to pay a woman a compliment today ... Forget the flowers, the chocolates, the soft word - rather woo her with a self-defence manual in one hand and a family planning leaflet in the other.
Too often we under estimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
Sincerity is the highest compliment you can pay.
Whenever a man's friends begin to compliment him about looking young, he may be sure that they think he is growing old.
There's nothing more demoralizing than having nobody notice good performance ... the successful culture is one that provides constant recognition and applause. At the same time, it breeds a restless dissatisfaction that keeps you challenging yourself to a higher and higher performance.
He has great tranquility of heart who cares neither for the praises nor the faultfinding of men.
Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.
The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.
There are three infallible ways of pleasing an author, and the three form a rising scale of compliment: 1, to tell him you have read one of his books; 2, to tell him you have read all his books; 3, to ask him to let you read the manuscript of his forthcoming book. No. 1 admits you to his respect; No. 2 admits you to his admiration; No. 3 carries you clear into his heart.
He never wants anything but what's right and fair; only when you come to settle what's right and fair, it's everything that he wants and nothing that you want. And that's his idea of a compromise.
The timid man yearns for full value and asks a tenth. The bold man strikes for double value and compromises on par.
It is essential to condemn what must be condemned, but swiftly and firmly. On the other hand, one should praise at length what still deserves to be praised.
Whether you believe you can, or whether you believe you can't, you're absolutely right.
I grew up with a lot of brothers and sisters. I did all I could do to really stand out and that nurtured a lot of confidence and drive and ambition.
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
Some men are just as firmly convinced of what they think as others are of what they know.
He who fears being conquered is certain of defeat.
I've learned the perimeter of my circle of confidence.
Danger breeds best on too much confidence.
Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.
Whether you believe you can, or whether you believe you can't, you're absolutely right.
Attempt easy tasks as if they were difficult, and difficult as if they were easy: in the one case that confidence may not fall asleep, in the other that it may not be dismayed.
The realhavesare they who can acquire freedom, self-confidence, and even riches without depriving others of them. They acquire all of these by developing and applying their potentialities. On the other hand, the realhave notsare they who cannot have aught except by depriving others of it. They can feel free only by diminishing the freedom of others, self-confident by spreading fear and dependence among others, and rich by making others poor.
If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.
You're fired!No other words can so easily and succinctly reduce a confident, self-assured executive to an insecure, groveling shred of his former self.
I grew up with a lot of brothers and sisters. I did all I could do to really stand out and that nurtured a lot of confidence and drive and ambition.
If you don't know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
When you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em,Certainly I can!Then get busy and find out how to do it.
Lack of confidence is not the result of difficulty; the difficulty comes from lack of confidence.
All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.
I believe in my own possibilities, and I feel I can do it all.
Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.
Avoid fight or flight, talk through differences.
Decisions of the kind the executive has to make are not made well by acclamation. They are made well only if based on the clash of conflicting views ... The first rule in decision-making is that one does not make a decision unless there is disagreement.
Oh, if only it were possible to find understanding,Joseph exclaimed.
If only there were a dogma to believe in. Everything is contradictory, everything tangential; there are no certainties anywhere. Everything can be interpreted one way and then again interpreted in the opposite sense. The whole of world history can be explained as development and progress and can also be seen as nothing but decadence and meaninglessness. Isn't there any truth? Is there no real and valid doctrine?
There is truth, my boy. But the doctrine you desire, absolute, perfect dogma that alone provides wisdom, does not exist. Nor should you long for a perfect doctrine, my friend. Rather, you should long for the perfection of yourself. The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught. Be prepared for conflicts, Joseph Knecht - I can see that they already have begun.
He never wants anything but what's right and fair; only when you come to settle what's right and fair, it's everything that he wants and nothing that you want. And that's his idea of a compromise.
Diplomacy in general does not resolve conflicts. Wars end not due to peace processes, but due to one side giving up.
The successful person has unusual skill at dealing with conflict and ensuring the best outcome for all.
What is a rebel? A man who says no.
The young always have the same problem - how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their parents and copying one another.
Imitation lies at the root of most human actions. A respectable person is one who conforms to custom. People are called good when they do as others do.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.
Never forget that only dead fish swim with the stream.
I am cautious about going against the herd. I am liable to be trampled on.
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
If you stand up and be counted, from time to time you may get yourself knocked down. But remember this: A man flattened by an opponent can get up again. A man flattened by conformity stays down for good.
After a long silence, Dodge cleared his throat.I think I speak for all of us when I say, 'Huh?
Congratulations offer more potential than cash. The amount of available cash is limited, but managers have an unlimited supply of congratulations. It's important to pay people fairly, but managers also should heap on congratulations and feed people's souls.
There is one thing alone that stands the brunt of life throughout its course: a quiet conscience.
Seven social sins: politics without principles, wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, and worship without sacrifice.
I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions.
The market has no morality.
If we cannot be powerful and happy and prey on others, we invent conscience and prey on ourselves.
I think middle age is the best time, if we can escape the fatty degeneration of the conscience which often sets in at about fifty.
The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
In many walks of life, a conscience is a more expensive encumbrance than a wife or a carriage.
A peace above all earthly dignities,
A still and quiet conscience.
Most people sell their souls and live with a good conscience on the proceeds.
Trust that man in nothing who has not a conscience in everything.
An uneasy conscience is a hair in the mouth.
Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.
Look to your health; and if you have it, praise God, and value it next to a good conscience; for health is the second blessing that we mortals are capable of; a blessing that money cannot buy.
Managerial intellect wilted in competition with managerial adrenaline. The thrill of the chase blinded pursuers to the consequences of the chase.
If we all were judged according to the consequences
Of all our words and deeds, beyond the intention
And beyond our limited understanding
Of ourselves and others, we should all be condemned.
Make up your mind to act decidedly and take the consequences. No good is ever done in this world by hesitation.
In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments - there are consequences.
Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequences than to have a really affectionate mother.
As an anonymous participant in financial markets, I never had to weigh the social consequences of my actions ... I felt justified in ignoring them on the grounds that I was playing by the rules.
For the first time in the history of the world, every human being is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals from the moment of conception until death.
Over increasingly large areas of the United States, spring now comes unheralded by the return of the birds, and the early mornings are strangely silent where once they were filled with the beauty of bird song.
Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he's been given. But up to now, he hasn't been a creator, only a destroyer. Forests keep disappearing, rivers dry up, wild life's become extinct, the climate's ruined, and the land grows poorer and uglier every day.
In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments - there are consequences.
Pity the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.
The man of virtue makes the difficulty to be overcome his first business, and success only a subsequent consideration.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.
Throne of Glassreaders tend to be passionate, talented, clever, and welcoming - in fact, I'm consistently moved by just how welcomingTOGreaders are to new fans.
Inconsistency is the only thing in which men are consistent.
A consultant is a person who takes your money and annoys your employees while tirelessly searching for the best way to extend the consulting contract.
Consultants eventually leave, which makes them excellent scapegoats for major management blunders.
Wall Street is the only place people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from people who take the subway.
An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less.
An expert is someone called in at the last minute to share the blame.
I don't like to hire consultants. They're like castrated bulls: all they can do is advise.
I come from an environment where, if you see a snake, you kill it. At General Motors, if you see a snake, the first thing you do is hire a consultant on snakes.
There should be some professional exam for these analysts. Most of the time they talk through their backsides.
He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.
Familiarity breeds contempt.
If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainty.
Only man is not content to leave things as they are but must always be changing them, and when he has done so, is seldom satisfied at the result.
Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.
He that wants money, means, and content, is without three good friends.
If you have an olive, you want an olive tree. You want a little more. You want the whole tree.
Contracts are agreements made up of big words and little type.
A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on.
In business a reputation for keeping absolutely to the letter and spirit of an agreement, even when it is unfavorable, is the most precious of assets, although it is not entered in the balance sheet.
Only free men can negotiate; prisoners cannot enter into contracts. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated.
Contract: an agreement that is binding on the weaker party.*
Instead of giving contracts to strangers, we decided we could just as well give contracts to our own employees. We would encourage them to leave ... and start their own satellite enterprises.
My style of dealmaking is quite simple and straightforward. I just keep pushing and pushing to get what I'm after.
The nice girl thinks she's giving up something to get something better in return. She gives up control over her own life. When the time comes for her to get what she expected, she winds up disappointed. In addition to being empty-handed, she's depleted.
Americans have a special horror of giving up control, of letting things happen in their own way without interference.
If you treat glass right, it doesn't crack. If you know the properties, you can make things; the color of dusk and night and love. But you can't control people like that and I really, really wish you could. I want the world to be glass.
I just find it absolutely bizarre that we are being lectured by the Americans about giving up our sovereignty and giving up control when the Americans won't even sign up to the international convention on the law of the seas, let alone the International Criminal Court.
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
enough money within her control to move out
and rent a place of her own even if she never wants
to or needs to...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
something perfect to wear if the employer or date of her
dreams wants to see her in an hour...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ...
a youth she's content to leave behind....
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
a past juicy enough that she's looking forward to
retelling it in her old age....
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE .....
a set of screwdrivers, a cordless drill, and a black
lace bra...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
one friend who always makes her laugh... and one who
lets her cry...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
a good piece of furniture not previously owned by anyone
else in her family...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
eight matching plates, wine glasses with stems, and a
recipe for a meal that will make her guests feel honored...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
a feeling of control over her destiny...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
how to fall in love without losing herself..
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
HOW TO QUIT A JOB,
BREAK UP WITH A LOVER,
AND CONFRONT A FRIEND WITHOUT RUINING THE FRIENDSHIP...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
when to try harder... and WHEN TO WALK AWAY...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
that she can't change the length of her calves,
the width of her hips, or the nature of her parents..
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
that her childhood may not have been perfect...but it's over...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
what she would and wouldn't do for love or more...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
how to live alone... even if she doesn't like it...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
whom she can trust,
whom she can't,
and why she shouldn't
take it personally...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
where to go...
be it to her best friend's kitchen table...
or a charming inn in the woods...
when her soul needs soothing...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
what she can and can't accomplish in a day...
a month...and a year...
LIII.
What is the holiness of conversation? It is to master death.
There is one thing more exasperating than a wife who can cook and won't, and that's the wife who can't cook and will.
We have actively sought and are actively seeking to make the United Nations an effective instrument of international cooperation.
If you limit a company by its structure or by the people in the company, you will, by definition, limit the full potential of that business. It sounds basic, but a lot of companies don't follow the idea that the structure should be last and not first.
The decision to do that extra bit must be embedded in the company's culture.
I realised that if you want to change something, nine times out of ten you can change it more effectively from within.
A company needs smart young men with the imagination and the guts to turn everything upside down if they can. It also needs old figures to keep them from turning upside down those things that ought to be rightside up.
Take our 20 best people away, and I will tell you that Microsoft would become an unimportant company.
The CEO's role in raising a company's corporate IQ is to establish an atmosphere that promotes knowledge sharing and collaboration.
Every company has two organizational structures: The formal one is written on the charts; the other is the everyday relationships of the men and women in the organization.
Others appear frozen in the headlights - aware of the likely impact, yet paralysed by the fear of major transformations.
We have a very simple, clear organization. It's very easy to know who has authority for what, who has responsibility for what. There's no politics about it, they're virtually politics-free organizations.
Companies that stay ahead of change are ones in which their people see change as something they themselves accomplish and not something that is imposed on them. They see lots of opportunities to take initiative.
Quality is not a program that can be simply imposed on an operation; instead it is a way of operating that permeates a business and the thinking of its employees.
A powerful new idea can kick around unused in a company for years, not because its merits are not recognized, but because nobody has assumed the responsibility for converting it from words to action.
Generally, large companies are so inwardly directed that staff memorandums about growing bureaucracy get more attention than the dwindling competitive advantage of being big in the first place. David, who has a life, needn't use a slingshot. Goliath, who doesn't, is too busy reading office memos.
In Japan, organizations and people in the organization are synonymous.
I come from an environment where, if you see a snake, you kill it. At General Motors, if you see a snake, the first thing you do is hire a consultant on snakes.
In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence ... in time every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties ... Work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence.
Women are becoming enormously successful ... They're running their businesses on what we call a familial model, a family, instead of a hierarchical top-down military model. They work with, not over or for.
In a small company, one person's hunch can be enough to launch a new product. In a big company, the same concept is likely to be buried in committee for months.
The kind of brain-dead, gum chewing assistant you find in so many shops drives me wild. I want everyone who works for me to feel the same excitement that I feel.
We need a can-do, vibrant, innovation-driven culture. Not wearing a tie is just a snippet of that.
An environment which calls for perfection is not likely to be easy. But aiming for it is always good for progress.
I want to begin with what I think is the most important factor: our respect for the individual. This is a simple concept, but in IBM it occupies a major portion of management time.
Look, you can take anything away from IBM ... but leave our people and this business will re-create itself overnight.
You have to put your heart in the business and the business in your heart.
They have this wonderful process of learning from direct experience calledAfter Action Review,in which everyone who was involved sits down and the three questions are: What happened? Why do you think it happened? And what can we learn from it? If you were ... able to get those three questions as part of your process, you could become a learning organization.
The great corrupter of public man is the ego. Looking at the mirror distracts one's attention from the problem.
There are two parties involved in every corrupt transaction, typically a government official and a business person. Yet those who pay bribes are often depicted as innocent victims ... The reality is that both parties conspire to defraud the public.
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Our worst enemies here are not the ignorant and the simple, however cruel; our worst enemies are the intelligent and corrupt.
When power leads men towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.
Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power.
You cannot hope to bribe or twist (thank God!) the British journalist. But, seeing what the man will do unbribed, there's no occasion to.
There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.
The cost of college education today is so high that many young people are giving up their dream of going to college, while many others are graduating deeply in debt.
Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.
Those who won our independence ... believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty.
No coward soul is mine, no trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere; I see heaven's glories shine, and faith shines equal, arming me from fear.
Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten.
I would rather a thousand times be a free soul in jail than to be a sycophant and coward in the streets ... If it had not been for the men and women who, in the past, have had the moral courage to go to jail, we would still be in the jungles.
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.
Opportunities are not offered; they must be wrested and worked for. And this calls for perseverance and tenacity, determination and courage.
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.
One man with courage makes a majority.
Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it... It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for.... and the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.
We differ, blind and seeing, one from another, not in our senses, but in the use we make of them, in the imagination and courage with which we seek wisdom beyond the senses.
Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.
I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.
Courage consists not in hazarding without fear; but being resolutely minded in a just cause.
It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know.
You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
I died as a mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was Man.
Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?
To save the world requires faith and courage: faith in reason, and courage to proclaim what reason shows to be true.
I loathe people who keep dogs. They're cowards who have not got the guts to bite people themselves.
Don't be afraid to be unique or speak your mind because that's what makes you different from everyone else.
But, the bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.
If you stand up and be counted, from time to time you may get yourself knocked down. But remember this: A man flattened by an opponent can get up again. A man flattened by conformity stays down for good.
No coward soul is mine, no trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere; I see heaven's glories shine, and faith shines equal, arming me from fear.
We should keep silent about those in power; to speak well of them almost implies flattery; to speak ill of them while they are alive is dangerous, and when they are dead is cowardly.
Tea, although an Oriental,
Is a gentleman at least;
Cocoa is a cad and coward,
Cocoa is a vulgar beast.
Neglecting small things under the pretext of wanting to accomplish large ones is the excuse of a coward.
We know that in tough times, cynicism is just another way to give up, and in the military, we consider cynicism or giving up simply as forms of cowardice.
I loathe people who keep dogs. They're cowards who have not got the guts to bite people themselves.
Creativity is allowing oneself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.*
Doing the things we do now and doing them better, cheaper and faster will take us so far. But it will not take us far enough. We're going to have to do new things in new ways.
In a restless, creative business with an emphasis on experiment and development, ideas are the lifeblood.
Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.
Innovation! One cannot be forever innovating. I want to create classics.
Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he's been given. But up to now, he hasn't been a creator, only a destroyer. Forests keep disappearing, rivers dry up, wild life's become extinct, the climate's ruined, and the land grows poorer and uglier every day.
If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play.
The leader is not just a scorekeeper. He is responsible for creating something new and better.
Ideas are a commodity. Execution of them is not.
Minds are like parachutes: they only function when they are open.
Keep on the lookout for novel ideas that others have used successfully. Your idea has to be original only in its adaption to the problem you're working on.
To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.
The only real valuable thing is intuition. The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery.
Growth is like creativity, it doesn't go along very neat, precise plans. You get clogged highways before you figure out a way to open up capacity. You get pollution before you figure out a way to fight it.
Think before you speak is criticism's motto; speak before you think is creation's.
We rely on skilled foreign workers for their math, science, and creative abilities as well as their cultural knowledge, which helps when localizing products for world markets.
One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
Brain cells create ideas. Stress kills brain cells. Stress is not a good idea.
When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something ... That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things.
The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.
We must create a kind of globalization that works for everyone... and not just for a few.
True creativity often starts where language ends.
Creativity is thinking new things. Innovation is doing new things.
A leader has to be one of two things: he either has to be a brilliant visionary himself, a truly creative strategist, in which case he can do what he likes and get away with it; or else he has to be a true empowerer who can bring out the best in others.
Never forget that only dead fish swim with the stream.
Organizations with decision-making speed and imagination will thrive as nobody can claim to have a monopoly over creativity.
The best way to guarantee a steady stream of new ideas is to make sure that each person in your organization is as different as possible from the others. Under these conditions, and only these conditions, will people maintain varied perspectives and demonstrate their knowledge in different ways.
If it doesn't sell, it isn't creative.
Decision making by consensus has been the subject of a great deal of research ... evidence strongly suggests that a consensus approach yields more creative decisions and more effective implementation than does individual decision making.
Creativity can be described as letting go of certainties.
Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.
Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.
Every really new idea looks crazy at first.
Intelligence is quickness to apprehend as distinct from ability which is capacity to act wisely on the thing apprehended.
Sometimes the first step is the hardest: coming up with an idea. Coming up with an idea should be like sitting on a pin - it should make you jump up and do something.
There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go, if he doesn't mind who gets the credit.
Every banker knows that if he has to prove that he is worthy of credit, however good may be his arguments, in fact his credit is gone.
Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.
Creditors have better memories than debtors.
Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.
The world is divided into people who do things and people who get the credit. Try, if you can, to belong to the first class. There's far less competition.
A credit card is a money tool, not a supplement to money. The failure to make this distinction hassupplementedmany a poor soul right into bankruptcy.
Behind all its global responsibilities and impersonal style banking is still apeople business... it may be the most personal business of all for it always depends on the original concept of credit, meaning trust.
For man's greatest crime is to have been born.
All punishment is mischief: all punishment in itself is evil.
Crime isn't a disease, it's a symptom. Cops are like a doctor that gives you aspirin for a brain tumour.
Better build schoolrooms forthe boy,
Than cells and gibbets forthe man.
I just find it absolutely bizarre that we are being lectured by the Americans about giving up our sovereignty and giving up control when the Americans won't even sign up to the international convention on the law of the seas, let alone the International Criminal Court.
Society needs to condemn a little more and understand a little less.
The greatest of evils and the worst of crimes is poverty.
Sandwich every bit of criticism between two layers of praise.
No man can tell another his faults so as to benefit him, unless he loves him.
I never sleep through a performance. I always make sure that I am awake for the intermission.
CYNIC, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.
Everything you reprove in another, you must carefully avoid in yourself.
I can take any amount of criticism, so long as it is unqualified praise.
I was delighted to see that you thought I was as good as I thought I was.
Everyone threw the blame on me ... they nearly always do. I suppose ... they think I shall be able to bear it best.
Think before you speak is criticism's motto; speak before you think is creation's.
Praise should always be given in public, criticism should always be given in private.
Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamp-post how it feels about dogs.
Cheers hearten a man. But jeers are just as essential. They help maintain his sense of balance and proportion.
I am too much of a sceptic to deny the possibility of anything.
He has great tranquility of heart who cares neither for the praises nor the faultfinding of men.
People ask you for criticism but they only want praise.
I don't give a damn what the media critics say. It's what your readers say. If you haven't got any readers, you're only talking to yourself.
They have a right to censure that have a heart to help.
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.
A cynic is a man who looks at the world with a monocle in his mind's eye.
Are all men in disguise except those crying?
I am a waning bird encased in a glass sphere; I cannot see my prison, and my cries no one can hear.
Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase likemaybe we should be just friendsturns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.
My love, you are driving the entire world mad. The nightingales are committing suicide one by one out of jealousy of your voice. The roses took one glance at your beauty and folded themselves from shame. The trees now only whisper your name and the sky hasn't stopped crying since you looked up. Have pity on us, my love. We have already broken all the mirrors and glass out of fear that you will forget us and fall in love with yourself once you see what we all cannot stop seeing.
Acting isn't always about the amount of talent you have, or your ability to cry on command. The point is, how well can you take direction? How well can you put aside your own ideas or ego and listen to the ideas of the director and the people above you, while not giving up the passion and drive of that character?
You cry and you scream and you stomp your feet and you shout. You say,You know what? I'm giving up, I don't care.And then you go to bed and you wake up and it's a brand new day, and you pick yourself back up again.
Crying is almost a ritual that male politicians must do to prove they are compassionate, but women are supposed to wear iron britches.
Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.
When we are born, we cry that we
are come
To this great stage of fools:
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
enough money within her control to move out
and rent a place of her own even if she never wants
to or needs to...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
something perfect to wear if the employer or date of her
dreams wants to see her in an hour...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ...
a youth she's content to leave behind....
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
a past juicy enough that she's looking forward to
retelling it in her old age....
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE .....
a set of screwdrivers, a cordless drill, and a black
lace bra...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
one friend who always makes her laugh... and one who
lets her cry...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
a good piece of furniture not previously owned by anyone
else in her family...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
eight matching plates, wine glasses with stems, and a
recipe for a meal that will make her guests feel honored...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
a feeling of control over her destiny...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
how to fall in love without losing herself..
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
HOW TO QUIT A JOB,
BREAK UP WITH A LOVER,
AND CONFRONT A FRIEND WITHOUT RUINING THE FRIENDSHIP...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
when to try harder... and WHEN TO WALK AWAY...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
that she can't change the length of her calves,
the width of her hips, or the nature of her parents..
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
that her childhood may not have been perfect...but it's over...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
what she would and wouldn't do for love or more...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
how to live alone... even if she doesn't like it...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
whom she can trust,
whom she can't,
and why she shouldn't
take it personally...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
where to go...
be it to her best friend's kitchen table...
or a charming inn in the woods...
when her soul needs soothing...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
what she can and can't accomplish in a day...
a month...and a year...
And blessings on the falling out
That all the more endears,
When we fall out with those we love
And kiss again with tears!
The Khomeini cry for the execution of Rushdie is an infantile cry. From the beginning of time we have seen that. To murder the thinker does not murder the thought.
Globalization means we have to re-examine some of our ideas, and look at ideas from other countries, from other cultures, and open ourselves to them. And that's not comfortable for the average person.
Only through curiosity can we discover opportunities, and only through gambling can we take advantage of them.
Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.
To run this business ... you need ... optimism, humanism, enthusiasm, intuition, curiosity, love, humour, magic and fun, and that secret ingredient - euphoria.
Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious: both are disappointed.
If someone thinks they are being mistreated by us, they won't tell 5 people, they'll tell 5000.
The superior man is easy to serve, but difficult to please ... The inferior man is difficult to serve, but easy to please.
Profit in business comes from repeat customers, customers that boast about your project or service, and that bring friends with them.
If you look after the customers and look after the people who look after the customers, you should be successful.
The decision to do that extra bit must be embedded in the company's culture.
A manufacturer is not through with his customer when a sale is completed. He has then only started with his customer.
Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.
If you're not happy with yourself, how can you make the customer happy?
Customers provide you with the most accurate barometer of what's right and wrong.
Good customers are an asset which, when well managed and served, will return a handsome lifetime income stream for the company.
Stop competing on price; compete on value. Deliver total consumer solutions, rather than just your piece of the solution.
The customer is never wrong.
We should never be allowed to forget that it is the customer who, in the end, determines how many people are employed and what sort of wages companies can afford to pay.
By creating conversation, we let our customers spread our message by word of mouth.
The consumer, so it is said, is the king ... each is a voter who uses his money as votes to get the things done that he wants done.
Positive feedback makes the strong grow stronger and the weak grow weaker.
Business doesn't have to choose between making profit and protecting the environment, between economic success and ethical responsibility, between satisfying the customer and meeting the demands of other stakeholders. In other words, we don't have to make a choice between profits and principles.
I didn't realize it then, but everything I ever needed to know about selling I was learning at my kitchen table: I was learning how to identify, find, and keep customers.
There aren't any categories of problems here. There's just one problem. Some of us aren't paying enough attention to our customers.
Sometimes you think you've found love, when it's really just one of those objects that are shiny in a certain light--a trophy, say, or a ring, or a diamond, even. Glass shards, maybe. You've got to be careful, you do. The shine can blind you. The edges can cut you in way you never imagined. It is up to you to allow that or not.
CYNIC, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.
And finds, with keen discriminating sight,
Black's not so black; - nor white so very white.
Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth.
I once said cynically of a politician,He'll double-cross that bridge when he comes to it.
We know that in tough times, cynicism is just another way to give up, and in the military, we consider cynicism or giving up simply as forms of cowardice.
A cynic is a man who looks at the world with a monocle in his mind's eye.