Quotes
“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence. It is to act with yesterday’s logic.”
Peter Drucker
“The paradox of Asia is that Japan is a profoundly socialist country on which capitalism was imposed whilst China is a profoundly capitalist country on which socialism was imposed.”
Anon
“You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatreds. You cannot establish security on borrowed money. You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man’s initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.”
William J. H. Boetcker, 1916
“You will be remembered in the long haul for the quality of your work, not the quantity of your work … no one evaluates Picasso based on the number of paintings he churned out.”
Tom Peters
“Dialogue is the basic unit of work in an organisation. The quality of the dialogue determines how people gather and process information, how they make decisions, and how they feel about one another and about the outcome of these decisions. Dialogue can lead to new ideas and speed as a competitive advantage.”
Ram Charan, HBR, Jan. 2006
“There is no use saying, ‘We are doing our best.’ You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.”
Winston Churchill
“Meetings are indispensable when you don’t want to do anything.”
John Kenneth Galbraith
“Any committee that is the slightest use is composed of people who are too busy to want to sit on it for a second longer than they have to.”
Katharine Whitehorn
“I’m not young enough to know everything.”
James Barrie, 1920
“The biggest mistake when trying to resolve a conflict with someone is focusing on what you want to say and not on what you need to hear.”
Jude DaShiell
“The people in our lives are like flowering plants; they need regular watering and the occasional application of nutrients.”
Anon
“Leadership is communicating to people their worth and potential so clearly that they come to see it in themselves.”
Stephen Covey
“Mistakes are the portals of discovery.”
James Joyce
“People who ask no questions make no discoveries.”
Anon
“Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Great things are done by devotion to one idea.”
Cardinal John Henry Newman
“Nothing would be done at all, if a man waited till he could do it so well, that no one could find fault with it.”
Anon
“Do what is right, not what you think the high headquarters wants or what you think will make you look good.”
Norman Schwarzkopf
“My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions.”
Peter Drucker
“Never stop until your good becomes better, and your better becomes the best.”
Frank Zappa
“Prepare for the worst; expect the best; and take what comes.”
Anon
“Executives owe it to the organisation and to their fellow workers not to tolerate nonperforming individuals in important jobs.”
Peter Drucker
“I like to tell people that all of our products and business will go through three phases. There’s vision, patience, and execution.”
Steve Ballmer
“A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts.”
Richard Branson
“You learn in this business: If you want a friend, get a dog.”
Carl Icahn
“Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.”
Norman Schwarzkopf
“My first six years in the business were hopeless. There are a lot of times when you sit and you say ‘Why am I doing this? I’ll never make it. It’s just not going to happen. I should go out and get a real job, and try to survive.’”
George Lucas
“A friendship founded on business is a good deal better than a business founded on friendship.”
John D. Rockefeller
“Business is not financial science, it’s about trading … buying and selling. It’s about creating a product or service so good that people will pay for it.”
Anita Roddick
“Well, you know, I was a human being before I became a businessman.”
George Soros
“Watch, listen, and learn. You can’t know it all yourself … anyone who thinks they do is destined for mediocrity.”
Donald Trump
“The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.”
Peter F. Drucker
“Every now and then when you’re on stage, you can hear the best sound that a player can hear. It is a sound you can’t get in movies or in television. It is the sound of a wonderful, deep silence that means you’ve hit them where they live.”
Shelley Winters
“Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof.”
James Russell Lowell
“Never underestimate your power to change yourself and never overestimate your power to change others.”
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
“Too many are concerned with avoiding sinking the boat, when they should be concerned about missing it.”
Unknown
“If you can keep your head when everyone around you is panicking … It’s a sure sign that that you have not understood the seriousness of the situation.”
David Brent (from the TV series “The Office”)
“My friends, as I have discovered myself, there are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters.”
Boris Johnson (Mayor of London 2008)
“Performance = potential minus interference.”
Anon
“Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.”
John Wooden
“The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it is the same problem you had last year.”
John Foster Dulles
“The best way to escape from a problem is to solve it.”
Brendan Francis
“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
Albert Einstein
“Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.”
Coco Chanel
“If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.”
Stephen Covey
“When you blame others, you give up your power to change.”
Douglas Adams
“Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.”
Winston Churchill
“The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty.”
Winston Churchill
“Trust is the lubrication that makes it possible for organizations to work.”
Warren Bennis
“A meeting is an event in which minutes are kept and hours are lost.”
Anon
“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”
Aldous Huxley
“When they discover the center of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to discover they are not it.”
Bernard Bailey
“The companies that survive longest are the ones that work out what they uniquely can give to the world, not just growth or money but their excellence, their respect for others, or their ability to make people happy. Some call those things a soul.”
Charles Handy
“It’s a funny thing about life: If you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.”
W. Somerset Maugham
“That the birds of worry and care fly over your head, this you cannot change, but that they build nests in your hair, this you can prevent.”
Chinese Proverb
“If you think safety is expensive, try an accident.”
Stelios (EasyJet)
“A ship in port is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.”
Grace Hopper
“If you’re too busy to learn, you won’t be busy for very long.”
Anon
“There are three types of company today: Those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wonder what has happened.”
Peter Drucker
“It is only when the tide goes out that you see who was swimming without shorts.”
Warren Buffett
“Knowledge is power, wisdom is bliss and information is useful for those of us who possess little of the first two.”
Anon
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.”
Aristotle
“The most expensive time in a manager’s life is the time between when you truly lose faith in someone and when you do something about it.”
Unknown
The one unchangeable certainty is that nothing is certain or unchangeable.”
John F. Kennedy
“Self-trust is the first secret of success.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it were. Be candid with everyone. Don’t manage, lead. Change before you have to. If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete. Control your own destiny, or someone else will.”
Jack Welch
“The only way you can coast is downhill!”
Unknown
“Make sure you have finished speaking before your audience has finished listening.”
Unknown
“Managers are people who do things right and leaders are people who do the right thing.”
Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus
“Calling yourself a professional no more makes you a professional than sitting in your garage makes you a car.”
Bob Weber
“There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.”
Sam Walton
