Quotes from Famous Entrepreneurs
This list of quotes from famous entrepreneurs can provide inspiration in our quests to be successful entrepreneurs.
Bill Gates
Life is not fair; get used to it.
As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.
Your time is a valuable resource.
Donald Trump
As long as you're going to be thinking anyway, think big.
Ted Turner
Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise.
Thomas J. Watson
Recently, I was asked if I was going to fire an employee who made a mistake that cost the company $600,000. No, I replied, I just spent $600,000 training him. Why would I want somebody to hire his experience?
Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the dangers of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of 'crackpot' than the stigma of conformity. And on issues that seem important to you, stand up and be counted at any cost.
A manager is an assistant to his men.
All the problems of the world could be settled easily if men were only willing to think. The trouble is that men very often resort to all sorts of devices in order not to think, because thinking is such hard work.
Don't make friends who are comfortable to be with. Make friends who will force you to lever yourself up.
Every time we've moved ahead in IBM, it was because someone was willing to take a chance, put his head on the block, and try something new.
If you aren't playing well, the game isn't as much fun. When that happens I tell myself just to go out and play as I did when I was a kid.
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.
If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work.
Nothing so conclusively proves a man's ability to lead others as what he does from day to day to lead himself.
Once an organization loses its spirit of pioneering and rests on its early work, its progress stops.
Really big people are, above everything else, courteous, considerate and generous - not just to some people in some circumstances - but to everyone all the time.
The great accomplishments of man have resulted from the transmission of ideas and enthusiasm.
The toughest thing about the power of trust is that it's very difficult to build and very easy to destroy. The essence of trust building is to emphasize the similarities between you and the customer.
The way to succeed is to double your error rate.
THINK. Think about your appearance, associations, actions, ambitions, accomplishment.
Whenever an individual or a business decides that success has been attained, progress stops.
Wisdom is the power to put our time and our knowledge to the proper use.
You don't hear things that are bad about your company unless you ask. It is easy to hear good tidings, but you have to scratch to get the bad news.
If a man goes to work in the right spirit, work is no hardship.
If we do not take advantage of our opportunities, it is our own fault.
There is more real need for the pioneering spirit today than ever before.
We must all take time to do enough thinking to formulate our own conclusions.
Business is a game, the greatest game in the world if you know how to play it.
It is better to aim at perfection and miss, than to aim at imperfection and hit it.
All the problems of the world could be settled easily if men were only willing to think.
What we need in this country today is more courage and more belief in the things that we have.
The man who does not take pride in his own performance performs nothing in which to take pride.
You work the first eight hours of each day for survival. Anything after that is an investment.
Don't make friends who are comfortable to be with. Make friends who will force you to lever yourself up.
We must all consider ourselves as assistants, regardless of the titles we carry in our official capacities.
Nothing so conclusively proves a man's ability to lead others as what he does from day to day to lead himself.
None of us can hope to get anywhere without character, moral courage and the spiritual strength to accept responsibility.
Put First Things First! These four words cover an entire philosophy which can be applied with profit by every business leader, by every executive and by every employee.
The man who bases his actions on independent thought; who reflects and considers before doing anything, and whose judgments are arrived at through logic, is the man who will go farthest today.
Point out to the men working with you and around you that we forgive thoughtful mistakes - that it is only the thoughtless mistakes that cause trouble. Tell them first to be sure they have thought about each proposition, then to go ahead.
I believe in getting behind the individual and backing him up, helping him to strengthen himself, making him feel that there is someone endeavoring to help him, trying to be an assistant to him, and bringing out the best there is in him-in other words, teaching him to teach himself, and in that way strengthen the entire organization.
Within us all there are wells of thought and dynamos of energy which are not suspected until emergencies arise. Then oftentimes we find that it is comparatively simple to double or treble our former capacities and to amaze ourselves by the results achieved. Quotas, when set up for us by others, are challenges which goad us on to surpass ourselves. The outstanding leaders of every age are those who set up their own quotas and constantly exceed them.
All great questions of politics and economics come down in the last analysis to the decisions and actions of individual men and women. They are questions of human relations, and we ought always to think about them in terms of men and women-the individual human beings who are involved in them. If we can get human relations on a proper basis, the statistics, finance and all other complicated technical aspects of these questions will be easier to solve.
We are willing to spend any reasonable amount of money on education in our organization, because we have a group of men and women in our business who are constantly seeking knowledge, knowing that is the way to make themselves more valuable to the company and, automatically, more valuable to themselves. We are working out a plan that is going to take in everybody in the organization. We are going to have post graduate schools for our men in the field, and post graduate schools for our executives-and many of them.
In order to be a success in business, there is one thing you must do. You cannot be successful without it. That is WORK. I have not told you anything new. Everyone knows that you cannot be successful in anything without work. Why does not everyone work? Because some lack the one thing that makes men want to work - ENTHUSIASM. That is something no one can give you. You must acquire it yourself, and the only way that you can become enthusiastic about anything is to have a thorough KNOWLEDGE of it. You have never seen an enthusiastic man who was lazy.
It is my personal opinion that we are going to recover from this depression and establish on a sounder and better basis, and we are going to reach greater heights of prosperity than ever before in this country. Now, that is just my personal opinion, but it is based on history, because that is what has happened following every depression. As we read the history of the various depressions we find that the people all felt about them just as we do about this one. One of the reasons we go ahead rapidly after coming out of a depression is that inventive genius and business talents have been put to a test, and they have always devised new and better ways to do things.
Sam Walton
Capital isn't scarce; vision is.
High expectations are the key to everything.
I had to pick myself up and get on with it, do it all over again, only even better this time.
I have always been driven to buck the system, to innovate, to take things beyond where they've been.
Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it's amazing what they can accomplish.
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.
There's a lot more business out there in small town America than I ever dreamed of.
We let folks know we're interested in them and that they're vital to us, 'cause they are.
Thomas Edison
My main purpose in life is to make money so I can afford to go on creating more inventions....
I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others... I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent....
My principal business is giving commercial value to the brilliant - but misdirected - ideas of others....
I readily absorb ideas from every source - frequently starting where the last person left off - I never pick up an item without thinking of how I might improve it.
Genius is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration. Accordingly, a 'genius' is often merely a talented person who has done all of his or her homework.
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
The first requisite for success is to develop the ability to focus and apply your mental and physical energies to the problem at hand - without growing weary. Because such thinking is often difficult, there seems to be no limit to which some people will go to avoid the effort and labor that is associated with it....
I never did anything worth doing entirely by accident.... Almost none of my inventions were derived in that manner. They were achieved by having trained myself to be analytical and to endure and tolerate hard work.
If we all did the things we are really capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves....
Our schools and are not teaching students to think. It is astonishing how many young people have difficulty in putting their brains definitely and systematically to work....
The three things that are most essential to achievement are common sense, hard work and stick-to-it-iv-ness.....
I have far more respect for the person with a single idea who gets there than for the person with a thousand ideas who does nothing....
Many of life's failures are experienced by people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
Pretty much everything will come to him who hustles while he waits. I believe that restlessness is discontent, and discontent is merely the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.
Unfortunately, there seems to be far more opportunity out there than ability.... We should remember that good fortune often happens when opportunity meets with preparation.
Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do in the first place doesn't mean it's useless....
Results? Why, man, I have gotten lots of results! If I find 10,000 ways something won't work, I haven't failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is often a step forward....
Surprises and reverses can serve as an incentive for great accomplishment. There are no rules here, we're just trying to accomplish something.
As a cure for worrying, work is far better than whiskey. I always found that, if I began to worry, the best thing I could do was focus upon doing something useful and then work very hard at it. Soon, I would forget what was troubling me.
Barring serious accidents, if you are not preoccupied with worry and you work hard, you can look forward to a reasonably lengthy existence.... Its not the hard work that kills, its the worrying that kills.
The only time I really become discouraged is when I think of all the things I would like to do and the little time I have in which to do them.
Time is really the only capital that any human being has and the thing that he can least afford to waste or lose...
From his neck down a man is worth a couple of dollars a day, from his neck up he is worth anything that his brain can produce.
Be courageous! Whatever setbacks America has encountered, it has always emerged as a stronger and more prosperous nation.... Be brave as your fathers before you. Have faith and go forward!
If parents pass enthusiasm along to their children, they will leave them an estate of incalculable value....
Victor Kiam
An entrepreneur assumes the risk and is dedicated and committed to the success of whatever he or she undertakes.
Wal-Mart: A History of Sam Walton's Retail Phenomenon
Economic and business historian Vance and historian Scott use a decidedly academic approach to describe the creation and rapid expansion of the Wal-Mart retail empire. The authors draw heavily from public corporate documents, periodicals and newspapers, as well as other books to trace the growth of the Wal-Mart chain from the opening of its first store in 1962 to its becoming the largest retail operation in America in 1991.
McCormick, a management professor at Baylor University and author of Ben Franklin's 12 Rules of Management, is obviously enchanted with Edison and believes the inventor's talents haven't been fully recognized. In addition to patenting over 1,000 inventions, Edison was a capable businessman who recognized that innovation is a business, emphasizing the importance of creating a company that produces more than just one good idea. According to McCormick, Edison never invented simply to create a new thing, but rather focused on crafting something that would have a practical use. Edison also believed that one invention often led to a series of inventions, citing the link between the phonograph, telegraph and motion picture. Among the key lessons readers can learn from Edison are "limit your way to greater creativity" (Edison felt his deafness helped his creativity) and "the greatest innovators have made a lot of F's" (failure is essential to inventions). McCormick includes the inventor's own words as well as success stories about others who, like Edison, have achieved success through untraditional methods (including one of this season's top success stories, General Electric CEO Jack Welch). This book will appeal to those curious about Edison as well as anyone seeking tips on achieving entrepreneurial success. The writing is clear and rife with rarely discussed details that offer a new perspective on the achievements of a great American inventor.