20th-century Businessman Quotes

Like sheep that get lost nibbling away at the grass because they never look up, we often focus so much on ourselves and our problems that we get lost.

Independent thinking is not just helpful in becoming a successful investor, it's required.

The Robertson family and bad ideas go together like biscuits and jam.

Willie Robertson

Once employees feel challenged, invigorated and productive, their efforts will naturally translate into profit and growth for the organisation.

My advice to the unborn is, don't be born with a gambling instinct unless you have a good sense of probabilities.

One problem we discovered, for example, was that our "create a new account" button was in the wrong place...By simply moving it to the left side, mirroring the way people read, we saw a huge improvement in the way people used the site.

How do you develop the subconscious of an organization?... There's no time to take decisions deep into the brain—no time to take it to the data warehouse. It has to become a reflex action. We're developing the gut.

Sumit Chowdhury

Flexibility - In all aspects of life, the person with the most varied responses 'wins'.

I remember one day in August of 2003 I made the decision to become (near) vegan and that once the decision was made I felt great emotional alignment within my heart. I knew this was the right thing for me to do and I also knew that I was making a decision that I would be committed to for the rest of my life. At last my beliefs and my ethics had come into alignment.

John Mackey (businessman)

In life we don't get what we want, we get in life what we are. If we want more we have to be able to be more, in order to be more you have to face rejection.

It Hurts...It Kills...It Teaches...
It Thrills... IT Is LIFE...!

I won't go hunting with you, Jake, but I'll go chasing women.

What's a promiscuous person? It's usually someone who is getting more sex than you are.

The heavens were the grandstands and only the gods were spectators. The stake was the world, the forfeit was the player's place at the table, and the game had no recess. It was the most dangerous of all sports and the most fascinating. It got in the blood like wine. It aged men forty years in forty days. It ruined nervous systems in an hour.

Elliott White Springs

Innovation is everything. When you're on the forefront, you can see what the next innovation needs to be. When you're behind, you have to spend your energy catching up.

Intellectual property is the oil of the 21 century. Look at the richest men a hundred years ago; they all made their money extracting natural resources or moving them around. All today's richest men have made their money out of intellectual property.

It's a well-known proposition that you know who's going to win negotiation: it's he who pauses the longest.

Robert Holmes à Court

We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we've sucked at it for years.

Unions, communities, people, everybody's going to have to learn to accept that in the United States you have a capitalist society, and that capitalism, from a business viewpoint, is survival of the most productive.

Don Blankenship

My father's simple message - it's not an anti-Muslim message, it's [an] anti-terror message, you know, we have ISIS and they're running in rampant around the world and we have to do something about it.

If nothing else will do to sever me from my sins, Lord, send me such sore and trying calamities as shall awake me from earthly slumbers. It must always be best to be alive to Thee, whatever be the quickening instrument.

Robert E. Murray

Millions of mutual-fund investors sleep well at night, serene in the belief that superior outcomes result from pooling funds with like-minded investors and engaging high-quality investment managers to provide professional insight. The conventional wisdom ends up hopelessly unwise, as evidence shows an overwhelming rate of failure by mutual funds to deliver on promises.

David F. Swensen

Even in those earlier times, finding the really outstanding companies and staying with them through all the fluctuations of a gyrating market proved far more profitable to far more people than did the more colorful practice of trying to buy them cheap and sell them dear.

Philip Arthur Fisher

Jobs will come back when the economy recovers, but they will never be the same.

Money makes people listen. When you have it, then you have something others want and need. When you don't, you become invisible.

Earl G. Graves, Sr.