Donald Trump - The Art of the Deal (1987)

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Experience taught me a few things. One is to listen to your gut, no matter how good something sounds on paper. The second is that you're generally better off sticking with what you know. And the third is that sometimes your best investments are the ones you don't make.

Donald Trump
I try to learn from the past, but I plan for the future by focusing exclusively on the present.

Donald Trump
Money was never a big motivation for me, except as a way to keep score. The real excitement is playing the game.

Donald Trump
The point is that you can't be too greedy.

Donald Trump
The final key to the way I promote is bravado. I play to people's fantasies. People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That's why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole. It's an innocent form of exaggeration - and a very effective form of promotion.

Donald Trump
I wasn't satisfied just to earn a good living. I was looking to make a statement.

Donald Trump
In my life, there are two things I've found I'm very good at: overcoming obstacles and motivating good people to do their best work.

Donald Trump
I like thinking big. I always have. To me it's very simple: if you're going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big. Most people think small, because most people are afraid of success, afraid of making decisions, afraid of winning. And that gives people like me a great advantage.

Donald Trump
I'm a great believer in asking everyone for an opinion before I make a decision.... I ask and I ask and I ask, until I begin to get a gut feeling about something. And that's when I make a decision. I have learned much more from conducting my own random surveys than I could ever have learned from the greatest of consulting firms.

Donald Trump
I don't do it for the money. I've got enough, much more than I'll ever need. I do it to do it. Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully on canvas or write wonderful poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That's how I get my kicks.

Donald Trump
Get in, get it done, get it done right, and get out.

Donald Trump
Have fun. I don't kid myself. Life is very fragile, and success doesn't change that. If anything, success makes it more fragile. Anything can change, without warning, and that's why I try not to take any of what's happened too seriously.

Donald Trump
I don't hire a lot of number-crunchers, and I don't trust fancy marketing surveys. I do my own surveys and draw my own conclusions.

Donald Trump
The point is that if you are a little different, or a little outrageous, or if you do things that are bold or controversial, the press is going to write about you.

Donald Trump
Deals work best when each side gets something it wants from the other.

Donald Trump
Somewhere out there are a few men with more innate talent at golf than Jack Nicklaus, or women with greater ability at tennis than Chris Evert or Martina Navratilova, but they will never lift a club or swing a racket and therefore will never find out how great they could have been. Instead, they'll be content to sit and watch stars perform on television.

Donald Trump
Most people who do have the instincts will never recognize that they do, because they don't have the courage or the good fortune to discover their potential.

Donald Trump
Sheer persistence is the difference between success and failure.

Donald Trump
One of the keys to thinking big is total focus. I think of it almost as a controlled neurosis, which is a quality I've noticed in many highly successful entrepreneurs.

Donald Trump
You can't be scared. You do your thing, you hold your ground, you stand up tall, and whatever happens, happens.

Donald Trump
In the end, you're measured not by how much you undertake but by what you finally accomplish.

Donald Trump
The most important thing in life is to love what you're doing, because that's the only way you'll ever be really good at it.

Donald Trump
My philosophy is always to hire the best from the best.

Donald Trump
People think I'm a gambler. I've never gambled in my life. To me, a gambler is someone who plays slot machines. I prefer to own slot machines. It's a very good business being the house.

Donald Trump
Deal-making is an ability you're born with. It's in the genes.

Donald Trump
My own mother was a housewife all her life. And yet it's turned out that I've hired a lot of women for top jobs, and they've been among my best people. Often, in fact, they are far more effective than the men around them.

Donald Trump
The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it. That makes the other guy smell blood, and then you're dead. The best thing you can do is deal from strength, and leverage is the biggest strength you can have. Leverage is having something the other guy wants. Or better yet, needs. Or best of all, simply can't do without. Unfortunately, that isn't always the case, which is why leverage often requires imagination, and salesmanship.

Donald Trump
What I admire most are people who put themselves directly on the line.

Donald Trump
One of the problems when you become successful is that jealousy and envy inevitably follow. There are people—I categorize them as life's losers—who get their sense of accomplishment and achievement from trying to stop others. As far as I'm concerned, if they had any real ability they wouldn't be fighting me, they'd be doing something constructive themselves.

Donald Trump
Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war.

Donald Trump