Motivational Quotes

Business

Utility is our national shibboleth: the savior of the American businessman is fact and his uterine half-brother, statistics.

- Dahlberg, Edward

Best Quotes about Business

Compromise is usually bad. It should be a last resort. If two departments or divisions have a problem they can't solve and it comes up to you, listen to both sides and then pick one or the other. This places solid accountability on the winner to make it work. Condition your people to avoid compromise.

Townsend, Robert

It doesn't matter to me if a man is from Harvard or Sing Sing. We hire the man, not his history.

Ford, Henry

Far too many executives have become more concerned with the four P's -- pay, perks, power and prestige -- rather than making profits for shareholders.

Pickens, T. Boone

The selfish spirit of commerce, which knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain.

Jefferson, Thomas

The consumer isn't a moron. She is your wife.

Ogilvy, David

The secret of business is to know something that nobody else knows.

Onassis, Aristotle

The employer generally gets the employees he deserves.

Gilbey, Walter

We have yet to see the full impact of the open, global marketplace. By 1997 all raw materials and technology will be available everywhere in the world. The only differences between countries and markets will be skill levels, education, and the level of empowerment of the workplace.

Pritchett, Lew

Doing well is the result of doing good. That's what capitalism is all about.

Kashoggi, Adnan

10.

If a business does well, the stock eventually follows.

Buffett, Warren

11.

Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage.

Kiam, Victor

12.

Our planning system was dynamite when we first put it in. The thinking was fresh; the form mattered little. It was idea oriented. We then hired a head of planning, and he hired two vice presidents, and then he hired a planner; and the books got thicker, and the printing more sophisticated, and the covers got harder, and the drawings got better.

Welch, John

13.

Talk of nothing but business, and dispatch that business quickly.

Aldus Manutius

14.

My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people's.

Oscar Wilde

15.

Among the worries of today's business executives is the large number of unemployed still on the payroll.

16.

If your advertising goes unnoticed, everything else is academic!

Bernbach, William

17.

I work in a strange business, and trust is a word that's not even in the vocabulary.

Basinger, Kim

18.

Quality, service, cleanliness, and value.

Ross, Steven J.

19.

Most men are individuals no longer so far as their business, its activities, or its moralities are concerned. They are not units but fractions.

Wilson, Woodrow T.

20.

I do not believe a man can ever leave his business. He ought to think of it by day and dream of it by night.

Ford, Henry

21.

So much for industry, my friends, and attention to one's own business; but to these we must add frugality if we would make our industry more certainly successful. A man may, if he knows not how to save as he gets, keep his nose all his life to the grindstone, and die not worth a grout at last.

Franklin, Benjamin

22.

The chief business of the American people is business.

Calvin Coolidge

23.

If you don't do it with excellence, don't do it at all! Because if it's not excellent, it won't be profitable or fun, and if you're not in business for fun or profit, what the hell are you doing there?

Townsend, Robert

24.

'Whom are you?'he asked, for he had attended business college.

George Ade

25.

Treat employees like partners, and they act like partners.

Allen, Fred A.

26.

If we decide to take this level of business creating ability nationwide, we'll all be plucking chickens for a living.

Perot, H. Ross

27.

A compromise is the art of dividing a cake in such a way that everyone believes that he has got the biggest piece.

Erhard, Ludwig

28.

Utility is our national shibboleth: the savior of the American businessman is fact and his uterine half-brother, statistics.

Dahlberg, Edward

29.

The business of the country is business.

Coolidge, Calvin

30.

The first thing the secretary types is the boss.

31.

To business that we love we rise betime, and go to't with delight.

Shakespeare, William

32.

If when a businessman speaks of minority employment, or air pollution, or poverty, he speaks in the language of a certified public accountant analyzing a corporate balance sheet, who is to know that he understands the human problems behind the statistical ones? If the businessman would stop talking like a computer printout or a page from the corporate annual report, other people would stop thinking he had a cash register for a heart. It is as simple as that -- but that isn't simple.

Lundborg, Louis B.

33.

You can't run a business or anything else on a theory.

Geneen, Harold S.

34.

If you have lower than a ten percent turnover, there is a problem. And if you have higher than, say 20%, there is a problem.

Mcgovern, William

35.

I don't want to do business with those who don't make a profit, because they can't give the best service.

Bristol, Lee

36.

If you train people properly, they won't be able to tell a drill from the real thing. If anything, the real thing will be easier.

Marcinko, Richard

37.

The five essential entrepreneurial skills for success: Concentration, Discrimination, Organization, Innovation and Communication

Gerber, Michael E.

38.

Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.

Welch, John

39.

For the merchant, even honesty is a financial speculation.

Baudelaire, Charles

40.

Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon.

Churchill, Winston

41.

The more business one has, the more you are able to accomplish, for you learn to economize your time.

Hale, Sir Matthew

42.

The poor man who enters into a partnership with one who is rich makes a risky venture.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

43.

The right merchant is one who has the just average of faculties we call common sense; a man of a strong affinity for facts, who makes up his decision on what he has seen. He is thoroughly persuaded of the truths of arithmetic. There is always a reason, in the man, for his good or bad fortune in making money. Men talk as if there were some magic about this. He knows that all goes on the old road, pound for pound, cent for cent -- for every effect a perfect cause -- and that good luck is another name for tenacity of purpose.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

44.

If you can't pay for a thing, don't buy it. If you can't get paid for it, don't sell it. Do this, and you will have calm and drowsy nights, with all of the good business you have now and none of the bad. If you have time, don't wait for time.

Franklin, Benjamin

45.

Such is the brutalization of commercial ethics in this country that no one can feel anything more delicate than the velvet touch of a soft buck.

Chandler, Raymond

46.

Corporations cannot commit treason, or be outlawed or excommunicated, for they have no souls.

Coke, Sir Edward

47.

You can close more business in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get people interested in you.

Carnegie, Dale

48.

If you don't drive your business you will be driven out of business.