Motivational Quotes

Business

In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative original thinker unless you can also sell what you create. Management cannot be expected to recognize a good idea unless it is presented to them by a good salesman.

- David M. Ogilvy

Best Quotes about Business

The big will get bigger; the small will get wiped out.

Riklis, Meshulam

As a small businessperson, you have no greater leverage than the truth.

Hawken, Paul

You never really hear the truth from your subordinates until after 10 in the evening.

Jurgen Schrempp

A man with a surplus can control circumstances, but a man without a surplus is controlled by them, and often has no opportunity to exercise judgment.

Firestone, Harvey S.

It is much more difficult to measure non-performance than performance. Performance stands out like a ton of diamonds. Non-performance can almost always be explained away.

Geneen, Harold S.

Business is more exciting than any game.

Beaverbrook, Lord

Business, more than any other occupation, is a continual dealing with the future; it is a continual calculation, an instinctive exercise in foresight.

Luce, Henry

The happiest time in a man's life is when he is in the red hot pursuit of a dollar with a reasonable prospect of overtaking it.

Billings, Josh

David M. Ogilvy

10.

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

Dahlberg, Edward

11.

In business, the competition will bite you if you keep running, if you stand still, they will swallow you.

Knudsen, William

12.

In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.

Warren Buffett

13.

Formerly when great fortunes were only made in war, war was business; but now when great fortunes are only made by business: Business is war!

Bovee, Christian Nevell

14.

Get me inside any boardroom and I'll get any decision I want.

Bond, Alan

15.

I ran the wrong kind of business, but I did it with integrity.

Sydney Biddle Barrows

16.

It's better to take over and build upon an existing business than to start a new one.

Geneen, Harold S.

17.

Location, location, location.

Dillard, William

18.

For the merchant, even honesty is a financial speculation.

Baudelaire, Charles

19.

The business of the country is business.

Coolidge, Calvin

20.

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

21.

The first thing the secretary types is the boss.

22.

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

23.

Work is our business; it's success is God s.

Proverb, German

24.

Every man is a consumer and ought to be a producer.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

25.

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

Plautus, Titus Maccius

26.

I've got to keep breathing. It'll be my worst business mistake if I don't.

Rothschild, Sir Nathan

27.

In a balanced organization, working towards a common objective, there is success.

Scrutton, T. L.

28.

If you can run one business well, you can run any business well.

Branson, Richard

29.

Make every decision as if you owned the whole company.

Townsend, Robert

30.

I buy when other people are selling.

Getty, J. Paul

31.

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

32.

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

33.

The more I know about business, the more IÆm convinced that it is conducted in homes and churches far more than in office buildings.

Laura Moncur

34.

What the customer demands is last year's model, cheaper. To find out what the customer needs you have to understand what the customer is doing as well as he understands it. Then you build what he needs and you educate him to the fact that he needs it.

Dewolf, Nicholas

35.

I find it rather easy to portray a businessman. Being bland, rather cruel and incompetent comes naturally to me.

John Cleese

36.

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

37.

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

Shakespeare, William

38.

Markets change, tastes change, so the companies and the individuals who choose to compete in those markets must change.

Wang, An

39.

Don't worry about your physical shortcomings. I am no Greek god. Don't get too much sleep and don 't tell anybody your troubles. Appearances count: Get a sun lamp to keep you looking as though you have just come back from somewhere expensive: maintain an elegant address even if you have to live in the attic. Never nickel when short of cash. Borrow big, but always repay promptly.

Onassis, Aristotle

40.

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

George Ade

41.

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

Onassis, Aristotle

42.

It takes more than capital to swing business. You've got to have the A. I. D. degree to get by -- Advertising, Initiative, and Dynamics.

Mulford Jr., Ren

43.

Men who do things without being told draw the most wages.

Stuart, Edwin H.

44.

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

45.

Corporation. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.

Bierce, Ambrose

46.

We're going to see a lot more young people entering entrepreneurial ventures.

Malek, Fred

47.

It is very vulgar to talk about one's business. Only people like stockbrokers do that, and then merely at dinner parties.

Wilde, Oscar

48.

The morality of compromise' sounds contradictory.Compromise is usually a sign of weakness, or an admission of defeat.Strong men don't compromise, it is said, and principles should never be compromised.I shall argue that strong men, conversely, know when to compromise and that all principles can be compromised to serve a greater principle.

Handy, Charles

49.

You can't run a business without taking risks.

Drexler, Millard

50.

HereÆs my theory about meetings and life; the three things you canÆt fake are erections, competence and creativity. ThatÆs why meetings become toxic they put uncreative people in a situation in which they have to be something they can never be. And the more effort they put into concealing their inabilities, the more toxic the meeting becomes. One of the most common creativity-faking tactics is when someone puts their hands in prayer position and conceals their mouth while they nod at you and say,'Mmmmmm. Interesting.'If pressed, theyÆll add,'IÆll have to get back to you on that.'Then they donÆt say anything else.

Douglas Coupland