Motivational Quotes

Business

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

Best Quotes about Business

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

Ford, Henry

The City's reluctance to take a stand on an issue like the British Gas pay row makes a mockery of corporate governance and shareholders' ability to influence annual general meetings.Institutions should be obliged to make public how they vote at such events.They should be obliged to provide customers with a record of how they vote on every kind of issue.

Donovan, Patrick

Business, that's easily defined; it's other people's money.

Dumas, Alexandre

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

Treat employees like partners, and they act like partners.

Allen, Fred A.

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

Geneen, Harold S.

Business is like war in one respect. If its grand strategy is correct, any number of tactical errors can be made and yet the enterprise proves successful.

Woods, General Robert E.

If a fellow wants to be a nobody in the business world, let him neglect sending the mail man to somebody on his behalf.

Kettering, Charles F.

Every business is built on friendship.

Penney, J. C. (James Cash)

10.

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

Hale, Sir Matthew

11.

Executives are like joggers. If you stop a jogger, he goes on running on the spot. If you drag an executive away from his business, he goes on running on the spot, pawing the ground, talking business. He never stops hurtling onwards, making decisions and executing them.

Baudrillard, Jean

12.

I think it is an immutable law in business that words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises -- but only performance is reality.

Geneen, Harold S.

13.

Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do before.

Manzi, Jim

14.

Forty for you, sixty for me And equal partners we will be

Barzan, Gerald

15.

Frankly, I don't want to see a rapid upturn.I want it to hold until some of these idiotic competitors go bust.

Bamford, Joe

16.

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

17.

The commercial class has always mistrusted verbal brilliancy and wit, deeming such qualities, perhaps with some justice, frivolous and unprofitable.

Nevill, Dorothy

18.

What's good for the country is good for General Motors, and vice versa.

Wilson, Charles E.

19.

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

Hawken, Paul

20.

The simple opposition between the people and big business has disappeared because the people themselves have become so deeply involved in big business.

Lippmann, Walter

21.

Never write an advertisement which you wouldn't want your own family to read. You wouldn't tell lies to your own wife. Don't tell them to mine. Do as you would be done by. If you tell lies about a product, you will be found out -- either by the Government, which will prosecute you, or by the consumer, who will punish you by not buying your product a second time. Good products can be sold by honest advertising. If you don't think the product is good, you have no business to be advertising it.

Ogilvy, David

22.

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

Ogilvy, David

23.

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

Perot, H. Ross

24.

The great business of life is to be, to do, to do without and to depart.

Morley, John

25.

Few great men could pass personal.

Goodman, Paul

26.

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

Scrutton, T. L.

27.

You don't want to get the same kind of advice from everyone on your board.

Cardenas, Ruben

28.

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

Branson, Richard

29.

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

30.

Cut your losses and let your profits run.

Proverb, American

31.

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

Stuart, Edwin H.

32.

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

33.

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

Bond, Alan

34.

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.

35.

Quality, service, cleanliness, and value.

Ross, Steven J.

36.

It's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.

Buffett, Warren

37.

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

38.

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

Wilde, Oscar

39.

Good design can't fix broken business models.

Jeffrey Veen

40.

To succeed in business it is necessary to make others see things as you see them.

Patterson, John H.

41.

People will go right on preferring to do business with friends.

42.

In a start-up company, you basically throw out all assumptions every three weeks.

Mcnealy, Scott

43.

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

44.

There's no business like show business, but there are several businesses like accounting.

David Letterman

45.

It's the economy, stupid.

Clinton, Bill

46.

A generation which has passed through the shop has absorbed standards and ambitions which are not of those of spaciousness, and cannot get away from them. Everything with them is done as though for sale, and they naturally have in view the greatest possible benefit, profit and that end of the stuff that will make the best show.

Herzen, Alexander

47.

The most important word in the vocabulary of advertising is TEST. If you pretest your product with consumers, and pretest your advertising, you will do well in the marketplace.

Ogilvy, David

48.

The novice in advertising frequently gives the public credit, for too much intelligence.

49.

The business that considers itself immune to the necessity for advertising sooner or later finds itself immune to business.

Brown, Derby

50.

If you did not look after today's business then you might as well forget about tomorrow.

Mophatlane, Isaac