Motivational Quotes

Business

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

Best Quotes about Business

People want economy and they'll pay almost any price to get it.

Iacocca, Lee

I believe Mrs. Thatcher's emphasis on enterprise was right.

Blair, Tony

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.

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

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

It is surprising, in the welter of questions that one gets at (AGMs), how few actually relate to the performance of the company, or the decisions taken by the board in particular areas.

Harvey-Jones, John

Commerce is so far from being beneficial to arts, or to empire, that it is destructive of both, as all their history shows, for the above reason of individual merit being its great hatred. Empires flourish till they become commercial, and then they are scattered abroad to the four winds.

Blake, William

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

Branson, Richard

You read a book from beginning to end. You run a business the opposite way. You start with the end, and then you do everything you must to reach it.

Ceo, Harold Geneen

10.

The propensity to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals.

Smith, Adam

11.

Industry is the soul of business and the keystone of prosperity.

Dickens, Charles

12.

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

13.

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

Dahlberg, Edward

14.

Feedback is the breakfast of champions.

Blanchard, Ken

15.

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

16.

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.

17.

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

Mcnealy, Scott

18.

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

19.

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

Geneen, Harold S.

20.

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

Bierce, Ambrose

21.

The five steps in teaching an employee new skills are preparation, explanation, showing, observation and supervision.

Hook, Harold

22.

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

23.

A consumer is a shopper who is sore about something.

Coffin, Harold

24.

There's a lot more business out there in small town America than I ever dreamed of.

Walton, Sam

25.

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

26.

When you are skinning your customers you should leave some skin on to grow again so that you can skin them again.

Khrushchev, Nikita

27.

I'm not a driven businessman, but a driven artist. I never think about money. Beautiful things make money.

Beene, Geoffrey

28.

The magic formula that successful businesses have discovered is to treat customers like guests and employees like people.

Peters, Thomas J.

29.

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

Coke, Sir Edward

30.

The business of the country is business.

Coolidge, Calvin

31.

In business for yourself, not by yourself.

Kroc, Ray

32.

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

Jurgen Schrempp

33.

It is almost as difficult to keep a first class person in a fourth class job, as it is to keep a fourth class person in a first class job.

Dunn, Paul H.

34.

Get the best people and train them well.

Merrill, Charles

35.

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

Forbes, B. C.

36.

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

Perot, H. Ross

37.

Quality, service, cleanliness, and value.

Ross, Steven J.

38.

If each of us hires people smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs.

Ogilvy, David

39.

Business is like a wheelbarrow--it stands still until someone pushes it.

40.

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

41.

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

Hawken, Paul

42.

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

43.

Few great men could pass personal.

Goodman, Paul

44.

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

Plautus, Titus Maccius

45.

Drive your business, let not your business drive you.

Franklin, Benjamin

46.

Entrepreneurship is the last refuge of the trouble making individual.

Cooley, Mason

47.

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

48.

Well, I don't know as I want a lawyer to tell me what I cannot do. I hire him to tell how to do what I want to do.

Morgan, John Pierpont

49.

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.

50.

There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.

Walton, Sam