Quotes on Business

Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.

I have seen American determination in people like Debbi Sommers. She runs a furniture rental business for conventions in Las Vegas. When 9/11 hit, and again, when the recession tanked the conventions business, she didn't give up, close down, or lay off her people. She taught them not just to rent furniture, but also to manufacture it.

It is easier to do a job right than to explain why you didn't.

Taxing is an easy business. Any projector can contrive new impositions; any bungler can add to the old; but is it altogether wise to have no other bounds to your impositions than the patience of those who are to bear them?

The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want and if they can't find them, make them.

Investors should remember that excitement and expenses are their enemies. And if they insist on trying to time their participation in equities, they should try to be fearful when others are greedy and greedy only when others are fearful.

I have pledged - to you, the rating agencies and myself - to always run Berkshire with more than ample cash. We never want to count on the kindness of strangers in order to meet tomorrow's obligations. When forced to choose, I will not trade even a night's sleep for the chance of extra profits.

We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.

I am not in the business of suppressing books.

Authority without wisdom is like a heavy ax without an edge -- fitter to bruise than polish.

It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.

Brethren, let us mind our own business - that is, the calling the Lord has called us to - to do everything we can to promote the good of the Cause of Truth, and never ask how big we are, or inquire who we are; but let it be, 'What can I do to build up the Kingdom of God upon the Earth?'

Physically there is nothing to distinguish human society from the farm-yard except that children are more troublesome and costly than chickens and calves and that men and women are not so completely enslaved as farm stock.

Don't sweat the small stuff...and it's all small stuff.

Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage.

You don't need a Harvard MBA to know that the bedroom and the boardroom are just two sides of the same ballgame.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

Yesterday's home runs don't win today's games.

Don't stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed.

As more and more people wake up to the fact that further growth does not necessarily bring improvements in quality of life (and often exactly the opposite), sustainability is going to become one of the key characteristics with which places want to be associated.

Empire in the past was always a far harsher and much more accident-prone business than conventional history books imply. And the costs of these overseas invasions were borne not just by those on the receiving end but - frequently - by ordinary, vulnerable people among or associated with the invaders.