Quotes on Business

It may seem odd to talk about something as soft and fuzzy as "passion" as an integral part of a strategic framework. But throughout the good-to-great companies, passion became a key part of the Hedgehog Concept.

The difference between the headphones and making music, it's like, okay, I have a new business here that I'm proud of, but my soul still remains in the music-making process.

The actual making of a record is the most exciting part of this business.

As you start building the product, don't assume that you know all the answers. Listen to the community and adapt. We had a lot of our own ideas about how the service would evolve. Coming from PayPal and eBay, we saw YouTube as a powerful way to add video to auctions, but we didn't see anyone using our product that way, so we didn't add features to support it.

If we all act together - business, governments, NGOs and citizens and, especially, the young - just imagine the good we could create.

The Forgotten Man is delving away in patient industry, supporting his family, paying his taxes, casting his vote, supporting the church and the school, reading his newspaper, and cheering for the politician of his admiration, but he is the only one for whom there is no provision in the great scramble and the big divide. Such is the Forgotten Man. He works, he votes, generally he prays — but he always pays — yes, above all, he pays.

Is suffering really necessary?_x000D_ _x000D_ Yes and no._x000D_ _x000D_ If you had not suffered as you have, there would be no depth to you, no humility, no compassion.

If you just work on stuff that you like and you're passionate about, you don't have to have a master plan with how things will play out.

Fearlessness is like a muscle. I know from my own life that the more I exercise it the more natural it becomes to not let my fears run me.

If we try and fail, we have temporary disappointments. But if we do not try at all, we have permanent regrets.

The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.

People's minds are changed through observation and not through argument.

Too many companies are running their business into the ground, I would argue, by being myopically short-term focused on the shareholder.

Journalism largely consists of saying 'Lord Jones is Dead' to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive.

The things we fear most in organizations - fluctuations, disturbances,_x000D_ _x000D_ imbalances - are the primary sources of creativity.

A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.

Empowering women is one of the most important things we - and indeed, every business - can do.

The greatest ability in business is to get along with others and to influence their actions.

Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.

Even in fiction, I feel rigorous honesty applies. It doesn't apply to facts; it applies to what I think of as not telling emotional lies, which is a funny business.

I first started asking big questions when I was 12, and by big questions, I mean, 'Why are we here? What is this business? We're alive for a few short decades and then poof, we're out of here.'