Tuesday, June 7, 2011

A List of Great Business Quotes

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Learn to say thank you every time. –Jill Griffin
Every great business is built on friendship. –J.C. Penney
Customer satisfaction is worthless. Customer loyalty is priceless. –Jeffrey Gitomer
In business, honesty is absolutely essential. The best principle is under promise and over deliver. –Richard Denny
Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there. –Will Rogers
Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things. –Peter F. Drucker
Don't find fault, find a remedy. –Henry Ford
Creativity is the engine that drives innovation. –Sanjay Dalal
Customer service is not a department, it’s everyone’s job. –Anonymous
Rough waters are truer tests of leadership. In calm water every ship has a good captain. –Swedish proverb
Doing the right thing is more important than doing the thing right. –Peter F. Drucker
The best way out is always through. –Robert Frost
Every client you keep, is one less that you need to find. –Nigel Sander
The best way to escape from a problem is to solve it. –Brendan Francis
Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better. –Jim Rohn
Passion is the seed of innovation. –Sanjay Dalal
Within the problem lies the solution. –Anonymous
Innovation happens when everything else fails. –Sanjay Dalal
No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered. –Winston Churchill
The customer perceives service in his or her own terms. –Arch McGill
Repeat business or behavior can be bribed. Loyalty has to be earned. –Janet Robinson
Off the rack solutions, like bargain basement dresses, never fit anyone. –Francoise Giroud
Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it is the only one you have. –Emile Chartier
Leadership involves finding a parade and getting in front of it. –John Naisbitt
When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail. –Abraham Maslow
Ninety percent of leadership is the ability to communicate something people want. –Dianne Feinstein
Quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten. –Gucci Family Slogan
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. –Groucho Marx
Today knowledge has power. It controls access to opportunity and advancement. –Peter F. Drucker
There is always a way to go if you look for it. –Ernest A. Fitzgerald
Imagination is more important than knowledge. –Albert Einstein
Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. –Chinese Proverb
Politeness goes far, yet costs nothing. –Samuel Smile
Vision is the art of seeing things invisible. –Jonathan Swift
Efficiency is doing better what is already being done. –Peter F. Drucker
Only a life lived in the service to others is worth living. –Albert Einstein
Every time you have to speak, you are auditioning for leadership. –James Humes
When people are divided, the only solution is agreement. –John Hume
Without initiative, leaders are simply workers in leadership positions. –Bo Bennett
Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most. –Fyodor Dostoevsky
Memorable customer service can only take place in a human-to-human situation. –Jeffrey Gitomer
Leadership comes in small acts as well as bold strokes. –Carly Fiorina
The solution to a problem changes the nature of the problem. –John Peers
If you want to live a long life, focus on making contributions. –Han Selye
Confusion is a word we have invented for an order that is not yet understood. –Henry Miller
Goals must never be from your ego, but problems that cry for a solution. –Robert H. Schuller
The very exercise of leadership fosters capacity for it. –Cyril Falls
If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve? –John Adams
Now that we have met with paradox we have some hope of making progress. –Niels Bohr
Creativity is the answer. I always prefer the creative solution to an expensive solution. –Keenen Ivory Wayans
The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer. –Peter F. Drucker
Leadership is unlocking people's potential to become better. –Bill Bradley
Here is a simple but powerful rule: always give people more than what they expect to get. –Nelson Boswell
If I have a thousand ideas and only one turns out to be good, I am satisfied. –Alfred Noble
People are persuaded by reason, but moved by emotion; the leader must both persuade and move them –Richard M.Nixon
The solution of every problem is another problem –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I think the greater responsibility, in terms of morality, is where leadership begins. –Norman Lear
Give trust and you'll get it double in return. –Kees Kamies
Success isn't a result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire. –Arnold H. Glasgow
Leadership requires the courage to make decisions that will benefit the next generation. –Alan Autry
It is better to wear out than to rust out. –Richard Cumberland
I am looking for a lot of people who have an infinite capacity to not know what can't be done. –Henry Ford
Forget about the sales you hope to make and concentrate on the service you want to render. –Harry Bullis
Leadership does not depend on being right. –Ivan Illich
Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow. –Ronald E. Osborn
Make a customer, not a sale. –Katherine Barchetti
You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can't get them across, your ideas won't get you anywhere. –Lee Iacocca
Remember, a dead fish can float down a stream, but it takes a live one to swim upstream. –W.C. Fields
Decision making is the specific executive task. –Peter F. Drucker
A ruler should be slow to punish and swift to reward. –Ovid
Systems die; instincts remain. –Oliver Wendell Holmes
You gotta be hungry! –Les Brown
Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm. –Publilius Syrus
If you have no character to lose, people will have no faith in you –Mahatma Gandhi
Money never starts an idea; it is the idea that starts the money. –William J. Cameron
Show me someone who has done something worthwhile and I'll show you someone who has overcome adversity. –Lou Holtz
To lead the people, walk behind them. –Lao Tzu
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not a single act, but a habit. –Aristotle
A problem well stated is a problem half solved. –Charles Kettering
Quality will be prized as a precious possession. –Unknown
Leadership is practiced not so much in words as in attitude and in actions. –Harold S. Geneen
The only thing you will take through those pearly gates is what you have given away. –Marcia Moore
Discovery is seeing what everybody else has seen, and thinking what nobody else has thought. –Albert Szent-Gyorgi
Quality begins on the inside... and then works its way out. –Bob Moawad
A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way. –John C. Maxwell
People don't care how much you know, but they know how much you care by the way you listen. –Bob Conklin
Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision. –Peter F. Drucker
You must do the thing you think you cannot do. –Eleanor Roosevelt
Life is like a dogsled team. If you ain't the lead dog, the scenery never changes. –Unknown
Our greatest asset is the customer! Treat each customer as if they are the only one! –Laurice Leitao
I start where the last man left off. –Thomas Edison
A leader is a dealer in hope. –Napoleon Bonaparte
We are hoarding potentials so great that they are just about unimaginable. –Jack Schwartz
Never leave your customers wondering. –Kevin Stirtz
Victory is sweetest when you've known defeat. –Malcolm Forbes
The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones. –William Faulkner
Something new is not innovation if it does not add to value addition. –John Prescott
The best vision is insight. –Malcolm Forbes
A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd. –Max Lucado
There's no good idea that cannot be improved on. –Michael Eisner
Leadership has a harder job to do than just choose sides. It must bring sides together. –Jesse Jackson
To accomplish great things we must dream as well as act. –Anatole France
Leaders think and talk about the solutions. Followers think and talk about the problems. –Brian Tracy
Do not fear mistakes. There are none. –Miles Davis
Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality. –Warren G. Bennis
Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them –Alfred North Whitehead
Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success. –Henry Ford
It's great to work with somebody who wants to do things differently. –Keith Bellow
The ability to innovate is only as good as how one can accept changes and take risks –Franco Paolo Liu Eisma
Nobody counts the number of ads you run; they just remember the impression you make. –William Bernbach
He who has never learned to obey cannot be a good commander. –Aristotle
Managers succeed by following the rules. Innovators succeed by breaking the rules. –Vadim Kotelnikov
Confidence and enthusiasm are the greatest sales producers in any kind of economy. –O. B. Smith
There's a way to do it better – find it. –Thomas Edison
Fall down seven times. Stand up eight. –Japanes Proverb
Not the cry, but the flight of the wild duck, leads the flock to fly and follow. –Chinese Proverb
A sale is not something you pursue; it's what happens to you while you are immersed in serving your customer. –Unknown
Eagles don't flock - you have to find them one at a time. –H. Ross Perot
Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough we must do. –Goethe
I've learned that mistakes can often be as good a teacher as success. –Jack Welch
Every thought is a seed. If you plant crab apples, don't count on harvesting Golden Delicious. –Bill Meyer
Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone. –Pablo Picasso
The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been. –Henry Kissinger
You don't lead by hitting people over the head - that's assault, not leadership. –Dwight D. Eisenhower
The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity. –Peter F. Drucker
Although your customers won’t love you if you give bad service, your competitors will. –Kate Zabriskie
Well done is better than well said. –Benjamin Franklin
Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong. –Donald Porter
Consumers are statistics. Customers are people. –Stanley Marcus
The greatest thief this world has ever produced is procrastination, and he is still at large. – H.W Shaw
Ask your customers to be part of the solution, and don't view them as part of the problem. –Alan Weiss, Ph.D.
Leaders need to be optimists. Their vision is beyond the present. –Rudy Giuliani
A man without a smiling face must not open a shop. –Chinese Proverb
When all think alike, then no one is thinking. –Walter Lippman
If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door. –Milton Berle
Timid salesmen have skinny kids. –Zig Ziglar
Don't confuse the art of the possible with the art of the profitable. –David Tansley
First “buy” it — then you sell it. –Ben Feldman
All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered. The point is to discover them. –Galileo Galilei
In business you get what you want by giving other people what they want. –Alice MacDougall
He profits most who serves best. –Arthur F. Sheldon
To have a great idea, have a lot of them. –Thomas Edison
And when we think we lead, we are most led. –Lord Byron
The only real training for leadership is leadership. –Antony Jay
When nothing is sure, everything is possible. –Margaret Drabble
Leaders need to be visionary yet practical, teachers yet learners, and believers yet open-minded. –Unknown
Kites rise highest against the wind - not with it. –Winston Churchill
Failure defeats losers, failure inspires winners. –Robert Kiyosaki
There's no use talking about the problem unless you talk about the solution –Betty Williams
If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative. –Woody Allen
The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear. –Socrates
Leadership is influence. –John C. Maxwell
If we don’t take care of our customers, someone else will. –Unknown
Innovation is the ability to see change as an opportunity, not a threat. –Unknown
Innovation is not the product of logical thought, although the result is tied to logical structure. –Albert Einstein
The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision. –Theodore Hesburgh
Quality in a product is not what you put into it. It is what the customer gets out of it. –Peter Drucker
Leaders are made rather than born. Failing organizations are usually over-managed and under-led. –Unknown
Strength lies in differences, not in similarities. –Stephen Covey
A strong positive mental attitude will create more miracles than any wonder drug. –Patricia Neal
The great aim of education is not knowledge but action. –Herbert Spencer
Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action. –Unknown
Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. –Ralph Waldo Emerson
The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves. –Ray Kroc
The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership. –Harvey S. Firestone
Sales without Customer Service, is like stuffing money into a pocket full of holes. –David Tooman
The most successful people are those who are good at Plan B. –James Yorke
People, like nails, lose their effectiveness when they lose direction and begin to bend. –Walter Savage Landor
Innovation is the central issue in economic prosperity. –Michael Porter
Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes –Peter F. Drucker
If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful. –Bezos
The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes. –Tony Blair
Sandwich every bit of criticism between two thick layers of praise. –Mary Kay Ash
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. –Peter Drucker
Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns. — E.D. Bono
Good leadership consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people. –Rockefeller
The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority. –Kenneth Blanchard
Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things. —Theodore Levitt
Leadership is defined by results not attributes. –Peter Drucker
Once we rid ourselves of traditional thinking we can get on with creating the future. —James Bertrand
The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why. –Warren Bennis
Being on par in terms of price and quality only gets you into the game. Service wins the game. –Tony Alessandra
Yesterday's failures are today's seeds that must be diligently planted to abundantly harvest tomorrow's success. –Unknown
If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm. –Vince Lombardi
Learning without thought is labour lost –Confucius
Innovation is the process of turning ideas into manufacturable and marketable form. —Watts Humprey
Things we fear most in organizations—fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances—are the primary sources of creativity. –Unknown
Good plans shape good decisions. That’s why good planning helps to make elusive dreams come true. –Bittel
The leader has to be practical and a realist yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist. –Unknown
Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them. –John Maxwell
The goal as a company is to have customer service that is not just the best, but legendary. –Sam Walton
There are no traffic jams along the extra mile. –Roger Staubach
Leaders are more powerful role models when they learn than when they teach. –Rosabeth Moss Kantor
Leadership: The art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it. –Eisenhower
Nothing endures but change. –Heraclitus
Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit. –Unknown
Success and failure; we think of them as opposites, but they're really not. They're companions - the hero and the sidekick. –Laurence Shames
It is time for us to stand & cheer for the doer, the achiever-the one who recognizes the challenge & does something about it. –Vince Lombardi
Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems. –Rene Descartes
Remember, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. –Dale Carnegie
It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers. –James Thurber
You must be the change you wish to see in the world. –Gandhi
Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time. –George Bernard Shaw
Try to learn something about everything and everything about something. –Thomas Henry Huxley
The dictionary is the only place that success comes before work. –Vince Lombardi
The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it. –Warren Bennis
Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. –Albert Einstein
For true success ask yourself these four questions: Why? Why not? Why not me? Why not now? –James Allen
Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world. –Joel Barker
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But in practice, there is. –Yogi Berra
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. –Victor Frankl
A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying... that he is wiser today than he was yesterday. –Unknown
The problem with communication ... is the illusion that it has been accomplished. –George Bernard Shaw
The most useful piece of learning for the uses of life is to unlearn what is untrue. –Antisthenes
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. –Abraham Lincoln
History is a race between education and catastrophe. –H. G. Wells
Always hold your head up, but be careful to keep your nose at a friendly level. –Max L. Forman
If the past can't teach the present & the father can't teach his son, history need not go on. The world has wasted a great deal of time. –Unknown
Leaders are visionaries with a poorly developed sense of fear & no concept of the odds against them. –Robert Jarvik
Inside my empty bottle I was constructing a lighthouse while all the others were making ships. –Charles Simic
You don't understand anything until you learn it more than one way. –Marvin Minsky
Learning is like rowing upstream: to not advance is to drop back. –Chinese Proverb
The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind. –William Blake
Success is that old ABC – ability, breaks and courage. –Charles Luckman
Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny. –Unknown
Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. –Unknown
To know yet to think that one does not know is best; Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty. –Lao-Tzu
The world is full of people who have never, since childhood, met an open doorway with an open mind. E. B. White
Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning & focused effort. –Paul J Meyer
Be a good listener. Your ears will never get you in trouble. –Frank Tyger
The best way to predict the future is to invent it. –Alan Kay
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. –Mahatma Gandhi
The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one. –Elbert Hubbard
Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. –Steve Jobs
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. –Derek Bok
The man who graduates today and stops learning tomorrow is uneducated the day after. –Newton D. Baker
To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge. –Benjamin Disraeli
There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other. –Unknown
You can't ask customers what they want and then try to give it to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new. –Steve Jobs
When ideas fail, words come in very handy. –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
To listen closely and reply well is the highest perfection we are able to attain in the art of conversation. –Unknown
So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work. –Peter Drucker
The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer, but rather what they miss. –Thomas Carlyle
Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. –Marie Curie
Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. –Albert Einstein
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -William James
The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning. –Ivy Baker Priest
Everybody is a genius. But, if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid. –Unknown
Learning is what most adults will do for a living in the 21st century. –Perelman
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. –Thomas A. Edison
Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life. –Immanuel Kant
The danger is not that computers will think like men, but that men will think like computers. –Sydney J. Harris
Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today. –Mark Twain
Do not look back in anger, or forward in fear, but around in awareness. –James Thurber
The past may not be your fault, but the future is your responsibility alone. –Gene Cruz
The difference between a boss and a leader: a boss says, 'Go!' -a leader says, 'Let's go!'. –E. M. Kelly
It's not denial; I'm just selective about the reality I accept. –Calvin and Hobbes
If you focus on results, you will never change. If you focus on change, you will get results. –Jack Dixon
Foresight: "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." –Thomas Watson (1874-1956), Chairman of IBM, in 1943
A fact in itself is nothing. It is valuable only for the idea attached to it, or for the proof which it furnishes. –Claude Bernard
Organizations with decision-making speed and imagination will thrive as nobody can claim to have a monopoly over creativity. –Narayana Murthy
Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not. –Unknown
It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem. –G.K. Chesterton
I have not failed, I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. –Thomas Edison
The guy who invented the first wheel was an idiot. The guy who invented the other three, he was a genius. –Unknown
They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself. –Andy Warhol
Success comes to the person who does today what you were thinking about doing tomorrow. –Unknown
The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you. –B.B. King
What I hear, I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I understand. –Confucius
Life is not about how fast you run, or how high you climb, but how well you bounce! –Tigger
Bite off more than you can chew, then chew it. Plan more than you can do, then do it. –Unknown
Standards are always out of date. That is what makes them standards. –Alan Bennett
Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought. –Albert Szent-Györgyi
The art of progress is to preserve order amid change, and to preserve change amid order. –Alfred North Whitehead
The first one gets the oyster the second gets the shell. –Andrew Carnegie
No legacy is so rich as honesty. –William Shakespeare
Continuous effort-not strength or intelligence-is the key to unlocking our potential. –Winston Churchill
Once you say you're going to settle for second, that's what happens to you. –John F. Kennedy
The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious. –Oswald Spengler
I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can't be done. –Henry Ford
The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from those who are still undecided. –Casey Stengel
I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones. –John Cage
It's not that some people have willpower and some don't. It's that some people are ready to change and others are not. –James Gordon
Learning how to learn is life's most important skill. –Tony Buzan
Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival. –W. Edwards Deming
Sales are contingent upon the attitude of the salesman – not the attitude of the prospect. –W. Clement Stone
In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield –Warren Buffett
You must either modify your dreams or magnify your skills. –Jim Rohn
There are no dreams too large, no innovation unimaginable and no frontiers beyond our reach. –Unknown
In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted. –Bertrand Russell
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. –Unknown
If you have knowledge, let others light their candles at it. –Margaret Fuller
Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. –John F. Kennedy
A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done. –Eisenhower
It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. –Charles Darwin
Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall. –Unknown
The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. –Toffler
The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get old ones out. –Unknown
When you know something, say what you know. When you don't know something, say that you don't know. That is knowledge. –Confucius
Learning is not a spectator sport. –D. Blocher
The purpose of training is to tighten up the slack, toughen the body, and polish the spirit. –Morihei Ueshiba
Trust should be the basis for all our moral training. –Robert Baden-Powell
I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion’ –Muhammad Ali
An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come. –Victor Hugo
I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of thinking going on inside it. –Terry Pratchett
It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all. –Edward De Bono
Persistent resistance to change must be handled with directness and respect as does any performance problem. –Unknown
Creativity: a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual. –Arthur Koestler
The question isn't what fosters creativity? But why isn't everyone creative? –Maslow
Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship; the act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth. –Peter Drucker
Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted. –Martin Luther King, Jr.
The way to get good ideas is to get lots of ideas, and throw the bad ones away. –Linus Pauling
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. –Confucious

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