Motivational Quotes

Business

Don't forget until too late that the business of life is not business, but living.

- Forbes, B. C.

Best Quotes about Business

I find it rather easy to portray a businessman. Being bland, rather cruel and incompetent comes naturally to me.

John Cleese

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

Business, more than any other occupation, is a continual dealing with the future; it is a continual calculation, an instinctive exercise in foresight.

Luce, Henry

Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out.

Galvin, Robert

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

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

Stuart, Edwin H.

In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative original thinker unless you can also sell what you create. Management cannot be expected to recognize a good idea unless it is presented to them by a good salesman.

David M. Ogilvy

You can't run a business without taking risks.

Drexler, Millard

You generally hear that what a man doesn't know doesn't hurt him, but in business what a man doesn't know does hurt.

Lewis, E. St. Elmo

10.

Treat employees like partners, and they act like partners.

Allen, Fred A.

11.

Business is more exciting than any game.

Beaverbrook, Lord

12.

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

Peters, Thomas J.

13.

Never say no when a client asks for something, even if it is the moon. You can always try, and anyhow there is plenty of time afterwards to explain that it was not possible.

Ritz, Cesar

14.

Every man is a consumer and ought to be a producer.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

15.

Such is the brutalization of commercial ethics in this country that no one can feel anything more delicate than the velvet touch of a soft buck.

Chandler, Raymond

16.

Stressing output is the key to improving productivity, while looking to increase activity can result in just the opposite.

Grove, Andrew

17.

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

Walton, Sam

18.

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

Mcnealy, Scott

19.

A man's success in business today turns upon his power of getting people to believe he has something that they want.

Lee, Gerald Stanley

20.

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

Plautus, Titus Maccius

21.

It's the economy, stupid.

Clinton, Bill

22.

Letting your customers set your standards is a dangerous game, because the race to the bottom is pretty easy to win. Setting your own standards--and living up to them--is a better way to profit. Not to mention a better way to make your day worth all the effort you put into it.

Seth Godin

23.

The selfish spirit of commerce, which knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain.

Jefferson, Thomas

24.

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

Beene, Geoffrey

25.

Cut your losses and let your profits run.

Proverb, American

26.

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.

27.

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

Jurgen Schrempp

28.

We have yet to see the full impact of the open, global marketplace. By 1997 all raw materials and technology will be available everywhere in the world. The only differences between countries and markets will be skill levels, education, and the level of empowerment of the workplace.

Pritchett, Lew

29.

One of the vices of the virtue of decentralization is that people don't share ideas.

O'Reilly, Anthony J. F.

30.

Get the best people and train them well.

Merrill, Charles

31.

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

32.

In business, words are words; explanations are explanations, promises are promises, but only performance is reality.

Geneen, Harold S.

33.

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

David Letterman

34.

Make every decision as if you owned the whole company.

Townsend, Robert

35.

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

36.

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

Ogilvy, David

37.

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

Nevill, Dorothy

38.

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

Buffett, Warren

39.

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

Geneen, Harold S.

40.

My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people's.

Oscar Wilde

41.

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

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.

Drive your business, let not your business drive you.

Franklin, Benjamin

44.

If a business does well, the stock eventually follows.

Buffett, Warren

45.

Concentrate your strengths against your competitor's relative weaknesses.

Henderson, Bruce

46.

The secret of business is to know something that nobody else knows.