Motivational Quotes

Business

Few great men could pass personal.

- Goodman, Paul

Best Quotes about Business

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

Coke, Sir Edward

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

To succeed as a team is to hold all of the members accountable for their expertise.

Mitchell Caplan

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

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

Geneen, Harold S.

Talk of nothing but business, and dispatch that business quickly.

Aldus Manutius

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

Walton, Sam

It's the economy, stupid.

Clinton, Bill

In business, the competition will bite you if you keep running, if you stand still, they will swallow you.

Knudsen, William

10.

You don't want to get the same kind of advice from everyone on your board.

Cardenas, Ruben

11.

Our planning system was dynamite when we first put it in. The thinking was fresh; the form mattered little. It was idea oriented. We then hired a head of planning, and he hired two vice presidents, and then he hired a planner; and the books got thicker, and the printing more sophisticated, and the covers got harder, and the drawings got better.

Welch, John

12.

If a business does well, the stock eventually follows.

Buffett, Warren

13.

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

14.

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

Forbes, B. C.

15.

We let folks know we're interested in them and that they're vital to us. cause they are.

Walton, Sam

16.

You can't run a business without taking risks.

Drexler, Millard

17.

Quality, service, cleanliness, and value.

Ross, Steven J.

18.

Business has only two functions -- marketing and innovation.

Drucker, Peter F.

19.

Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.

Warhol, Andy

20.

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

21.

Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.

Welch, John

22.

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

Geneen, Harold S.

23.

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.

24.

You don't hear things that are bad about your company unless you ask. It is easy to hear good tidings, but you have to scratch to get the bad news.

Watson, Thomas J.

25.

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

Beene, Geoffrey

26.

If a fellow wants to be a nobody in the business world, let him neglect sending the mail man to somebody on his behalf.

Kettering, Charles F.

27.

Show me the business man or institution not guided by sentiment and service; by the idea that he profits most who serves best and I will show you a man or an outfit that is dead or dying.

Harris, B. F.

28.

Frankly, I don't want to see a rapid upturn.I want it to hold until some of these idiotic competitors go bust.

Bamford, Joe

29.

I don't want to do business with those who don't make a profit, because they can't give the best service.

Bristol, Lee

30.

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

31.

The City's reluctance to take a stand on an issue like the British Gas pay row makes a mockery of corporate governance and shareholders' ability to influence annual general meetings.Institutions should be obliged to make public how they vote at such events.They should be obliged to provide customers with a record of how they vote on every kind of issue.

Donovan, Patrick

32.

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.

33.

Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do before.

Manzi, Jim

34.

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

Perot, H. Ross

35.

To succeed in business it is necessary to make others see things as you see them.

Patterson, John H.

36.

Conducting your business in a socially responsible way is good business. It means that you can attract better employees and that customers will know what you stand for and like you for it.

Burns, M. Anthony

37.

In a balanced organization, working towards a common objective, there is success.

Scrutton, T. L.

38.

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

39.

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

40.

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

41.

The purpose of a business is to create a customer.

Drucker, Peter F.

42.

The more I know about business, the more IÆm convinced that it is conducted in homes and churches far more than in office buildings.

Laura Moncur

43.

Location, location, location.

Dillard, William

44.

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

45.

We are all manufacturers. Making good, making trouble, or making excuses.

Adolt, H. V.

46.

A consumer is a shopper who is sore about something.

Coffin, Harold

47.

It is much more difficult to measure non-performance than performance. Performance stands out like a ton of diamonds. Non-performance can almost always be explained away.

Geneen, Harold S.

48.

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

Buffett, Warren

49.

There is no substitute for accurate knowledge. Know yourself, know your business, know your men.

Jacobs, Randall

50.

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