Business quotes
3.6K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside business — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"Be not too presumptuously sure in any business; for things of this world depend on such a train of unseen chances that if it were in man's hands to set the tables, still he would not be certain to win the game."
"Ill ware is never cheape. [Ill ware is never cheap.]"
"It is the main earthly business of a human being to make his home, and the immediate surroundings of his home, as symbolic and significant to his own imagination as he can."
"One day, the Devil decided to go out of business. His tools, therefore, being for sale, were put on display; and Malice, Jealousy, and Pride were soon recognized by most of his prospective customers. There was one worn, tiny wedge-shaped tool bearing the highest price, however, which seemed difficult to identify. "What is that?" someone asked. "I can't quite place it." "Oh that!" Satan answered. "That is Discouragement. It is my most valuable tool. With it I can open many hearts, since so few people know that it belongs to me.""
"A thoroughbred business man cannot enter heartily upon the business of life without first looking into his accounts."
"Businesses that grow by development and improvement do not die. But when a business ceases to be creative, when it believes it has reached perfection and needs to do nothing but produce no improvement, no development, it is done"
"Every business is a monarchy with, not a man, but an idea as king."
"Competition whose motive is merely to compete, to drive some other fellow out, never carries very far."
"It is a striving to attain the best. To throttle it would mean to stop all progress. Certain men do not need to compete. They are pioneers."
"It is but a truism that labor is most productive where its wages are largest. Poorly paid labor is inefficient labor, the world over."
"I also like to use a sensational headline. Many people read blogs in aggregators, which generally show only the headline. So you have to give people a reason to click through. Blogs need to be real and personal. Reading it should be like hanging out with you. I play music for my readers. I show them videos I like. I tell them what I did over the weekend. And I tell them what is happening in the technology, Internet, and VC markets."
"Don't try to solve the entire problem on day one."
"In business, one of the challenges is making sure that your product is the easiest to experience and complete a sale."
"What I’ve learned is that if you really want to be successful at something, you’ll find that you put the time in. You won’t just ask somebody if it’s a good idea, you’ll go figure out if it’s a good idea."
"A sure sign of failure for a startup is when someone sends me logo-embroidered polo shirts. If your people are at shows and in public, it's okay to buy for your own employees, but if you really think people are going to wear your branded polo when they're out and about, you are mistaken and have no idea how to spend your money."
"If you're looking where everybody else is looking, you're looking in the wrong spot."
"Always look for the fool in the deal. If you don't find one, it's you."
"If you have managers reporting to managers in a startup, you will fail. Once you get beyond startup, if you have managers reporting to managers, you will create politics."
"Go out there and get rich. Get so obnoxiously rich that when that tax bill comes, your first thought will be to choke on how big a check you have to write."
"I've learned the number one job of a pro manager is not to win championships but to keep their job."
