Business QuotesA budget tells us what we can't afford, but it doesn't keep us from

buying it..
William Feather
A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business..
Henry Ford
A cardinal principle of Total Quality escapes too many managers: you cannot
continuously improve interdependent systems and processes until you progressively
perfect interdependent, interpersonal relationships..
Stephen Covey
About the time we can make the ends meet, somebody moves the ends..
Herbert Hoover
Airline travel is hours of boredom interrupted by moments of stark terror..
Al Boliska
All lasting business is built on friendship..
Alfred A. Montapert
Almost all quality improvement comes via simplification of design, manufacturing...
layout, processes, and procedures..
Tom Peters
An advertising agency is 85 percent confusion and 15 percent commission..
Fred Allen
An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted
yesterday didn't happen today..
Laurence J. Peter
An economist's guess is liable to be as good as anybody else's..
Will Rogers
And while the law of competition may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best
for the race, because it ensures the survival of the fittest in every department..
Andrew Carnegie
Anyone who has lost track of time when using a computer knows the propensity to
dream, the urge to make dreams come true and the tendency to miss lunch..
Tim Berners-Lee
As a small businessperson, you have no greater leverage than the truth..
John Greenleaf Whittier
Ask five economists and you'll get five different answers - six if one went to Harvard..
Edgar R. Fiedler
Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness..
Thomas Carlyle
Business is a combination of war and sport..
Andre Maurois
Business, more than any other occupation, is a continual dealing with the future; it is a
continual calculation, an instinctive exercise in foresight..
Henry R. Luce
Business, that's easily defined - it's other people's money..
Peter Drucker
By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work
twelve hours a day..
Robert Frost
Cannibals prefer those who have no spines..
Stanislaw Lem
Carpe per diem - seize the check..
Robin Williams
Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility..
Ambrose Bierce
Definition of a Statistician: A man who believes figures don't lie, but admits than under
analysis some of them won't stand up either..
Evan Esar
Definition of Statistics: The science of producing unreliable facts from reliable figures..
Evan Esar
Do more than is required. What is the distance between someone who achieves their
goals consistently and those who spend their lives and careers merely following? The
extra mile..
Gary Ryan Blair
Do not trust people. They are capable of greatness..
Stanislaw Lem
Don't gamble; take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it till it goes up,
then sell it. If it don't go up, don't buy it..
Will Rogers
Don't let your ego get too close to your position, so that if your position gets shot
down, your ego doesn't go with it..
Colin Powell
Don't simply retire from something; have something to retire to..
Harry Emerson Fosdick
Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to
ram them down people's throats..
Howard Aiken
Economic depression cannot be cured by legislative action or executive
pronouncement. Economic wounds must be healed by the action of the cells of the
economic body - the producers and consumers themselves..
Herbert Hoover
Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline,
carrying it out..
Stephen Covey
Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit..
Napoleon Hill
Employees make the best dates. You don't have to pick them up and they're always
tax-deductible..
Andy Warhol
Every day I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If
I'm not there, I go to work..
Robert Orben
Every few seconds it changes - up an eighth, down an eighth -it's like playing a slot
machine. I lose $20 million, I gain $20 million..
Ted Turner
Every young man would do well to remember that all successful business stands on the
foundation of morality..
Henry Ward Beecher
Failure doesn't mean you are a failure it just means you haven't succeeded yet..
Robert H. Schuller
For a lot of people, the weekly paycheck is "take-home pay" because home is the only
place they can afford to go with it..
Charles A. Jaffe
Government in the U.S. today is a senior partner in every business in the country..
Norman Cousins
Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction
that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best..
 Theodore Isaac Rubin
He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing
everything for money..
Benjamin Franklin
He who lives by the crystal ball soon learns to eat ground glass..
Edgar R. Fiedler
Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something..
Thomas A. Edison
High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation..
Charles Kettering
I am certainly not one of those who need to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am the
prod..
Winston Churchill
I buy when other people are selling..
J. Paul Getty
I don't think meals have any business being deductible. I'm for separation of calories
and corporations..
Ralph Nader
I find it rather easy to portray a businessman. Being bland, rather cruel and
incompetent comes naturally to me..
John Cleese
I get to play golf for a living. What more can you ask for - getting paid for doing what
you love..
Tiger Woods
I rate enthusiasm even above professional skill..
Edward Appleton
I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy,
ay, to life itself than this incessant business..
Henry David Thoreau
I want to put a ding in the universe..
Steve Jobs
I was told to avoid the business all together because of the rejection. People would say
to me, 'Don't you want to have a normal job and a normal family?' I guess that would
be good advice for some people, but I wanted to act..
Jennifer Aniston
If all the economists were laid end to end, they'd never reach a conclusion..
George Bernard Shaw
If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable..
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
If the career you have chosen has some unexpected inconvenience, console yourself by
reflecting that no career is without them..
Jane Fonda
If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance..
Abraham Lincoln
If you aren't playing well, the game isn't as much fun. When that happens I tell myself
just to go out and play as I did when I was a kid..
Thomas J. Watson
If you can build a business up big enough, it's respectable..
Will Rogers
If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars..
J. Paul Getty
If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave
your work..
Kahlil Gibran
If you don't drive your business, you will be driven out of business..
B. C. Forbes
If you have to forecast, forecast often..
Edgar R. Fiedler
If you listen to your fears, you will die never knowing what a great person you might
have been..
Robert H. Schuller
If you make a living, if you earn your own money, you're free - however free one can
be on this planet..
Theodore White
If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's
the bank's problem..
J. Paul Getty
I'm not a driven businessman, but a driven artist. I never think about money. Beautiful
things make money..
Lord Acton
In modern business it is not the crook who is to be feared most, it is the honest man
who doesn't know what he is doing..
William Wordsworth
In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: cash and experience. Take the
experience first; the cash will come later..
Harold S. Geneen
In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes..
Benjamin Franklin
Informed decision-making comes from a long tradition of guessing and then blaming
others for inadequate results..
Scott Adams
Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower..
Steve Jobs
Inside every working anarchy, there's an Old Boy Network..
Mitchell Kapor
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect
our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest..
Adam Smith
It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech..
Mark Twain
It's called a pen. It's like a printer, hooked straight to my brain..
Dale Dauten
It's easy to make a buck. It's a lot tougher to make a difference..
Tom Brokaw
It's not what you pay a man, but what he costs you that counts..
Will Rogers
It's not your salary that makes you rich, it's your spending habits..
Charles A. Jaffe
Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's
useless..
Thomas A. Edison
Like dogs in a wheel, birds in a cage, or squirrels in a chain, ambitious men still climb
and climb, with great labor, and incessant anxiety, but never reach the top..
Robert Browning
Look at growth, look at how much time people spend on the Net and look at the variety
of things that they are doing. It's all really good, so I am actually encouraged by the
fundamentals that underlie usage growth on the Net..
Meg Whitman
Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have
kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all..
Dale Carnegie
Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their
work done..
Peter Drucker
My son is now an "entrepreneur." That's what you're called when you don't have a job..
Ted Turner
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him
power..
Abraham Lincoln
No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is
ripe for execution..
Niccolo Machiavelli
Not for nothing is their motto TGIF - 'Thank God It's Friday.' They live for the
weekends, when they can go do what they really want to do..
Richard Nelson Bolles
Nothing interferes with my concentration. You could put on an orgy in my office and I
wouldn't look up. Well, maybe once..
Isaac Asimov
Nothing so conclusively proves a man's ability to lead others as what he does from day
to day to lead himself..
Thomas J. Watson
Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal..
Henry Ford
One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes
an emergency..
Arnold H. Glasow
One of the true tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it
becomes an emergency..
Arnold H. Glasow
One's mind has a way of making itself up in the background, and it suddenly becomes
clear what one means to do..
A. C. Benson
Only a monopolist could study a business and ruin it by giving away products..
Scott McNealy
Our favorite holding period is forever..
Warren Buffett
Our work is the presentation of our capabilities..
Edward Gibbon
People will buy anything that is 'one to a customer.' .
Sinclair Lewis
Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier..
Colin Powell
Profit in business comes from repeat customers, customers that boast about your
project or service, and that bring friends with them..
W. Edwards Deming
Punctuality is one of the cardinal business virtues: always insist on it in your
subordinates..
Don Marquis
Real riches are the riches possessed inside..
B. C. Forbes
Reason and judgment are the qualities of a leader..
Tacitus
Regard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as to build a cathedral..
Frank Lloyd Wright
Remind people that profit is the difference between revenue and expense. This makes
you look smart..
Scott Adams
So little done, so much to do..
Cecil Rhodes
Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly,
and get on with improving your other innovations..
Steve Jobs
Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can..
Paul Tournier
Stock prices have been quoted in fractions for two centuries, based on a system
descended from Spanish pieces of eight. Each dollar was cut into eight bits worth 12.5
cents each..
Charles A. Jaffe
Success or failure in business is caused more by the mental attitude even than by
mental capacities..
Walter Scott
The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on
his bathroom scale..
Arthur C. Clarke
The buck stops with the guy who signs the checks..
Rupert Murdoch
The fastest way to succeed is to look as if you're playing by somebody else's rules,
while quietly playing by your own..
Michael Korda
The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and
the will to carry on..
Walter Lippmann
The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In
between, the leader is a servant..
Max de Pree
The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known
as gambling..
Ambrose Bierce
The genius of a good leader is to leave behind him a situation which common sense,
without the grace of genius, can deal with successfully..
Walter Lippmann
The great leaders are like the best conductors - they reach beyond the notes to reach
the magic in the players..
Blaine Lee
The hardest thing to understand in the world is the income tax..
Albert Einstein
The herd instinct among forecasters makes sheep look like independent thinkers..
Edgar R. Fiedler
The incestuous relationship between government and big business thrives in the dark..
 Jack Anderson
The invisible hand of the market always moves faster and better than the heavy hand
of government..
Mitt Romney
The leader who exercises power with honor will work from the inside out, starting with
himself..
Blaine Lee
The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating
new plans to take the place of those which fail..
Napoleon Hill
The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can
give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed..
Henry Ford
The meek shall inherit the Earth, but not its mineral rights..
J. Paul Getty
The most important quality in a leader is that of being acknowledged as such. All
leaders whose fitness is questioned are clearly lacking in force..
Andre Maurois
The secret of business is to know something that nobody else knows..
Aristotle Onassis
The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will
sell..
Confucius
The way to get things done is not to mind who gets the credit for doing them..
Benjamin Jowett
The wheel that squeaks the loudest is the one that gets the grease..
Josh Billings
The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden
underground, secretly making the ground green..
Thomas Carlyle
The work of the individual still remains the spark that moves mankind ahead even
more than teamwork..
Igor Sikorsky
There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning
from failure..
 Colin Powell
There are two kinds of companies, those that work to try to charge more and those
that work to charge less. We will be the second..
Jeff Bezos
There is no time for cut-and-dried monotony. There is time for work. And time for
love. That leaves no other time! .
Coco Chanel
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..
Sam Walton
There was a time when a fool and his money were soon parted, but now it happens to
everybody..
Adlai E. Stevenson
Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed nothing else can be managed..
Peter Drucker
To command is to serve, nothing more and nothing less..
Andre Malraux
To think that the new economy is over is like somebody in London in 1830 saying the
entire industrial revolution is over because some textile manufacturers in Manchester
went broke..
Alvin Toffler
Try, try, try, and keep on trying is the rule that must be followed to become an expert
in anything..
W. Clement Stone
We don't have a monopoly. We have market share. There's a difference..
Steve Ballmer
We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but we
excel in those which can also make use of our defects..
Alexis de Tocqueville
Web users ultimately want to get at data quickly and easily. They don't care as much
about attractive sites and pretty design..
Tim Berners-Lee
Whales only get harpooned when they come to the surface, and turtles can only move
forward when they stick their neck out, but investors face risk no matter what they do..
Charles A. Jaffe
What we actually learn, from any given set of circumstances, determines whether we
become increasingly powerless or more powerful..
Blaine Lee
What we've gone through in the last several years has caused some people to question
'Can we trust Microsoft?' .
Steve Ballmer
What's the subject of life - to get rich? All of those fellows out there getting rich could
be dancing around the real subject of life..
Paul A. Volcker
When in doubt, mumble; when in trouble, delegate; when in charge, ponder..
James H. Boren
Whenever an individual or a business decides that success has been attained, progress
stops..
Thomas J. Watson
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect..
Mark Twain
Wise are those who learn that the bottom line doesn't always have to be their top
priority..
William Arthur Ward
You are educated. Your certification is in your degree. You may think of it as the ticket
to the good life. Let me ask you to think of an alternative. Think of it as your ticket to
change the world..
Tom Brokaw
You can't operate a company by fear, because the way to eliminate fear is to avoid
criticism. And the way to avoid criticism is to do nothing..
Steve Ross