The Personal MBA: Master The Art Of Business Quotes
"Many who are self-taught far excel the doctors, masters, and bachelors of the most renowned universities." — Ludwig von Mises
"It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it." — Jacob Bronowski
"Whoever best describes the problem is the one most likely to solve it." — Dan Roam
"I think it’s undeniably true that the human brain works in models. The trick is to have your brain work better than the other person’s brain because it understands the most fundamental models—the ones that do the most work." — Charles T. Munger
"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
"Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises; for never intending to go beyond promises, it costs nothing." — Edmund Burke
"It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that modern methods of instruction have not entirely strangled the curiosity of inquiry." — Albert Einstein
"Beware of geeks bearing formulas." — Warren Buffett
"When you first start to study a field, it seems like you have to memorize a zillion things. You don’t. What you need is to identify the core principles—generally three to twelve of them—that govern the field." — John T. Reed
"So often people are working hard at the wrong thing. Working on the right thing is probably more important than working hard." — Caterina Fake
"It’s this simple: if I never try anything, I never learn anything." — Hugh Prather
"No business plan survives first contact with customers." — Steven Gary Blank
"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness." — W. H. Murray
"A successful business is either loved or needed." — Ted Leonsis
"If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late." — Reid Hoffman
"Any engineer that doesn’t need to wash his hands at least three times a day is a failure." — Shoichiro Toyoda
"The product that will not sell without advertising will not sell profitably with advertising." — Albert Lasker
"Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason." — Jerry Seinfeld
"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth." — Marcus Aurelius
"Selling to people who actually want to hear from you is more effective than interrupting strangers who don’t." — Seth Godin
"If you want an audience, start a fight." — Irish Proverb
"Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons." — Woody Allen
"Price is what you pay. Value is what you get." — Warren Buffett
"Upgrade your user, not your product. 'Value' is less about the stuff and more about the stuff the stuff enables. Don’t build better cameras—build better photographers." — Kathy Sierra
"The first thing to decide before you walk into any negotiation is what to do if the other fellow says no." — Ernest Bevin
"Remember, your goal in creating the proposal is to find Common Ground: an agreement that both parties will be happy to accept."
"If you’re expecting the other party to balk at the price, you can prepare arguments to overcome the objection."
"The third dimension of negotiation is the Discussion: actually presenting the offer to the other party."
"Regardless of what happens during the Discussion phase, the end result of every round of Discussion is either 'Yes, we have a deal', 'We don’t have a deal yet', or 'No, we don’t have a deal'."
"By thinking through the Structure of your proposal in advance, you can prepare a few different options."
"Zeal without knowledge is the sister of folly."
"In all but the most extenuating circumstances, Common Ground ensures that every deal is in the best interest of all parties involved."
"A Buffer is a third party empowered to negotiate on your behalf."
"Buffers can also be useful in order to add some time or space to a high-intensity negotiation."
"Assume for a moment you present an offer to a prospect, and their reply is something along the lines of 'No—that doesn’t work for me.' Time to pack it in and move on?"
"Great design is eliminating all unnecessary details."
"Unless a person is a clam digger, a trapper, or an old-style pick-and-shovel prospector, it’s virtually impossible these days to be a success all by oneself."
"I have always believed that for a product or service to thrive, it must deliver quality."
"If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing."
"You can get anything you want in this life if you help enough other people get what they want."
"Know contentment and you will suffer no disgrace; know when to stop and you will meet with no danger."
"Any business can buy incremental unit sales at a negative profit margin, but it’s simpler to stand on the corner handing out $20 bills until you go broke."
"Quality, quality, quality: never waver from it, even when you don’t see how you can afford to keep it up."
"Before every action, ask yourself: Will this bring more monkeys on my back?"
"If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit."
"Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors."
"Now no joy but lacks salt, / That is not dashed with pain / And weariness and fault"
"The views expressed here do not necessarily represent the unanimous view of all parts of my mind."
"Action comes about if and only if we find a discrepancy between what we are experiencing and what we want to experience."
"Whenever an individual or a business decides that success has been attained, progress stops."
"Your environment will eat your goals and plans for breakfast."
"Change the structure of your Environment, and you’ll be amazed at how drastically your behavior will change in response."
"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."
"Your memory is a monster; you forget—it doesn’t. It simply files things away."
"I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free."
"We don’t see things as they are. We see things as we are."
"If you don’t want to slip, don’t go where it’s slippery."
"How little can be done under the spirit of fear."
"One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic."
"In general, we are least aware of what our minds do best."
"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."
"I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something I can do. What I can do, I should do. And what I should do, by the grace of God, I will do."
"Setting a vague goal is like walking into a restaurant and saying, 'I’m hungry. I want some food.' You’ll stay hungry until you order something."
"At the moment of every day I must decide what I am going to do the next moment; and no one can make this decision for me, or take my place in this."
"Your energy level naturally cycles up and down during the day."
"When your energy is on an upswing, you’re capable of focusing deeply and getting a lot accomplished."
"Like all biological organisms, humans need to rest and recover for peak performance."
"Paying attention to your natural Energy Cycle will help you consistently perform at your best."
"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." — T. S. Eliot
"It’s impossible to know how much you’re capable of until you decide to push your limits."
"Humans need rest, relaxation, sleep, and play in order to function effectively."
"Discoveries are often made by not following instructions, by going off the main road, by trying the untried." — Frank Tyger
"Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived." — Abraham Lincoln
"Be a first-rate version of yourself, not a second-rate version of someone else." — Judy Garland
"If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved its full potential, that word would be: 'meetings.'" — Dave Barry
"You can’t operate a company by fear, because the way to eliminate fear is to avoid criticism."
"Hofstadter’s Law: it always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law." — Douglas Hofstadter
"It is a more inspiring battle cry to scream, 'Die, vicious scum!' instead of 'Die, people who could have been just like me but grew up in a different environment!'" — Eliezer Yudkowsky
"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe." — Friedrich Nietzsche
"Show respect to all men, but grovel to none." — Tecumseh
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." — Ralph Waldo Emerson
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." — Upton Sinclair
"Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things." — Peter Drucker
"Once you eliminate your number one problem, number two gets a promotion." — Gerald Weinberg
"Systems of information-feedback control are fundamental to all life and human endeavor." — Jay W. Forrester
"He who lives by the crystal ball soon learns to eat ground glass." — Edgar R. Fiedler
"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe." — John Muir
"While we are free to choose our actions, we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions." — Stephen Covey
"The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem." — Theodore Rubin
"Out of perfection nothing can be made. Every process involves breaking something up." — Joseph Campbell
"It is better to have an approximate answer to the right question than an exact answer to the wrong question." — John Tukey
"That which can be destroyed by the truth should be." — P. C. Hodgell
"Correlation isn’t causation, but it sure is a hint." — Edward Tufte
"Typically, causes, inputs, or effort divide into two categories: (1) the majority, that have little impact, and (2) a small minority, that have a major, dominant impact." — Richard Koch
"The world is wide, and I will not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum." — Frances E. Willard
"No matter how expert you may be, well-designed checklists can improve outcomes." — Steven Levitt
"Placing a system in a straightjacket of constancy can cause fragility to evolve." — C. S. Holling
"Tigers rely on strength, power, and speed, but if prey becomes scarce, death takes them quickly."
"The business world needs more turtles and fewer tigers."
"The world is a fundamentally uncertain place. Unexpected things happen."