Top 100 Business Quotes of All Time

A short, finished list rather than an endless feed: 100 of the best business quotes ever written, picked out of the full business archive on QuoteForever. You will find David Ogilvy, Bill Gates, Alan Greenspan and B. C. Forbes among them.

Read the list top to bottom, or use it as a starting point - every author name links to everything else they said, and every quote has its own page you can share or turn into an image.

The most successful businessman is the man who holds onto the old ... - Lee Iacocca 1

The most successful businessman is the man who holds onto the old just as long as it is good, and grabs the new just as soon as it is better.

2

Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.

3

In today's knowledge-based economy, what you earn depends on what you learn. Jobs in the information technology sector, for example, pay 85 percent more than the private sector average.

4

I think Virgin Blue is still a very promising and exciting business. Now, I know that's not a view that's widely held in the market but I think the market is simply throwing it into the too-hard basket at the present time because of the oil price events. But we think it is still a very exciting business.

5

Today, National Geographic has a membership side with a magazine and some television side, and they generate about a billion dollars in revenue, and they're profitable. And so at the end of the year they have some bottom line profit which they can then reinvest, because they're running it as a not-for-profit in charitable endeavors.

6

No one can possibly achieve any real and lasting success or 'get rich' in business by being a conformist.

7

The way of success is the way of continuous pursuit of knowledge.

8

I do not deny that many appear to have succeeded in a material way by cutting corners and by manipulating associates, both in their professional and in their personal lives. But material success is possible in this world and far more satisfying when it comes without exploiting others.

9

It seems superfluous to constrain trading in some of the newer derivatives and other innovative financial contracts of the past decade. The worst have failed; investors no longer fund them and are not likely to in the future.

10

The need to engage businesses and decision makers with customers can only increase in importance, and as it does, the market research industry must recognise that engagement is a facet of what we do.

11

If you want to succeed, you've got to be okay to just lose control.

12

People are more willing to buy branded goods provided they are persuaded that they are getting value from them. And they need to be convinced of those benefits, in authentic everyday language, without being confronted by corporate-speak. Get it right, and you create a virtuous circle. Get it wrong, and you get punished for it.

13

We can't be afraid to be weird.

14

Strategy doesn't change when hard times arrive. Consumers' willingness to try, and to stay loyal, remains, the goal. Winners know this; their brand focus and strategy remains consistent.

15

With all due respect to Microsoft and Intel, there is no substitute for being in the right place at the right time.

16

Business Art is the step that comes after Art.

17

For me, campaigning and good business is also about putting forward solutions, not just opposing destructive practices or human rights abuses.

18

Apparently, sir you Chinese are far ahead of us in every respect, except that you don’t have entrepreneurs. And our nation, though it has no drinking water, electricity, sewage system, public transportation, sense of hygiene, discipline, courtesy, or punctuality, ‘’does’’ have entrepreneurs. Thousands and thousands of them. Especially in the field of technology. And these entrepreneurs—"we" entrepreneurs—have set up all these outsourcing companies that virtually run America now.

19

Nothing is ever enough when what you are looking for isn't what you really want.

20

Virtue is more clearly shown in the performance of fine ACTIONS than in the non-performance of base ones.

21

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

22

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

23

Any business arrangement that is not profitable to the other fellow will in the end prove unprofitable for you. The bargain that yields mutual satisfaction is the only one that is apt to be repeated.

24

Acting is an uncomfortable business because you have to make yourself vulnerable.

25

Little strokes fell great oaks.

26

You never know what you can do until you have to do it.

27

If you're too focused on your current business, it's hard to change and concentrate on innovating.

28

The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow.

29

We are always saying to ourself.. we have to innovate. We got to come up with that breakthrough... we're only paid for breakthroughs.

30

In three years, every product my company makes will be obsolete. The only question is whether we will make them obsolete or somebody else will.

31

The success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervenor.

32

Our philosophy is we call it as we see it. Sometimes you agree, sometimes you don't. Robust debate is good.

33

I never hurt nobody but myself and that's nobody's business but my own.

34

I did 13-something years of talking to wrestlers and promoters about why they did certain things and why they booked matches a certain way and what they were thinking and whether they were satisfied with the draw. And I got a lot of insight in the business.

35

Creativity comes from constraint.

36

Let's be honest. There's not a business anywhere that is without problems. Business is complicated and imperfect. Every business everywhere is staffed with imperfect human beings and exists by providing a product or service to other imperfect human beings.

37

Companies that recognize the need to be creative about their businesses are going to pursue this creative thinking with us or without us. It's our collective responsibility, our collective future to make sure they choose to do it with us.

38

Until we can receive with an open heart, we are never really giving with an open heart.

39

The future of network marketing is unlimited. There's no end in sight. It will continue to grow because better people are getting into it . . . soon, it will be one of the most respected business methods in the world.

40

Leaders are made, not born. You learn to become a leader by doing what other excellent leaders have done before you. You become proficient in your job or skill, and then you become proficient at understanding the motivations and behaviors of other people.

41

My father had his own business, a clothing store, which he inherited from his father. He travelled abroad frequently and was quite extravagant, so we had skiing holidays and summer holidays on the beach.

42

Dividing meager resources across a host of medium term operational goals creates mediocrity on a broad scale.

43

The chief business of the American people is business.

44

The business of the country is business.

45

The most important thing in business is a persona, Nico,' he was fond of saying. 'People want to know immediately what they're dealing with. And when they think about you, you've got to stand out in their minds--like one of those characters in a novel.

46

Don't think of yourself as a woman in business.

47

If you have a line of business - I know this as a CEO - or if you have a teenager - I know this as a parent - who have a spending problem, what do you do? You quit giving them money.

48

I may be kindly, I am ordinarily gentle, but in my line of business I am obliged to will terribly what I will at all.

49

The essence of good advertising is not to inspire hope, but to create greed.

50

The first rule of business is: Do other men for they would do you

51

Most men are individuals no longer so far as their business, its activities, or its moralities are concerned. They are not units but fractions.

52

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.

53

Profit has to be a means to other ends rather than an end in itself.

54

The record-breaking extreme weather events causing chaos across the globe should be a wake-up call. The transition to a low-carbon economy will be much more painful if we wait until there is a climate crisis before recognising that more than half of the world's fossil fuel reserves will have to remain in the ground.

55

Networking is marketing. Marketing yourself, marketing your uniqueness, marketing what you stand for.

56

Before I got in this business I was in the chicken business.

57

I mean, that's kind of what this business is about in some ways. You're trying to make everybody like you. But you can't do that. You can't force everybody - anybody to like you if they're just not willing to do it.

58

I don't believe in pessimism. If something doesn't come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it's going to rain, it will.

59

I've never needed a lobbyist personally to put my case. I'd rather put my case myself. But I don't understand how other people look at things. A lot of people in business haven't been involved in politics. They are frightened of ministers and the whole procedure. It's not something to be frightened of. It's something to go in and realise that people who go into politics, regardless of being Labor, Liberal or Nationals, primarily go in to serve the community.

60

The American business man cannot consider his work done when he views the income balance in black at the end of an accounting period. It is necessary for him to trace the social incidence of the figures that appear in his statement and prove to the general public that his management has not only been profitable in the accounting sense but salutary in terms of popular benefits.

61

Have a vision. Be demanding.

62

There's no reason to be the richest man in the cemetery. You can't do any business from there.

63

A country of a thousand war-chariots cannot be administered unless the ruler attends strictly to business, punctually observes his promises, is economical in expenditure, loves the people, and uses the labor of the peasantry only at the proper times of year.

64

Culture, which by definition serves no purpose, has now found a role as the consort of business. Right off the bat we have a beached whale, since there is nothing that disdains culture as much as business does. ... In fact, 'corporate culture' is nothing more than the crystallization of the stupidity of a group of people at a given moment.

65

Only communist regimes have churned out more jargon than modern business.

66

It's called a pen. It's like a printer, hooked straight to my brain.

67

A meeting moves at the speed of the slowest mind in the room. (In other words, all but one participant will be bored, all but one mind underused.)

68

There's another way we are getting behind business - by sorting out the banks. Taxpayers bailed you out. Now it's time for you to repay the favour and start lending to Britain's small businesses again.

69

Nobody beats the market, they say. Except for those of those of us who do.

70

We're not motivated by money. We are into this thing that we're building.

71

Intuition is the key to everything, in painting, filmmaking, business - everything. I think you could have an intellectual ability, but if you can sharpen your intuition, which they say is emotion and intellect joining together, then a knowingness occurs.

72

You can buy attention (advertising). You can beg for attention from the media (PR). You can bug people one at a time to get attention (sales). Or you can earn attention by creating something interesting and valuable and then publishing it online for free.

73

The urgent can drown out the important.

74

In the future, every industry should be an environmental industry. In a world where energy and carbon emissions are constrained, every business must take resource productivity seriously

75

Any damn fool can put on a deal, but it takes genius, faith and perseverance to create a brand.

76

Talent, I believe, is most likely to be found among nonconformists, dissenters, and rebels.

77

It has been found that the less an advertisement looks like an advertisement and the more it looks like an editorial, the more readers stop, look, and read.

78

Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals.

79

Good copy can't be written with tongue in cheek, written just for a living. You've got to believe in the product.

80

If you have all the research, all the ground rules, all the directives, all the data - it doesn't mean the ad is written. Then you've got to close the door and write something - that is the moment of truth which we all try to postpone as long as possible.

81

Everything about it worked, and I don't mean just the movie, but in our experience, we realized there's also a component of luck involved in this business. We had absolutely the most competent people in the studio working on the release and ad campaign.

82

The Western societies which espouse free market capitalism survive by the pursuit of greed and, in their own way, like Communism, throw into leadership men and women (mostly men) who know how to gain, exert and manipulate power.

83

This business is all about being seen, and the more people see you the better.

84

Well, years and years ago, I started to ask myself three very simple questions, which dominated my life for many years. One of them was, "Why are organizations everywhere, whether commercial, social, or religious, increasingly unable to manage their affairs?" The second question was, "Why are individuals throughout the world increasingly in conflict with and alienated from the organizations of which they're a part?" And the third was, "Why are society and the biosphere increasingly in disarray?"

85

Affluence includes money but is not just money. It is the abundance, the flow, the generosity of the universe, where every desire we have must come true, because inherent in having the desire are the mechanics for its fulfillment.

86

If there's something you want to build, but the tech isn't there yet, just find the closest possible way to make it happen.

87

You know, I look like a woman but I think like a man. And in this world of business, that has helped me a lot. Because by the time they think that I don't know what's goin' on, I then got the money, and gone.

88

In sports and in business, the greatest leaders are those who make the best decisions in the most crucial of situations. They are the ones who focus their energy on turning tough decisions into winning decisions.

89

Ever notice how your senses are heightened when you are in challenging situations? You're experiencing an adrenaline rush that gives you extra energy. If you see every day as a challenge, you'd be surprised how efficient you can become, and how much can be accomplished.

90

Leaders are people who can discern the inevitable and act accordingly. When people talk about business acumen, discernment is a big part of it. It's a bit like gut instinct, but a little more developed.

91

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

92

Markets change, tastes change, so the companies and the individuals who choose to compete in those markets must change.

93

Don't worry about failure; you only have to be right once.

94

That space between the white lines - that's my office. That's where I conduct my business.

95

Every decision you make is a mistake.

96

We may need to solve problems not by removing the cause but by designing the way forward even if the cause remains in place.

97

Traditional thinking is all about "what is" Future thinking will also need to be about what can be.

98

I don't know anything about cars. A business is a business, and I think I can learn about cars. I'm not that old, and I think the business principles are the same.

99

An invention that is quickly accepted will turn out to be a rather trivial alteration of something that has already existed.

100

Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.

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