highlights
23 highlights saved, filed under business.
- 01
Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow; He who would search for pearls must dive below.
- 02
“Success is never permanent; failure is never fatal. The only thing that really counts is to never, never, never give up.” That’s that old windbag Winston Churchill again.
- 03
I am told that during the Vietnam War, a sign was kept nailed on a wall above a particular marine commander’s desk which said: “Assumption is the mother of all f***-ups.” Those seven words should be carved into the heart of every entrepreneur,
- 04
Worse still, by continually wishing and never delivering, you risk denting your confidence, beginning a vicious downward spiral that appears to draw misfortune like a magnet. The assumption that you might be able to achieve some goal if you only wished hard enough is not just a f***-up. It’s a potential personal tragedy.
- 05
There is absolutely nothing more likely to dampen the prospects of becoming rich than a nice, fat, regular salary check.
- 06
Having a great idea is simply not enough. The eventual goal is vastly more important than any idea. It is how ideas are implemented that counts in the long run.
- 07
If you want to be rich, then watch your rivals closely and never be ashamed to emulate a winning strategy.
- 08
If, on the other hand, you spend your days thinking up and developing in your mind this great idea or that, you are unlikely to get rich. Although you are likely to make many others rich. That is usually the way of it. Ideas don’t make you rich. The correct execution of ideas does.
- 09
Until one is committed, there is hesitancy; the chance to draw back; always ineffectiveness concerning all acts of initiative and creation. There is one elemental truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one commits oneself, Providence moves all. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issue from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of incidents and meetings and material assistance which no one could have dreamed would come his or her way. —JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
- 10
Lady Luck is bald behind,”
- 11
“Luck is preparation multiplied by opportunity.” — SENECA, ROMAN PHILOSOPHER
- 12
“The harder I practiced, the luckier I got.” — GARY PLAYER, GOLF CHAMPION
- 13
“Luck is a dividend of sweat.” —RAY KROC, MCDONALD’S FOUNDER
- 14
Ralph Waldo Emerson: No matter how much faculty of idle seeing a man has, the step from knowing to doing is rarely taken.
- 15
committees are discouraged on the battlefield. A commander may be proved wrong. He may be proved right. But prompt decisions and orders, right or wrong, are far healthier than endless debate and prevarication.
- 16
To sum up then, if you wish to be rich, you must grow a carapace. A mental armor. Not so thick as to blind you to well-constructed criticism and advice, especially from those you trust. Nor so thick as to cut you off from friends and family.
- 17
After a lifetime of making money and observing better men and women than I fall by the wayside, I am convinced that fear of failing in the eyes of the world is the single biggest impediment to amassing wealth. Trust me on this.
- 18
Money is one of the most neutral substances on earth.
- 19
Anyone not busy learning is busy dying. For as long as you foster a willingness to learn, you will ward off sclerosis of the brain and hardening of the mental arteries. Curiosity has led many a man and women into the valley of serious wealth.
- 20
Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it! Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
- 21
There are three kinds of lies. Lies, damn lies and statistics. —THOMAS CARLYLE, CHARTISM
- 22
The follow-through, the execution, is a thousand times more important than a “great idea.” In fact, if the execution is perfect, it sometimes barely matters what the idea is. If you want to get rich, don’t sit around waiting for inspiration to strike. Just get busy getting rich.
- 23
No task is a long one but the task on which one dare not start. It becomes a nightmare. —CHARLES BAUDELAIRE, MY HEART LAID BARE