Business Quotes - Page 105

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.

If joining IBM was commitment, not employment, and the company engaged in something more than business, it had a right to demand of its men unconditional loyalty, Watson believed.

No praying, it spoils business.

The selfish spirit of commerce, which knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain.

Be the business never so painful, you may have it done for money.

He [Charles II] was utterly without ambition. He detested business, and would sooner have abdicated his crown than have undergone the trouble of really directing the administration.

Everybody's business is nobody's business.

The business of everybody is the business of nobody.

It is very sad for a man to make himself servant to a single thing; his manhood all taken out of him by the hydraulic pressure of excessive business.

The strong man wants to be allowed to DO; the little man wants to stop him.

Investors want to know how exposed a business is to climate change. The physical risks to Tesco are clear, but could be far-reaching. Freak weather in the past few months has disrupted our supply lines in Hungary, Bangladesh and Korea. Any responsible board of directors should be planning ahead, thinking through these risks, and presenting them in a clear, transparent way

We may pretend we are basically moral people who make mistakes, but the whole of history proves otherwise.

It's not that I'm not interested in politics, but rather, I think that the people who become politicians in Japan are not very dynamic. Honestly, I find business much more interesting than politics.

All inconsiderate enterprises are impetuous at first, but soon lanquish. [Lat., Omnia inconsulti impetus coepta, initiis valida, spatio languescunt.]

I ran the wrong kind of business, but I did it with integrity.

We can form no idea of the millions of pounds that are spent every year in the making of dress in the West. The dress-making business has become a regular science. What colour of dress will suit with the complexion of the girl and the colour of her hair, what special feature of her body should be disguised, and what displayed to the best advantage-these and many other like important points, the dressmakers have seriously to consider. Again, the dress that ladies of very high position wear, others have to wear also, otherwise they lose their caste! This is FASHION.

Business is business, that is, you must do everything promptly; delay and shuffling won't do.

If the boss is a jerk, get over it. First of all, don't you think there's a good chance that your boss's boss knows what's going on? If so, just keep your head down and do the work. Usually, if you put in maximum effort and produce excellent results, someone in the company is going to take notice. Either you will get promoted or your jerky boss will get the heave-ho. It happens all the time.

If you have to fight a crowd of boys, it's best to go for the biggest one. That way you won't have to fight them all. The others will see that you mean business and you will win their respect.

Thirty years ago, about 80% of a company's assets resided in its plant and equipment, with 20% in the knowledge of its people. Today, the reverse is true. The knowledge of our staff is our principal asset

In bad times, the rich usually get richer.

Do what you love, but be damned sure it's profitable. If you do work you love, but it doesn't generate income, your business will fail. If you do work you hate, but it generates income, your health will fail... and your business along with it. If you can't do what you love and make it profitable, you've either got a hobby or a headache, not a sustainable business. Don't settle for anything less than passion and profit.

You're missing it. This is not a one-man show. What's reinvigorating this company is two things: One, there's a lot of really talented people in this company who listened to the world tell them they were losers for a couple of years, and some of them were on the verge of starting to believe it themselves. But they're not losers. What they didn't have was a good set of coaches, a good plan. A good senior management team. But they have that now.

I'm not sure I knew what an entrepreneur was when I was ten, but I knew that starting little businesses and trying to sell greeting cards or newspapers door-to-door or just vending machine kind of thing is.. there's just something very intriguing to me about that.

When I was trying to popularize the concept of the Internet - ten or 15 years ago - I came up with this concept of "the 5 Cs." Services needed to have content, context, community, commerce, and connectivity. After that, when I was trying to think of what the key management principles were to build into the culture, I started talking about the Ps. The P's were things like passion, perseverance, perspective and people. I think the people aspect is really the most important one.