Ask HN: Favourite Entrepreneur Quotes

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=999443

by bendtheblock • 17 years ago

9 8 17 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Title says it all.

bendtheblock2• 17 years ago

Here are a few of mine to start off:

"If there exists no possibility of failure, then victory is meaningless." -- Robert H. Schuller

"If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough" -- Mario Andretti

"When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something." -- Steve Jobs

birger• 17 years ago

I prefer it the other way around: Live every day as if it is your first. http://ezinearticles.com/?Can-You-Live-Every-Day-As-If-it-Wa...

bendtheblock2• 17 years ago

That's a powerful mind trick - more optimistic than the 'as if it was your last day' certainly.

kw_• 17 years ago

The only thing you can control is your effort.

edw519• 17 years ago

Attitude determines outcome. - Jim McGraw, COO of Marion Laboratories

Be the first, be the best, or be different. - Jacyln Easton

Chance favors the prepared mind. - Louis Pasteur

Elegance is for tailors. Don't always believe in the numbers. There is always room for human judgment. - Albert Einstein

Great ideas come into the world as gently as doves. - Albert Camus

Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, and the trouble is, I don't know which half. - John Wanamaker

I do not love the money. What I love is the making of it. - Philip Armour

I guess we can make them, although we never have. - Benjamin Franklin Goodrich

I never gamble. - J. P. Morgan

A man to carry on a successful business must have imagination. He must see things as in a vision, a dream of the whole thing. - Charles Schwab

If I could get $25,000, I would spend $24,000 on advertising, the remainder in making Coca-Cola. Then we would all be rich. - John Pemberton

If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend the first four sharpening the axe. - Abraham Lincoln

The best way to really enter minds that hate complexity and confusion is to oversimplify your message. The lesson here is not to try to tell your entire story. Just focus on one powerful differentiating idea and drive it into the mind. That sudden hunch, that creative leap of the mind that "sees" in a flash how to solve a problem in a simple way, is something quite different from general intelligence. If there's any trick to finding that simple set of words, it's one of being ruthless about how you edit the story you want to tell. Anything that others could claim just as well as you can, eliminate. Anything that requires a complex analysis to prove, forget. Anything that doesn't fit with your customers' perceptions, avoid. - Jack Trout

If you're going to lose money, lose it. But don't let 'em nose you out. - Gustavus Swift

If you love an idea, that is good. If you have ideas as to how to work it out, that is better. - Henry Ford

It's a barrier to entry because you're shooting at a moving target. - Bill George, CEO, Medtronics

Name the greatest inventors. Accident. - Mark Twain

Nothing, not all the armies of the world, can stop an idea whose time has come. - Victor Hugo

Perceived truth is more powerful than truth itself. - Michel Fortin

Purchasers are made, not born. - Henry Ford

Success depends on how you react to unexpected opportunities. - Ross Perot

The ancestor to every action is a thought. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The march of improvement in any given field is always marked by periods of inactivity and then by sudden bursts of energy which revolutionize existing methods sometimes in a day. - George Eastman

There was never a great character who did not sometimes smash the routine regulations and make new ones for himself. - Andrew Carnegie

Think a lot. Say little. Write nothing. - J. P. Morgan

If first an idea is not absurd, it has no hope for survival. - Albert Einstein

To lead people, walk behind them. - Sun Tzu

We study the methods of improving our business as we would a science. We imitate no one. - A. Montgomery Ward

We took what was a luxury and made it into a necessity. Our only advantage was lack of precedent. - Henry Ford

We want character to go with our goods. And 16 ounces is a Swift pound. - Louis Swift

What others could not or would not do we would attempt, and this was a rule of business which was strictly adhered to. - Andrew Carnegie

What we believe is based upon our perceptions. What we perceive depends upon what we look for. What we look for depends on what we think. What we think depends on what we perceive. What we perceive determines what we take to be true. What we take to be true is our reality. - Gary Zukav

You can't get wet from the word "water". - Alan Watts

You can't solve a problem with the same mind that created it. - Albert Einstein

Chirag• 17 years ago

Those who are crazy enough to think they can change the world actually do.

frisco• 17 years ago

"Move fast and break things. It's not the end of your career if you bring the entire site down." - Zuckerberg

rmason• 17 years ago

Here are a few of my favorites

Don’t worry about people stealing an idea. If it’s original, you will have to ram it down their throats. Howard Aiken

I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones. John Cage

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses" Henry Ford

Good judgment comes from experience, experience comes from bad judgments Mark Suster

If you want to succeed, double your failure rate. Tom Watson (IBM)

Ask HN: Favourite Entrepreneur Quotes

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