Business Quotes and Proverbs

Doc Childre
It would startle most companies to have a computer readout weekly, showing the amount of work-time their people spent thinking and emoting over their problems. Then, if you had another computer readout showing the amount of negative hormones released into the body as a result of those thinking habits, and the health consequences, in the name of smart business you would want your people to make some mental and emotional adjustments. Computers can't generate all that data yet, so we don't have to face the facts. Yet, the facts of stress find us—anyhow.

Bruce Cryer, Re-Engineering the Human System (a conference presentation)
Everything about business comes down to PEOPLE. Where in business can we escape the impact of human care, human creativity, human commitment, human frustration, and human despair? There is no reason for anything in business to exist if it does not serve the needs of people.

Theodore Rubin
The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.

John Foster Dulles
The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it's the same problem you had last year.

Tariq Siddique
If you are failing to plan,
you are planning to fail.

Yanny Natashah
Sometimes, the hardest decision made is the right thing to do....

Vance Havne
The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps - we must step up the stairs.

Philip Caldwell
The important thing to recognize is that it takes a team, and the team ought to get credit for the wins and the losses. Successes have many fathers, failures have none.

George F. Burns
Define your business goals clearly so that others can see them as you do.

John Foster Dulles
The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it's the same problem you had last year.

Carl Jung
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

Kahlil Gibran
Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

Robert Townsend
If you don't do it excellently, don't do it at all. Because if it's not excellent, it won't be profitable or fun, and if you're not in business for fun or profit, what the hell are you doing there?

Robert Greenleaf, ATT
Many attempts to communicate are nullified by saying too much.

Fredrick Hudson Ecker, Chairman Metropolitan Life
I don't think anybody yet has invented a pasttime that's as much fun, or keeps you as young, as a good job.

Colin Powell
Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.

Stephen Covey
You can buy a person's hands but you can't buy his heart. His heart is where his enthusiasm, his loyalty is.

B. F. Harris
Show me the business man or institution not guided by sentiment and service, by the idea that "he profits most who serves best," and I will show you a man or an outfit that is dead or dying.

Thomas J. Watson
Recently, I was asked if I was going to fire an employee who made a mistake that cost the company $600,000. No, I replied, I just spent $600,000 training him. Why would I want somebody to hire his experience?

Robert H. Schullder
When someone gives the hospital a gift of $5 and you know he can afford less than that, thank him profusely. When someone gives the hospital a gift of $5,000 and you know he could afford five times that, say "that will help."

Abigail Van Buren
If we could sell our experiences for what they cost us, we'd all be millionaires.

Anonymous
There is less to fear from outside competition than from inside inefficiency, discourtesy and bad service.

Peter F. Drucker
The fewer data needed, the better the information. And an overload of information, that is, anything much beyond what is truly needed, leads to information blackout. It does not enrich, but impoverishes.

The recipe for personal success:
Find a need that beats your drum.
Create a plan, then make a dent.
Trust that your rewards will come.
And credit them as heaven sent.

Theodore Roosevelt
Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly, I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it.

George S. Patton, American military leader
Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.

J.C. Penney
I am grateful for all my problems. I became stronger and more able to meet those that were still to come.

Winston Churchill
Some regard private enterprise as if it were a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look upon it as a cow that they can milk. Only a handful see it for what it really is - the strong horse that pulls the whole cart.

Bruce Jenner, Olympic Gold Medalist
I learned that the only way you are going to get anywhere in life is to work hard at it. Whether you're a musician, a writer, an athlete or a businessman, there is no getting around it. If you do, you'll win—if you don't, you won't.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Practice is nine-tenths.

Denise Caruso
It shouldn't be too much of a surprise that the Internet has evolved into a force strong enough to reflect the greatest hopes and fears of those who use it. After all, it was designed to withstand nuclear war, not just the puny huffs and puffs of politicians and religious fanatics.

Suzuki Roshi, Zen Master
To control your cow, give it a bigger pasture.

Arthur F. Sheldon
He profits most who serves best.

Albert Einstein
If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith.

Dr. Richard Carlson
Don't sweat the small stuff...and it's all small stuff.

Robert Louis Stevenson
Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business, is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things.

Stephen R. Covey
An empowered organization is one in which individuals have the knowledge, skill, desire, and opportunity to personally succeed in a way that leads to collective organizational success.

Winston Churchill
Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm.

Abraham Lincoln
My father taught me to work; he did not teach me to love it.

Oscar Wilde
Work is the refuge of people who have nothing better to do.

Robert Frost
The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning, and does not stop until you get into the office.

Stephen R. Covey
If we keep doing what we're doing, we're going to keep getting what we're getting.

Theodore Roosevelt
Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, "Certainly, I can!" Then get busy and find out how to do it.