Some of my favorite quotes

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

Thomas A. Edison

If you want to increase your success rate just double your failure rate.

Tom Watson

You must be the change you wish to see in the world.

Mahatma Ghandi

There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.

Victor Hugo

Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.

Victor Hugo

There is a fine line between an entrepreneur and a crazy person. Crazy people see things that others don’t. What seems to differentiate the entrepreneur from the crazy person is that the former gets other people to believe in his vision.

Dame Anita Rodd[i]ck, Activist & Founder of The Body Shop

Sacks, in his office on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, recalls how the lack of meetings helped create a culture of many workers and few managers. “You didn’t measure where you were in the organization by how many people you’re managing,” he says. Prestige was measured “by how few people there were above you who could prevent you from doing what you wanted to do.”

http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/13/magazines/fortune/paypal_mafia.fortune/index2.htm

Beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of introduction.

Aristotle

Some succeed because they are destined to, but most succeed because they are determined to.

Source unknown

 It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.

Hellen Keller

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.

Alvin Toffler

Some People Dream Of Worthy Accomplishments, Others Stay Awake And Do Them

Dr. Alan Zimmerman

Don’t worry about what anybody else is going to do. The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

Alan Kay

Well, if that floats your boat, may your boat float on then.

Abdullah Yahya

For more information, please visit www.google.com

Abdullah Yahya

Ironically, in a changing world, playing it safe is one of the riskiest things you can do. -Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn co-founder

Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. -Steve Jobs

Treat your customers like they own you. Because they do. -Mark Cuban

“A pessimist sees problems in opportunities whereas an optimist sees opportunities in problems.” – Winston Churchill

My best entrepreneurial advice is to start. -Dave Morin, Path co-founder

Make something someone specific needs, launch fast, let users show you what to change, change it, repeat last two. – Paul Graham

Screw it, let’s do it! – Richard Branson, Virgin

Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful, that’s what matters to me. -Steve Jobs

Every feature has some maintenance cost, and having fewer features lets us focus on the ones we care about and make sure they work very well. – David Karp, Tumblr

When you’re a one man show you have to focus on the most important thing to get done today. – Noah Everett, Founder of Twitpic

The difference in winning & losing is most often, not quitting. – Walt Disney

Ideas are commodity. Execution of them is not. – Michael Dell

You can’t learn in school what the world is going to do next year. – Henry Ford

When you find an idea that you just can’t stop thinking about that’s probably a good one to pursue. -Josh James, Omniture

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time. -Thomas Edison

Great companies don’t throw money at problems, they throw ideas at problems. -Greg McAdoo, Sequoia Capital

“That’s already been tried before” only means the first attempt got it wrong. -Aaron Levie

Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.

Human nature has a tendency to admire complexity, but reward simplicity. – Ben Huh

A company is only as good as the people it keeps.

Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it. – Dwight D. Eisenhower

Waiting for perfect is never as smart as making progress. – Seth Godin

The riskiest thing is to take no risks. – Facebook

Projections are bullshit. They’re just guesses. – Jason Fried, Founder of 37Signals

You don’t need more time in your day. You need to decide. – Seth Godin

The best startups generally come from somebody needing to scratch an itch. -Michael Arrington – Founder Techcrunch

I never took a day off in my twenties. Not one. – Bill Gates

The fastest way to change yourself is to hang out with people who are already the way you want to be. Reid Hoffman, Founder, LinkedIn

Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly and get on with improving your other innovations. – Steve Jobs

If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late. – Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn founder

Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. – Bill Gates

The only thing worse than starting something and failing… is not starting something. -Seth Godin

Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard. -Guy Kawasaki

It’s hard to do a really good job on anything if you don’t think about in the shower. – Paul Graham

Instagram cofounder Kevin Systrom says, “Focusing on one thing and doing it really, really well can get you very far.”

Innovation is hard because “solving problems people didn’t know they had” & “building something no one needs” look identical at first. – Aaron Levie, CEO at Box

It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard… is what makes it great.

“I’m as proud of what we don’t do as I am of what we do.” -Steve Jobs

Socrates said, “Know thyself.” I say, “Know thy users.”  – Joshua Brewer, Principal Designer @ Twitter

“It was very easy to be different, but very difficult to be better.” Jonathan Ive, Apple Designer

If you’re not nervous about one or two decisions every day, you probably aren’t trying hard enough. -Tim O’Shaughnessy, Livingsocial

You should set goals beyond your reach so you always have something to live for – Ted Turner, Founder, TBS, CNN

You need three things to create a successful startup:

1. hire exceptionally great people

2. make something customers actually want

3. spend only on the priorities and maximize profitability

– Paul Graham

“I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.” – Steve Jobs

If you’re trying to disrupt the status quo and beat bigger competitors, you’re not going to do it by playing their game. -Dharmesh Shah, OnStartups.com

Every no brings me closer to a yes -Mark Cuban

More startups die from idea gluttony than starvation. -Dharmesh Shah

I don’t know what is the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. – Bill Cosby

The path to greatness is rarely having the best technology. It is far more often having the better relationship with the customer. It is a marketing game — not a technology game. Joseph Barisonzi

Anyone running a startup has to treat Saturday the same way they treat Monday

Timing, perseverance, and ten years of trying will eventually make you look like an overnight success.

-Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter

Any time is a good time to start a company.

-Ron Conway, co-founder of SV Angel

The very first company I started failed with a great bang. The second one failed a little bit less, but still failed. The third one, you know, proper failed, but it was kind of okay. I recovered quickly. Number four almost didn’t fail. It still didn’t really feel great, but it did okay. Number five was PayPal – Max Levchin, former CTO of PayPal

Launching a startup is like firing off a rocket ship, then trying to hold it together with duct tape – Shane Snow

Optimismpessimism, fuck that; we’re going to make it happen – Elon Musk, Tesla, SpaceX

If you spend a year on something and you haven’t figured it out, move on to something else. You can’t iterate your way to a business model – Jason Goldberg, Fab

Right person + Right idea + Right product + Right time + Right market = magic  – Fred Wilson, a VC

Entrepreneurship is not a part-time job, and it’s not even a full-time job. It’s a lifestyle – Carrie Layne, founder and CEO of BestBuzz

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work -Thomas Edison

As long as you’re going to be thinking anyway, think big – Donald Trump

Breakthrough ideas usually come from guys who look like they’re hallucinating – Ben Horowitz, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz

If I were worried about my reputation, I wouldn’t do anything with start-ups – Sean Parker, Airtime, Plaxo

One can  steal ideas, but no one can steal execution or passion

When You’re Small, Being Faster than Your Competitors is Your Biggest and Sometimes Only Advantage – Eric Ryan,  Adam Lowry, Founders of MethodHome

User experience matters a lot. More than most people realize. The best designed user experiences get out of the way and just help people get sh*t done.
 Less is more. If you have to explain it, you’ve already failed – Jason Goldberg, founder and CEO of Fab.com

Experience taught me a few things. One is to listen to your gut, no matter how good something sounds on paper. The second is that you’re generally better off sticking with what you know. And the third is that sometimes your best investments are the ones you don’t make – Donald Trump

We don’t celebrate failure in Silicon Valley. We celebrate learning – Reid Hoffman, Linkedin

Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen – Michael Jordan

Most people think it’s all about the idea. It’s not. EVERYONE has ideas. The hard part is to execute on the idea – Mark Cuban

Your brand is the summation of conversation about you, without you ~ Marcel LeBrun, Salesforce.com

Failure is not the opposite of success, it’s part of success  – Arianna Huffington, Huffingtonpost

I’d rather interview 50 people and not hire anyone than hire the wrong person ~ Jeff Bezos, Amazon

Most successful entrepreneurs don’t begin with brilliant ideas – they discover them

The truth about startup life: Do It Before You Have A Family And Mortgage, Boonsri Dickinson

I’m always afraid of failing. It’s great motivation to work harder – Mark Cuban

Good ideas are like Nike sports shoes. They may facilitate success for an athlete who posses them, but on their own they are nothing but an overpriced pair of sneakers. Sports shoes don’t win races. Athletes do. ~ Felix Dennis

I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the water to create many ripples. -Mother Teresa

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. -Maya Angelou

Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right. -Henry Ford

Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence. -Vince Lombardi

Life is what happens to me and of how I react to it. -Charles Swindoll

If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more. If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough. -Oprah Winfrey

Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent. -Eleanor Roosevelt

I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination. -Jimmy Dean

Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m possible’! -Audrey Hepburn

To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart. -Eleanor Roosevelt

Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears. -Les Brown

Do or do not. There is no try. -Yoda

Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. -Napoleon Hill

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do, so throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, Dream, Discover. -Mark Twain

I’ve missed more than shots in my career. I’ve lost almost games. times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. -Michael Jordan

Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value. -Albert Einstein

I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions. -Stephen Covey

When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it. -Henry Ford

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any. -Alice Walker

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. -Amelia Earhart

It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light. -Aristotle Onassis

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant. -Robert Louis Stevenson

The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me. -Ayn Rand

If you hear a voice within you say “you cannot paint,” then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced. -Vincent Van Gogh

Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs. -Farrah Gray

Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck. -Dalai Lama

A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.–Albert Einstein

What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do. -Bob Dylan

I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do. -Leonardo da Vinci

When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us. -Helen Keller

When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life. -John Lennon

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear. -George Addair

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. -Plato

Nothing will work unless you do. -Maya Angelou

Believe you can and you’re halfway there. -Theodore Roosevelt

What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality. -Plutarch