Wise Owl Says… by Brian O'Kane
The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.
Linus Pauling
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A brand is something that makes people pay
more for your product, even though it’s the same as a competitor’s.
Fortune magazine
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We’re not in the coffee business, serving people; we’re in the people business, serving coffee.
Howard Schultz, Starbucks
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There are just two rules for success:
1. Never tell all that you know.
Robert Lincoln
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Financial rewards follow accomplishment, they don’t precede it.
Harry F Banks
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Being big does not help you become good in the software business.
Fred Gibbons, Software Publishing
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I have never worshipped money and I never worked for money. I worked for pride and accomplishment. Money can become a nuisance. It’s a hell of a lot more fun chasin’ it than gettin’ it. The fun is in the race.
Ray Kroc, McDonalds
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Start small; think big; phase in; grow fast.
Baltimore Technologies’ motto
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If you find a path with no obstacles, it
probably doesn’t lead anywhere.
Frank A Clark
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We hire the good people first, and we figure out what we’re going to do with them later.
Eric Schmidt, Sun Microsystems
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Up, sluggard, and waste not life; in the grave will be sleeping enough.
Benjamin Franklin
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Start with the problem, not the technology.
David Coleman, software newsletter editor
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I have learned that you never ask a tyre saleman whether you need new tyres.
A 44-year-old’s discovery
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Knowledge is free at the library. Just bring your own container.
Anon.
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Of all the damnable waste of human life that ever was invented, clerking is the very worst.
George Bernard Shaw
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Future shock: The disorientation that affects an individual, a corporation or a country when he or she is overwhelmed by change and the prospect of change; it is the consequence of having to make too many decisions about too many new and unfamiliar problems in too short a time.
Alvin Toffler
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Success: A man who gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.
Bob Dylan
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Fully one-third of our more than $13 billion in world-wide revenues comes from products that simply did not exist five years ago.
Ralph S Larsen, CEO, Johnson & Johnson
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The fastest way to succeed is to look as if you’re playing by other people’s rules, while quietly playing by your own.
Michael Korda
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See a good idea? Steal it!
Murray Raphael
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Anything that won’t sell, I don’t want to invent.
Thomas Edison
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Fake it till you make it.
Mary Kay Ash
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Why should it be done at all?
Why should it be done now?
Why should it be done that way?
Herbert Bayard Swope
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I am convinced that the more money a new business needs to begin with, the less chance it has of success.
Mark McCormack, International Management Group
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Past success can be just as much a trap as failure.
Yoshihisa Tabuchi, Normura Securities
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Don’t learn the tricks of the trade. Learn the trade.
Anon.
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Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.
Jonathan Swift
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Success, as I see it, is a result not a goal.
Gustave Flaubert
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If we have a formula for growth, it has been:
Mark McCormack, International Management Group
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Wealth, like happiness, is never attained when sought after directly. It comes as a by-product of providing a useful service.
Henry Ford
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Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.
Confucius
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Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a problem.
Talent will not; the world is filled with unsuccessful men of talent. Education alone will not; the world is filled with educated derelicts.
Ray Kroc, McDonalds
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The pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
Sir Winston Churchill
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Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Anon.
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In the past, if we were trying to sell sushi, we would market it as cold, dead fish.
Bojana Fazarinc, Hewlett-Packard
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A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.
Anon.
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Good decisions come from wisdom.
Wisdom comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad decisions.
Forbes magazine
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Not to know is bad; not to wish to know is worse.
Nigerian proverb
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In brain surgery, parachutes and computing, price is not always the most important attribute.
Anon.
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The trick in life is to decide what is your major aim – to be rich, a golf champion, world’s best father, etc. Once that’s settled, you can get on with the happy, orderly process of achieving it.
Stanley Goldstein
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It is a sin to believe in the evil of others –
but seldom a mistake.
HL Mencken
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Replicate, don’t innovate … Someone else has gone and done your homework for you. They have taken the risk, the risk, and spent the dollars.
Steven W Lapham, Sterling Drug
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Operate in the world the way it is, not the way you wish it were.
Henry R Schacht
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Success has a simple formula: do your best, and people may like it.
Sam Ewing
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No fine work can be done without concentration and self-sacrifice and toil and doubt.
Max Beerbohm
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You’re not in business to be liked. Neither am I. We’re here to succeed. If you want a friend, get a dog. I’m not taking any chances; I’ve got two dogs.
Al Dunlap, Scott Paper
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A winner makes commitments; a loser makes promises.
Christine Leach
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Making lots of money – it’s not that hard, you know. It’s overestimated. Making lots of money is a breeze.
Martin Amis
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Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully on canvas or write wonderful poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That’s how I get my kicks.
Donald Trump
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Life is change.
Growth is optional.
Choose wisely.
Karen Kaiser Clark
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If money is your hope for independence, you will never have it. The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability.
Henry Ford
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There is no security on the Earth, only opportunity.
Douglas McArthur
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Every path has its puddle.
English proverb
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Problems cannot be solved by thinking within the framework in which the problems were created.
Albert Einstein
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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
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The best swordsman in the world does not
need to fear the second-best swordsman in the world but rather the man ignorant of swords but knowledgeable about gunpowder.
Mark Twain
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I try to specialise in new mistakes.
Esther Dyson
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If you want to start and build a company, you are going to end up exhausted. So you might
as well start a big company; at least, you will end up exhausted and rich, not just exhausted.
Patricia Clohessy
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You can’t put off being young until you retire.
Philip Larkin
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Success is never final
Failure is never fatal.
It is courage that counts.
John Wooden
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There are only two times to raise money:
George Doriot
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The real discipline comes in saying “No” to the wrong opportunities.
Peter Drucker
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To die rich is to have lived in vain.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
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Business is like driving your car at night. You can’t see further than your headlights show, but you can make the whole trip that way.
Fran Rooney
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There is something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognise ability.
Elbert Hubbard
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I don’t want any yes-men around me. I want everyone to tell me the truth – even though it costs him his job.
Samuel Goldwyn
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Leverage is having something the other guy wants. Or better yet, needs. Or best of all, simply can’t do without.
Donald Trump
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They’re not employees, they’re people.
Peter Drucker
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I learned that it’s not the money that brings the joy, it’s the joy that brings the money.
Rachel Elnaugh
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Give a man fish, and you have fed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish, and you have fed him for a lifetime.
Teach a man to sell fish – and he eats steak!
Tommy Hackett, Bebo
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Tell the boss what you really think of him and truth will set you free.
Anon.
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It’s good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it’s good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure that you haven’t lost the things that money can’t buy.
George Horace Lorimer
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Money brings some happiness. But, after a certain point, it just brings more money.
Neil Simon
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Why aren’t management textbooks funny? It’s because they don’t have much realism to
them. If they had much realism to them, they’d be funny as hell.
Jerry Harvey, George Washington University
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If you bet on a horse, that’s gambling.
If you bet on three spades, that’s entertainment.
If you bet cotton will go up three points, that’s business. See the difference?
Blackie Sherroe
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When you strike at a king, you must kill him.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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And the trouble is, if you don’t risk anything, you risk even more!
Erica Jong
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May you live all the days of your life.
Jonathan Swift
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- When there’s lots of hope.
- When there’s lots of results.
- Start with the best;
- Learn from the best;
- Expand slowly and solidify our position;
- Then horizontally diversify our experience.
Don't hurry, don't worry. You're only here for a short visit. So be sure to stop and smell the flowers.
Water Hagen
Never use a big word when a diminutive phrase can be utilized.
Anon.
I don't want a lawyer who tells me what I can't do. I hire a lawyer to tell me how I can do what I want.
JP Morgen
We are not in the business of selling handbag. We are in the business of selling dreams.
Robert Polet, Gucci