Business Success Quotes
Top 40 Business Success
Quotes
No 1 (Best quote!)![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-watson-snr.jpg)
You cannot be a success in any business without believing that it is the greatest business in the world…You have
to put your heart in the business and the business in your heart.
- Thomas Watson Snr. 1874–1956
Chairman of IBM 1914–52, pictured right.
![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-watson-jr.jpg)
Watson's son, Thomas Watson Jnr, in A Business and Its Beliefs (1963), pictured
right, also says:
I firmly believe that any organization, in order to survive and achieve success,
must have a sound set of beliefs on which it premises all its policies and actions...if an organization is to meet
the challenges of a changing world, it must be prepared to change everything about itself except those beliefs as
it moves through corporate life.
![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-gates.jpg)
No 2
Every day we’re saying ‘How can we keep the customers happy? How can we get ahead in innovation by doing this?’
Because, if we don’t, somebody else will.![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-nordstrom.jpg)
- Bill Gates (1955- ), American co-founder of
Microsoft, pictured right above.
Kjell Nordstom, pictured right,
and Jonas Ridderstrale, below,
in Funky Business (2000), add humorously that the key to business success is asking the
question:![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-ridderstrale.jpg)
During the last two years how many of your customers have tattooed your brand on one of their biceps?
No 3![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-levitt.jpg)
The organization must learn to think of itself not as producing goods or services but as buying customers as
doing the things that make people want to do business with it.
Theodore (Ted) Levitt (pictured right)
in The Marketing
Imagination (1983) - also in Marketing Myopia (1960 Harvard Business Review
article)![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-peters-tom.jpg)
Tom Peters (pictured right) and Robert Waterman (pictured right below) ) in In Search of Excellence (1982)
agree:
Far too many managers have lost sight of the basics...quick action, service to customers, practical
innovation and the fact that you can’t get any of these without virtually everyone’s
commitment.
No 4![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/grove80.jpg)
Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.
- Andrew Grove (1936- ) American boss of Intel
1987-98, pictured right.
So Grove concludes that:
Success sows the seeds of its own destruction.
Two other thinkers come to a similar conclusion:
![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-pascale.jpg)
Nothing fails like success.
- Richard Pascale (pictured right)
in Managing on the
Edge,1991.
![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-picasso.jpg)
Success is dangerous. One begins to copy oneself, and to copy oneself is more dangerous than to copy others. It
leads to sterility.
- Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Spanish artist
(pictured right)
![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-disney.jpg)
No 5
The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.
- Walt Disney (1901-1966), pictured right.
No 6![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-penney.jpg)
In retailing the formula happens to be a basic liking for human beings, plus integrity, plus industry, plus the
ability to see the other fellow’s point of view.
- J.C. Penney (1875-1971),
co-founder of the American department store, J.C. Penney, pictured right.
![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-schultz-starbucks.jpg)
Howard Schultz, founder and boss of Starbucks (pictured right), gives another success factor in
retailing:
Retail is detail
No 7![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-drucker.jpg)
The pertinent question is not how to do things right but how to find the right things to do.
- Peter Drucker, pictured right in Managing for Results
(1964).
Drucker, also says in Management: Tasks, Responsibilities,
Practices (1973)
Efficiency is concerned with doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right things,
No 8![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-jobs.jpg)
My passion has been to build an enduring company where people were motivated to make great products. The
products, not the profits, were the motivation.
- Steve Jobs (1955-2011), American co-founder of Apple
(pictured right)
Jobs also says:
About half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.
No 9
The excellent companies require and demand extraordinary performance from the average man.
- Tom Peters (pictured right) and Robert Waterman (pictured right below) in In
Search of Excellence (1982).
No 10![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-welch.jpg)
Control your destiny or someone else will.
- Jack Welch (1935- ), American
boss of General Electric 1981-2001, pictured right.
No 11 ![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-ruskin.jpg)
When we build, let us think that we build forever
John Ruskin (1819-1900), the English artist
and philosopher (pictured right)
No 12
In business, as in art, what distinguishes leaders from laggards, and greatness from mediocrity, is the ability
to uniquely imagine what could be.
- Gary Hamel (pictured right
above) and CK
Prahalad (pictured right) in Competing for the Future
(1996)
No 13![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-townsend.jpg)
If you can’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 here?
- Robert (Bob) Townsend, pictured right, Up the Organization
(1970)
No 14![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-welch.jpg)
Customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and cash flow.
- Jack Welch (General Electric’s
boss 1981-2001, pictured right) on the three most important measures of company performance.
No 15![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-cohen.jpg)
YCDBSOYA: 'You can't do business sitting on your arse [or ass]'
- Jack Cohen (1898-1979), pictured right, founder of the British supermarket,
Tesco
No 16![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-branson.jpg)
Business is giving people in their lifetime what they need and what they want.
- Richard Branson (1950-), founder of the
British company, Virgin, pictured right.
No 17![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-hickman.jpg)
Individuals, not organizations, create excellence
- Craig Hickman (pictured right) and Michael Silva, Creating Excellence
(1985)
No 18![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-shakespeare.jpg)
There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.
(Brutus in Julius
Caesar).
- William Shakespeare (1564-1616),
English playwright, pictured right
No 19![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-rockefeller.jpg)
The growth of a large business is merely a survival of the fittest.
- John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937) American businessman, pictured right.
No 20![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-rand.jpg)
Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think.
- Francisco d’Anconia in Atlas
Shrugged by Ayn Rand, pictured right.
No 21![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-ford.jpg)
Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.
- Henry Ford (1863–1947) American car manufacturer,
pictured right.
No 22![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-graham.jpg)
It's a pretty hairy existence, and nobody has it made. The minute you
do, you don't.
- Katherine Graham
(1907-2001), publisher of the Washington Post (pictured right).
No 23![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-bezos.jpg)
We are genuinely customer centric, we are genuinely long-term oriented, and we genuinely like to invent.
- Jeff Bezos (1964-), American founder of Amazon (pictured right).
![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quoteswashbussuc24.jpg)
No 24
Perseverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages.
- George Washington (1732-99), American
president (pictured right).
![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-napoleon.jpg)
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), the French
leader (pictured right), agrees:
Victory belongs to the most persevering,
No 25![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-packard-david.jpg)
To remain static is to lose ground.
- David Packard (1912-96),
American co-founder of Hewlett-Packard (HP), pictured right.
No 26![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-kelleher.jpg)
Your spirit is the most powerful thing of all.
Herb Kelleher (1931-), American boss of Southwest
Airlines 1982-2001 (pictured right).
No 27![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-penney.jpg)
Every business is built on friendship.
- J.C. Penney (1875-1971),
American co-founder of J. C. Penney department stores (pictured right).
No 28![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-walton.jpg)
Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anybody else.
- Sam Walton (1918-1992),
American founder Wal-Mart,the world’s biggest retailer(pictured right).
No 29![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-watson-snr.jpg)
It is harder to keep a business great than it is to build it.
- Thomas Watson Sr.(1874–1956),
chairman of IBM 1914–52, pictured right.
No 30![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-bacon.jpg)
A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
- Francis Bacon
(1561-1626), English philosopher and politician (pictured right).
No 31![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-cicero.jpg)
The beginnings of all things are small.
- Cicero (106-43 BC), Roman
philosopher and politician(pictured right).
No
32![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-cicero.jpg)
Whatever you do, do with all your might.
- Cicero (106-43 BC), Roman
philosopher and politician (pictured right).
No 33![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-lao.jpg)
A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.
- Lao Tzu (c604-c531 BC), Chinese
philosopher(pictured right).
No 34![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-kroc.jpg)
Take calculated risks. Act boldly and thoughtfully. Be an agile company,
- Ray Kroc (1902-84), founder of McDonald's (pictured right)
No
35![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-rand.jpg)
Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think.
(Francisco d’Anconia in Atlas
Shrugged)
- Ayn Rand (1905-1982), Russian-born American writer, pictured right
No
36![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-collins.jpg)
To be built to last you must be built to change
- Jim Collins ,pictured right (from the preface, 2004
edition of Jim Collins and Jerry Porras, Built to Last).
No
37![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-covey.jpg)
Trust - or the lack of it - is at the root of success or failure in relationships and in the bottom-line results
of business.
- Stephen Covey (pictured right) in Principle-Centred Leadership (1992)
No
38![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-drucker.jpg)
Managing a business always comes back to the human element – no matter how sound the business economics, how
careful the analysis, how good the tools.
-Peter Drucker (pictured right)
in The Practice of
Management (1954)
No
39![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotes-ford.jpg)
There is no disgrace in honest failure; there is disgrace in fearing to fail.
- Henry Ford (1863-1947), American car maker (pictured
right) - in My Life and Work ,1922)
No
40![Business Success Quotes Business Success Quotes](images/quotesgrattonbussuc40.jpg)
Successful businesses are created by excitement and inspiration, innovation and ideas.
Lynda Gratton (pictured right) in Living Strategy (2000)
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