Top 44 Kevin OLeary Quotes

I have met many entrepreneurs who have the passion and even the work ethic to succeed – but who are so obsessed with an idea that they don’t see its obvious flaws. Think about that. If you can’t even acknowledge your failures, how can you cut the rope and move on?

Don’t call me, I’ll call you… I’m out.

Money is my military, each dollar a soldier. I never send my money into battle unprepared and undefended. I send it to conquer and take currency prisoner and bring it back to me.

If you put a woman in prison for four years when she’s young and make her pay her time in a horrible place and she wants to come out and work, and become a mother and be a contributor to society and pay taxes and you never give her that chance. There is something un-Canadian about that.

A lot of people have said a lot of great things about Steve Jobs. And for good reason: he built the world’s second-most valuable company, with billions in profits and products that have improved every aspect of our lives. But Steve didn’t get there by being a soft, fluffy, Kumbaya-type leader.

Unions are about the collective leverage, the power of numbers versus the power of capital.

I’m starting to think about things that I want to do, things that are fun. One of them is driving a car like a Porsche. I’ve driven a lot of cars – sedans, trucks and big family vehicles all year long. But there’s nothing like a four-wheel-drive Porsche.

Being an employee is a bad outcome. You want to avoid that. Being an employee is never a good outcome. That’s just an opinion.

Protecting Americans from harm goes beyond police and national defense. It’s imperative that we not destroy the commons, the physical environment on which we rely.

So much of life is a negotiation – so even if you’re not in business, you have opportunities to practice all around you.

Filming ‘The Road to Riches’ was surprisingly difficult for me. I learned that going back to career successes and failures can be emotionally exhausting as you are forced to revisit the euphoric highs and painful lows in high speed.

Once in a while, I see my fellow TV investors praise a business just because they like the entrepreneur behind it. That kind of thinking might make you feel warm and fuzzy inside – but let’s get back to reality.

When you’re an investor, you can look at the quantitative and qualitative elements of an investment, but there’s a third aspect: What you feel in your gut.

Once Michigan stood proud. In addition to GM, Ford and Chrysler, it was home base for the United Auto Workers, a powerful escalator transporting hundreds of thousands of blue-collar workers into America’s middle class.

When you come to ‘Shark Tank,’ the only person you should listen to is me, because you know you’re getting the truth. I’ll decide if it’s worth it, and after I’m finished, the rest of the people can look into it.

I keep anywhere between 5-10 percent of my net worth in venture ideas.

Steve Jobs had his critics. Some saw him as an egomaniac, and others, as a control freak.

If I were the president of the United States, I would make unions illegal. They no longer serve a functional purpose in democracy, in my view.

Here’s how I think of my money – as soldiers – I send them out to war everyday. I want them to take prisoners and come home, so there’s more of them.

We have to change public perception of ex-convicts. Most Canadians don’t realize that when you come out of prison, you’re a complete pariah. You can’t get a car loan or money from a bank to start a business. So most end up back in prison within 24 months. It’s just so wrong. We need to fix this problem.

There’s only one side with me. You get the right side. You get the correct version of the facts.

If a man could give birth it would be to a book – it’s an 18-month gestation period.

You may lose your wife, you may lose your dog, your mother may hate you. None of those things matter. What matters is that you achieve success and become free. Then you can do whatever you like.

Don’t cry for money. It never cries for you.

If you want a friend, buy a dog.

Imagine how foolish you’d look if, like one clever salesman who once pitched to me, you tried to license your product to a big industry player without knowing they just launched a competing product. With the right background research, he could have avoided that and other landmines – and so can you.

I like gold because it is a stabilizer; it is an insurance policy.

Know everything about the companies and people you are going to be negotiating with. Insist on getting the names of everyone participating in the negotiations. Leave no stone unturned; find out as much as you can.

When you’re travelling, your day is jam-packed. I just don’t have time to whip out a PC all the time. But I can whip out a BlackBerry and tweet. I keep a constant diary of where I’m at and why I’m there.

Television is the most interesting hobby I’ve ever had.

All we do is bring the debate from both sides, and let you as a viewer decide where you want to end up on the issue. That’s very important. That’s exactly what happens in ‘Redemption Inc.’

I’m not trying to make friends, I’m just trying to make money.

In his first term, President Barack Obama played a cautious manager navigating the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression and cleaning up the messes left by President George W. Bush in Iraq and Afghanistan.

For whatever reason somebody can be convinced to buy a PC, it opens up a whole new market for all of us in the software business.

I’m not a tough guy. I’m just delivering the truth and only the truth and if you can’t deal with it, too bad.

My worst fashion faux pas: probably orange shoes with white pants. I thought I looked spectacular.

I don’t mind rude people. I want people that I can make money with, so if their executional abilities are good, and they’re arrogant and rude, I don’t care.

I think every entrepreneur in Canada owes the next generation a road map of how to do it again.

You’d rather own gold; never own the miner.

Nobody forces you to work at Wal-Mart. Start your own business! Sell something to Wal-Mart!

You can’t regulate a soul into a business.

The only reason to do business is to make money; that’s the only reason for doing business.

Many blue-collar families struggling to pay rent would be happy to skip paying optional union dues.

I want to go to bed richer than when I woke up. The pursuit of wealth is a wonderful thing, but the thing is you have to be honest about it, you have to tell the truth.