One’s mind has a way of making itself up in the background, and it suddenly becomes clear what one means to do.
I think if we get freedom for women, then they are probably going to do a lot of things that I wish they wouldn’t do. But it seems to me that isn’t our business to say what they should do with it. It is our business to see that they get it.
Steve Jobs once asked me for some advice about retail, but I said, ‘I am not sure at all we are in the same business.’
No one has a greater asset for his business than a man’s pride in his work.
‘In Search of Excellence’ – even the title – is a reminder that business isn’t dry, dreary, boring, or by the numbers. Life at work can be cool – and work that’s cool isn’t confined to Tiger Woods, Yo-Yo Ma, or Tom Hanks. It’s available to all of us and any of us.
I love producing. I am loving doing that. I think that is my most natural space in the business. I just love producing or editing and that’s where I thrive.
I don’t want to do business with those who don’t make a profit, because they can’t give the best service.
Design has always been at the heart of our business.
The goal is not to do business with everybody who needs what you have. The goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe.
People think I am a workaholic but I just love business.
When a team takes ownership of its problems, the problem gets solved. It is true on the battlefield, it is true in business, and it is true in life.
The good Lord didn’t see fit to put oil and gas only where there are democratically elected regimes friendly to the United States. Occasionally we have to operate in places where, all considered, one would not normally choose to go. But we go where the business is.
One of biggest lies in politics is the lie that Republicans are the party of big business. Big business does great with big government. Big business is very happy to climb in bed with big government. Republicans are and should be the party of small business and of entrepreneurs.
Try, try, try, and keep on trying is the rule that must be followed to become an expert in anything.
Without our customers, we don’t have a business.
An organization, no matter how well designed, is only as good as the people who live and work in it.
The prison-industrial complex and the military-industrial complex are here with us and are multi-billion dollar enterprises. We can make more money off the kid in Compton if he’s a criminal instead of a scholar. It’s business.
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help… Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.
In this business it takes time to be really good – and by that time, you’re obsolete.
The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.
Just because something doesn’t do what you planned it to do doesn’t mean it’s useless.
There is something sinister, something quite biographical about what I do – but that part is for me. It’s my personal business. I think there is a lot of romance, melancholy. There’s a sadness to it, but there’s romance in sadness. I suppose I am a very melancholy person.
White shall not neutralize the black, nor good compensate bad in man, absolve him so: life’s business being just the terrible choice.
You have to understand that every negotiation isn’t about taking everything off the table. It’s cliche, but you have to try and make sure the other side feels good and you feel good. Because in my business, when I make a deal, it just means once we’re done negotiating, we have to go off and work together.
If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance.
If you don’t understand the details of your business you are going to fail.
You can hype a questionable product for a little while, but you’ll never build an enduring business.
I learned this early on in the variety business: You’ve got to give folks responsibility, you’ve got to trust them, and then you’ve got to check on them.
The best in business have boundless curiosity and open minds.
Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can.
Sustainability includes how you run your business, and my bottom line includes how you treat your people. Sustainability starts with your staff.
When I hear people debate the ROI of social media? It makes me remember why so many business fail. Most businesses are not playing the marathon. They’re playing the sprint. They’re not worried about lifetime value and retention. They’re worried about short-term goals.
There is no time and space in the digital world. People chat and collaborate through social networks. Cultural icons garner millions of fans online in locations they have often never been themselves. The boundary between public and private life is now everyone’s business.
Music is spiritual. The music business is not.
Government in the U.S. today is a senior partner in every business in the country.
The stock market is a giant distraction from the business of investing.
So how does the machine work that you have a financial crisis? How does deleveraging work – what is the nature of that machine? And what is human nature, and how do you raise a community of people to run a business?
Business, you know, may bring you money, but friendship hardly ever does.
What helps people, helps business.
Succeeding in business is not just about making money.
Learning in a face-to-face human community, as humans have evolved to do over hundreds of thousands of years, may always be the ideal – especially in an endeavor that is as relationship-driven as business.
I am just absolutely convinced that the best formula for giving us peace and preserving the American way of life is freedom, limited government, and minding our own business overseas.
‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.
For me, the winning strategy in any start-up business is, ‘Think big but start small.’
If people like you, they’ll listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.
The most important characteristics you need to succeed in business are resilience, determination and persistence.
I don’t care what straight people do, I don’t care what gay people do. I don’t care what nobody do. That’s they business. I just care about what I do. You know what I’m saying?
The NRA is funded by weapons manufacturers, and those same manufacturers know that they stand to lose some business if we pass common-sense gun legislation. As a result, the NRA contributes money to politicians to ensure that gun control never happens.
The purpose of a business is to create a customer.
Your own business growth and success depends on many things, and along that growing path, you are going to have to concede certain responsibilities and activities – whether for your accounting, your production, or day-to-day management.
Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.
The reality of life is, if you have a bagel shop and everybody is pouring into the doughnut shop across the street, if you want to stay in business, you start selling doughnuts.
The best way to look at any business is from the standpoint of the clients.
Business is the salt of life.
You can’t operate a company by fear, because the way to eliminate fear is to avoid criticism. And the way to avoid criticism is to do nothing.
Profit is not the legitimate purpose of business. The legitimate purpose of business is to provide a product or service that people need and do it so well that it’s profitable.
I never called my work an ‘art’. It’s part of show business, the business of building entertainment.
Nothing so conclusively proves a man’s ability to lead others as what he does from day to day to lead himself.
We’ve always operated on the thesis that a company can have a personality, that people can be themselves, and be very successful in business at the same time.
The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation.
The fiesta of soccer, a feast for the legs that play and the eyes that watch, is much more than a big business run by overlords from Switzerland. The most popular sport in the world wants to serve the people who embrace it.
The first rule of business is: Do other men for they would do you.
In the commercial world, you have this problem that the amount of research you can do in a company is based on how well your current business is going, whereas there actually should be an inverse relationship: when things are going worse, you should do more research.
I got two stores, two streetwear stores, at home. Have to tend to those. Play Cloths. Have to tend to that business.
I do believe that any successful business starts from the top and works its way down.
I think that New York is not the cultural centre of America, but the business and administrative centre of American culture.
