Men of sense often learn from their enemies.—It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls and ships of war; and this lesson saves their children, their homes, and their properties.
—Aristophanes (Greek Comic Playwright)
People expect a certain reaction from a business and when you pleasantly exceed those expectations, you’ve somehow passed an important psychological threshold.
—Richard Thalheimer (American Entrepreneur)
This is something I’ve struggled with a lot: how to relate to the fear in a constructive way. It’s not that you eliminate the fear. We have all the fears. That’s natural; that’s human beings. But how do you deal with the fears, how do you engage with your fears in a way that’s productive?
—Brad Feld (American Entrepreneur, Investor)
Emotion always has its roots in the unconscious and manifests itself in the body.
—Irene Claremont de Castillejo (British Psychoanalyst)
The less you know about a field, the better your odds. Dumb boldness is the best way to approach a new challenge.
—Jerry Seinfeld (American Comedian)
Any successful journey begins by packing your luggage full of imagination.
—Kathrine Palmer Peterson (American Author of Grief Books)
What’s the good of all our learning, knowing how to read and write and spell if no one ever teaches us the value of life, of our uniqueness, and personal dignity?
—Leo Buscaglia (American Motivational Speaker)
Business success is less a function of grandiose predictions than it is a result of being able to respond rapidly to real changes as they occur.
—Jack Welch (American Businessperson)
We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over.
—James Boswell (Scottish Biographer, Diarist)
I’m amused by self-styled “busy” people. Busyness is as much a matter of identity as it is a reflection of time availability and schedule.
—Ben Casnocha (American Entrepreneur, Investor)
It’s better to be boldly decisive and risk being wrong than to agonize at length and be right too late.
—Marilyn Moats Kennedy (American Career Strategist, Author)
A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes.
—Robert Frost (American Poet)
Happiness is your nature. It is not wrong to desire it. What is wrong is seeking it outside when it is inside.
—Ramana Maharshi (Indian Hindu Mystic)
It is the responsibility of leadership to provide opportunity, and the responsibility of individuals to contribute.
—C. William Pollard (American Businessman, Author)
There exists a kind of laughter, which is worthy to be ranked with the higher lyric emotions and is infinitely different from the twitching of a mean merrymaker.
—Nikolai Gogol (Russian Novelist, Dramatist)
If you understand, things are just as they are; if you do not understand, things are just as they are.
—Zen Proverb (Japanese School of Mahayana Buddhism)