I love using quotes in my work/presentations. It’s important to learn about our craft from the people who have came before us and the 70 quotes below have stood and will stand the test of time.
I’ve grouped them into 7 sections (sales, motivation, business, management, investing, leadership and teamwork). They’re not really a top ten list for each but you get the idea.
Use direct quotations sparingly in your work. Most of your own work will be just that but a good quote can help to make your point and enrich your argument.
Use these quotes in your presentations, books, papers or to motivate your team.
Quotes about Sales
- “Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.”
—Tony Robbins - “Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.”
—Zig Ziglar - “It’s not about having the right opportunities. It’s about handling the opportunities right.”
—Mark Hunter - “I have stood on a mountain of no’s for one yes.”
—B. Smith - “Solve customer problems and make sure that the customer is representative of a large market and then you will have a pretty good formula.”
—Melanie Perkins - “If you want to make money, you have to help someone else make money.”
—Russell Simmons - “I have never worked a day in my life without selling. If I believe in something, I sell it, and I sell it hard.”
—Estée Lauder - “Confidence is 10 percent hard work and 90 percent delusion.”
—Tina Fey - “Establishing trust is better than any sales technique.”
—Mike Puglia - “Make A Customer, Not A Sale.”
—Katherine Barchetti
Motivational Quotes
- “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt - “If you don’t risk anything, you risk even more.”
—Erica Jong - “A goal is a dream with a deadline.”
—Napoleon Hill - “Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is.”
—Vince Lombardi - “I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than regret the things I haven’t done.”
—Lucille Ball - “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”
—Walt Disney - “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
—Winston Churchill - “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.”
—Shirley Chisholm - “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”
—Bruce Lee - “Motivation Is What Gets You Started. Habit Is What Keeps You Going.”
—Jim Rohn
Quotes about Business
- “Don’t try to do everything by yourself but try to connect with people and resources. Having that discipline and perseverance is really important.”
—Chieu Cao - “Hire people who are better than you are, then leave them to get on with it. Look for people who will aim for the remarkable, who will not settle for the routine.”
—David Ogilvy - “All business is personal… Make your friends before you need them.”
—Robert L. Johnson - “If You Are Not Taking Care Of Your Customer, Your Competitor Will.
—Bob Hooey - “To be successful, you have to have your heart in your business, and your business in your heart.”
—Thomas Watson - “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”
—Adam Smith - “Intellectual property has the shelf life of a banana.”
—Bill Gates - “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
—Henry Ford - “Never neglect family for business.”
—Walt Disney - “Business has only two functions – marketing and innovation.”
—Peter Drucker
Management Quotes
- “Management is, above all, a practice where art, science, and craft meet.”
—Henry Mintzberg - “Never expect than anyone remembers anything you said in the last meeting or conversation. Put it all in writing and make checklists your friend.”
—Erika Hall - “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
—George Bernard Shaw - “Goals are dreams with deadlines.”
—Diana Scharf - “Management is all about managing in the short term, while developing the plans for the long term.”
—Jack Welch - “Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.”
—Peter Drucker - “A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world.”
—John Le Caré - “What get measured, gets managed.”
—Peter Drucker - “Almost all quality improvement comes via simplification of design, manufacturing, layout, processes, and procedures.”
—Tom Peters - “The most dangerous kind of waste is the waste we do not recognize.”
—Shigeo Shingo
Investing Quotes
- “Play by the rules, but be ferocious.”
—Phil Knight - “Risk more than others think is safe. Dream more than others think is practical.”
—Howard Schultz - “Never argue with a profit.”
—Jeff Rich - “Know what you own, and know why you own it.”
—Peter Lynch - “Investing should be more like watching paint dry or watching grass grow. If you want excitement, take $800 and go to Las Vegas.”
—Paul Samuelson - “The four most dangerous words in investing are, it’s different this time.”
—Sir John Templeton - “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”
—Benjamin Franklin - “I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.”
—Warren Buffett - “You must learn that the market is a discounting mechanism, and that stocks sell on future and not current fundamentals.”
—Stan Weinstein - “Accepting losses is the most important single investment device to ensure safety of capital.”
—Gerald M. Loeb
Quotes on Leadership
- “A leader must have the courage to act against an expert’s advice.”
—James Callaghan - “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”
—Peter Drucker - “First rule of leadership: everything is your fault.”
—A Bug’s Life - “I don’t gripe to *you*, Reiben. I’m a captain. There’s a chain of command. Gripes go up, not down. Always up. You gripe to me, I gripe to my superior officer, so on, so on, and so on. I don’t gripe to you. I don’t gripe in front of you. You should know that as a Ranger.”
—Captain Miller, Saving Private Ryan - “One of the true tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.”
—Arnold Glasow - “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”
—Dwight D. Eisenhower - “Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.”
—Stephen Covey - “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.”
—Warren Bennis - “No one will make a great leader who wants to do it all, or to get all the credit for doing it.”
—Andrew Carnegie - “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”
—Steve Jobs
Quotes about Teamwork
- “Good teams incorporate teamwork into their culture, creating the building blocks for success.”
—Ted Sundquist - “The team with the best players wins.”
—Jack Welch - “Hire on attitude. Train on skills.”
—Herb Kelleher - “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”
—Peter Drucker. - “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
—Isaac Newton - “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
—African Proverb - “It’s better to have a great team than a team of greats.”
—Simon Sinek - “The main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team.”
—John Wooden - “None of us is as smart as all of us.”
—Ken Blanchard - “It takes two flints to make a fire.”
—Louisa May Alcott
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