Management quotes to inspire your team

I love using quotes in my work and presentations. A good one says in a sentence what would take you a paragraph, and it reminds the room that other people have faced the same problem before.

There’s a catch, though. Many of the most famous business quotes were never said by the people they’re credited to. Henry Ford never mentioned faster horses. Peter Drucker didn’t say culture eats strategy for breakfast. Quote a misattribution to the wrong audience and someone will look it up, and your credibility goes with it.

So this is a refreshed list. The original had 70 quotes. I’ve kept the ones worth using, checked every attribution, and marked each one as sourced, attributed or misattributed. Here’s how to choose one, use it and check it, as a set of questions and answers, with three figures to try.

What do the labels mean?

• Sourced. We know where it was said or written: a book, a letter, an interview or a film.
• Attributed. Widely credited to that person, and plausibly theirs, but nobody has pinned down the original. Say “often attributed to” when you use it.
• Misattributed. The usual attribution is wrong, or there’s no evidence for it. The quote can still be useful, but credit it honestly.

Most quotes on the internet are attributed at best. Quote sites copy each other, and a name that sounds right tends to stick.

How do you find the right one?

Pick a theme, or shuffle for a random one. Every quote has its status, and the copy button gives you the wording with an honest attribution, ready for a slide.

Which famous business quotes are misattributed?

Quite a few of the ones you see on slides. Before you read the answers, test yourself.

The usual suspects:

• “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Credited to Peter Drucker, but not in his writings. The earliest known use is a 2000 article by Bill Moore and Jerry Rose (Wikiquote).
• “What gets measured gets managed.” Also pinned on Drucker, and also not found in his work. The idea that measuring something changes how people behave goes back at least to a 1956 paper by V. F. Ridgway (Ness Labs).
• “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus wrote this in Leaders (1985). Drucker’s own version was about efficiency and effectiveness, which Quote Investigator traces to his work from 1963.
• “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” No evidence Henry Ford said it (Harvard Business Review).
• “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” Usually credited to George Bernard Shaw. Quote Investigator traces it to William H. Whyte, writing in 1950.
• “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” Not Churchill. The Churchill Centre’s journal says it isn’t in any of the published words by or about him (Wikiquote).
• “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Often said to be in Eleanor Roosevelt’s autobiography. It isn’t (Wikiquote).
• “A goal is a dream with a deadline.” Credited to Napoleon Hill, but its origin is unknown, and the businessman Harvey Mackay did most to popularise it (Barry Popik). The original list had it twice, once credited to Hill and once to Diana Scharf.
• “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” Credited to Benjamin Franklin since at least the 1850s, but never found in anything he wrote (Barry Popik).
• “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” Usually called an African proverb. Nobody has found where it comes from, and the earliest print use found is from 2004 (NPR).

How should you use a quote?

Sparingly. Most of your presentation, paper or workshop should be your own thinking. A good quote helps you make a point or enrich an argument. It shouldn’t make the argument for you.

A few habits help:

1. One per section, at most. A slide deck full of quotes reads like a fridge magnet collection.
2. Make it do work. Use the quote to open a question, then answer it yourself.
3. Attribute it honestly. If it’s attributed rather than sourced, say “often attributed to”. It costs you nothing and protects you from the person in the audience who knows.
4. Keep the original wording. Paraphrase if you like, but then don’t use quotation marks.

Here are some meeting situations, and a quote that fits each.

Quotes about sales

• “There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer.” Peter Drucker, The Practice of Management (1954). Sourced.
• “I have never worked a day in my life without selling. If I believe in something, I sell it, and I sell it hard.” Often attributed to Estée Lauder. Attributed.
• “Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.” Popularised by Zig Ziglar. Attributed.
• “Make a customer, not a sale.” Often attributed to Katherine Barchetti, a US retailer. Attributed.

Quotes about motivation

• “I fear not the man who has practised 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practised one kick 10,000 times.” Often attributed to Bruce Lee. Attributed.
• “Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.” Often attributed to Jim Rohn. Attributed.
• “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.” Often attributed to Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to the US Congress. Attributed.

Quotes about business

• “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, The Wealth of Nations (1776). Sourced.
• “The business enterprise has two, and only two, basic functions: marketing and innovation.” Peter Drucker, The Practice of Management (1954). Sourced.
• “Intellectual property has the shelf life of a banana.” Bill Gates, as quoted in The Wall Street Journal (2011). Attributed.

Quotes about management

• “Management is, above all, a practice where art, science, and craft meet.” Henry Mintzberg, Managers Not MBAs (2004). Sourced.
• “A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world.” John le Carré, The Honourable Schoolboy (1977). It’s usually misquoted as “view the world”. Sourced.
• “Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.” Peter Drucker, in his writing and lectures from 1963 (Quote Investigator). Sourced.
• “Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.” Often attributed to Peter Drucker. Attributed.

Quotes about investing

• “You want to be greedy when others are fearful. You want to be fearful when others are greedy.” Warren Buffett, interviewed by Charlie Rose (2008). Sourced.
• “The four most dangerous words in investing are: this time it’s different.” Often attributed to Sir John Templeton. Attributed.
• “Investing should be more like watching paint dry or watching grass grow.” Often attributed to the economist Paul Samuelson. Attributed.
• “Know what you own, and know why you own it.” Often attributed to the fund manager Peter Lynch. Attributed.

Quotes on leadership

• “By leadership we mean the art of getting someone else to do something that you want done because he wants to do it.” Dwight D. Eisenhower, as quoted in 1954. Sourced.
• “Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.” Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (1989). Sourced.
• “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” Often attributed to Warren Bennis. Attributed.
• “First rule of leadership: everything is your fault.” Hopper, in Pixar’s A Bug’s Life (1998). Sourced.
• “Gripes go up, not down.” Captain Miller, in Saving Private Ryan (1998). The full speech is worth watching for anyone who manages managers. Sourced.

Quotes about teamwork

• “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Isaac Newton, in a letter to Robert Hooke (1676). The image is much older, going back to Bernard of Chartres in the 12th century (Wikipedia). Sourced.
• “Hire on attitude. Train on skills.” Often attributed to Herb Kelleher, co-founder of Southwest Airlines. Attributed.
• “None of us is as smart as all of us.” Often attributed to Ken Blanchard. Attributed.
• “The main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team.” Often attributed to the basketball coach John Wooden. Attributed.

How do you check a quote?

It takes a couple of minutes:

1. Search Quote Investigator. Garson O’Toole has traced thousands of famous quotes back to their earliest appearance in print.
2. Look the person up on Wikiquote. Many pages have “Disputed” and “Misattributed” sections, with sources.
3. Look for a dated, original source. A book, a speech, a letter or an interview. A quote site or an image with a name on it doesn’t count.
4. Be wary of quotes that are too neat. Short, polished quotes credited to very famous people are the most likely to be wrong. Fame attracts quotes.
5. If you can’t find a source, say so. “Often attributed to” is honest and still lets you use the line.

Can AI help?

With care. An AI assistant is quick at suggesting quotes on a theme, but it will sometimes attribute a quote to the wrong person, or produce one that sounds right and doesn’t exist. Use it for ideas, then check each one the way you’d check anything you found online.

For more on using quotes and stories well in front of a room, see tips to give a great presentation.

Sources: Quote Investigator, Efficiency is concerned with doing things right and The biggest problem in communication; Wikiquote, Peter Drucker, Winston Churchill, Eleanor Roosevelt, Henry Ford, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Stephen Covey, Warren Bennis, John le Carré, Isaac Newton, Adam Smith and Bruce Lee; Vlaskovits, P. (2011) “Henry Ford, innovation, and that ‘faster horse’ quote”, Harvard Business Review; Barry Popik, A goal is a dream with a deadline and An investment in knowledge; NPR (2016) It takes a village to determine the origins of an African proverb; Ness Labs, The fallacy of “what gets measured gets managed”; Wikipedia, Standing on the shoulders of giants.