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Business Quotes from some of the leaders in investing, business, and finance. Includes quotes about running businesses, starting a business, and the benefits of owning a business.

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Business Quotes A-Z by Author

I like to tell people that all of our products and business will go through three phases. There's vision, patience, and execution.
Steve Ballmer - Products - Business

Everybody makes business mistakes. I mean, I take the responsibility, and I did. I was the captain of the ship and I took that responsibility.
Alan Bond - Mistakes - Business - Responsibility

I never get the accountants in before I start up a business. It's done on gut feeling, especially if I can see that they are taking the mickey out of the consumer.
Richard Branson - Accounting - Customers - Business

A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts.
Richard Branson - Business - Fun

To me, money is a means to do good. I reached a point in my life where I had enjoyed tremendous business success that afforded my family everything we could possibly want. My wife and I then decided that we could use our wealth to make a difference. So we created the Broad Foundations to do four things: to improve urban public education, to support innovative scientific and medical research, to foster art appreciation for audiences worldwide and to support civic initiatives in Los Angeles.
Eli Broad - Money - Business - Success - Philanthropy - Rich - Family - Wealth - Generous - Education - Research - Art

Family, religion, friends.. these are the three demons you must slay if you wish to succeed in business.
Monty Burns - Family - Friends - Success - Business

Dealing with people is probably the biggest problem you face, especially if you are in business. Yes, and that is also true if you are a housewife, architect or engineer.
Dale Carnegie - People - Business - Customers - Problems

I'm not sure I knew what an entrepreneur was when I was ten, but I knew that starting little businesses and trying to sell greeting cards or newspapers door-to-door or just vending machine kind of thing is.. there's just something very intriguing to me about that.
Steve Case - Entrepreneur - Business - Selling

They say a year in the Internet business is like a dog year.. equivalent to seven years in a regular person's life. In other words, it's evolving fast and faster.
Vinton Cerf - Internet - Business - Innovation

Business is recognizing the role it can play in combatting climate change. Thank God, is all I can say, for there is a desperately urgent need for business to play that role. Your lobbying influence can be substantial, but together, united and in large enough numbers it could prove decisive in turning the tide.
Prince Charles - Environment - Power - Encouragement - Climate Change - Business - Influential - God

We have to make America the best place in the world to do business.
Dick Cheney - America - Best - Business

A culture of discipline is not a principle of business; it is a principle of greatness.
Jim Collins - Great - Discipline - Business - Culture

We must reject the idea.. well-intentioned, but dead wrong.. that the primary path to greatness in the social sectors is to become "more like a business." Most businesses.. like most of anything else in life.. fall somewhere between mediocre and good.
Jim Collins - Society - Business - Wrong - Ideas - Great - Good

I think the most important CEO task is defining the course that the business will take over the next five or so years. You have to have the ability to see what the business environment might be like a long way out, not just over the coming months. You need to be able to both set a broad direction, and also to take particular decisions along the way that make that broad direction unfold correctly.
Chris Corrigan - Management - Decisions - Business - Planning

You can't overestimate the need to plan and prepare. In most of the mistakes I've made, there has been this common theme of inadequate planning beforehand. You really can't over-prepare in business!
Chris Corrigan - Planning - Business - Mistakes

I'm a firm believer that to really understand a business takes years, not months. As an investment analyst you think you understand a business from the outside, but the reality is that, once you are inside, you can go on learning for five or ten years.
Chris Corrigan - Management - Business - Investing - Learning

I was always acting primarily with shareholder interests in mind. It's also true I've always had a fairly moralistic attitude to business, and would not do anything that I considered improper. As a consequence, I have occasionally pursued issues during my career that other people might have avoided.
Chris Corrigan - Management - Stocks - Business - Challenges - Job

I'd always had a childhood ambition to go into the investment capital business, and spent twenty-odd years in it. But the thought of spending the second half of my career in the same business was boring, so I looked around for other opportunities.
Chris Corrigan - Business - Investing - Ambition - Opportunity - Job

I think Virgin Blue is still a very promising and exciting business. Now, I know that's not a view that's widely held in the market but I think the market is simply throwing it into the too-hard basket at the present time because of the oil price events. But we think it is still a very exciting business.
Chris Corrigan - Business - Optimistic - Stock Market - Challenges

On one level, going bust didn't bother me. It was the 80s, and there wasn't the stigma about bankruptcy that you might think. My mates weren't bothered. My dad was in business.. he knew that it happened, too. He loaned me the money to bail me out, and I got a loan from the bank to pay him back.
Simon Cowell - Bankrupt - Friends - Business - Banks - Loan - Family - Money

Many business leaders today view their jobs as entailing responsibility for the welfare of the wider community. These individuals do not define themselves as profit-making machines whose only reason for existing is to satisfy escalating expectation for immediate gain.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - Business Ethics - Leadership - Business - Profits - Jobs - Responsibility

A business is successful to the extent that it provides a product or service that contributes to happiness in all of its forms.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - Business Ethics - Success - Business - Products - Happiness

Since the purpose of business is to satisfy existing desires, or stimulate new ones, if everyone were genuinely happy, there would be no need for business any longer.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - Happiness - Business

It doesn’t matter how many times you fail. It doesn’t matter how many times you almost get it right. No one is going to know or care about your failures, and neither should you. All you have to do is learn from them and those around you because... All that matters in business is that you get it right once. Then everyone can tell you how lucky you are.
Mark Cuban - Business - Luck - Failure

In business, one of the challenges is making sure that your product is the easiest to experience and complete a sale.
Mark Cuban - Products - Challenges - Business

The NBA (National Basketball Association) is never just a business. It’s always business. It’s always personal. All good businesses are personal. The best businesses are very personal.
Mark Cuban - Business

Creating a close connection to those you do business with has its many risks, rewards and consequences. There are few things in business I have encountered that are more difficult than firing someone, particularly if that someone has always been, or has become a friend. On the flipside, I have been rewarded with many friends
Mark Cuban - Challenges - People - Business - Partnership

Our business is about technology, yes. But it's also about operations and customer relationships.
Michael Dell - Customers - Technology - Business -

The corporation is the �master�, the employee is the �servant�. Because the corporation owns the means of production without which the employee could not make a living, the employee needs the corporation more than vice versa.
Peter Drucker - Business - Capitalism - Work -

It is rare to find a business partner who is selfless. If you are lucky it happens once in a lifetime.
Michael Eisner - Luck - Partnership - Business

The movie business has always been like the wild-catting oil business. Everyone wants a gusher.
Michael Eisner - Luck - Business

Information technology and business are becoming inextricably interwoven. I don't think anybody can talk meaningfully about one without the talking about the other.
Bill Gates - Internet - Technology - Business -

Why is it that with all the information available today on how to be successful in small business, so few people really are?
Michael Gerber - Business - Success

If your thinking is sloppy, your business will be sloppy. If you are disorganized, your business will be disorganized. If you are greedy, your empoyees will be greedy, giving you less and less of themselves and always asking for more.
Michael Gerber - Business - Thinking - Employee - Greed

The entrepreneur is not really interested in doing the work; he is interested in creating the way the company operates. In that regard, the entrepreneur is an inventor. He or she loves to invent, but does not love to manufacture or sell or distribute what he or she invents.
Michael Gerber - Entrepreneurs - Work - Business

If they don’t fail outright, most businesses fail to fully achieve their potential. That’s because the person who owns the business doesn’t truly know how to build a company that works without him or her.. which is the key.
Michael Gerber - Business - Achievement - Failure

The message from Wal-Mart today to the rest of the business community is there need not be any conflict between the environment and the economy. We will find the way not only to reconcile (those), but to find new profits and new opportunities as we do the right thing.
Al Gore - Environmental - Economy - Business - Profits - Opportunities

I could have closed down bits of British Home Stores to make more money but it’s not my style. I want to make my money as a retailer, not by putting people out of work.
Philip Green - Commitment - Jobs - Work - Money - Business

I have been quoted saying that, in the future, all companies will be Internet companies. I still believe that. More than ever, really
Andrew Grove - Companies - Internet - Business

Basically we get confused a bit about what retail is. It is really just buying things, putting them on a floor and selling them.
Gerry Harvey - Selling - Business -

I think one of the big errors people are making right now is thinking that old-style businesses will be obsolete, when actually they will be an important part of this new civilization. Some retail groups are introducing e-commerce and think that the "bricks" are no longer useful. But they will continue to be important.
Carlos Slim Helu - Technology - Mistakes - Business - Internet

The reason I entered the election race was to promote reforms. For us who engage in business, we will be severely affected if financial and structural reforms don't proceed.
Takafumi Horie - Politicians - Business - Change - Finance

Elections are a kind of business. I have to present myself: 'I can do this and that for this area so please give me your vote'. People vote for the politicians who can best understand and contribute to their region or country. In a business you can choose your clients, and the message is targeted to them only. But politics is universal; no matter what age the audience, you have to send the same message to everyone.
Takafumi Horie - Politicians - Business

It's not that I'm not interested in politics, but rather, I think that the people who become politicians in Japan are not very dynamic. Honestly, I find business much more interesting than politics.
Takafumi Horie - Politicians - Business - Interesting

Remarks such as ‘great Australian’, ‘larger than life’ are sometimes used where they are not appropriate. But in the case of Kerry Packer both of those descriptions are entirely appropriate. He was a great Australian, he was a larger than life character and in so many ways he left his mark on the Australian community over a very long career in business, particularly in the media and also that other great passion of his, Australian sport
John Howard - Media - Passions - Business - Australia

In business, I loved cars. I couldn’t wait to get to work in the morning. Only in America can you decide to get a good education and pursue what you like.
Lee Iacocca - Business - Jobs - Learning - Passions

In business, you’re trying to make a buck. God was good to me and blessed me. I made some money and started this foundation years ago, and it has grown in size. With the foundation it’s a lot different, because the bottom line isn’t how you can make more money or get a better return, it’s helping the projects that you feel strongly about move forward.
Lee Iacocca - Business - Money - Philanthropy - God - Profits

In life and business, there are two cardinal sins.. The first is to act precipitously without thought and the second is to not act at all.
Carl Icahn - Business - Life - Mistakes - Action

You learn in this business.. If you want a friend, get a dog.
Carl Icahn - Business - Learning

It takes a lot more to run a good business than just trailing commissions or kickbacks otherwise everybody would succeed, wouldn't they?
John Ilhan - Business - Success

I work with wonderful people who support me. And, my beliefs are that the business needs to serve the family rather than the family serve the business.
Kathy Ireland - Help - Family - Work - Belief - Business

I viewed it as a business, but I always viewed it as a game. An opportunity to show my skills, my basketball skills, amongst the best in the world.
Michael Jordan - Business - Opportunity - Skill - Best - Sports

We take the hamburger business more seriously than anyone else.
Ray Kroc - Business - Commitment

There's no business like show business, but there are several businesses like accounting.
David Letterman - Accounting - Business

My first six years in the business were hopeless. There are a lot of times when you sit and you say "Why am I doing this? I'll never make it. It's just not going to happen. I should go out and get a real job, and try to survive."
George Lucas - Business - Commitment - Challenges - Jobs

Go for a business that any idiot can run - because sooner or later, any idiot probably is going to run it.
Peter Lynch - Management - Business - Investing -

For us, our most important stakeholder is not our stockholders, it is our customers. We're in business to serve the needs and desires of our core customer base.
John Mackey - Stocks - Customers - Business

There can be little doubt that a certain amount of corporate philanthropy is simply good business and works for the long-term benefit of the investors.
John Mackey - Business - Long Term Investing - Philanthropy

I became a vegan and at the same time I realized, gosh, Whole Foods has got to create a higher standard here. I think it will ultimately be a good business decision because I think our customers expect us, want us to pave this path.
John Mackey - Customers - Business - Business Ethics - Responsibility - Decisions

I think one of the most misunderstood things about business in America is that people are either doing things for altruistic reasons or they are greedy and selfish, just after profit. That type of dichotomy portrays a false image of business. It certainly is a false image of Whole Foods. The whole idea is to do both: The animals have to flourish, but in such a way that it'll be cheap enough for the customers to buy it.
John Mackey - Customers - Business - Business Ethics - American - Greed - Profits

If you stop building stars, which we never do, you wouldn't be in business.
Vince McMahon - Business - Rich - Products

Regardless of how well a studio is run, it's only as good as the product it produces.
Vince McMahon - Business - Management - Products

The motivation for war is simple. The U.S. government started the war with Iraq in order to make it easy for U.S. corporations to do business in other countries. They intend to use cheap labor in those countries, which will make Americans rich.
Michael Moore - Greed - America - War - Business - Rich - Government

In my experience, in the real-estate business past success stories are generally not applicable to new situations. We must continually reinvent ourselves, responding to changing times with innovative new business models.
Akira Mori - Real Estate - Success - Change - Innovation - Business

We intend to conduct our business in a way that not only meets but exceeds the expectations of our customers, business partners, shareholders, and creditors, as well as the communities in which we operate and society at large.
Akira Mori - Management - Business - Customers - Society - Partnership - Stocks

Today the strategies of many companies in the real estate industry are premised on low interest rates, an assumption that has resulted in the rapid expansion of the real estate securitization business. This trend could be regarded as a risk factor, as it exposes the real estate sector to at least three potential problems: first, interest rate hikes; second, revisions to securitization business accounting standards; and third, overheating in the real estate market.
Akira Mori - Growth - Real Estate - Business - Strategies - Accounting - Debt - Problems

I believe my concepts are more than just business, they are about our culture.
Minoru Mori - Management - Business - Belief - Culture

We both (He and Warren Buffett) insist on a lot of time being available almost every day to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. We read and think. So Warren and I do more reading and thinking and less doing than most people in business. We do that because we like that kind of a life.
Charlie Munger - Smart - Thinking - American - Business

You have to know accounting. It's the language of practical business life. It was a very useful thing to deliver to civilization. I've heard it came to civilization through Venice which of course was once the great commercial power in the Mediterranean. However, double entry bookkeeping was a hell of an invention.
Charlie Munger - Accounting - Business - Power

Good journalism is good business practice; good business supports great journalism.
Lachlan Murdoch - Journalism - Good - Business - Support

The industry is littered with self-styled purists who believe the business of media.. the requirement to make a profit.. somehow corrupts the craft.
Lachlan Murdoch - Business - Media - Belief - Profits

I have been privileged to grow up retaining the love of good journalism, the craft, while learning its business: the dollars and cents. I have learnt that they are not mutually exclusive but integrally self-reliant. Each dependent on the other.
Lachlan Murdoch - Journalism - Business - Media - Profits - Money - Learning

We're starting with our own carbon footprint. Not nothing. But much of what we're doing is already, or soon will be, little more than the standard way of doing business. We can do something that's unique, different from just any other company. We can set an example, and we can reach our audiences. Our audience's carbon footprint is 10,000 times bigger than ours. That's the carbon footprint we want to conquer.
Rupert Murdoch - Carbon - Responsibility - Business - Media - Influential - Encouragement - Companies

I wasn't running toward the theater but running away from the sporting goods store. Of course now that I'm selling spaghetti sauce (with Newman's Own), I begin to understand the romance of business.. the allure of being the biggest fish in the pond and the juice you get from beating out your competitors.
Paul Newman - Career - Selling - Business - Competition

When the idea came up, (Newman's Own) I said, "Are you crazy? Stick my face on the label of salad dressing?" And then, of course, we got the whole idea of exploitation and how circular it is. Why not, really, go to the fullest length, and the silliest length, in exploiting yourself and turn the proceeds back to the community?
Paul Newman - Business - Ideas - Branding - Philanthropy

I feel that one of the best things a person can do for another is to create a job. So you do OK commercially, and then you try to make a difference of some sort.
Craig Newmark - Best - Jobs - Business

That is the true genius of America, a faith in the simple dreams of its people, the insistence on small miracles. That we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door. That we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe or hearing a sudden knock on the door. That we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will be counted-or at least, most of the time.
Barack Obama - America - Politicians - Dreams - Fear - Miracles - Thinking - Ideas - Hope - Business

eBay's business is based on enabling someone to do business with another person, and to do that, they first have to develop some measure of trust, either in the other person or the system.
Pierre Omidyar - Technology - People - Business

When I started eBay, it was a hobby, an experiment to see if people could use the Internet to be empowered through access to an efficient market. I actually wasn't thinking about it in terms of a social impact. It was really about helping people connect around a sphere of interest so they could do business.
Pierre Omidyar - People - Internet - Business - Power

Like most business people, I want every aspect of my business to be perfect. I know that this goal is unachievable, but it is nevertheless what I strive to achieve.
Bob Parsons - Ambition - People - Business

Let’s be honest. There’s not a business anywhere that is without problems. Business is complicated and imperfect. Every business everywhere is staffed with imperfect human beings and exists by providing a product or service to other imperfect human beings.
Bob Parsons - Problems - Challenges - People - Business - Products

A friendship founded on business is a good deal better than a business founded on friendship.
John D. Rockefeller - Business - Partnership -

Business is not financial science, it's about trading.. buying and selling. It's about creating a product or service so good that people will pay for it.
Anita Roddick - Business - Finance - Selling -

For me, campaigning and good business is also about putting forward solutions, not just opposing destructive practices or human rights abuses.
Anita Roddick - Business - Philanthropy -

To be successful, you have to be able to relate to people; they have to be satisfied with your personality to be able to do business with you and to build a relationship with mutual trust.
George Ross - Success - Negotiation - Business - Partnership - Trust

If I were born again, I would still be an industrialist. I complain because it’s very hard work with no weekends, but I would still do it.
Sakip Sabanci - Work - Entrepreneurs - Business

There's no reason to be the richest man in the cemetery. You can't do any business from there.
Colonel Sanders - Business - Money - Rich - Death

We want passion for our business.. workers who can interpret and execute our mission, who want to build a career, not just take a temporary job.
Howard Schultz - Employee - Passion - Business - Career - Jobs

I don’t believe in talking about my work. I let it speak for itself. I’d rather make money than just talk about my business. People think that because I don’t talk much to the media, I am arrogant. I am not arrogant, but I do have an attitude.
Shailendra Singh - Media - Work - Money - Business - Attitude

I don’t care about awards and public image. We know the business of entertainment. We worship our work, we worship our clients and we worship profitability.
Shailendra Singh - Work - Business - Profits - Passions

Harry is my elder brother. He is the wiser one who leads Percept, he shows us the path. My job is to run it, create the relationships, and run the business as profitably as I can. Harry acquires, merges, expands he is responsible for Percept’s growth.
Shailendra Singh - Growth - Wise - Leadership - Business - Profits - Relationships

The pace at eBay was frantic and urgent. We knew that if we didn't move fast, somebody would come into the market and quash us. Participant doesn't make a lot of sense from a financial investment perspective, so it's unlikely that other people will be approaching the business in the same way. So you see less urgency; you see a thoroughness and willingness to spend extra time to get things right. Which I think is really important.
Jeff Skoll - Competition - Finance - Business - Important

Globalization has gone wrong, as it has no rules. Multinationals are almost above the law. They are so huge they are bigger than governments.
Dick Smith - Capitalism - Business - Companies

Well, you know, I was a human being before I became a businessman.
George Soros - Business -

All the things I love is what my business is all about.
Martha Stewart - Business -

The most important adage and the only adage is, the customer comes first, whatever the business, the customer comes first.
Kerry Stokes - Important - Customers - Business

Ethics or simple honesty is the building blocks upon which our whole society is based, and business is a part of our society, and it's integral to the practice of being able to conduct business, that you have a set of honest standards. And it's much easier to do business with someone when you look them in the eye and say, "This is what we're going to do," and you understand what you each mean, and you can go away and get it done.
Kerry Stokes - Business - Social - Business Ethics - Trust - Deals

The essence of a successful business is really quite simple. It is your ability to offer a product or service that people will pay for at a price sufficiently above your costs, ideally three or four or five times your cost, thereby giving you a profit that enables you to buy and to offer more products and services.
Brian Tracy - Success - Business - Products - Profits

I have made the tough decisions, always with an eye toward the bottom line. Perhaps it's time America was run like a business.
Donald Trump - Accounting - Business -

You can't know it all. No matter how smart you are, no matter how comprehensive your education, no matter how wide ranging your experience, there is simply no way to acquire all the wisdom you need to make your business thrive.
Donald Trump - Learning - Business - Knowledge

Watch, listen, and learn. You can't know it all yourself.. anyone who thinks they do is destined for mediocrity.
Donald Trump - Learning - Business -

In business, I’ve discovered that my purpose is to do my best to my utmost ability every day. That’s my standard. I learned early in my life that I had high standards.
Donald Trump - Business - Life

Every day, you'll have opportunities to take chances and to work outside your safety net. Sure, it's a lot easier to stay in your comfort zone.. in my case, business suits and real estate.. but sometimes you have to take risks. When the risks pay off, that's when you reap the biggest rewards.
Donald Trump - Business - Real Estate - Opportunity - Risk

Leaders are people who can discern the inevitable and act accordingly. When people talk about business acumen, discernment is a big part of it. It’s a bit like gut instinct, but a little more developed.
Donald Trump - Business - Leadership - Instinct

I run my operation like a family business. I sign every check, every receipt, I’m not tough, but I’m strong.
Ivana Trump - Family - Business - Strength

We are perfectionists. We are hungry to work all the time. We are entertained by every aspect of business and we never want to stop working.
Suzy Welch - Hard Work - Business - Passions

Perhaps the best place to begin with an integral approach to business is with.. oneself. In the Big Three of self, culture, and world, integral mastery starts with self. How do body and mind and spirit operate in me? How does that necessarily impact my role in the world of business? And how can I become more conscious of these already operating realities in myself and in others?
Ken Wilber - Change - Self Help - Spiritual - Business

Conscious business.. business that is conscious of inner and outer worlds.. would therefore be business that takes into account body, mind, and spirit in self, culture, and nature. Put differently, conscious business would be mindful of the way that the spectrum of consciousness operates in the Big Three worlds of self and culture and nature.
Ken Wilber - Self Help - Spiritual - Business

This is a business that thrives on competition (Casino Resorts). For 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the strip hosts the most violent competition in business in America.
Steve Wynn - Competition - Business

When all is said and done, what must be remembered is a newspaper is a business. It used to be a fabulous business that made extraordinary margins. It's now a very good business with appropriate margins.
Sam Zell - Companies - News - Business - Media - Profits

I believe that being successful means having a balance of success stories across the many areas of your life. You can't truly be considered successful in your business life if your home life is in shambles.
Zig Ziglar - Success - Business - Life - Belief

Statistics suggest that when customers complain, business owners and managers ought to get excited about it. The complaining customer represents a huge opportunity for more business.
Zig Ziglar - Business - Customers - Management - Opportunity

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