The Quotation Index

“No loss should hit us which can be avoided with constant care.”

A.P. Møller · Letter to his son Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller, 1946 · Primary source

“Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”

Bill Gates · The Road Ahead, 1995 · Primary source

“I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.”

Steve Jobs · Smithsonian Oral and Video Histories: Steve Jobs, 1995 · Primary source

“Focused, hard work is the real key to success. Keep your eyes on the goal, and just keep taking the next step towards completing it. If you aren’t sure which way to do something, do it both ways and see which works better.”

John Carmack · Re: Definitions of terms, 2002 · Primary source

“How did you go bankrupt? Two ways, gradually and then suddenly.”

Ernest Hemingway · The Sun Also Rises, 1926 · Primary source

“The axiom that you learn more from your failures than your successes is trite but absolutely true.”

Bill Gates · Source Code, 2025 · Primary source

“Remember too that your time is your one finite resource, and when you say yes to one thing you are inevitably saying no to another.”

Andrew S. Grove · High Output Management, 1983 · Primary source

“Killer applications change technological advances from curiosities into moneymaking essentials.”

Bill Gates · The Road Ahead, 1995 · Primary source

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”

Bill Gates · Business @ the Speed of Thought, 1999 · Primary source

“One of the things that happens in organizations as well as with people is that they settle into ways of looking at the world and become satisfied with things and the world changes and keeps evolving and new potential arises but these people who are settled in don’t see it. That’s what gives start-up companies their greatest advantage.”

Steve Jobs · Smithsonian Oral and Video Histories: Steve Jobs, 1995 · Primary source

“Constant care from everyone, in matters great and small and always, is a necessary condition for the company’s success.”

A.P. Møller · Letter to Lindø Shipyard Management, 1964 · Primary source

“In this business, by the time you realize you’re in trouble, it’s too late to save yourself. Unless you’re running scared all the time, you’re gone.”

Bill Gates · Playboy Interview: Bill Gates, 1994 · Primary source

“Any company that stays the same will be passed by very quickly.”

Bill Gates · Smithsonian Interview: Bill Gates, 1993 · Primary source

“The absolute truth is that if you don’t know what you want, you won’t get it.”

Andrew S. Grove · High Output Management, 1983 · Primary source

“The great defect of scale, of course, which makes the game interesting, so that the big people don’t always win—is that as you get big, you get the bureaucracy.”

Charlie Munger · Poor Charlie’s Almanack, 2005 · Primary source

“Because people are very careful with the secrets of their own business doesn’t mean that they’ll be careful with the secrets of yours.”

Ian Fleming · Octopussy and The Living Daylights, 1966 · Primary source

“It’s never too early to start winning.”

Ian Fleming · Goldfinger, 1959 · Primary source

“Stressing output is the key to improving productivity, while looking to increase activity can result in just the opposite.”

Andrew S. Grove · High Output Management, 1983 · Primary source

“The person who is the star of a previous era is often the last one to adapt to change.”

Andrew S. Grove · Only the Paranoid Survive, 1996 · Primary source

“There’s a simple rule: fish where the fish are.”

Charlie Munger · Daily Journal Corporation Annual Meeting, 2020 · Primary source

“The type of person who comes up with the brilliant idea isn’t often the best person to turn it into a business.”

Bill Gates · Source Code, 2025 · Primary source

“A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.”

Ayn Rand · The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z, 1986 · Primary source

“Above all, I did not allow anything to be done which I did not myself understand. It worked!”

Tony Hoare · The Emperor’s Old Clothes, 1981 · Primary source

“If the 1980s were about quality 1990s were about reengineering, then the 2000s will be about velocity. About how quickly the nature of business will change. About how quickly business itself will be transacted.”

Bill Gates · Business @ the Speed of Thought, 1999 · Primary source

“Delegation without follow-through is abdication. You can never wash your hands of a task.”

Andrew S. Grove · High Output Management, 1983 · Primary source

“Remember that by saying yes—to projects, a course of action, or whatever—you are implicitiy saying no to something else. Each time you make a commitment, you forfeit your chance to commit to something else.”

Andrew S. Grove · High Output Management, 1983 · Primary source

“Business success contains the seeds of its own destruction. The more successful you are, the more people want a chunk of your business and then another chunk and then another until there is nothing left. I believe that the prime responsibility of a manager is to guard constantly against other people’s attacks and to inculcate this guardian attitude in the people under his or her management.”

Andrew S. Grove · High Output Management, 1983 · Primary source

“There is always room for a man of force, and he makes room for many.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Power, 1860 · Primary source

“Starting out behind is sometimes an advantage. It lets those who adopt late skip steps, and avoid the mistakes of the trailblazers.”

Bill Gates · The Road Ahead, 1995 · Primary source

“If you want to change behaviors, you have to change motivations.”

Charlie Munger · Poor Charlie’s Almanack, 2005 · Primary source

“Our game is recognize a big idea when it comes along, when one doesn’t come along very often. Opportunity comes to the prepared mind.”

Charlie Munger · Poor Charlie’s Almanack, 2005 · Primary source

“The old order won’t give way to the new without a phase of experimentation and chaos in between.”

Andrew S. Grove · High Output Management, 1983 · Primary source

“If you’re wrong, you will die. But most companies don’t die because they are wrong; most die because they don’t commit themselves. They fritter away their momentum and their valuable resources while attempting to make a decision. The greatest danger is in standing still.”

Andrew S. Grove · Only the Paranoid Survive, 1996 · Primary source

“It was the mistakes one made at the beginning of a case that were the worst. They were the irretrievable ones, the ones that got you off on the wrong foot, that gave the enemy the first game.”

Ian Fleming · Dr. No, 1958 · Primary source

“If a man has failed, you will find he has dreamed instead of working. There is no way to success in our art, but to take off your coat, grind paint, and work like a digger on the railroad, all day and every day.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Power, 1860 · Primary source

“Necessity never made a good bargain.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”

Steve Jobs · Stanford Commencement Address, 2005 · Primary source

“The sad news is, nobody owes you a career. Your career is literally your business.”

Andrew S. Grove · Only the Paranoid Survive, 1996 · Primary source

“If I think something’s a waste of time or inappropriate I don’t wait to point it out. I say it right away. It’s real time. So you might hear me say That’s the dumbest idea I have ever heard many times during a meeting”

Bill Gates · No reliable source

“A company’s ability to respond to unplanned events, good or bad, is a prime indicator of its ability to compete.”

Bill Gates · Business @ the Speed of Thought, 1999 · Primary source

“In business we often find that the winning system goes almost ridiculously far in maximizing and/or minimizing one or a few variables—like the discount warehourses of Costco.”

Charlie Munger · Poor Charlie’s Almanack, 2005 · Primary source

“You had to trust the people you worked with completely or not at all, and you had to make decisions about the trusting.”

Ernest Hemingway · For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1940 · Primary source

“Trying to minimize taxes too much is one of the great standard causes of really dumb mistakes.”

Charlie Munger · Poor Charlie’s Almanack, 2005 · Primary source

“Strategically a major function of the CEO is to look for bad news and courage the organization to respond to it. Employees must be encouraged to share bad news as much as good news.”

Bill Gates · Business @ the Speed of Thought, 1999 · Primary source

“He that builds before he counts the cost, acts foolishly; and he that counts before he builds, finds he did not count wisely.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“You ought to dream. All our biggest business men have been dreamers.”

Ernest Hemingway · The Sun Also Rises, 1926 · Primary source

“Commerce is a game of skill, which every man cannot play, which few men can play well. The right merchant is one who has the just average of faculties we call common sense; a man of a strong affinity for facts, who makes up his decision on what he has seen. He is thoroughly persuaded of the truths of arithmetic.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Wealth, 1860 · Primary source

“Here I’d like to introduce the concept of leverage, which is the output generated by a specific type of work activity. An activity with high leverage will generate a high level of output; an activity with low leverage, a low level of output.”

Andrew S. Grove · High Output Management, 1983 · Primary source

“I don’t play in a game where the other people are wise and I’m stupid. I look for a place where I’m wise and they’re stupid.”

Charlie Munger · Daily Journal Corporation Annual Meeting, 2020 · Primary source

“Fear should guide you, but it should be latent.”

Bill Gates · Playboy Interview: Bill Gates, 1994 · Primary source

“I want every product plan to try and go overboard on Internet features.”

Bill Gates · The Internet Tidal Wave, 1995 · Primary source

“If you always tell people why, they’ll understand it better, they’ll consider it more important, and they’ll be more likely to comply. Even if they don’t understand your reason, they’ll be more likely to comply.”

Charlie Munger · Poor Charlie’s Almanack, 2005 · Primary source

“The most important speed issue is often not technical but cultural. It’s convincing everyone that the company’s survival depends on everyone moving as fast as possible.”

Bill Gates · Business @ the Speed of Thought, 1999 · Primary source

“In the end self-confidence mostly comes from a gut-level realization that nobody has ever died from making a wrong business decision, or taking inappropriate action, or being overruled. And everyone in your operation should be made to understand this.”

Andrew S. Grove · High Output Management, 1983 · Primary source

“Of my mental cycles, I devote maybe ten percent to business thinking. Business isn’t that complicated. I wouldn’t want to put it on my business card.”

Bill Gates · Playboy Interview: Bill Gates, 1994 · Primary source

“You’re much more likely to do well if you start out to do something feasible instead of something that isn’t feasible. Isn’t that perfectly obvious?”

Charlie Munger · Poor Charlie’s Almanack, 2005 · Primary source

“The way to win is to work, work, work, work and hope to have a few insights. And you’re probably not going to be smart enough to find thousands in a lifetime. And when you get a few, you really load up. It’s just that simple.”

Charlie Munger · Poor Charlie’s Almanack, 2005 · Primary source

“The difference between a good software person and a great software person is fifty to one, twenty-five to fifty to one, huge dynamic range.”

Steve Jobs · Smithsonian Oral and Video Histories: Steve Jobs, 1995 · Primary source

“Hedging is expensive and dilutes commitment.”

Andrew S. Grove · Only the Paranoid Survive, 1996 · Primary source

“Strategic change doesn’t just start at the top. It starts with your calendar.”

Andrew S. Grove · Only the Paranoid Survive, 1996 · Primary source

“Concentration is the secret of strength in politics, in war, in trade, in short, in all management of human affairs.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Power, 1860 · Primary source

“Embrace bad news to learn where you need the most improvement.”

Bill Gates · Business @ the Speed of Thought, 1999 · Primary source

“Our hiring was always focused on people right out of school. We had a few key hires like Charles Simonyi who came in with experience. But most of our developers, we decided that we wanted them to come with clear minds, not polluted by some other approach, to learn the way that we liked to develop software, and to put the kind of energy into it that we thought was key.”

Bill Gates · Smithsonian Interview: Bill Gates, 1993 · Primary source

“Choose clients as you would friends.”

Charlie Munger · Poor Charlie’s Almanack, 2005 · Primary source

“The eye of a master, will do more work than his hand.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Our experience tends to confirm a long-held notion that being prepared, on a few occasions in a lifetime, to act promptly in scale, in doing some simple and logical thing, will often dramatically improve the financial results of that lifetime.”

Charlie Munger · Poor Charlie’s Almanack, 2005 · Primary source

“The old saying has it that when we promote our best salesman and make him a manager, we ruin a good salesman and get a bad manager. But if we think about it, we see we have no choice but to promote the good salesman. Should our worst salesman get the job? When we promote our best, we are saying to our subordinates that performance is what counts.”

Andrew S. Grove · High Output Management, 1983 · Primary source

“Drive thy business, or it will drive thee.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“The right investment is in tools of your trade.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Wealth, 1860 · Primary source

“Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome.”

Charlie Munger · No reliable source

“For many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.”

Vilfredo Pareto · No reliable source

“Money is a tool to be put to work.”

A.P. Møller · No reliable source

“The key to the competition in operating systems was getting lots of applications.”

Bill Gates · Smithsonian Interview: Bill Gates, 1993 · Primary source

“Beware of little expenses, a small leak will sink a great ship.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“So you have to figure out what your own aptitudes are. If you play games where other people have the aptitudes and you don’t, you’re going to lose. And that’s as close to certain as any prediction you can make. You have to figure out where you’ve got an edge. And you’ve got to play within your own circle of competence.”

Charlie Munger · Poor Charlie’s Almanack, 2005 · Primary source

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.”

Steve Jobs · Stanford Commencement Address, 2005 · Primary source

“People often overestimate what will happen in the next two years and underestimate what will happen in ten.”

Bill Gates · The Road Ahead, 1995 · Primary source

“Remember that Time is Money.”

Benjamin Franklin · Advice to a Young Tradesman, 1748 · Primary source

“A fundamental rule in technology says that whatever can be done will be done.”

Andrew S. Grove · Only the Paranoid Survive, 1996 · Primary source

“Creditors have better memories than debtors.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“The maxim Nothing avails but perfection may be spelt shorter: Paralysis.”

Winston Churchill · The Second World War, 1948-1953 · Primary source

“There’s an old saying that victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan.”

John F. Kennedy · Kennedy’s Bay of Pigs News Conference, 1961 · Primary source

“Great estates may venture more; little boats must keep near shore.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“I don’t intend to build in order to have clients. I intend to have clients in order to build.”

Ayn Rand · The Fountainhead, 1943 · Primary source

“Preparation, I have often said, is rightly two-thirds of any venture.”

Amelia Earhart · Last Flight, 1937 · Primary source

“Don’t think to hunt two hares with one dog.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Good luck is another name for tenacity of purpose.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Wealth, 1860 · Primary source

“For want of a nail the shoe is lost; for want of a shoe, the horse is lost; for want of a horse the rider is lost.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“I find it quite useful to think of a free market economy—partly free market economy—as sort of the equivalent of an ecosystem. Just as animals flourish in niches, people who specialize in some narrow niche can do very well.”

Charlie Munger · Poor Charlie’s Almanack, 2005 · Primary source

“He was a secret agent, and still alive thanks to his exact attention to the detail of his profession.”

Ian Fleming · Casino Royale, 1953 · Primary source

“Sometimes life’s gonna hit you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.”

Steve Jobs · Stanford Commencement Address, 2005 · Primary source

“Time enough always proves little enough.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“A PC on every desk and in every home.”

Bill Gates · Smithsonian Interview: Bill Gates, 1993 · Primary source

“Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to gain leisure.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Technical people love to discuss technical problems with technical people who might have an opinion or a suggestion that could be useful.”

Richard Feynman · What Do You Care What Other People Think?, 1986 · Primary source

“The creditors are a superstitious sect, great observers of set days and times.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“A little integrity is better than any career.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Behavior, 1841 · Primary source

“The cat in gloves catches no mice.”

Benjamin Franklin · The Way to Wealth, 1758 · Primary source

“At Harvard Business School, the great quantitative thing that bonds the first-year class together is what they call decision tree theory. All they do is take high school algebra and apply it to real-life problems. And the students love it. They’re amazed to find that high school algebra works in life.”

Charlie Munger · Poor Charlie’s Almanack, 2005 · Primary source

“I call it my billion-dollar mistake. It was the invention of the null reference in 1965.”

Tony Hoare · Null References: The Billion Dollar Mistake, 2009 · Primary source

“Never leave till tomorrow what you can do today.”

Benjamin Franklin · The Way to Wealth, 1758 · Primary source

“There is neither honor nor gain got in dealing with a villian.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.”

Thomas Edison · Professor gets Many Autographs: Edison, Other Great Men Respond, 1932 · Secondary source

“Take a simple idea and take it seriously.”

Charlie Munger · Poor Charlie’s Almanack, 2005 · Primary source

“You don’t need to take the last dollar.”

Charlie Munger · Poor Charlie’s Almanack, 2005 · Primary source

“The Braun design department was always involved in self-initiated design studies alongside the usual daily workload. I believe that it is very important for designers to have the creative space to develop and refine their own ideas. Most of our studies never went into production—for various reasons—but they often gave important impulses to product development and our regular design work.”

Dieter Rams · Less but better, 1995 · Primary source

“If you have time don’t wait for time.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Altogether too often, people substitute opinions for facts and emotions for analysis.”

Andrew S. Grove · Only the Paranoid Survive, 1996 · Primary source

“’Tis easier to build two chimneys, than maintain one in fuel.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“The Internet is the most important single development to come along since the IBM PC was introduced in 1981.”

Bill Gates · The Internet Tidal Wave, 1995 · Primary source

“All successful men have agreed in one thing—they were causationists.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Power, 1860 · Primary source

“If you have competence, you pretty much know its boundaries already. To ask the question [of whether you are past the boundary] is to answer it.”

Charlie Munger · Poor Charlie’s Almanack, 2005 · Primary source

“An egg today is better than a hen tomorrow.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Haste makes waste.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“The secret of success lies never in the amount of money, but in the relation of income to outgo; as if, after expense has been fixed at a certain point, then new and steady rills of income, though never so small, being added, wealth begins.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Wealth, 1860 · Primary source

“Have you something to do tomorrow; do it today.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Best use of money is to pay debts.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · Wealth, 1860 · Primary source

“Well done is twice done.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“If you fail at the large things it means you have not large ambitions. Concentration, focus—that is all. The aptitudes come, the tools forge themselves. ‘Give me a fulcrum and I will move the world’—but only if the desire to move the world is there.”

Ian Fleming · Dr. No, 1958 · Primary source

“Bond didn’t defend the practice. He simply maintained that the more effort and ingenuity you put into gambling, the more you took out.”

Ian Fleming · Casino Royale, 1953 · Primary source

“The Internet is a tidal wave. It changes the rules. It is an incredible opportunity as well as incredible challenge.”

Bill Gates · The Internet Tidal Wave, 1995 · Primary source

“Although he had not got to bed until two, Bond walked into his headquarters punctually at ten the next morning.”

Ian Fleming · Moonraker, 1955 · Primary source

“He that riseth late, must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business by night.”

Benjamin Franklin · Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1732-1758 · Primary source

“Having the ability also means accepting the duty”

A.P. Møller · No reliable source

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

Thomas Edison · No reliable source

“Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson · No reliable source

“The most effective way to do it is to do it.”

Amelia Earhart · No reliable source

“In technology, whatever can be done will be done.”

Andrew S. Grove · Only the Paranoid Survive, 1996 · Primary source

David: “What do you read?”, Gates: “The Economist, every page. Also The Wall Street Journal and Business Week. And I read Time. If I’m traveling, every once in a while I’ll pick up an issue of People. I read USA Today.”

Bill Gates · Playboy Interview: Bill Gates, 1994 · Primary source

“Who can afford to do professional work for nothing?”

Bill Gates · An Open Letter to Hobbyists, 1976 · Primary source

“The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.”

Benjamin Franklin · No reliable source

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