Wilson Ng: Bizdrivenlife's Favorite Quotes

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 11:16:13 GMT

Leadership Quotes:

Filed under: Quotes

Here are some of the favorite quotes on leadership and management that I come across that I would like to share. The last quote is a great case of leadership by example:

It is said that power corrupts, but actually it’s more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power. —- Brin

we have, i fear, confused power with greatness. —– Udall

we thought, because we had power, we had wisdom. —- Benet

Children have never been good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.
—– James Baldwin

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 11:15:46 GMT

Quotes on Life 1

Filed under: Quotes

Advice is Seldom Welcome; and those who need it most always want it the least … - Earl of Chesterfield

To profit from good advice requires more wisdom than to give it. - John Collins

I slept and dreamed that life was beauty.
I woke and found that life was duty;
Was my dream, then a shadowy lie?
Toil on, sad heart, courageously,
And thou sahlt find thy dream shall be
A noonday light and truth to thee. - Ellen Hooper

For , dear me, why abadon a belief
Merely because it ceases to be true?
cling to it long enough, and not a doubt
It will turn true again, for so it goes. - Robert Frost

One person with a belief is equal to a force of 99 who only have interests. - John Stuart Mill

Fri, 20 Jan 2006 11:15:14 GMT

Quotes on Life 1

Advice is Seldom Welcome; and those who need it most always want it the least … - Earl of Chesterfield

To profit from good advice requires more wisdom than to give it. - John Collins

For , dear me, why abadon a belief
Merely because it ceases to be true?
cling to it long enough, and not a doubt
It will turn true again, for so it goes. - Robert Frost

One person with a belief is equal to a force of 99 who only have interests. - John Stuart Mill

Fri, 13 Jan 2006 22:11:57 GMT

Only a Better Way

I just thought this is a great quote. It comes from a Rolex watch commercial:

History is written by those who realize there’s never a right way. ONLY a BETTER Way.

Here’s a quote that reinforces the lesson of knowing what happened:

Every manager knows how to count, but smart manager knows what counts.

Points to Ponder 8

Sun, 06 Nov 2005 23:34:45 GMT

The only question with wealth is, what do you do with it. - John D. Rockefeller

“Failures are not something to be avoided. You want to hvae them happen as quickly as you can so you can progress rapidly. ” - Gordon Moore, Chairman of Intel

“Overnight success takes 7 years”. - Dot com Lesson

“We don’t get paid for working with our feet - we get paid for working with our heads. Any man on the selling force today could make two dollars where he now makes one, if hewould but think along the right lines. ‘I didn’t think’ has cost the world millions of dollars.” - TJ Watson Sr., IBM founder, 1940

“We don’t buy growth, we grow what we buy“, Jeff Immelt, CEO, General Electric

Points to Ponder 7

Sun, 06 Nov 2005 23:34:08 GMT

The best present a man can give a woman is undivided attention. - Usher

Men fall in love with their eyes. Women fall in love with their ears. - Dr. Phil McGraw

Year after year, cookbooks and dietbooks are the biggest sellers - how not to eat it once you’ve learned how to cook it. - Andy Rooney

Old Age is always fifteen years older than I am. - B. Baruch

Wed, 12 Oct 2005 14:52:12 GMT

To Be… or Not to Be…

Carlos A. Urbizo illustrates the paradox of life — do you want to be in the limelight, or do you want to be in the background - “Stoop and you’ll be stepped on; stand tall and you’ll be shot at.”

Charles Caleb Colton has another outlook . “There are two modes of establishing our reputation: to be praised by honest men, and to be abused by rogues. It is best, however, to secure the former, because it will invariably be accompanied by the latter.” (more…)

Sun, 09 Oct 2005 15:04:59 GMT

Moving Bizdrivenlife

I am now updating and moving to the new bizdrivenlife site here.

I will still maintain this site as a mirror site for some days and weeks, but most of my new posts will be at the new site. In the next few days, I will also transfer the www.bizdrivenlife.net so that if you are using this as your marker, you will be redirected there.

If you are using my feedburner RSS to download my posts, which is as follows:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/ReflectionsOfABusiness-drivenLife, then I have redirected it to download from the new site, so you don't need to do anything. However, if you are not downloading anything new, pls. go to my new site, and subscribe to the Feedburner RSS on the upper left corner of the blog.

I hope that by moving my blog into WordPress, I can be more flexible, and it will be easier for you to search, locate the information you want, as well as notice the better organization of the new site.

The same 8 subcategories will still be there, and I have taken also the liberty of transferring some of the top posts the last few weeks there. My selected writings for the last one year is also there.

I am hoping with this new setup, I will be able to more easily communicate with you, and scale even better heights.

As usual, thank you for your support, and your comments are always welcome.

Mon, 11 Jul 2005 12:30:36 GMT

Points to Ponder 6 (on quotes)

I do feel that at the end, God put into all of us the ability to discern right and wrong, and conscience, rightly cultivated can be our guide to life. Thus, Abraham Lincoln says it well when he says, ' When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion.'

Here are 2 great quotes on how badly people don't want to think. From Don Marquis, ' If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you.' This is a great insight when you are really managing people who just want to coast through life -- the ones that just wants to feel good instead of accomplishing good. And a similar quote that expresses the same opinion, this time from Bertrand Russell, ' Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so.' I love to think, and cannot imagine that some people hate it....Maybe we are just different people -- some people also love rock music the way I try to avoid it, or takes easily to excelling in sports, when i do have problems even just being good in some of them.

Here's a perceptive observation on how to really know what other people think of you.... 'To obtain a man's opinion of you, make him mad.'... Oliver Wendell Holmes. And finally a gem from the playright, George Bernard Shaw, ' The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.'

Wed, 22 Jun 2005 14:00:14 GMT

Points to Ponder 5 (on quotes)

IF....... It is one of the great words of the English language and one that is full of philsophical meanings. I looked over my collection, and find out that there are many good quotes I can share:

If it doesn't make sense, it doesn't make cents. -- a great quote that says that a business model is important.

If it sounds too good to be true it probably is -- a quote that warns you that sometimes you have to be wary about the 'fine' print.

If u have something to complain, then do you have something to suggest. -- great quote. Don't just say what is wrong, tell us how to make it right!

If u waut happiness --for an hour-take a nap; for a day-go fishing; for a month-get married; for a year-inherit a fortune; for a lifetime-help someone else. An olld chinese proverb that might be truer than it sounds, and a great guide to life. It reminds us that only if we find meaning in life by helping somebody will the happiness endure.

If you are going through hell keep going. by Winston churchill

If you can distinguish between good and bad advice then you don't need advice. by Bruce van roy.

If you try to steal the giants lunch, the giant is likely to eat you for lunch... From Seth Godins' Book The Bootstrapper's Bible, which advises to be careful when competing with companies that are bigger, richer, and have more rich than you.

Similar Posts: Points to Ponder 4 Points to Ponder 3 Points to Ponder 2 Points to Ponder

Sat, 18 Jun 2005 08:48:56 GMT

Points to Ponder 4 (on quotes)

My main quote this post comes from a great leader, Colin Powell. 'Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off.'

'Good leadership involves responsibility to the welfare of the group, which means that some people will get angry at your actions and decisions. It's inevitable, if you're honorable. Trying to get everyone to like you is a sign of mediocrity: you'll avoid the tough decisions, you'll avoid confronting the people who need to be confronted, and you'll avoid offering differential rewards based on differential performance because some people might get upset. Ironically, by procrastinating on the difficult choices, by trying not to get anyone mad, and by treating everyone equally nicely regardless of their contributions, you'll simply ensure that the only people you'll wind up angering are the most creative and productive people in the organization. '

Here is an equally tough leader, Harry Figgie, Jr., who states it in a more colorful words on the necessity of being tough--'You don't build a company like this with lace on your underwear,"

But of course, it is always good to always second think some of your conclusions, and always be willing to be corrected. Here is a gem from philosopher, Bertrand Russell, 'I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.'

I conclude it with one of my favorite quotes of all time, though I don't quite remember who said it, ' All generalizations are wrong, including this one.'

Sat, 28 May 2005 09:44:01 GMT

Points to Ponder 3 ( on quotes)

Here are some more of my musings as I read some quotations.

I have just got some comments from well meaning people who think I have been too stingy and frugal. Maybe too conservative in managing my company. As budding entrepreneurs, especially if you are a startup, you should wear your stinginess ( as long as it is not in being stingy in rewarding and paying people) as a badge of honor. If you are trying to buy great cars, or decorate your office lavishly when you are still in the growth phase, you might be doing your company irreparable harm early which it will be hard to recover. Confucius advised us over 2 thousand years ago, " He who will not economize will have to agonize."

Of course, the flipside of being advised, or criticized is to be flattered, and I also hear a lot of that. It is always important to remember, as Josh Billings said, that you should "treat flattery like cologne -- to be smelled, but not to be swallowed. "

And when criticized, you tended to be defensive, and is itching for an argument, remember Euripedes advice: "Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish."

And when we complained how we, as parents who have endured hardship, and that our children don't appreciate the value of money, here is Katharine Whitehorn's take, "The easiest way for your children to learn about money is for you not to have any."

From a parent, and a businessman, it would be good to learn what comes first -- and when we think of how many business people spent thousands of hours accumulating wealth only to be lost by their children who does not appreciate its value, it might makes sense that before you start to earn what you want to give to your children, teach them the proper skills to retain that money first.

Mon, 23 May 2005 11:54:50 GMT

Points to Ponder 2 ( on quotes)

Dr. Robert Schuller gives us another gem which gives us a better understanding on the person we really are when you ask this question to yourself . "What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?"

The Greek Philosopher, Aristotle, gives us another food for thought, which actually is pretty obvious and common sensical... "For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them."

Sydney Smith , an English clergyman of the 19th century, understands only too well what forms habits and opinions -- "Never try to reason the prejudice out of a man. It was not reasoned into him, and cannot be reasoned out."

And as entrepreneurs, as those who did everything to grow the company, including deliver the goods, collect the money, and sweep the floor, we are often overwhelmed when we finally grow big enough to meet the experts and the business elite. Here is one great advice, though I had failed to note who said it, "Don't be buffaloed by experts and elites. Experts often possess more data than judgment. Elites can become so inbred that they produce hemophiliacs who bleed to death as soon as they are nicked by the real world."

Wed, 18 May 2005 07:30:41 GMT

Points to Ponder 1 ( on quotes)

I've decided not only to put in my favorite business quotes, but to write it in such a way that I put in also my own.

This morning, I was thinking, "what if one of the better ways to know how your employees think about money is to put a 5 cent coin near the lobby and see how many would bother to pick it up? ". I am thinking on how your employee views money could give you a good clue on how to help them succeed in life.

I have been thinking on where I want to expand the market for my products, and this quote of Claude Bastiat is something that gives food for thought, "....that it is better to endure competition for rich customers than to be invested with monopoly over impoverished customers. ". This is advice given in the 19th century. Would you think it is still true?

Here is another quote from famous coach, Lombardi, that support my posting on being tough, "let me tell you what winning means - you're willing to go longer, work harder , and give more than anyone else."

And here is the greatest advice from Hubbard on how to multiply your money, " The safest way to double your money is to fold it over an dput it in your pocket. " In short, save it, I think. This coincides with the advice of Benjamin Franklin, "The Road to Wealth is as plain as the way to market. Waste neither time nor money ... ". After all , you increase your money by the difference of what comes in, and what goes out...

Wed, 04 May 2005 02:34:42 GMT

Quotes to Live By ( my favorite quotes)

What matters is not ideas, but the people who have them. Good people can fix bad ideas, but good ideas can't save bad people .......................... Paul Graham

Do not go silently into that good night, Rage, rage against the dying of the light ........ Dylan Thomas

Insurmountable is a word we ripped out of the dictionary years ago. At EDS, we love a challenge and the bigger it is, the more we dig in until its solved. Its what makes us who we are. Each day over 120,000 EDS employees go to work, roll up their sleeves and do whatever it takes to make sure our clients are well served. Each day they bring with them a tenacious can do spirit and an uncompromising commitment to service. Each day they're the reason we've never faced a challenge we haven't been able to rise above... EDS. Manpower. Brainpower. Willpower.....................EDS advertisement

The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they're too heavy to be broken...... Bertrand Russell.

A nation which indulges in pretty dresses, nice food, physical enjoyment and expensive fashions can never succeed in establishing a strong nation..... Gen Masaharu Homma, Japanese conquerer of manila and bataan 1942

Wed, 20 Apr 2005 07:21:53 GMT

The Duties of the Writer and the Types of Readers ( my favorite quotes)

I did not write this, but thought that these writings are eloquent pieces that is worthy food for thought.

A Writers Conviction

A writer must declare and praise man's proven capacityfor greatness of heart and spirit -- for bravery in defeat, for courage, forgiveness, and love. I believe that a writer who does not passionately believe in man's ability to improve himself has no devotion for, nor any membership in, literature ......... John Steinbeck.

The Writers Duty

I believe that man will not merely endure; he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice, and endurance. The poet's , the writer's duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail....William Faulkner.

Types of Readers

Readers must be divided into four classes:

1. Sponges, who absorb all they read and return it nearly in the same state , only a little dirtied.

2. Sand glasses, who retain nothing and are content to get thorugh a book for the sake of getting through the time.

3. Strain bags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read.

4. Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by what they read, and enable others to profit by it also.....Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Tue, 19 Apr 2005 13:25:22 GMT

Great Slogans ( my favorite quotes)

I found these on ads from Businessweek. Sometimes the best quotes comes from a business vision which effectively encapsulates what the company does, and why it is important.

- You are what you hire. When it comes to being successful, you understand good people equals good business. And when you have the wrong people onboard, your company will most likely suffer. From morale to the bottom line, its just bad business ............MRI International

-There comes a time when execution is more important than theory...........Accenture

-Turn goods into good deeds........ Gifts in Kind

- We develop leaders who develop people who develop business.........Insead

-Success comes to those with the foresight to upgrade before the competition catches up..........National University of Singapore

Consider it solved...... Emerson

My company's slogan for over 10 years is "Translating Technology to Business Strength". While I am in the IT business, I wanted management people and customers to know that our value proposition is not that we are the best in technology, but we are best in helping the business succeed with technology.

Do you have great slogans you want to share?

Tue, 26 Oct 2004 00:22:36 GMT

The Price of an Olympic Gold Medal ( quote)

"I started to learn diving at five and a half. For the last 16 years i have been training on how to perfect a dive that lasts one second. "

- 2004 Chinese 10 Meter Platform Dive Olympic Gold Medalist Ho Chya

Speed of Decision Making

Fri, 22 Oct 2004 09:56:45 GMT

Speed of Decision Making ( quotes )

This is an Excerpt from a book called Future of the Enterprise by Sayling Wen, who was a well known Taiwanese industrialist and philanthropist. His book was published by Asia Pac Publication, and sorry, could not find it in Amazon. He talks about the importance of the speed in decision making.

"I always request that all decisions, major as well as minor, be made within one hour. The decisions on whether something can be done, and whether or not we want to do it, are to be made within one hour. This is the policy of present-day enterprise management because in this high speed age, while the cost of an erroneous decision might just be to rectify the error, the cost of a slow decision could well be death."

Quotes on the Living of Life

Thu, 21 Oct 2004 04:51:24 GMT

Quotes on the Living of Life ( quotes)

Last week, I joined a forum in Ecademy, which is called the Intellectualize Club. People from different nations and cultures assemble in this online community and talk about the great books, and the living of life. Here are some of the great quotes I was able to collect.

If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't. - Lyall Watson

Get Real. If all it takes is an angry stranger to ruin your day, what are you going to do if something really serious happens? Why give someone else control of your life like that?" - Jeffrey Gitomer

Inside yourself or outside, you never have to change what you see, only the way you see it. -- Thaddeus Golas

The result is not the point. It is the effort to improve ourselves that is valuable. There is no end to this practice. -- Shnuryu SuzukiI have learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances." -- Martha Washington

"Take heed: you do not find what you do not seek." -- English Proverb

"The more positive you are when you think and work toward your goals, the faster you achieve them." - Brian Tracy

"If you approach life with a sense of possibility and the expectation of positive results, you're more likely to have a life in which possibilities are realized and results are positive." - Lisa Funderburg

A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the "why" for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any "how." -- Victor Frankl

We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it. -- George Bernard Shaw, Candida, 1898

If you observe a really happy man you will find him building a boat, writing a symphony, educating his son, growing double dahlias in his garden, or looking for dinosaur eggs in the Gobi desert. He will not be searching for happiness as if it were a collar button that has rolled under the radiator. He will not be striving for it as a goal in itself. He will have become aware that he is happy in the course of living life twenty-four crowded hours of the day. ~W. Beran Wolfe

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life. ~Albert Camus

Every kind of peaceful cooperation among men is primarily based on mutual trust and only secondarily on institutions such as courts of justice and police." - Albert Einstein

"A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing." -- Oscar Wilde.

"For every person who climbs the ladder of success, there are adozen waiting for the elevator. " -- K Griffith

Sun, 10 Oct 2004 10:08:20 GMT

From the Prologue of Bill Clinton's book, My Life ( quotes)

My life in politics was a joy. I loved campaigns, and I loved governing, I always tried to keep things moving in the right direction, to give more people a chance to live their dreams, to lift people's spirits, and to bring them together. That's the way I keep score ....

Thu, 30 Sep 2004 02:13:10 GMT

Leadership Quotes: (quotes)

Here are some of the favorite quotes on leadership and management that I come across that I would like to share. The last quote is a great case of leadership by example:

It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power. ---- Brin

we have, i fear, confused power with greatness. ----- Udall

we thought, because we had power, we had wisdom. ---- Benet

Children have never been good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.

----- James Baldwin

Mon, 20 Sep 2004 13:33:58 GMT

I just chanced through a great site called The Quotations Page and come across 3 great quotes by Mary Pettibone Poole:

- He who laughs, lasts!

- People who are always making allowances for themselves soon go backrupt.

- To repeat what others have said, requires education; to challenge it, requires brains.

Wed, 25 Aug 2004 14:34:57 GMT

Right and Wrong Errors in Life

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. Shaw

Men must be decided on what they will not do, and then they are able to act with vigor in what they ought to do. Mencius

Give me a fruitful error anytime, full of seeds, bursting with its own corrections. Pareto

If I had to live again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner. Bankhead

It's discouraging to make a mistake, but it's humiliating when you find out you're so unimportant that noody noticed it. Daly

Tue, 24 Aug 2004 09:46:33 GMT

On Life:

-The greatest good you can do for one is not to share your riches but to help them discover their own. Benjamin Disraeli

-Life is my college. May i graduate well and earn some honors! Alcott. L

On Knowledge:

-The great aim of education is not knowledge but action . Spencer

-Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self confidence. Frost

-Educations purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one. Forbes

-Education has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading

-I would live to teach and not teach to live....

-The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. Ward

to teach is to learn twice.. Joubert

-Who dares to teach must never cease to learn . Dana. John

-His ignorance is encyclopedic. Eban

- I not only use all the brains that i have, but all that i can borrow. Wilson T