Quotes about business (3422 quotes, page 16)

“There were other Batman writers throughout the years but they could never capture the style and flavor of Bill's scripts. Bill was the best writer in the business and it seemed that he was destined to write Batman".”

Bill Finger (1914–1974) American comic strip and comic book writer

About

“I think it would be much better for the country and for (Clinton) personally (to resign). I come from the business side. If you had a chairman or president in the business world facing these allegations, he'd be gone.”

Mark Sanford (1960) 115th Governor of South Carolina

On the Clinton sex scandal; reported in Robert Behre " Sanford fallout seen as severe, with long-lasting effects http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2009/jun/25/publictrust87241/", The Post and Courier (Sept. 12, 1998).

World , Thinking , Personality , Country

“You see, the religious people — most of them — really think this planet is an experiment. That’s what their beliefs come down to. Some god or other is always fixing and poking, messing around with tradesmen’s wives, giving tablets on mountains, commanding you to mutilate your children, telling people what words they can say and what words they can’t say, making people feel guilty about enjoying themselves, and like that. Why can’t the gods leave well enough alone? All this intervention speaks of incompetence. If God didn’t want Lot’s wife to look back, why didn’t he make her obedient, so she’d do what her husband told her? Or if he hadn’t made Lot such a shithead, maybe she would’ve listened to him more. If God is omnipotent and omniscient, why didn’t he start the universe out in the first place so it would come out the way he wants? Why’s he constantly repairing and complaining? No, there’s one thing the Bible makes clear: The biblical God is a sloppy manufacturer. He’s not good at design, he’s not good at execution. He’d be out of business if there was any competition.”

Carl Sagan book Contact

Source: Contact (1985), Chapter 16 (p. 285)

God , Children , People , Way

“I was workin' part-time in a 5-and-dime.
My boss was Mr. McGee, huh.
He told me several… times
That he didn't like my kind cuz I was a bit 2 leisurely.
It seems that I was busy doin' somethin' close 2 nothin',
But different than the day before
That's when I saw her, ooh, I saw her,
She walked in through the out door …out door.She wore a raspberry beret
The kind U find in a second hand store
Raspberry beret
And if it was warm she wouldn't wear much more
Raspberry beret
I think I love her.”

Prince (1958–2016) American pop, songwriter, musician and actor

Raspberry Beret
Song lyrics, Around the World in a Day (1985)

Love , Thinking , Time , Parting

“[T]he facts are that thousands of small businesses - Hispanically owned or otherwise - pay taxes at the highest marginal rate.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Speech http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=45784 to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, (March 19, 2001)
2000s, 2001

“Norway did not even have a revolution at the time the rest of Europe was busy figuring out human rights and stuff, because we were busy fighting over how to spell it.”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

Re: PART TWO: winning industrial-use of lisp: Re: Norvig's latest paper on Lisp http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/6cce7cd281ff6126 (Usenet article).
Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

Time , Fight

“We talk endlessly of the individual and of individualism, for example, when any sensible glance at major issues indicates that we live in an era of great conformism. Our societies turn upon democratic principles, yet the quasi totality of our leading citizens refuse to take part in that process and, instead, leave the exercise of political power to those for whom they have contempt. Our business leaders hector us in the name of capitalism, when most of them are no more than corporate employees, isolated from personal risk.”

John Ralston Saul (1947) Canadian author and essayist

Voltaire's Bastards (1992)

Exercises , Parting , Personality

“Tulane and Johnny opened a novelty shop
Back under the counter was the cream of the crop
Everything was clickin’ and the business was good
Till one day, lo and behold, an officer stood
Johnny jumped the counter but he stumbled and fell
But Tulane made it over Johnny just as he yelled
Go head on, Tulane, he can’t catch up with you
Go Tulane, he ain’t man enough for you
Go Tulane, use all the speed you got
Go Tulane, you know you need a lot
Go Tulane, he’s laggin’ behind
Go head on, Tulane”

Chuck Berry (1926–2017) American rock-and-roll musician

"Tulane" (1970)
Song lyrics

Speed

“There're so many young guys, you know — young Americans and, yes, young men everywhere — a whole generation of people younger than me who have grown up feeling inadequate as men because they haven't been able to fight in a war and find out whether they are brave or not. Because it is in an effort to prove this bravery that we fight — in wars or in bars — whereas if a man were truly brave he wouldn't have to be always proving it to himself. So therefore I am forced to consider bravery suspect, and ridiculous, and dangerous. Because if there are enough young men like that who feel strongly enough about it, they can almost bring on a war, even when none of them want it, and are in fact struggling against having one. (And as far as modern war is concerned I am a pacifist. Hell, it isn't even war anymore, as far as that goes. It's an industry, a big business complex.) And it's a ridiculous thing because this bravery myth is something those young men should be able to laugh at. Of course the older men like me, their big brothers, and uncles, and maybe even their fathers, we don't help them any. Even those of us who don't openly brag. Because all the time we are talking about how scared we were in the war, we are implying tacitly that we were brave enough to stay. Whereas in actual fact we stayed because we were afraid of being laughed at, or thrown in jail, or shot, as far as that goes.”

James Jones (1921–1977) American author

The Paris Review interview (1958)

Men , War , People , Guy

“There's no way I could be president of the United States, I have no; military experience, I've never run a business, for God's sakes I mean - who could possibly clear that bar? The great thing about President Obama is he's actually left the presidential bar on the floor, anyone can walk over that bar now. If Barack Obama can be President of the United States literally anybody in the planet can be President of the United States.”

Bill Whittle (1959) author, director, screenwriter, editor

Bill Whittle's speech https://vimeo.com/55934224 at the David Horowitz Freedom Center's 2012 Restoration Weekend on Nov. 15-18, 2012.
2010s

God , Way

“I am firmly opposed to the government entering into any business the major purpose of which is competition with our citizens… for the Federal Government deliberately to go out to build up and expand… a power and manufacturing business is to break down the initiative and enterprise of the American people; it is the destruction of equality of opportunity amongst our people, it is the negation of the ideals upon which our civilization has been based.”

Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) 31st President of the United States of America

On vetoing the "Muscle Shoals Bill" which was the seed for the later creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority
Herbert Hoover, 1874-1964 (1971)

People

“The major reasons for diversification were by this time well established : to employ excess plant capacity, to eliminate seasonal humps, to guard against dependency on one industry, to enter new expanding industries, to supplement existing product lines, to use old products to create new product, and to secure a larger share of business in general.”

Neil Fligstein (1951) American sociologist

Source: The transformation of corporate control, 1993, p. 128

Time , Dependency , Season

“A molehill man is a pseudo-busy executive who comes to work at 9 am and finds a molehill on his desk. He has until 5 pm to make this molehill into a mountain. An accomplished molehill man will often have his mountain finished even before lunch.”

Fred Allen (1894–1956) comedian

Treadmill to Oblivion http://books.google.com/books?id=8IC6ZSGPAAYC&q="A+molehill+man+is+a+pseudo+busy+executive+who+comes+to+work+at+9+am+and+finds+a+molehill+on+his+desk+He+has+until+5+pm+to+make+this+molehill+into+a+mountain+An+accomplished+molehill+man+will+often+have+his+mountain+finished+even+before+lunch"&pg=PA27#v=onepage (1954).

Mountain

“But what if it turns out, as it just possibly might, that William Shakespeare of Stratford was not the author of the plays ascribed to him? There is a theory, advanced by reputable scholars, seriously and, in my opinion, plausibly, that Shakespeare merely lent his name as a cover for the literary activities of another person, perhaps the Earl of Oxford. If, by some terrible chance, this theory should be proved, then straightway Stratford's tourist business would dwindle. It would become just one more, and honestly not one in the first ten, of England's picturesque small towns.”

Tyrone Guthrie (1900–1971) English actor and director

New York Times Magazine. The New York Times. pp. 12, 60–61.

Chance , Personality

“History knew a midnight, which we may estimate at about the year 1000 A. D., when the human race lost the arts and sciences even to the memory. The last twilight of paganism was gone, and yet the new day had not begun. Whatever was left of culture in the world was found only in the Saracens, and a Pope eager to learn studied in disguise in their unversities, and so became the wonder of the West. At last Christendom, tired of praying to the dead bones of the martyrs, flocked to the tomb of the Saviour Himself, only to find for a second time that the grave was empty and that Christ was risen from the dead. Then mankind too rose from the dead. It returned to the activities and the business of life; there was a feverish revival in the arts and in the crafts. The cities flourished, a new citizenry was founded. Cimabue rediscovered the extinct art of painting; Dante, that of poetry. Then it was, also, that great courageous spirits like Abelard and Saint Thomas Aquinas dared to introduce into Catholicism the concepts of Aristotelian logic, and thus founded scholastic philosophy. But when the Church took the sciences under her wing, she demanded that the forms in which they moved be subjected to the same unconditioned faith in authority as were her own laws. And so it happened that scholasticism, far from freeing the human spirit, enchained it for many centuries to come, until the very possibility of free scientific research came to be doubted. At last, however, here too daylight broke, and mankind, reassured, determined to take advantage of its gifts and to create a knowledge of nature based on independent thought. The dawn of the day in history is know as the Renaissance or the Revival of Learning.”

Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi (1804–1851) German mathematician

"Über Descartes Leben und seine Methode die Vernunft Richtig zu Leiten und die Wahrheit in den Wissenschaften zu Suchen," "About Descartes' Life and Method of Reason.." (Jan 3, 1846) C. G. J. Jacobi's Gesammelte werke Vol. 7 https://books.google.com/books?id=_09tAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA309 p.309, as quoted by Tobias Dantzig, Number: The Language of Science (1930).

Life , World , Faith , Law

“I have learned that success in business, and perhaps in most aspects of life, requires both self-discipline and objectively imposed discipline from outside.”

Edgar Bronfman, Sr. (1929–2013) Canadian-American businessman

Good Spirits.

Life , Learning , Success

“The kingdom has oil - and lots of it. But that's only part of the story. Saudia Arabia is important to the West not despite of its brutality but because of it, for the Saudi dictatorship's seen as a buttress against "instability" in a strategic region. Riyadh's deeply conservative leaders did everything they could to derail the Arab spring, suppressing an upsurge of democratic sentiment that threatened the regimes with whom the West had always done business.”

Jeff Sparrow (1969) Australian writer

Why the West turns a blind eye to Saudi Arabia's brutality (September 29, 2015)

Spring , Parting

“Success or failure in business is caused more by mental attitude even than by mental capacity.”

Walter Dill Scott (1869–1955) President of Northwestern university and psychologist

Source: Increasing Human Efficiency in Business, 1911, p. 134

Attitude , Failure , Success

“I had a sudden longing, like a pain, for the hot smelly East, and remembered that Everett had said something about an Indian restaurant. I asked the barman, a hot-haired Irishman, and he asked one of the business-men (who, I saw now, was a Pakistani) and then was able to tell me that the Calicut Restaurant was on Egg Street, by the Poultry Market. I went there and ate insipid dahl, tough chicken, greasy pappadams, and rice that had congealed to a pudding. The décor was depressing – brown oily wallpaper, a calendar with a Bengali pin-up (buff, deliriously plump, about thirty-eight) – and it was evident that the few Indian students were eating the special curry prepared for the staff. The manager was from Pondicherry : he caled me ‘monsieur’ and was not impressed by my complaints. At least one of the waiters was from Jamaica. I went out angry and, at a pub where the landlady sniffed in curlers, drank brandy till closing-time.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, The Right to an Answer (1960)

Men , Pain , Time

“The contraction from 1929 to 1933 was by far the most severe business-cycle contraction during the near-century of U. S. history we cover and it may well have been the most severe in the whole of U. S. history.”

Milton Friedman book A Monetary History of the United States

"The Great Contraction, 1929-1933" (1963), with Anna J. Schwartz
A Monetary History of the United States (1963)

History

“To say that only those businesses affected with a public interest may be regulated is but another way of stating that all those businesses which may be regulated are affected with a public interest.”

Harlan F. Stone (1872–1946) United States federal judge

Tyson and Brother v. Banton, 273 U.S. 418, 451 (1927).

Way

“The university is being called upon to educate previously unimagined numbers of students; to respond to the expanding claims of national service; to merge its activities with industry as never before. Characteristic of this transformation is the growth of the knowledge industry, which is coming to permeate government and business, and to draw into it more and more people raised to higher and higher levels of skill. The production, distribution and consumption of knowledge is said to account for 29 percent of gross national product, and knowledge production is growing at about twice the rate of the rest of the economy. What the railroads did for the second half of the last century, and the automobile for the first half of this century, may be done for the second half of this century by the knowledge industry; and that is, to serve as the focal point for national growth.”

Clark Kerr (1911–2003) American academic

David Lance Goines, 1993, The Free Speech Movement: Coming of Age in the 1960's, Ten Speed Press, p. 49.

People , Education , Knowledge , Universe

“Most business executives accept that bribes and grease money are costs of doing business in "soft "states.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2009, Speech: The Socio-Economic Peace Program of Senator Francis Escudero

Money

“The known is finite, the unknown infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability. Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land, to add something to the extent and the solidity of our possessions.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

1880s, On the Reception of the Origin of Species (1887)

“I set out by challenging conventional wisdom. They said the turntable didn't matter; I said it was critical. They said the speaker was the most important thing; I said it was the last thing to worry about. So I started off in conflict in an industry where few people understood the mechanical things and the recording aspects of the business.”

Ivor Tiefenbrun (1946) Scottish businessman

Interview with David Lander http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/1101ivor. Stereophile, 30 November 2003.
2003

Wisdom , People

“In no way was Hitler the tool of big business. He was its lenient master. So was Mussolini except that he was weaker.”

Norman Thomas (1884–1968) American Presbyterian minister and socialist

A Socialist’s Faith, W. W. Norton, 1951, p. 53. Former presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.

Way

“I got myself extorted, which happens in this business. I come home from the road. There was a FedEx sitting on the kitchen table, and it was addressed to me, so I opened it. I don't know who delivered it. And there was a videocassette inside, with a note written on it that said "Gotcha." Oh, my god. Can you imagine? I freaked out. I tore the whole house apart, trying to find a VCR. I hadn't seen a tape in, like, over a decade.”

Dave Chappelle (1973) American comedian

Comedy specials, Deep in the Heart of Texas: Dave Chappelle Live at Austin City Limits (2017)

God , Home , Imagination , Housing

“We have been in recess since July, and during that time there have been a fuel crisis, a Danish no vote, the collapse of the Euro and a war in the middle east, but what is our business tomorrow? The Insolvency Bill [Lords]. It ought be called the Bankruptcy Bill [Commons], because we play no role.”

Tony Benn (1925–2014) British Labour Party politician

Speech in the House of Commons (23 October 2000) http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/2000/oct/23/election-of-speaker, cited in Adam Tomkins, "What is Parliament for?" in Bamforth N. and Leyland P. (eds.), Public Law in a Multi-Layered Constitution, Oxford, Hart, 2003, p. 53.
2000s

War , Time

“This civil rights program about which you have heard so much is a farce and a sham; an effort to set up a police state in the guise of liberty. I am opposed to that program. I fought it in the Congress. It is the province of the state to run its own elections. I am opposed to the anti-lynching bill because the federal government has no business enacting a law against one kind of murder than another … If a man can tell you who you must hire, he can tell you who not to employ. I have met this head on.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

Speech in Austin, Texas http://www.arenajunkies.com/topic/190562-best-and-worst-president-of-the-century/page__st__20 (22 May 1948), as quoted in Quotations from Chairman LBJ http://www.arenajunkies.com/topic/190562-best-and-worst-president-of-the-century/page__st__20 (1968), New York: Simon and Schuster.
1940s

Law , Effort

“He did not practise law and so whatever money I earned, I just placed before him. He invested in business--trucks, cars--but lost everything. I could not bear to see him unhappy. Often he would disappear from home for months on end. The bank people would come and harass me, ask for my property as I was unable to repay the loans. This happened several times. I had to sell everything I had. I will never forget or forgive myself for not being by his bedside before he died. I had a programme in Bombay, but I did not want to go. He insisted because we needed the money. While I was performing, he died.”

Gangubai Hangal (1913–2009) Indian singer

Her selfless devotion to her husband was never considered a sacrifice by her and even though he was a brahmin, a lawyer, it was ironically she who supported him. In "On Gangubai Hangal by Sabina Sehgal Computer Science & Engineering - University of Washington".

Money , People , Law , Cars

“I try to buy stock in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them. Because sooner or later, one will.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

In a panel discussion after the premier of the 2008 documentary I.O.U.S.A.. Panel at the Premier, 0:05:42ff., DVD extras, I.O.U.S.A. (2008)

“The conference was not a lonely effort. None other than Israel’s President Moshe Katsav welcomed the attendees. Reflecting the predominant Jewish supremacist views among Israeli and American Jews, the conference was co-sponsored by the American Jewish Committee, the Israel Center for Social and Economic Progress, the Israeli Defense Ministry, the Jewish Agency, the World Zionist Organization, the National Security Center at Haifa University, and the Israeli National Security Council of the Prime Minister’s Office. The conference featured fifty speakers: senior government and military officials – including ex- and future prime ministers – university professors, business and media personalities, as well as American Jewish academics and operatives of the US Zionist lobby.”

Joseph Massad (1963) Associate Professor of Arab Studies

Ibid.
"The Ends of Zionism: Racism and the Palestinian Struggle"

World , Effort , Universe , Future

“Business is business. It’s never personal. It can be cruel, it can be ruthless, but it is never personal.”

Conor McGregor (1988) Irish mixed martial artist and boxer

UFC 178 post-event press conference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAAC34JzxS0 (September 2014), Ultimate Fighting Championship, Zuffa, LLC
2010s, 2014

Personality

“I have met [a proselytizer from a religious group]. I did not like him. He seemed to me to be a snob. He spoke of God as if He were the oldest title in the Almanach de Gotha. And all that business about telling one's sins in public -- He wanted me … me … to get up before my children and confess everything I had ever done! It is spiritual nudism! Ça se ne fait pas.”

Marie of Edinburgh, Queen of Romania (1875–1938) last Queen consort of Romania as the wife of King Ferdinand I

qtd. in Beverely Nichols, All I Could Never Be (1952)

God , Children

“Statesmen are not only liable to give an account of what they say or do in public, but there is a busy inquiry made into their very meals, beds, marriages, and every other sportive or serious action.”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Political Precepts
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Marriage

“Music will always find its way to us, with or without business, politics, religion, or any other bullshit attached. Music survives everything, and like God, it is always present. It needs no help, and suffers no hindrance.”

Eric Clapton (1945) English musician, singer, songwriter, and guitarist

"Clapton: The Autobiography"

God , Religion , Music , Way

“I have directed all the wagons that are on the other side to be employed in picking up the scattered boards about the encampments. I believe, from what I saw yesterday in riding over the grounds, they will amount to several thousands. As soon as we have got these together, I purpose to begin upon the barracks. In the mean time, I should be glad to know if your Excellency has any other orders to give respecting the business.”

Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) American general in the American Revolutionary War

Letter to George Washington (24 October 1776)

Time

“A leader has to know how the system functions - not just the system of government but the whole social and economic system, including business, the unions, and the universities.”

Jean Chrétien (1934) 20th Prime Minister of Canada

Source: Straight From The Heart (1985), Chapter Three, The Business Of politics, p. 76

Universe

“If so, our posture would be as follows: we published the story and said it was true, but now we are going to nominate it for a Pulitzer — now that's serious business.”

Bob Woodward (1943) American journalist

Post Reporter's Pulitzer Prize Is Withdrawn; Pulitzer Board Withdraws Post Reporter's Prize (19 April 1981)

“That's what show business is--sincere insincerity.”

Benny Hill (1924–1992) English comedian and actor

Quoted in The Observer (12 June 1977)

Sincerity

“Between what matters and what seems to matter, how should the world we know judge wisely?
When the scheming, indomitable brain of Sigsbee Manderson was scattered by a shot from an unknown hand, that world lost nothing worth a single tear; it gained something memorable in a harsh reminder of the vanity of such wealth as this dead man had piled up—without making one loyal friend to mourn him, without doing an act that could help his memory to the least honor. But when the news of his end came, it seemed to those living in the great vortices of business as if the earth, too, shuddered under a blow.”

Edmund Clerihew Bentley book Trent's Last Case

Source: Trent's Last Case (1912), Chapter I: "Bad News"

World , Tear , Memory , Help

“With regard to migration, I welcome Europe’s increasing movement towards a sensible policy and sensible measures. I would like to make it clear that recently Hungary has closed all the legal loopholes, and it is also prepared for the potential failure of the agreement between the EU and Turkey. At the Hungarian-Serbian border we are able to stop a migration flow of any size. Hungary has also taken the first steps towards elimination of the migrant business: several NGOs clearly see the migrant issue as a business issue, so we shall create conditions for the full transparency of NGOs in Hungary. In my opinion, on the whole we are moving closer to a sensible policy. Those arguments are invalid which seek to link the issue of migration to funding which European policy entitles us to. In the future I shall continue to maintain that we in the V4 must not allow ourselves to be intimidated: we must remain committed to a sensible migrant policy.”

Viktor Orbán (1963) Hungarian politician, chairman of Fidesz

Speech after the meeting of the Visegrád Four http://www.miniszterelnok.hu/prime-minister-viktor-orbans-speech-after-the-meeting-of-the-visegrad-four/, 28 March 2017, Warsaw

Failure , Future

“And I say that Your Highnesses ought not to consent that any foreigner does business or sets foot here, except Christian Catholics, since this was the end and the beginning of the enterprise, that it should be for the enhancement and glory of the Christian religion, nor should anyone who is not a good Christian come to these parts.”

Cristoforo Colombo (1451–1506) Explorer, navigator, and colonizer

27 November 1492
Journal of the First Voyage

Religion , Parting

“Legal business has, from the beginning of time, been profitable - to those who have conducted it; because it is concerned with things that touch men's passions very deeply, and because men are willing to pay, and pay highly, for wisdom and skill in the conduct of it. The real merits of the Norman lawyers were, not altruism, but ability, energy, and enthusiasm for their work.”

Edward Jenks (1861–1939) British legal scholar

Source: A Short History Of The English Law (First Edition) (1912), Chapter IV, Improved Legal Procedure, p. 40

Wisdom , Men , Passion , Time

“Habituation to bargaining and to the competitive principles of business necessarily brings it about that pecuniary standards of efficiency invade (contaminate) the sense of workmanship; so that work, workmen, equipment and products come to be rated on a scale of money values, which has only a circuitous and often only a putative relation to their workmanlike efficiency or their serviceability. Those occupations and those aptitudes that yield good returns in terms of price are reputed valuable and commendable, — the accepted test of success, and even of serviceability, being the gains acquired. Workmanship comes to be confused with salesmanship, until tact, effrontery and prevarication have come to serve as a standard of efficiency, and unearned gain is accepted as the measure of productiveness.”

Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) American academic

Source: The Instinct of Workmanship and the State of the Industrial Arts, 1914, p. 349

Money , Sense , Success

“The genius of the corporation as a business form, and the reason for its remarkable rise over the last three centuries, was - and is - its capacity to combine the capital, and thus the economic power, of unlimited numbers of people.”

Joel Bakan (1959) Canadian writer, musician, filmmaker and legal scholar

Source: The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power (2004), Chapter 1, The Corporation's Rise To Dominance, p. 8

People

“More government isn't going to help you get ahead. It's going to hold you back. More government isn't going to create more opportunities. It's going to limit them. And more government isn't going to inspire new ideas, new businesses and new private sector jobs. It's going to create uncertainty.”

Marco Rubio (1971) U.S. Senator from state of Florida, United States; politician

Response to State of the Union speech http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57569091/full-text-rubios-republican-response/,
2010s, 2013

Idea , Help

“Can you understand the soul of a man who never hesitated to take steps that would have the effect of hoodwinking people, who would use every trick of the markets to mislead, and who was at the same time scrupulous never to utter a direct lie on the most insignificant matter? Manderson was like that, and he was not the only one. I suppose you might compare the state of mind to that of a soldier who is personally a truthful man, but who will stick at nothing to deceive the enemy. The rules of the game allow it; and the same may be said of business as many business men regard it. Only with them it is always wartime.”

Edmund Clerihew Bentley book Trent's Last Case

Source: Trent's Last Case (1912), Chapter XV: "Double Cunning"

Men , People , Truth , Lie

“The tenement – the name derives from a fifteenth-century legal term for a multiple dwelling – always seemed to me a “ship afloat in concrete.” After all didn’t the building carry passengers on a voyage through life? No. 55 sat at the corner of Dropsie avenue near the elevated train, or the elevated as we called it in those days. It was a treasure house of stories that illustrated tenement life as I remembered it, stories that needed to be told before they faded from memory. Within its “railroad flats,” with rooms strung together train-like lived low-paid city employees or laborers and their turbulent families. Most were recent immigrants, intent n their own survival. They kept busy raising children and dreaming of the better lie they knew existed “uptown.” Hallways were filled with a rich stew of cooking aromas, sounds of arguments and the tinny wail from Victrolas. What community spirit there was stemmed from the common hostility of tenants to the landlord or his surrogate superintendent. Typically, the buildings tenants came and went with regularity, depending on the vagaries of their fortunes But many remained for a lifetime, imprisoned by poverty or old age. There was no real privacy or anonymity. Everybody knew about everybody. Human dramas, both good and bad, instantly gathered witness like ants swarming around a piece of dropped food. From window to window or on the stoop below, the tenants analyzed, evaluated and critiqued each happening, following an obligatory admission that it was really none of their business.”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

XV-XVI, December 2004
A Contract With God (2004)

Life , Hostility , Children , Lie

“Research has been called good business, a necessity, a gamble, a game. It is none of these — it's a state of mind.”

Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962) American university teacher (1879-1962)

Fischerisms (1944)

Game

“The present government of Quebec is the most financially and intellectually corrupt in the history of the province. There are the shady deals, brazenly conducted, and the broken promises, most conspicuously that of last October to retain Bill 63… The government dragged out the ancient and totally fictitious spectre of assimilation to justify Bill 22 and its rejection of the right of free choice in education, its its reduction of English education to the lowest echelon of ministerial whim, its assault upon freedom of expression through the regulation of the internal and external language of businesses and other organizations, and its creation of a fatuous new linguistic bureaucracy that will conduct a system of organized denunciation, harassment, and patronage… There is a paralytic social sickness in Quebec. In all this debate, not a single French Quebecker has objected to Bill 22 on the grounds that it was undemocratic or a reduction of liberties exercised in the province. The Quebec Civil Liberties Union, founded by Pierre Trudeau, from which one might have expected such sentiments, has instead demanded the abolition of English education, and this through the spokemanship of Jean-Louis Roy, who derives his income from McGill University…. It is clear that Mr. Bourassa… is now going to try to eliminate the Parti Quebecois by a policy of gradual scapegoatism directed against the non-French elements in the province… The English community here, still deluding itself with the illusion of Montreal as an incomparably fine place to live, is leaderless and irrelevant, except as the hostage of a dishonest government. Last month one of the most moderate ministers, Guy St-Pierre, told an English businessman's group, 'If you don't like Quebec, you can leave it.”

Conrad Black (1944) Canadian-born newspaper publisher

With sadness but with certitude, I accept that choice.
radio broadcast on 26 July 1974, the day Black left Quebec for good
The Establishment Man by Peter Newman

Education , Sadness , Guy , Exercises

“And a great longing overcame him, a desire to be finished with desire, to forego pleasure and pain, to quit the petty modes of achievement and failure, to have done with distractions, and get on with the business of life, which was death.”

Robert Sheckley book Mindswap

Source: Mindswap (1966), Chapter 17 (p. 83)

Life , Death , Pain , Pleasure

“You are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed. That has nothing to do with the business of the State.”

Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948) Founder and 1st Governor General of Pakistan

Presidential address to the first Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, Karachi (11 August 1947)

Religion

“In 1995 we started our study of enterprise architecture – we just did not know it. At the time we thought we were studying information technology infrastructure transformations. In 1998 we thought we were studying enterprise system implementations. In 2000 it was e-business. But sometime in 2000, we recognized that each of these studies examined basically the same thing: Enterprise Architecture.”

Jeanne W. Ross (1958) American computer scientist

Source: Enterprise architecture as strategy, 2006, p. vii

Study , Time

“[We may view the] economic organization as a system of prize relations. Seen in the large, free enterprise is an organization of production and distribution in which individuals or family units get their real income, their "living," by selling productive power for money to "business units" or "enterprises", and buying with the money income thus obtained the direct goods and services which they consume. This view, it will be remembered, ignores for the sake of simplicity the fact that an appreciable fraction of the productive power in use at any time is not really employed in satisfying current wants but to make provision for increased want-satisfaction in the future; it treats society as it would be, or would tend to become, with progress absent, or in a “static” state.”

Frank Knight (1885–1972) American economist

Source: The Economic Organization, 1933., p.59-60; on the circular-flow of income and the circular-flow diagram.

Money , Family , Time , Future

“Halliburton is not a "company" doing business in Iraq. It is a WAR PROFITEER, bilking millions from the pockets of average Americans. In past wars they would have been arrested — or worse.
The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not "insurgents" or "terrorists" or "The Enemy." They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow — and they will win. Get it, Mr. Bush?”

Michael Moore (1954) American filmmaker, author, social critic, and liberal activist

2004

War , Past

“Anything that affects your senses … is your business. If you want to kill yourself through nicotine or cyanide, it's your business.”

Timothy Leary (1920–1996) American psychologist

Harvard Law School Forum (1966)

Sense

“My father once told me that the art of receiving a compliment is, of all things, the sign of a civilized man. He died soon afterwards, leaving my education in this important matter sadly incomplete; I'm only glad that, on this, the occasion of the rarest compliment he ever could have dreamed of, that he isn't here to see his son so publicly at a loss. In receiving a compliment, or in trying to, the words are all worn out by now. They're polluted by ham and corn. And, when you try to scratch around for some new ones, it's just an exercise in empty cleverness. What I feel this evening, is not very clever. it's the very opposite of emptiness. The corny old phrase is the only one I know to say it: my heart is full; with a full heart, with all of it, I thank you. This is Samuel Johnson, on the subject of what he calls contrarieties: "there are goods, so opposed that we cannot seize both, and, in trying, fail to seize either. Flatter not yourself, he says, with contrarieties. Of the blessings set before you, make your choice. No man can, at the same time, fill his cup from the source, and from the mouth of the nile." For this business of contrarieties has to do with us. With you, who are paying me this compliment, and for me, who has strayed so far from this hometown of ours. Not that I am alone in this, or unique, I am never that; but there are a few of us left in this conglomerated world of us who still trudge stubbornly along this lonely rocky road; and this is in fact our contrariety. We don't move nearly as fast as our cousins on the freeway; we don't even get as much accomplished just as the family sized farm can't possibly raise as many crops or get as much profit as the agricultural factory of today. What we do come up with has no special right to call itself better it's just.. different. No if there's any excuse for us it all, it's that we're simply following the old American tradition of the maverick, and we are a vanishing breed. This honor I can only accept in the name of all the mavericks. And also, as a tribute to the generosity of all the rest of you; to the givers, to the ones with fixed addresses. A maverick may go his own way but he doesn't think that it's the only way, or ever claim that it's the best one, except maybe for himself. And don't imagine that this raggle-taggle gypsy-o is claiming to be free. It's just that some of the necessities to which I am a slave are different from yours. As a director, for instance, I pay myself out of my acting jobs. I use my own work to subsidize my work (in other words I'm crazy). But not crazy enough to pretend to be free. But it's a fact that many of the films you've seen tonight could never have been made otherwise. Or, if otherwise, well, they might have been better, but certainly they wouldn't have been mine. The truth is I don't believe that this great evening would ever have brightened my life if it wasn't for this: my own, particular, contrariety. Let us raise our cups, then, standing as some of us do on opposite ends of the river, to what really matters to us all: to our crazy, beloved profession, to the movies — to good movies, to every possible kind.”

Orson Welles (1915–1985) American actor, director, writer and producer

Speech given upon his acceptance of the AFI Lifetime Achievement award. Viewable http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXJnxClGamA&list=HL1349840607&feature=mh_lolz

Life , Truth , World , Education

“Dada is the signboard of abstraction; advertising and business are also elements of poetry... I destroy the drawers of the brain and of social organization: spread demoralization wherever I go and cast my hand from heaven to hell, my eyes from hell to heaven, restore the fecund wheel of a universal circus to objective forces and the imagination of every individual.”

Tristan Tzara (1896–1963) Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist

1910s, Dada Manifesto', 1918

Imagination , Hell , Universe

“The public be damned. What does the public care for railroads except to get as much out of them for as small a consideration as possible? I don't take any stock in this silly nonsense about working for anybody's good but our own, because we are not. When we make a move, we do it because it is in our interest to do so, and not because we expect to do somebody else good. Of course, we like to do everything possible for the benefit of humanity in general, but when we do, we first see that we are benefiting ourselves. Railroads are not run on sentiment, but on business principles and to pay, and I don't mean to be egotistic when I say that the roads which I have had anything to do with have generally paid pretty well.”

William Henry Vanderbilt (1821–1885) American philanthropist

Quoted in Clarence P. Dresser, "Vanderbilt in the West" New York Times (9 October 1882). Dresser's account has Vanderbilt denying that he ran a particular passenger express service for the public benefit, but rather to drive down prices of a competing Pennsylvania Railroad service. By some accounts Dresser fabricated the interview except for the first sentence, which Vanderbilt said in refusing to give an interview. See "Reporter C. P. Dresser Dead", New York Times (25 April 1891).
Disputed

“Instruction, that mysterious communing of Wisdom with Ignorance, is no longer an indefinable tentative process, requiring a study of individual aptitudes, and a perpetual variation of means and methods, to attain the same end; but a secure, universal, straightforward business, to be conducted in the gross, by proper mechanism.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1820s, Signs of the Times (1829)

Wisdom , Communication , Study , Universe

“The Americans have sought consistently to undermine and destabilise the Governments of Grenada since 1979. They have sought consistently to undermine and destabilise the Government of Jamaica. They did so until Mr. Seaga was elected Prime Minister. They have consistently sought to undermine and destabilise any Government in the region who have sought to develop the interests of the people rather than the interests of the multinational companies that are busy exploiting those people. At the centre of the debate and of the activities of the United States lies its belief that its role is to defend the people who pay the Government — the multinational companies. The British Government are doing exactly the same. In every conference chamber around the world, the British Government support American foreign policy. They do not have a foreign policy in the Caribbean or central America. All they know is to follow the United States—except that when the issue of Grenada came up they did not know what to do. So, for three days running, we have had a pathetic appearance by the Foreign Secretary, who has been wondering what to do next. He comes to the House, wringing his hands, wondering what on earth to say next. He knows that he has been made to look an absolute idiot because he was incapable of standing up to the Americans for once. The one thing that the Americans do not respect is the Uriah Heep diplomacy that the British Government operate towards them. The Pavlovian response of agreeing to everything that the United States demands and wants has got them nowhere and has made them look incredibly stupid and shortsighted.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1983/oct/26/grenada-invasion in the House of Commons (26 October 1983).
1980s

People , Stupidity , World , Support

“In today's business environment, more than in any preceding era, the only constant is change. Somehow there are organizations that effectively manage change, continuously adapting their bureaucracies, strategies, systems, products, and cultures to survive the shocks and prosper from the forces that decimate their competition. They move from strength to strength, adjusting to crises that bedevil others in their industry. They are masters of Renewal. No organization can maintain excellence without renewing. No organization can strive for excellence, or even attempt to improve, without the ability to renew.”

Robert H. Waterman (1950) American writer

Source: The Renewal Factor, 1987, p. xv

Change

“Our endeavours have also been sustained by the activities of strong and principled women all over the world who have campaigned not only for my own release but, more importantly, for our cause. I cannot let this opportunity pass without speaking of the gratitude we feel towards our sisters everywhere, from heads of government to busy housewives. Their efforts have been a triumphant demonstration of female solidarity and of the power of an ideal to cross all frontiers.”

Aung San Suu Kyi (1945) State Counsellor of Myanmar and Leader of the National League for Democracy

Opening Keynote Address at NGO Forum on Women, Beijing China (1995)

Women , World , Feeling , Sister

“Why is self-control, autonomy, such a threat to authority? Because the person who controls himself, who is his own master, has no need for an authority to be his master. This, then, renders authority unemployed. What is he to do if he cannot control others? To be sure, he could mind his own business. But this is a fatuous answer, for those who are satisfied to mind their own business do not aspire to become authorities.”

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

Revised edition, 1985. p. 175.
Ceremonial Chemistry (1974)

Personality

“In manliness he will greet my trouble,
Should I be bled, I should evidently get better;
Truly I saw no one before, who saw not in me
Every indisposition, he will cultivate his business.”

Taliesin (534–599) Welsh bard

Book of Taliesin (c. 1275?), The Spoils of Taliesin, a Song to Urien

“Let them sit in Australia and talk about their pitches. Tell them not to waste their time about Indian tracks. Come and play here. After a 103 Test matches, I deserve a voice and I will have that voice for the betterment of cricket. And there some terrific reactions. For example, Ravi Shastri just said the popular view 'Go back home and worry about your own pitches. Non-Indian commenting on the conditions in India and I reckon probably 80 percent said 'mind your business and go back to Australia and worry about your own country' which is fair enough. But 20 percent of the people that understand the game and have a great passion for the game, a comment like mine whether they like or not is from the base of loving this sport, from the base of loving conditions and also experiencing diverse conditions across the world.”

Matthew Hayden (1971) Australian cricketer

Quoted on Sports.ndtv.com (December 5, 2015), "Matthew Hayden Lashes Out at Ravi Shastri, Says He has Right to Speak on Game's Betterment" http://sports.ndtv.com/india-vs-south-africa-2015-16/news/252607-matthew-hayden-lashes-out-at-ravi-shastri-says-he-has-right-to-speak-on-game-s-betterment

Love , People , World , Home

“All too often, a successful new business model becomes the business model for companies not creative enough to invent their own.”

Gary Hamel (1954) American management expert

Source: Leading the Revolution, 2002, p. 46

Success

“Business models and value propositions expire like a yogurt in the fridge.”

Alexander Osterwalder (1974) Austrian business theorist

Alexander Osterwalder in foreword to: Stefanie Auge-Dickhut, ‎Bernhard Koye, ‎Axel Liebetrau (2015), Customer Value Generation in Banking: The Zurich Model of Customer-Centricity. p. ix

“[Apple and the iPhone is] kind of one more entrant into an already very busy space with lots of choice for consumers … But in terms of a sort of a sea-change for BlackBerry, I would think that's overstating it.”

Jim Balsillie (1961) Canadian businessman

RIM chiefs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie's best quotes http://theguardian.com/technology/2012/jun/29/rim-chiefs-best-quotes in The Guardian (29 June 2012)

Thinking , Change , Sea

“This is a competitive business — there are a lot of women who want these jobs, but experience, education, and smarts go a long way. I’m still figuring it out — I learn new things every day. Once you stop learning, you should get out of the business. It’s just really about being hungry for more.”

Nicole Lapin (1984) American journalist

Interview with CosmoGIRL! http://www.cosmogirl.com/lifeadvice/dream-jobs/news-anchor-nicole-lapin?src=rss (May 2008)

Women , Education , Way , Learning

“The proletariat is that class in society which lives entirely from the sale of its labor and does not draw profit from any kind of capital; whose weal and woe, whose life and death, whose sole existence depends on the demand for labor – hence, on the changing state of business, on the vagaries of unbridled competition.”

Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) German social scientist, author, political theorist, and philosopher

(1847)

Life , Death , Change , Drawing

“You foolish man, you do not understand your own foolish business.”

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) British statesman and man of letters

Attributed to Chesterfield by George Agar-Ellis, 1st Baron Dover, in his 1833 edition of Horace Walpole's letters to Sir Horace Mann, such statements have been attributed to many others, such as Lord Chief Justice Campbell, William Henry Maule (in the form "You silly old fool, you don't even know the alphabet of your own silly old business"), Sir William Harcourt, Lord Pembroke, Lord Westbury, and to an anonymous judge, and said to have been spoken in court to Garter King at Arms, Rouge Dragon Pursuivant, or some other high-ranking herald, who had confused a "bend" with a "bar" or had demanded fees to which he was not entitled. George Bernard Shaw uses it in Pygmalion (1912) in the form, "The silly people dont [sic] know their own silly business." Similar remarks occur in Charles Jenner's The Placid Man: Or, The Memoirs of Sir Charles Beville (1770): "Sir Harry Clayton ... was perhaps far better qualified to have written a Peerage of England than Garter King at Arms, or Rouge Dragon, or any of those parti-coloured officers of the court of honor, who, as a great man complained on a late solemnity, are but too often so silly as not to know their own silly business." "Old Lord Pembroke" (Henry Herbert, 9th Earl of Pembroke) is said by Horace Walpole (in a letter of 28 May 1774 to the Rev. William Cole) to have directed the quip, "Thou silly fellow! Thou dost not know thy own silly business," at John Anstis, Garter King at Arms. Edmund Burke also quotes such a remark in his "Speech in the Impeachment of Warren Hastings, Esq." on 7 May 1789: "'Silly man, that dost not know thy own silly trade!' was once well said: but the trade here is not silly."
Disputed

Understanding

“However, Hoover had converted the simple business ritual of reassurance into a major instrument of public policy.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Great Crash, 1929

Chapter VIII https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929, Aftermath II, Section I, p 144
The Great Crash, 1929 (1954 and 1997 https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929)

“There is a great difference between being raised to an office and descending to one; which is my case. There is also a great difference between serving where you have a fair prospect of honor and laurels, and where you have no prospect of either, let you discharge your duty ever so well. Nobody ever heard of a Quarter-master in history, as such, or in relating any brilliant action. I engaged in this business as well out of compassion to your Excellency as from a regard to the public. I thought your task too great, to be Commander-in-chief and Quarter-master at the same time. Money was not my motive. For you may remember I offered to serve a year unconnected with the accounts, without any additional pay to that which I had as Major-General. However, this proposition was rejected as inadmissible. Then I told the Committee that I would serve upon the same terms that Mr. Cox and Mr. Pettit could be engaged upon; and I have nothing more now, although I have a double share of duty, and am held responsible for all failures.”

Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) American general in the American Revolutionary War

Letter to George Washington (24 April 1779)

Money , History , Motivation , Failure

“This paper reports on a comparative case study of 13 industrial firms that implemented an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. It compares firms based on their dialectic leaming process. All firms had to overcome knowledge barriers of two types: those associated with the configuration of the ERP package, and those associated with the assimilation of new work processes. We found that both strong core teams and carefully managed consulting relationships addressed configuration knowledge barriers. User training that included both technical and business processes, along with a phased implementation approach, helped firms to overcome assimilation knowledge barriers. However, all firms in this study experienced ongoing concerns with assimilation knowledge barriers, and we observed two different approaches to address them. In a piecemeal approach, firms concentrated on the technology first and deferred consideration of process changes. In a concerted approach, both the technology and process changes were undertaken together. Although most respondents clearly stated a preference for either piecemeal or concerted change, all firms engaged in practices that reflected a combination of these approaches.”

Jeanne W. Ross (1958) American computer scientist

Abstract, p. 17-18
Learning to implement enterprise systems (2002)

Knowledge , Study , Strong , Change

“Chairman White, and the other Trustees that are present today, faculty and staff and alumni, distinguished guests, cadets, and friends of Hargrave: It's been a great run. It really has. I look out over the congregation gathered here today, and I see faculty, staff, cadets, parents, members of the Parent Council that we work closely with, other colleagues in the same business- and it makes me reflect on on fifteen years here, what all we've accomplished. I can also state that we wouldn't have accomplished much without the leadership of the Board of Trustees. And I'd like to thank all of the Board that's here- the Chairman, past Chairmen, and other members of the Board- that've A, put their trust in my leadership, put up with me at times, and set the guidance and the tone to keep the school on a straight path. Not an easy task. And the Board has done a magnificent job. I would also be remiss if I didn't recognize- I wish I could recognize every member of our faculty and staff, which is the heart and soul of an independent school. Our faculty is the best- best in the nation- very dedication people, that work constant hours with the cadets here, proven by our great success we've had over the past, what… hundred and- we graduated 102nd class last May. It's been really an honor for me to be part of Hargrave's history. But we're not done. We've completed 102 years, and now we've hired Brigadier General Broome, who's the right person to take the helm at Hargrave. And I am convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that General Broome is ready, willing, and dedicated to take Hargrave to the next level. It's a great school- I would tell you, in my mind, it's the best school in the country, because of the cadets and the folks we have here. I've been spending a lot of time with General Broome and his wife, and they are really gonna be a great fit for Hargrave, and I think Hargrave's gonna have a super next one hundred years. I wish we could all be here a hundred years from now to open our time capsule, but unfortunately, I don't think anybody in this room is gonna see what's in the time capsule… Anyhow, thank you for coming, it's been an honor to be part of this, and I will sincerely miss it. I'm not the type to watch things from the sidelines, but, in this case, I will. Thank you very much.”

Wheeler L. Baker (1938) President of Hargrave Military Academy

Baker's speech at the change-of-command ceremony in Hargrave's chapel on June 24, 2011.

People , School , Soul , History

“Industrial history shows that in modern competitive industry the motive of personal gain is most wastefully applied. On the one hand, the great mass of intelligent workers have no opportunity of securing an adequate reward for any special application of intelligence in mechanical invention or other improvement of industrial arts. Few great modern inventors have made money out of their inventions. On the other hand, the entrepreneur, with just enough business cunning to recognise the market value of an improvement, reaps a material reward which is often enormously in excess of what is economically required to induce him to apply his "business" qualities to the undertaking.”

J.A. Hobson (1858–1940) English economist, social scientist and critic of imperialism

The Evolution of Modern Capitalism: A Study of Machine Production (1906), Ch. XVII Civilisation and Industrial Development

Money , Art , History , Intelligence

“Finding an alternative to supplement military ways of resolving international conflicts has been taken up by many people skilled in various areas such as political science, economics, social studies, modelling and simulation, intelligence and expert systems, military strategy and weaponry as well as private business and industry.”

Harold Chestnut (1917–2001) American engineer

Harold Chestnut, Peter Kopacek, Tibor Vámos (1989) International conflict resolution using system engineering: proceedings of the IFAC workshop, Budapest, Hungary, 5-8 June 1989. International Federation of Automatic Control.

People , Way , Intelligence , Study

“Now, most of the time you couldn't be too sure of the quality of the drug. Although, in my experience the stuff was always of a very high quality, because back then we didn't have business majors peddling lower-quality stuff in an effort to increase profits.”

Lewis Black (1948) American stand-up comedian, author, playwright, social critic and actor

Nothing’s Sacred (2005)

Effort , Time

“The Republicans, the opponents no longer have an argument. And certainly, we hear a lot coming from the Republican side that is absolutely out of touch with reality. We raised money through the congressional appropriations process. We enhanced the border security. That part of the work is done. Everybody that I know has looked at it said, okay, we have a secure border. There’s no need for this rhetoric and demagoguery that’s still —is carried out on the Republican side. You’ve run out of excuses. … I understand him, he’s (Donald Trump) talking about a very tall wall. Right? A beautiful tall wall. The most beautiful tall wall, better than the Great Wall of China, that would run the entire border. That he would somehow magically get the Mexican government to pay for. And, you know, it’s just fantasy. And in fact, if he cared to know anything about what members of Congress, like the senator and I have done, where it was necessary, we did support some fencing. Where it was necessary, we did add border patrol agents. We have done what by any fair estimate would have to conclude is a good job, quote, “securing the border.””

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

So let’s get about the business of comprehensive immigration reform.
Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Democratic Presidential Debate in Miami (March 9, 2016)

Money , Beauty , Quotes , Understanding

“(When asked about his Westwood experiences) Westwood was a fantastic place to work, with great people, great games we created, and we all really loved what we did. We were passionate about it. I have so many great memories there, and the ironic thing is I actually regret not having attended more of the fun company functions and parties while I was instead playing club gigs with bands with the mentality of trying to get signed or discovered. Granted thats the kind of thing you try for when you're young, but it took awhile to sink in, that my real future and career was already under my nose. Lots of funny stuff happened. Office pranks, fun extra content we created, certain personalities that always made you laugh. Just all of life's experiences along the way whether it was staying in an awful hotel on a business trip, or trying to set-up an embarrassed co-worker with a date, it's all great stuff you can laugh about later. When Westwood closed it was truly the end of an era, but in a way it has been resurrected at Petroglyph where I am now. Half the company are old Westwood employees and although it's a different time in the industry, we are all thankful to still be working together and making the best games we can.”

Frank Klepacki (1974) American musician, video game music composer and sound director

Gameplay magazine

Love , Life , People , Way

“I strive never to forget the real world consequences of my decisions on individuals, businesses and government.”

Sonia Sotomayor (1954) U.S. Supreme Court Justice

Reported in " Remarks of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor http://www.salon.com/wires/ap/2009/05/26/D98E0EV00_us_sotomayor_text/", The Associated Press (26 May 2009).

World , Decision , Forgetting

“During the summer of 1765 the happy phrase of Isaac Barré—"these sons of liberty"—was everywhere repeated, and was put on as a kind of protective coloring by strong patriots, who henceforth thought of themselves as Sons of Liberty and no traitors at all. Rather were they traitors who would in any way justify an act of tyranny; most of all those so-called Americans, accepting the office of Stamp Master, who cunningly aspired to make a farthing profit out of the hateful business of enslaving their own countrymen.”

Carl L. Becker (1873–1945) American historian

The Eve of the Revolution (1918)

Hate , Color , Way , Strong

“Business System Planning (BSP) and Business Information Control Study (BICS) are representative of enterprise analysis tools that are growing in importance and are likely to become mandatory for ant business that continues to grow and evolve.”

John Zachman (1934) American computer scientist

Source: Business Systems Planning and Business Information Control Study: A comparison, 1982, p. 31

Study

“This study partitions the total variance in rate of return among FTC Line of Business reporting units into industry factors (whatever their nature), time factors, factors associated with the corporate parent, and business-specific factors. Whereas Schmalensee (1985) reported that industry factors were the strongest, corporate and market share effects being extremely weak, this study distinguishes between stable and fluctuating effects and reaches markedly different conclusions. The data reveal negligible corporate effects, small stable industry effects, and very large stable business-unit effects. These results imply that the most important sources of economic rents are business-specific; industry membership is a much less important source and corporate parentage is quite unimportant.”

Richard Rumelt (1942) American economist

Source: "How Much Does Industry Matter?", 1991, p. 167; Abstract

Nature , Parent , Study , Time

“The man of virtue makes the difficulty to be overcome his first business, and success only a subsequent consideration.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Variant: The man of virtue makes the difficulty to be overcome his first business, and success only a subsequent consideration: this may be called perfect virtue.
Source: The Analects, Other chapters

Success

“Human labor, through all its forms, from the sharpening of a stake to the construction of a city or an epic, is one immense illustration of the perfect compensation of the universe. The absolute balance of Give and Take, the doctrine that every thing has its price, — and if that price is not paid, not that thing but something else is obtained, and that it is impossible to get any thing without its price, — is not less sublime in the columns of a leger than in the budgets of states, in the laws of light and darkness, in all the action and reaction of nature. I cannot doubt that the high laws which each man sees implicated in those processes with which he is conversant, the stern ethics which sparkle on his chisel-edge, which are measured out by his plumb and foot-rule, which stand as manifest in the footing of the shop-bill as in the history of a state, — do recommend to him his trade, and though seldom named, exalt his business to his imagination.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Compensation

Law , Imagination , History , Nature

“Then, in 1998, I had the chance to talk with Steve Jobs after he’d come back and turned Apple around. I was there to help Telecom Italia try to do a deal with Apple, but after that business was completed I couldn’t help asking a question. “Steve,” I said, “this turnaround at Apple has been impressive. But everything we know about the personal-computer business says that Apple will always have a small niche position. The network externalities are just too strong to upset the de facto “Wintel” standard. So what are you trying to do? What’s the longer-term strategy?”
He didn’t agree or disagree with my assessment of the market. He just smiled and said, “I am going to wait for the next big thing.””

Richard Rumelt (1942) American economist

About strategy starts with identifying changes, and companies taking position (2)
"McKinsey Quarterly interview," 2007

Smile , Question , Strong , Chance

“Foundational to our exceptional nation’s sacred private property rights, a business must have freedom to locate where it wishes. In a free market, if a business makes a mistake (including a marketing mistake that perhaps Carrier executives made), threatening to move elsewhere claiming efficiency’s sake, then the market’s invisible hand punishes. Thankfully, that same hand rewards, based on good business decisions. But this time-tested truth assumes we’re operating on a level playing field. When government steps in arbitrarily with individual subsidies, favoring one business over others, it sets inconsistent, unfair, illogical precedent. Meanwhile, the invisible hand that best orchestrates a free people’s free enterprise system gets amputated. Then, special interests creep in and manipulate markets. Republicans oppose this, remember? Instead, we support competition on a level playing field, remember? Because we know special interest crony capitalism is one big fail.”

Sarah Palin (1964) American politician

2016, But… Wait… The Good Guys Won’t Win With More Crony Capitalism (December 2, 2016)

People , Truth , Support , Decision

“A few months ago I read an interview with a critic; a well-known critic; an unusually humane and intelligent critic. The interviewer had just said that the critic “sounded like a happy man”, and the interview was drawing to a close; the critic said, ending it all: “I read, but I don’t get any time to read at whim. All the reading I do is in order to write or teach, and I resent it. We have no TV, and I don’t listen to the radio or records, or go to art galleries or the theater. I’m a completely negative personality.”
As I thought of that busy, artless life—no records, no paintings, no plays, no books except those you lecture on or write articles about—I was so depressed that I went back over the interview looking for some bright spot, and I found it, one beautiful sentence: for a moment I had left the gray, dutiful world of the professional critic, and was back in the sunlight and shadow, the unconsidered joys, the unreasoned sorrows, of ordinary readers and writers, amateurishly reading and writing “at whim”. The critic said that once a year he read Kim, it was plain, at whim: not to teach, not to criticize, just for love—he read it, as Kipling wrote it, just because he liked to, wanted to, couldn’t help himself. To him it wasn’t a means to a lecture or an article, it was an end; he read it not for anything he could get out of it, but for itself. And isn’t this what the work of art demands of us? The work of art, Rilke said, says to us always: You must change your life. It demands of us that we too see things as ends, not as means—that we too know them and love them for their own sake. This change is beyond us, perhaps, during the active, greedy, and powerful hours of our lives, but during the contemplative and sympathetic hours of our reading, our listening, our looking, it is surely within our power, if we choose to make it so, if we choose to let one part of our nature follow its natural desires. So I say to you, for a closing sentence: Read at whim! read at whim!”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“Poets, Critics, and Readers”, pp. 112–113
A Sad Heart at the Supermarket: Essays & Fables (1962)

Love , Life , Books , World

“Enterprise architecture is the organizing logic for business processes and IT infrastructure reflecting the integration and standardization requirements of a company's operation model… The key to effective enterprise architecture is to identify the processes, data, technology, and customer interfaces that take the operating model from vision to reality.”

Jeanne W. Ross (1958) American computer scientist

Source: Enterprise architecture as strategy, 2006, p. 47

Reality

“Imperfect markets are different. (…) Similarly, in Paul Krugman’s neat adaptation, “all perfect markets are perfect in the same way: all imperfect markets imperfect in their own different way.” But truly perfect markets exist only in economists’ models; in the real world, markets are imperfect. But within imperfect markets there is a range from those that work well enough for a laissez-faire approach to be broadly valid to those for which market failure or imperfection is extreme and inherent. The market for restaurants works pretty well. The best way to ensure a range of restaurants that provide us with variety, incentives for good service, and enjoyment of changing ambience and menu is to let entrepreneurship do its business—let thousands of flowers bloom, some to succeed and some to wilt.”

Adair Turner, Baron Turner of Ecchinswell (1955) British businessman

Source: Economics after the crisis : objectives and means (2012), Ch. 2 : Financial Markets: Efficiency, Stability, and Income Distribution

World , Way , Flowers , Failure

“Defined simply, innovation is, of course, the introduction of something new. We presume that the purpose of introducing something new into a process is to bring about major, radical change. Process innovation combines a structure for doing work with an orientation to visible and dramatic results. It involves stepping back from a process to inquire into its overall business objective, and then effecting creative and radical change to realize order-of-magnitude improvements in the way that objective is accomplished.”

Thomas H. Davenport (1954) American academic

Process Innovation: Reengineering Work through Information Technology, 1993

Way , Change

“The first mistake belonging to business is the going into it.”

George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax (1633–1695) English politician

Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Reflections (1750), Moral Thoughts and Reflections

“We understand the notions of both ethnic pride and hyphenated Americanism, but many of us are still bewildered about contradictory impulses: the emotional need to display Mexican decals on cars and hang Mexican flags on houses and businesses — or boo an American team at a soccer match — coupled with equally heated expressions of outrage that anyone might suggest that those who broke American law in coming to the United States would ever have to return where their hearts would “always be.” That paradox is the most disturbing — and ignored — aspect of the immigration debate: the contradictory impulse to fault the United States for a litany of sins (exploitation, racism, xenophobia, nativism) without commensurate attention to why any newcomer would wish to reside in a place that is so clearly culpable…”

Victor Davis Hanson (1953) American military historian, essayist, university professor

2010s, Western Cultural Suicide (2013)

Law , Cars , Understanding , Heart

“Life is in the business of making its environment agreeable for life.”

Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)

Life

“The problem with managing either a business or a prison by periodic rather than continuous inspection is that the "variables" are likely to be seriously out of control before the discrepancy is noted.”

Anthony Stafford Beer (1926–2002) British theorist, consultant, and professor

Source: Management Science (1968), Chapter 6, The Viable Governor, p. 146.

Problem

“I think the detective story is by far the best upholder of the democratic doctrine in literature. I mean, there couldn't have been detective stories until there were democracies, because the very foundation of the detective story is the thesis that if you're guilty you'll get it in the neck and if you're innocent you can't possibly be harmed. No matter who you are. There was no such conception of justice until after 1830. There was no such thing as a policeman or a detective in the world before 1830, because the modern conception of the policeman and detective, namely, a man whose only function is to find out who did it and then get the evidence that will punish him, did not exist. … In Paris before the year 1800 — read the Dumas stories — there were gangs of people whose business was to go out and punish wrongdoers. But why? Because they had hurt De Marillac or Richelieu or the Duke or some Huguenot noble, not just because they had harmed society. It is only the modern policeman that is out to protect society.”

Rex Stout (1886–1975) American writer

Rex Stout, pp. 248–249
Invitation to Learning

People , World , Justice , Democracy

“[Absolute Dictator]It would convert the Treasury of the United States into a manufactory of paper money. It makes the House of Representatives and the Senate, or the caucus of the party which happens to be in the majority, the absolute dictator of the financial and business affairs of this country. This scheme surpasses all the centralism and all the Caesarism that were ever charged upon the Republican party in the wildest days of the war or in the events growing out of the war.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

Commenting on a resolution offered by James Weaver of the Greenback Party that the government should issue all money, on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives (5 April 1880), published in Financial Catechism and History of the Financial Legislation of the United States from 1862-1896 (1882) by S. M. Brice, p. 223 http://books.google.com/books?id=u-goAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA223 (Cong. Record, 10:2140)
1880s

Money , War , Housing , Country

Quotes about business page 16

Quotes about business
page 16