“If politics is like show business, then the idea is not to pursue excellence, clarity or honesty but to appear as if you are, which is another matter altogether.”

“The business virtue par excellence is honesty—without it markets can’t long survive.”

“It is the human condition to question one god after another, one appearance after another, or better, one apparition after another, always pursuing the truth of the imagination, which is not the same as the truth of appearance.”

“Those activities at which you excel with no effort at all—those are the ones you ought to pursue to the detriment of others.”

“Politics matters. Ideas matter. Democracy matters.”

“If you like business, you have to like GE. If you like ideas, you have to love GE. This is a place where ideas can flow freely from and through more than 20 separate businesses and more than 300,000 employees. Boundaryless behavior allows ideas to come from anywhere. We formalize our freewheeling style in a series of operating meetings that blend into one another.”

“It didn’t matter what war was fought, coming back home was another battle altogether.”

“Politics is just show business for ugly people.”

“Paul Merton (on the subject of people wearing bow-ties): People wear bow-ties because it's show-business, isn't it? I mean there's Bernard Manning there. I mean, obviously he is in show-business, and Neil Hamilton desperately would like to be in show-business. But that's the idea isn't it?”

“This comparison [of division accounts] will show the officers who conduct their business with the greatest economy, and will indicate, in a manner not to be mistaken, the relative ability and fitness of each for the position he occupies. It will be valuable in pointing out the particulars of excess in the cost of management of one division with another, by comparison of details; will direct attention to those matters in which sufficient economy is not practiced; and it is believed, will have the effect of exciting an honorable spirit of emulation to excel.”