Quotes about customer
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Ralf Metzenmacher photo

“About 80 percent of our customers buy our shoes not to compete in, but to wear in their leisure time.”

Ralf Metzenmacher (1964) German artist, designer and painter

The New York Times, March 12, 2004

Richard Koch photo

“Marketing, and the whole firm, should devote extraordinary endeavour towards delighting, keeping for ever and expanding the sales to the 20 per cent of customers who provide 80 per cent.”

Richard Koch (1950) German medical historian and internist

Source: The 80/20 principle: the secret of achieving more with less (1999), p. 103

Roger Bacon photo
G. K. Chesterton photo
Alfred Denning, Baron Denning photo
Wilfred Thesiger photo
William Hazlitt photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Rudyard Kipling photo
Clayton M. Christensen photo
Benjamin Franklin photo
Hugo Chávez photo

“What they have implanted here, which is really a 'gringo' custom, is terrorism. They disguise children as witches and wizards, that is contrary to our culture.”

Hugo Chávez (1954–2013) 48th President of Venezuela

Hugo Chávez on Halloween. http://www.breitbart.com/news/na/051101005143.9f6752nt.html
2005

“It is necessary that the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity, eternal in their duration, be universal in their application, that being realized in institutions, law and customs, they spread over the surface of the globe and filter down to it's lowest strata. Only then shall the regeneration of man be accomplished.”

Francisco Luís Gomes (1829–1869) Indo-Portuguese physician, writer, historian, economist, political scientist and MP in the Portuguese parli…

Os Brâmanes (1866). Quoted by Teotonio R. de Souza in Essays in Goan history (1989), p. 137
Os Brâmanes (1866)

“The messages of the prophets are essentially indictments of Israel for breach of covenant. They preserved some memory of the old traditions, but were not so naive as to think that the literal demands of the old law would be adequate in their own times. There is no condemnation of the stratification of society as such, rather a condemnation of the injustice and extortion which was done by the powerful. To take a specific example, the old law knew as security for a loan only the pledge (Exod. 22:26). In a simple economy, loans were evidently of an amount which would usually be adequately secured by giving to the creditor some property to hold until the loan was repaid. In case of default, the debtor's property simply reverted to the creditor. No other form of security is presupposed in the Covenant Code, and it is specifically forbidden that an Israelite be a "creditor" to one of his fellows. Already in the reign of Saul the situation had changed, Those who gathered about David as outlaws included those who had "creditors" (I Sam. 22:2), and who therefore had to flee. Under the old pledge system of security there would be no possible occasion for flight from the community in case of default. A totally different legal doctrine had come into practice whereby the person of the debtor was security for a loan. Upon default the creditor could seize him (or his family) as a slave, possibly without any legal action at all. The only alternative to slavery would have been flight. This doctrine is identical to that of Babylonian law, and no doubt of the Canaanites as well. It is in the law of the monarchy that Canaanite influence is doubtless to be posited, but it is a legal tradition in total contradiction to the customs and morality of early Israel. Amos protested violently against the way the legal doctrine was practiced, as did most of the prophets (Am. 2:6; Hos. 12:8-9; Mic. 2:1-2). The later lawcodes illustrate beautifully the way in which the early traditions, and the needs of business were brought into harmony. The older pledge system was simply inadequate for a commercial economy; and if the person of the debtor was to be protected, so also must the rights of the creditor to some security for his loan to be guaranteed. Therefore, Deuteronomy and the Holiness Code (Lv. 17-26) accept the doctrine of bodily liability, but place restrictions upon the powers of the creditor over the defaulting debtor. In the Holiness Code he is not to be treated as a slave, nor given the legal status of a slave, but rather to be as a hired laborer.”

George E. Mendenhall (1916–2016) American academic

Law and Convenant in Israel and the Ancient Near East (1954)

“The custom of the city of London is a matter of fact.”

Thomas Denison (1699–1765) British judge (1699–1765)

Rex v. Davis (1758), 1 Burr. Part IV. 641.

Clayton M. Christensen photo
Marguerite Yourcenar photo

“Our civil laws will never be supple enough to fit the immense and changing variety of facts. Laws change more slowly than custom, and though dangerous when they fall behind the times are more dangerous still when they presume to anticipate custom.”

Nos lois civiles ne seront jamais assez souples pour s'adapter à l'immense et fluide variété des faits. Elles changent moins vite que les moeurs; dangereuses quand elles retardent sur celles-ci, elles le sont davantage quand elles se mêlent de les précéder.
Source: Memoirs of Hadrian (1951), p. 113

Kevin Kelly photo

“The net demands wiser customers.”

Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995), New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World (1999)

Alison Bechdel photo
David Hume photo
Geoffrey Moore photo
Adrian Slywotzky photo

“The new rules of competition require managers to start by asking what's important to their customers and where the company can make new money. Then, they need to reinvent their businesses to create the next profit zones.”

Adrian Slywotzky (1951) American economist

Attributed to Slywotzky and Morrison in: John A. Byrne (1998) " Go where the money is http://www.businessweek.com/1998/04/b3562033.htm" at businessweek.com. Jan. 15, 1998.

Herbert A. Simon photo
Neal Stephenson photo
Gustave de Molinari photo

“This option the consumerit could. The present admirable constitution of the courts of justice in England was, perhaps, originally in a great measure, formed by this emulation, which anciently took place between their respective judges; each judge endeavouring to give, in his own court, the speediest and most effectual remedy, which the law would admit, for every sort of injustice. (The Wealth of Nations [New York: Modern Library, 1937]; originally 1776), p. 679--> retains of being able to buy security wherever he pleases brings about a constant emulation among all the producers, each producer striving to maintain or augment his clientele with the attraction of cheapness or of faster, more complete and better justice.If, on the contrary, the consumer is not free to buy security wherever he pleases, you forthwith see open up a large profession dedicated to arbitrariness and bad management. Justice becomes slow and costly, the police vexatious, individual liberty is no longer respected, the price of security is abusively inflated and inequitably apportioned, according to the power and influence of this or that class of consumers. The protectors engage in bitter struggles to wrest customers from one another. In a word, all the abuses inherent in monopoly or in communism crop up.”

Gustave de Molinari (1819–1912) Belgian political economist and classical liberal theorist

Source: The Production of Security (1849), p. 57-59

Mickey Spillane photo

“I have no fans. You know what I got? Customers. And customers are your friends.”

Mickey Spillane (1918–2006) American writer

Writers on Writing interview (1986)

Hugh Plat photo
Omar Bradley photo

“Flash Teacher: How to spot: He'll be the only member of staff who drives a customized Lada.”

Peter Corey (1946) British writer

Coping With series, Coping With Teachers (1991)

John Erskine photo
Walter Rauschenbusch photo
Ferdinand Hodler photo
Ignatius Sancho photo
Geoffrey Hodgson photo
Giovanni della Casa photo
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay photo
William H. McNeill photo
Kevin Kelly photo

“Releasing incomplete 'buggy' products is not cost-cutting desperation; it is the shrewdest way to complete a product when your customers are smarter than you are.”

Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995), New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World (1999)

Henry Blodget photo
Newton Lee photo

“The U. S. government needs to learn from successful private businesses that run an effective and efficient operation in serving their customers and outwitting their competitors.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

Counterterrorism and Cybersecurity: Total Information Awareness (2nd Edition), 2015

James Martin (author) photo
Jay Gould photo
Timothy Ferriss photo
Clayton M. Christensen photo
Robert G. Ingersoll photo
Murray Leinster photo

“It is the custom of all men, everywhere, to be obtuse where women are concerned.”

Source: The Pirates of Zan (1959), Chapter 10

James Meade photo
W.E.B. Du Bois photo
Pope Benedict XVI photo

“The mysterious name of God, revealed from the burning bush, a name which separates this God from all other divinities with their many names and simply asserts being, "I am", already presents a challenge to the notion of myth, to which Socrates' attempt to vanquish and transcend myth stands in close analogy. Within the Old Testament, the process which started at the burning bush came to new maturity at the time of the Exile, when the God of Israel, an Israel now deprived of its land and worship, was proclaimed as the God of heaven and earth and described in a simple formula which echoes the words uttered at the burning bush: "I am". This new understanding of God is accompanied by a kind of enlightenment, which finds stark expression in the mockery of gods who are merely the work of human hands (cf. Ps 115). Thus, despite the bitter conflict with those Hellenistic rulers who sought to accommodate it forcibly to the customs and idolatrous cult of the Greeks, biblical faith, in the Hellenistic period, encountered the best of Greek thought at a deep level, resulting in a mutual enrichment evident especially in the later wisdom literature. Today we know that the Greek translation of the Old Testament produced at Alexandria - the Septuagint - is more than a simple (and in that sense really less than satisfactory) translation of the Hebrew text: it is an independent textual witness and a distinct and important step in the history of revelation, one which brought about this encounter in a way that was decisive for the birth and spread of Christianity. A profound encounter of faith and reason is taking place here, an encounter between genuine enlightenment and religion. From the very heart of Christian faith and, at the same time, the heart of Greek thought now joined to faith, Manuel II was able to say: Not to act "with logos" is contrary to God's nature.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

2006, Faith, Reason and the University — Memories and Reflections (2006)

Robin Maugham photo
Ulysses S. Grant photo
Charlotte Brontë photo
Clarence Thomas photo
Francis Escudero photo
Jacques Maritain photo
Vincent Van Gogh photo
Adam Smith photo
William John Macquorn Rankine photo
Bernard Mandeville photo
Alan Sugar photo

“Pan Am takes good care of you. Marks & Spencer loves you. Securicor cares. I. B. M. says the customer is king. At Amstrad, we only want your money!”

Alan Sugar (1947) British business magnate, media personality, and political advisor

Quoted in the New York Times, September 28, 1987, from an earlier public speech.

Edward Coke photo

“Only this incident inseparable every custom must have, viz., that it be consonant to reason; for how long soever it hath continued, if it be against reason, it is of no force in law.”

Edward Coke (1552–1634) English lawyer and judge

The First Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England, or, A Commentary on Littleton, part 62a (London, 1628, ed. F. Hargrave and C. Butler, 19th ed., London, 1832).
Institutes of the Laws of England

John Ruskin photo

“Levi's station in life was the receipt of custom; and Peter's, the shore of Galilee; and Paul's, the antechambers of the High- Priest,— which "station in life" each had to leave, with brief notice.”

John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 438.

Shah Jahan photo

“According to Qazvini, Shahjahan’s orders in this regard were that captives were not to be sold to Hindus as slaves, and under Muslim customers they could only become Musalman.”

Shah Jahan (1592–1666) 5th Mughal Emperor

Amin Qazvini, Badshah Nama, Ms. Raza Library, Rampur. p.405. cited by Lal, K. S. (1990). Indian muslims: Who are they.

August-Wilhelm Scheer photo
Roger Scruton photo
Mohammad Hidayatullah photo
Steve Jobs photo
David Lloyd George photo
James Frazer photo

“The custom of burning a beneficent god is too foreign to later modes of thought to escape misinterpretation.”

Source: The Golden Bough (1890), Chapter 64, The Burning of Human Beings in the Fires.

Everett Dean Martin photo
Tim Powers photo
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon photo
Dinesh D'Souza photo
Mike Lazaridis photo

“You have to build an industry. You have to be very nimble, and you have to be connected to your customers, and that can't be done with just one company.”

Mike Lazaridis (1961) Canadian businessman

Bloomberg: "The Co-Inventor of BlackBerry Is Building Canada’s Quantum Brain Trust" https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-09/the-co-inventor-of-blackberry-is-building-canada-s-quantum-brain-trust (09 February 2018)

Geoffrey Moore photo
Gaio Valerio Catullo photo

“Wandering through many countries and over many seas I come, my brother, to these sorrowful obsequies, to present you with the last guerdon of death, and speak, though in vain, to your silent ashes, since fortune has taken your own self away from me—alas, my brother, so cruelly torn from me! Yet now meanwhile take these offerings, which by the custom of our fathers have been handed down—a sorrowful tribute—for a funeral sacrifice; take them, wet with many tears of a brother, and for ever, my brother, hail and farewell!”
Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus Advenio has miseras, frater, ad inferias, Ut te postremo donarem munere mortis Et mutam nequiquam alloquerer cinerem. Quandoquidem fortuna mihi tete abstulit ipsum, Heu miser indigne frater adempte mihi, Nunc tamen interea haec prisco quae more parentum Tradita sunt tristi munere ad inferias, Accipe fraterno multum manantia fletu, Atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.

CI, lines 1–10
Sir William Marris's translation:
By many lands and over many a wave
I come, my brother, to your piteous grave,
To bring you the last offering in death
And o'er dumb dust expend an idle breath;
For fate has torn your living self from me,
And snatched you, brother, O, how cruelly!
Yet take these gifts, brought as our fathers bade
For sorrow's tribute to the passing shade;
A brother's tears have wet them o'er and o'er;
And so, my brother, hail, and farewell evermore!
Carmina

Vincent Massey photo

“We must pass through the barriers of language and race, of geography and religion, of custom and tradition and we must build on a common foundation.”

Vincent Massey (1887–1967) Governor General of Canada

Address at a Citizenship Ceremony, Winnipeg Manitoba, May 20, 1955
Speaking Of Canada - (1959)

Muhammad of Ghor photo

“Such was the man who was sent on an embassy to Ajmir, in order that the Rai (Pithaura) of that country might see the right way without the intervention of the sword, and that he might incline from the track of opposition into the path of propriety, leaving his airy follies for the institutes of the knowledge of Allah, and acknowledging the expediency of uttering the words of martyrdom and repeating the precepts of the law, and might abstain from infidelity and darkness, which entails the loss of this world and that to come, and might place in his ear the ring of slavery to the sublime Court (may Allah exalt it!) which is the centre of justice and mercy, and the pivot of the Sultans of the worldand by these means and modes might cleanse the fords of good life from the sins of impurity'…'The army of Islam was completely victorious, and 'an hundred thousand grovelling Hindus swiftly departed to the fire of hell'… After this great victory, the army of Islam marched forward to Ajmir, where it arrived at a fortunate moment and under an auspicious bird, and obtained so much booty and wealth, that you might have said that the secret depositories of the seas and hills had been revealed….'While the Sultan remained at Ajmir, he destroyed the pillars and foundations of the idol temples, and built in their stead mosques and colleges, and the precepts of Islam, and the customs of the law were divulged and established”

Muhammad of Ghor (1160–1206) Ghurid Sultan

About the conquest of Ajmer (Rajasthan) Hasan Nizami: Taju’l-Ma’sir, in Elliot and Dowson, Vol. II : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. pp. 213-216. Also quoted (in part) in Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts.

Francis Escudero photo

“• Increase of P421.5 million for the Bureau of Customs for Workplace Modernization and various equipment to counter the perennial problem of smuggling;”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2014, Speech: Sponsorship Speech for the FY 2015 National Budget

Francisco De Goya photo
Donald A. Norman photo

“What use is equality in theory and in law, if it does not penetrate into our customs?”

Francisco Luís Gomes (1829–1869) Indo-Portuguese physician, writer, historian, economist, political scientist and MP in the Portuguese parli…

Os Brâmanes, p. 33
Os Brâmanes (1866)

The Mother photo

“I don't feel that you are sincere, neither you nor your flock. You all went there to fulfill a social duty and social custom, but not at all because you really wanted to enter into communion with God.”

The Mother (1878–1973) spiritual collaborator of Sri Aurobindo

Comment to a Priest who questioned her for not attending the Sunday service during her voyage on the ship Kaga Maru, quoted in Diary notes and Meeting with Sri Aurobindo http://www.searchforlight.org/TheMother_lifeSketchpart4.htm.

Otto Neurath photo
Walter Slezak photo