What's your favorite entrepreneurial quote? | Hacker News Reader

What's your favorite entrepreneurial quote?

19 pointsjamiequint46 comments

I have 2

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it." ~Goethe

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat." ~Theodore Roosevelt

Love the Roosevelt quote.

Agreed.

A quote I found (don't know any off hand):

If you think you are beaten, you are. If you think you dare not, you don't! If you want to win, but think you can't, It's almost a cinch you won't. If you think you'll lose, you're lost; For out in the world we find Success begins with a fellow's will; It's all in the state of the mind. Life's battles don't always go To the stronger and faster man, But sooner or later the man who wins Is the man who thinks he can. Walter D. Wintle

Link: http://www.zeromillion.com/entrepreneurship/quotes.html

"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses" - Henry Ford

Here are a few that I like:

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. - Thomas A. Edison

Don't wait. The time will never be just right. - Napoleon Hill

We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about. - Albert Einstein

Failure is rarely fatal. -Seth Godin

Eighty percent of success is showing up. - Woody Allen

My interest in life comes from setting myself huge, apparently unachievable challenges and trying to rise above them. -Richard Branson

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have. - Thomas Jefferson

Another one: A successful person fails many times, but a failure only fails once. (I don't who said it.)

That first person sounds like failure to me. A persistent one, however.

I take it to mean that everyone fails and if you let a failure stop you, you'll never succeed. Successful people fail too, but they learn from their failures and move on, until they succeed.

I keep a file of these. Here are some of my favorites:

"In the long run, we only hit what we aim at." - Henry David Thorou

"The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war." - Asian proverb

"No battle plan survives contact with the enemy." - Helmuth von Moltke

"No wind favors he who has no destined port." - Montaigne

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead

"Real artists ship." - Steve Jobs

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."

- Mark Twain

(Good case for moving to a startup hub)

All-time favorite quote since about 10 years ago. It really isolates out the defining quality of a "great" person: not only have they achieved greatness; they also inspire others to become great.

"Pay no attention to what the critics say; there has never been set up a statue in honor of a critic." -J. Sibelius (composer)

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.

-- Winston Churchill

You can only avoid competition by avoiding good ideas.

-- Paul Graham

The perfect is the enemy of the good.

-- Voltaire

"Heights by great men reached and kept were not obtained by sudden flight but, while their companions slept, they were toiling upward in the night." -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"You make what you measure."

(from Hewlett and Packard via Joe Kraus)

"I only have one hour of pure brilliance per week. Unfortunately I have to work 80 per week to find the one."

- Wil Schroter

The difference between great people and everyone else is that great people create their lives actively, while everyone else is created by their lives, passively waiting to see where life takes them next. The difference between the two is the difference between living fully and just existing. Michael Gerber

(Paraphrasing, possibly not exact quote):

"You only need to be right once"

-- Mark Cuban

Theodore Roosevelt:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

"When something is too hard it means that you're not cheating enough." - David Heinemeier Hansson

A few more...

Fortune favors the bold ~Virgil

You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them. ~Michael Jordan

"The road to wisdom? Well, it's plain

And simple to express:

Err

and err

and err again

but less

and less

and less."

-- Piet Hein via Don Knuth and Ryan Brush

http://toomuchcode.blogspot.com/2007/02/imperfect-approximation-of-perfect-code.html

The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer. Peter Drucker

"Passion knows no logic."

"Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty. Think big."

-Daniel Burnham, Chicago architect. (1864-1912)

From the Scottish mountain climber W. H. Murray:

"Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way."

"If you're reading this, you're not working hard enough." -Me

There are many things in life that will catch your eye, but only a few will catch your heart...pursue those. (Anonymous)

(found on the website of Dr. Dan Garcia, UC Berkeley)

Do it.

Do it right.

Do it right now.

"I never cared so much for making a fortune...I only wanted to get ahead of the other fellows." - Thomas Edison

Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can acheive. - Napoleon Hill

Godel disproved this.

He might have disproved it as a complete axiom but I see the value of this quote in that things must be conceived and believed before they can be acheived.

I didn't realize the game was over. :-)

"Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming." -John Wooden

"Stop reading quotes and get back to work!" - Anonymous

Not exactly an entrepreneurial quote perhaps, but this I have written on my whiteboard:

"Functionality always stays on the edge of what is feasible" - Ray Kurzweil

Success is not a place at which one arrives, but rather the spirit with which one undertakes and continues the journey. Alex Noble

"If you go to bat enough times you may never hit a home run, but sooner or later you're bound to be hit by the ball and walked."

"Ningun hombre fracasa mientras no deja de luchar" Ma. Eugenia Solari

(No man is defeated as long as he is still fighting.)

Do much. Say little. Write nothing. (Except software)

JP Morgan (I added the bit about software.)

"Be the change you want to see in the world" --Ghandi

Cheap, fast, or accurate.

Pick two.

NIKE " JUST DO IT "

Chance favors the prepared mind - Louis Pasteur

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