Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals.

A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better.

A novel is never anything, but a philosophy put into images.

Affirmation without discipline is the beginning of delusion.

Asking is the beginning of receiving. Make sure you don’t go to the ocean with a teaspoon. At least take a bucket so the kids won’t laugh at you.

Better understated than overstated. Let people be surprised that it was more than you promised and easier than you said.

Character isn’t something you were born with and can’t change, like your fingerprints. It’s something you weren’t born with and must take responsibility for forming.

Failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.

For every disciplined effort there is a multiple reward.

Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.

Don’t bring your need to the marketplace, bring your skill. If you don’t feel well, tell your doctor, but not the marketplace. If you need money, go to the bank, but not the marketplace.

Don’t just read the easy stuff. You may be entertained by it, but you will never grow from it.

Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better.

Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know.

Either you run the day or the day runs you.

Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don’t fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgement, repeated every day.

Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.

Give whatever you are doing and whoever you are with the gift of your attention.

Giving is better than receiving because giving starts the receiving process.


Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present.

Ideas can be life-changing. Sometimes all you need to open the door is just one more good idea.

If someone is going down the wrong road, he doesn’t need motivation to speed him up. What he needs is education to turn him around.

If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.

If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.

It doesn’t matter which side of the fence you get off on sometimes. What matters most is getting off. You cannot make progress without making decisions.

It is the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind that determines which way we will go.

Labor gives birth to ideas.

Learning is the beginning of wealth. Learning is the beginning of health. Learning is the beginning of spirituality. Searching and learning is where the miracle process all begins.

Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else’s hands, but not you.

Make measurable progress in reasonable time.

Maturity is the ability to reap without apology and not complain when things don’t go well.

Miss a meal if you have to, but don’t miss a book.

Money is usually attracted, not pursued.

Part of your heritage in this society is the opportunity to become financially independent.

Some people plant in the spring and leave in the summer. If you’re signed up for a season, see it through. You don’t have to stay forever, but at least stay until you see it through.

Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person you become.

If you don’t like how things are, change it! You’re not a tree.

If you go to work on your goals, your goals will go to work on you. If you go to work on your plan, your plan will go to work on you. Whatever good things we build end up building us.


Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day.

Success is steady progress toward one’s personal goals.

Take advantage of every opportunity to practice your communication skills so that when important occasions arise, you will have the gift, the style, the sharpness, the clarity, and the emotions to affect other people.

Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.

We get paid for bringing value to the market place.

We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment.

Whatever good things we build end up building us.

Take time to gather up the past so that you will be able to draw from your experience and invest them in the future.

The book you don’t read won’t help.

The difficulties you meet will resolve themselves as you advance. Proceed, and light will dawn, and shine with increasing clearness on your path.

The few who do are the envy of the many who only watch.

The major reason for setting a goal is for what it makes of you to accomplish it. What it makes of you will always be the far greater value than what you get.

The major value in life is not what you get. The major value in life is what you become.

The more you know the less you need to say.

The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.

The walls we build around us to keep sadness out also keeps out the joy.

The worst thing one can do is not to try, to be aware of what one wants and not give in to it, to spend years in silent hurt wondering if something could have materialized - never knowing.

There are only 3 colors, 10 digits, and 7 notes; its what we do with them that’s important.

Things that I felt absolutely sure of but a few years ago, I do not believe now. This thought makes me see more clearly how foolish it would be to expect all men to agree with me.

Time is more value than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time.

To solve any problem, here are three questions to ask yourself: First, what could I do? Second, what could I read? And third, who could I ask?

When you know what you want, and want it bad enough, you will find a way to get it.

Whoever renders service to many puts himself in line for greatness - great wealth, great return, great satisfaction, great reputation, and great joy.

You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of.

Your philosophy determines whether you will go for the disciplines or continue the errors.

Without a sense of urgency, desire loses its value.

Words do two major things: They provide food for the mind and create light for understanding and awareness.

Work harder on yourself than you do on your job.

You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.

You don’t get paid for the hour. You get paid for the value you bring to the hour.

Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.

Checking the results of a decision against its expectations shows executives what their strengths are, where they need to improve, and where they lack knowledge or information.

Company cultures are like country cultures. Never try to change one. Try, instead, to work with what you’ve got.

Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes… but no plans.

We can say with certainty - or 90% probability - that the new industries that are about to be born will have nothing to do with information.

We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.

When a subject becomes totally obsolete we make it a required course.

A manager is responsible for the application and performance of knowledge.

Accept the fact that we have to treat almost anybody as a volunteer.

Business, that’s easily defined - it’s other people’s money.

Executives owe it to the organization and to their fellow workers not to tolerate nonperforming individuals in important jobs.

Few companies that installed computers to reduce the employment of clerks have realized their expectations… They now need more, and more expensive clerks even though they call them ‘operators’ or ‘programmers.’

Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.

Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship. The act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth.

Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes.

Making good decisions is a crucial skill at every level.

Management by objective works - if you know the objectives. Ninety percent of the time you don’t.

Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.

Most discussions of decision making assume that only senior executives make decisions or that only senior executives’ decisions matter. This is a dangerous mistake.

Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done.

My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions.

Never mind your happiness; do your duty.

No institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organized in such a way as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings.

People who don’t take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year.

Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.

Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility.

So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.

Suppliers and especially manufacturers have market power because they have information about a product or a service that the customer does not and cannot have, and does not need if he can trust the brand. This explains the profitability of brands.

Teaching is the only major occupation of man for which we have not yet developed tools that make an average person capable of competence and performance. In teaching we rely on the “naturals,” the ones who somehow know how to teach.

The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.

The best way to predict the future is to create it.

The computer is a moron.

The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.

The most efficient way to produce anything is to bring together under one management as many as possible of the activities needed to turn out the product.

The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said.

The new information technology… Internet and e-mail… have practically eliminated the physical costs of communications.

The only thing we know about the future is that it will be different.

The productivity of work is not the responsibility of the worker but of the manager.

The purpose of a business is to create a customer.

There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.

Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed nothing else can be managed.

Today knowledge has power. It controls access to opportunity and advancement.

Trying to predict the future is like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights while looking out the back window.