Enjoy a wide variety of quotations on topics such as:
Management
Teaching
Kindness
Smiles
Friendship
Motivation
General
MANAGEMENT QUOTATIONS
A
Accountability: The battle cry for any business is performance, productivity and accountability.
Accountants: Old accountants never die- they just lose their balance.
Achievement: Results count- not long hours of effort.
We need to acknowledge our weaknesses, value our strengths and exhort ourselves to achieve.
People stumble not on mountains, but on small stones.
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, others judge us by what we have already achieved.
You need only three things to get to the top - talent, ambition and initiative.
Action: .
People may doubt what you say, but they will always believe what you do.
To get things done choose a busy person. The other kind has no time.
Activity: Life is like a mirror- it never reflects more than we can put into it.
Advertising: When business is good, it pays to advertise. When business is bad you’ve got to advertise.
Ambition: Always aim for the moon, and if miss it, don't worry - you will fall among the stars.
The only job you start at the top is when you dig a hole.
Anger: If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.
B
Budget: A budget tells your money where to go instead of you wondering where it went.
Budgets make you worry before you spend instead of afterwards.
Business: It’s easy to start a business but to keep it growing takes much work and skill.
Business is riding a bicycle- either you keep moving or you fall down.
C
Calendar: A calendar is simply a reminder that our days are numbered.
Change: To improve is to change; to aim for perfection is to change often.
Nothing is permanent except change.
There is nothing wrong with change - if it’s in the right direction.
The graveyard of business is littered with companies that failed to recognise the need to change.
Communication: Communication must be a two-way affair.
There are two kinds of people who don’t say much - those who are quiet, and those who talk too much.
Confidence: If you have confidence in yourself, others will too.
Contacts: It’s not what you know, but who you know that counts.
Conversation: Conversation is a competitive exercise in which the first person to draw breath is declared the listener.
Co-operation:
Two heads are better than one.
Courage: Keep your fears to yourself but share your courage with others.
Cowardice: To know what to do is right, and not to do it is the worst cowardice.
Creativity: The freedom to make mistakes provides the best environment for creativity.
Customers: What you want and what your customers want may not be the same, but unless you give them what they want, you won’t get what you want!
Why customers die
· 1 % die away
· 3 % move away
· 5 % form other friendships
· 9 % for competitive reasons
· 14 % because of product dissatisfaction
· 68 % quit because of an attitude of indifference on the part of an employee
Competition: It you are not busy meeting competition you are creating it,
D
Debt: It’s easy to get into debt but hard to get out.
Determination: A quitter never wins and a winner never quits.
Development: You cannot teach a person anything; you can only help them find it within themselves.
Direction: It is not where we stand that’s important but in what direction we are moving.
E
Effort: You don't know what you can do until you try.
About the only thing that comes to us without effort is old age.
Empowerment: Empowerment is the key to good management and an increased output.
Enthusiasm: Enthusiasm is contagious - it’s caught not taught.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
To be enthusiastic act enthusiastically - act as if you cannot fail.
Become the most positive and enthusiastic person you know.
Enthusiasm finds the opportunities, and energy makes the most of them.
Environment: Think global - act local.
If you want to do something likely to last - plant a tree.
Error: The error of one moment can become the sorrow of a lifetime.
Experience: Once burnt, a lesson taught.
Experience teaches only the teachable.
Nothing experienced is ever lost - even the most painful.
Education is what you get from reading the small print in a contract. Experience is what you get from not reading it.
Expectation: The quality of what we expect determines the quality of our actions.
Always offer more than expected.
People who expect too much, do too little.
F
Failure: I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure: try to please everybody.
To do nothing is the worst sort of failure.
If your life is free of failures you’re not taking enough risks.
You fail only when you give up.
Don't judge those who try and fail. Judge only those who fail to try.
Fairness: Act as if all were right, and all will be right.
Faults: It’s better to show yourself your own faults than to show other people theirs.
Feedback: Feedback is the key to improvement. Encourage honest feedback - don't become defensive.
Friendship: To have a friend, be a friend.
None is so rich as to throw away a friend.
Give and take makes good friends.
The best time to make friends is before you need them.
The more arguments you win the fewer friends you have.
Future: Take an interest in the future - that’s where you are going to spend the rest of your life.
Your future is no more uncertain than the present.
G
Genius: Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
Gift: The least expected gift is the more highly esteemed.
Goals: Try setting a goal higher than you can reach - then reach it !
Goodness: Goodness is the only investment that never fails to return a dividend.
Growth: You are either climbing the ladder of success or coming down - the choice is yours.
H
Help: You can never really help people by doing for them the things which they can do for themselves.
Too often we give people food when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants.
Hope: Those who do not hope to win have already lost.
I
Ideas: The most valuable thing you can give a person is a useful idea.
One constructive suggestion is worth a hundred complaints.
The best way to kill an idea is to take it to a meeting.
New ideas rarely germinate with someone who is scared of being wrong.
Ideas germinate in the soil of creativity
Here are 10 tried and trusted ways to kill the good idea/enthusiasm of co-workers
1. It's against company policy
2. It doesn’t fit the system
3. It will never be approved
4. The timing isn't just right
5. It didn’t work before
6. It's too wild
7. We are not ready for that
8. I will think about it
9. Put something in writing and get back to me
10. Lets form a committee.
When you kill somebody's good idea, you kill a little of that person too.
Imagination: Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Be different from other people - use your imagination.
Importance: It is nice to be important - but it is more important to be nice.
Innovation: Innovation thrives on encouragement and dies with routine, regulations and bureaucracy.
The innovator makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old order and gets little support from those who would prosper under the new.
People are incredulous, never trusting new things unless they have tested them by experience.
Intention: The smallest good deed is better than the grandest intention.
Interviews: You never get a second chance to make a good first impression.
J
Journey: A long journey starts with the first step.
K
Kindness: You cannot give away kindness - it will always come back to you.
Knowledge: Knowledge comes from taking things apart but wisdom comes from putting things together.
L
Lateness: Better late than never, but better never late.
People count up the faults of those who keep them waiting.
Leaders: Leaders are people who know where they want to go, and with enthusiasm, get up and go.
Leadership: The key to leadership is to accept responsibility.
Learning: The more I learn the more I realise ho much I don't know.
It is harder to unlearn than learn.
We learn best when we are having fun.
Never be frightened to ask WHY - you may learn something.
Life: Life is not a dress rehearsal. It’s the main event - you don't get another chance.
Today is important because you are exchanging it for a day of your life.
Take charge of your life. Don't let someone else take charge for you.
Listening: Hearing is with the ears, bust listening is with the mind.
Learn to listen. Opportunity sometimes knocks very softly.
You cannot listen if you are talking - and if you talking you are not learning.
Don't argue or jump to conclusions - hear the speaker out first.
You will please people more by listening to them than by talking to them.
M
Management: Identify your best workers , encourage them and let them do the job their way.
If you deviate from your budget you must know why.
To be a good boss tell your staff what is expected of them, who they are responsible to, how they are performing and how they can improve.
A desk is a dangerous place from which to run a business.
A managers succeeds or fails not so much because of what he does, but because of what he is able to get someone else to do.
Meetings: A meeting is a place where they talk about what they should be doing.
The key to successful meetings is to continually improve each meeting by constant criticism and evaluation.
Mistakes: Only those who do nothing do not make mistakes.
One who makes a mistake and does nothing to correct it is committing another mistake.
An error becomes a mistake only when you refuse to correct it.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
We learn from our mistakes, seldom from our successes.
The mistakes of others can be good teachers.
It is cheaper to learn from others than make mistakes for ourselves.
Motivation: Nothing motivates a person more than seeing the boss do a good day’s work.
Motivational Words: Could you please… I am proud of you. You did a great job. What do you think? I admit I was wrong. We will try.. Thank you.
Mind: It's not only machinery that becomes obsolete. One has to guard against the obsolescence of the mind..try being innovative.
The greatest under developed territory in the world is under your head.
The human mind is like a parachute, it works only when it is open.
Nothing dies faster than a new idea in a closed mind.
N
News: Bad news and eggs should be broken gently.
No one loves the messenger who brings bad news.
O
Obedience: Obedience is yielded more readily to one who commands gently.
Obstinacy: There are none so blind as those who won’t see.
Opportunity: There are three things that cannot be retrieved - the spoken word, time past and the neglected opportunity.
Opportunity knocks for those who listen.
Don't sit and wait - look for your next opportunity.
You will never stumble on anything worthwhile if you are sitting down.
Watch out for big problems - they may hide big opportunities.
When one door shuts another opens.
Great opportunities often come disguised as a difficult problem.
Organisation: A place for everything and everything in its place.
P
Past: Don't worry about the past .it cant be changed.
Waste no time in vain regrets.
People who dwell on past glories will lose the future.
Perseverance: You can’t win if you don't try.
Great achievements are not done by strength but by perseverance.
Persistence: When the going gets tough the tough keep going.
Planning: We can learn a lot from a calendar. It plans its work a year ahead and always finishes on time.
Plans: Plans are only good intentions until you carry them out.
Make big plans. Small plans arouse little enthusiasm.
The plan is not as important as the planning.
Plan each day as if it were your last
Work each day as if it were your best
Live each day as if it were you first.
Problems: The best way to escape from a problem is to solve it.
The first step towards solving a problem is to begin.
Those who tackle the harder problems first find that the easy ones go away.
Your boss looks to you for solutions and answers.
Never take your boss a problem unless you can suggest a solution.
Procrastinator: One who puts off until tomorrow the things he has already put off today.
Q
Questions: A person who asks questions is a fool for five minutes - one who does not remains a fool forever.
Judge a person by their questions rather than by their answers.
Better to ask ten times than to go astray once.
Don't be frightened to ask a question. They are easier to handle than mistakes.
I keep seven honest serving men (They taught em all I knew. Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who and How Much?
R
Reading: Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.
The mind grows by the books it feeds on.
Reward: The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.
S
Selling: To sell well you must tell well.
Sell benefits not products.
To learn about selling study your customers.
Skill: Skill is nil without will.
Soloists: soloists are inspiring in opera but there is no place for them in an organisation.
Speeches: Eighty percent of a presentation is preparation.
A speech is like a journey - it has a purpose, direction and goal.
Stress: It’s better to bend than to break.
The bow too tensely strung is easily broken.
Moderation in all things is the key to overcoming stress.
Success: Success occurs when opportunity and preparation meet.
Success is ten percent inspiration and ninety percent perspiration.
Failure is often the first step to success - if you can pick up your pride and keep going.
Success doesn’t depend on what you undertake but on what you finish.
Study the work habits of successful people - cultivate those which can help you.
Success is often a matter of hanging on longer when others have given up.
Most successful people are just common people who apply themselves in an uncommon way.
A successful person is one who is well organised, who has purpose in life, who has self-control, who has direction and love in his heart.
T
Temper: Don't try to get rid of a bad temper by losing it.
If you are right you can afford to keep your temper; if you are wrong, you cannot afford to lose it.
Thrift: Practise thrift or things will drift.
When the well dries up we learn the worth of water.
Time: The full use of today is the best preparation for tomorrow.
Time and tide waits for no one.
Waste no time in vain regrets.
Lose an hour in the morning and you will look for it for the rest of the day.
Value your time - it’s a diminishing resource.
Unless your time is managed nothing else can be managed.
Learn to set your priorities and ration your time.
You cannot buy back yesterday.
You have one thing n common with all successful people, a twenty-four hour day - its how you use it that makes the difference.
Today: Don't let yesterday use too much of today.
Tomorrow: Tomorrow try working smarter - not harder.
Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week.
Troubles: The only people who enjoy hearing about your troubles are lawyers - and they get paid for it.
U
Understanding: I hear, and I forget, I see, and I remember. I do, and I understand.
V
Vision: Visions of the future are better than the dreams of the past.
In the world of dreams, anything is possible.
W
Wisdom: Wise people learn by other’s mistakes; fools by their own mistakes.
Words: Better one word before than two after.
By choosing a job you enjoy, you will never have to do a day’s work in your life.
Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody…this is a story about 4 people named everybody, somebody, anybody and nobody. There was an important job to be done and everybody was sure that somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it but nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that because it was everybody's job. Everybody thought anybody could do it but nobody realized that everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that everybody blamed somebody when nobody did what anybody could have done.
TEACHING
All experience is an arch, to build upon. - Henry Brooks Adams
A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. - Henry B. Adams
Seeing much, suffering much, and studying much, are the three pillars of learning.
Education is not received. It is achieved.
A college education never hurt anybody who was willing to learn after he got it.
One thing about the school of experience is that it will repeat the lesson if you flunk the first time.
Teaching is a work of heart.
A school is a building with four walls, and tomorrow inside.
A teacher is someone who takes your hand, opens your mind, and touches your heart.
Many can teach; only a special few can reach.
The greatest lesson a teacher can give is to teach a child to love herself.
Learning is a treasure which accompanies its owner everywhere.
Creativity is more important than knowledge. - Albert Einstein
Wonder rather than doubt is the root of knowledge. - Abraham Joshua Heschel
If you educate a man you educate a person, but if you educate a woman you educate a family. - Ruby Manikan
What we learn with pleasure we never forget. - Alfred Mercier
The true aim of everyone who aspires to be a teacher should be not to impart his own opinions but to kindle minds. - Frederick William Robertson
KINDNESS
The kindest word of all is the unkind one never spoken.
Don't forgive and forget; forgive and remember.
May your faults be written on the seashore, and every good deed be a wave to wash them out.
If we miraculously became the people we hate, how lovable we would find ourselves!
If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.
Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
SMILES
No one needs a smile more than the person who doesn't have one.
What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity.
Never smile at other people's faults. Your own faults may be a huge joke to others.
It's easy enough to be pleasant
When life flows along like a song
But the man worthwhile is the one who will smile
When everything goes dead wrong
For the test of the heart is trouble
And it always comes with the years
But the smile, that is worth the praise of earth
Is the smile that comes through tears. - Ella Wheeler Wilcox
You cannot think negative thoughts for long while you are smiling or laughing
True holiness consists in doing God's will with a smile
What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity
A smile is cheer to you and me
The cost is nothing - it's given free
It comforts the weary - gladens the sad
Consoles those in trouble - good or bad
To rich and poor - beggar or thief
It's free to all of any belief
A natural gesture of young and old
Cheers on the faint - disarms the bold
Unlike most blessings for which we pray
It's one thing we keep when we give it away
All people smile in the same language
Smile a smile
For when you smile
Another smiles
Soon there are
Miles and miles of smiles
And life's worthwhile
If you but smile
Smile in joy, smile in pain
Smile when sorrow pours like rain
Smile if someone hurts yours feeling
Smile when heart is heavy and head reeling
Smile even when you are worried much
For smile often gives a healing touch
One is not completely dressed unless one wears a smile
A smile adds to your face value
Today, give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day.
When we see a troubled face
Lets greet it with a smile
When dame fortune frowns on us
Lets treat her with a smile
Smiles are cheap, smiles are dear
Smiles the darkest day will cheer
Smile will make a Happy New Year
Laugh: a smile that burst - John E Donovan
If you see someone without a smile
Give him one of yours
When I must leave you for a little while
Please do not grieve and shed wild tears
And hug your sorrow to you through the years
But start out bravely with a gallant smile - Helen S. Rice
It always pays to smile in the morning because later in the day you may not feel like it
A smile is the shortest distance between two people - Victor Borge
The key to being popular is to keep a smile on your face - Abigail Van Buren
The thing that goes the farthest towards making life worth while
That costs the least and does the most, is just a pleasant smile
It's full of worth and goodness too with manly kindness blent
It's worth a million dollars and doesn’t cost a cent. - W. D. Nesbit
Keep smiling. It makes everyone wonder what you have been up to.
A man without a smile must not open a shop.
Some men smile in the evening , some men smile at dawn. But the man worthwhile is the man who can smile when his two front teeth are gone.
If you can always smile at life
Life will always smile at you.
A smile that cheers the heart is the sunshine that spreads happiness
Smile in pleasure
Smile in pain
Smile when troubles pour like rain
Smile when someone hurts your feelings
Coz you know smile is always healing.
We tried to pay our income taxes with a smile, but the collector wanted cash.
Take care and always keep smiling :-))
FRIENDSHIP
If I had a flower for every time I thought of you,
I could walk in my garden forever.
As long as we have memories, yesterday remains.
As long as we have hope, tomorrow awaits.
As long as we have friendship, today is beautiful.
A friend is someone who walks in when others walk out.
I've had many friends with whom I've shared my time, but very few with whom I've shared my heart.
Of all the blossoms in life's garden, friendship is the most fragrant.
It takes a long time to grow an old friend.
When I count my blessings, I count you twice.
It is better to have one friend of great value than to have
many friends of little value.
Much of the vitality in a friendship lies in the honoring
of differences, not simply in the enjoyment of similarities.
A good friend is hard to find, hard to lose, and hard to
forget.
It is a curious thing in human experience but to live through a period of stress and sorrow with another person creates a bond which nothing seems able to break.- Eleanor Roosevelt
The best kind of friend is the kind you can sit on a porch and swing with, never
say a word, and then walk away feeling like it was the best conversation you
ever had.
Anyone can stand by you when you're right, but a real friend will stand by you even when you're wrong
Best friends are like diamonds, precious and rare. False
friends are like leaves, found everywhere.
A friend is an angel who lifts us off our feet when our
wings have trouble remembering how to fly.
True friendship is like sound
health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost."
Hold a true friend with both hands.
Someone who helps in times of pain,
Someone who listens to everything for no true gain,
Someone who puts up with you when you're mad,
Someone who helps you when you're feeling sad,
Someone who is always there for you, no matter what.
That's a real friend.
Even the best of friends face conflicts, but that needn't
mean the end of the relationship.
When God gave you to me he never said that you were mine, that I could keep you always--only borrowed for a time. Now, He's called you home, I'm sad and I shed tears. Yet, I'm glad He loaned you to me and we had these many years.- Edna Burch
If you live to be one hundred, I wish to be one hundred
minus a day so I never have to live a day without you
A True Friend Is...
someone who knows when you are upset.
someone who won't let you get away without talking about it.
someone who will risk their life to make sure you don't up and die on them.
someone who you can call up late at night no matter how small your problem.
someone who instead of going with the "big group" will go with you when you feel
bad.
someone who can just let you be when you need time alone.
someone who goes out of their way to make sure you're happy.
someone who always has a shoulder for you to cry on if need be.
someone who if you do cry on their shoulder won't go and tell the world.
someone who puts your happiness equal to theirs and not less than theirs.
My friend, if I could give you one thing in life, it would
be the ability to see yourself as others see you, then you would realize what a
truly special person you are.
There's no burden big enough, and when you're hurting so am I, and we'll both
cry ... and you can always count on me, wherever I may be.
Don't walk in front of me; I might not follow. Don't walk
behind me; I might not lead. Just walk beside me and be my friend
It all begins with words and compliments and ends in a
lifetime of friendship
When you find that friend you have been looking for...the
one you can laugh, talk, cry with...you have this feeling...and you'll never let
that feeling go.
A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and
can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words
True friendship multiplies the good in life and divides its evils.- Baltasar Gracian
One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives." - Euripides, Greek playwrite
Love is blind, but friendship closes its eyes
Everyone hears what you say.
Friends listen to what you say.
Best friends listen to what you don't say.
MOTIVATIONAL QUOTES
A great leader never sets himself above his followers except in carrying responsibilities.
Yesterday is the past. Tomorrow is the future. Today is a gift; that's why it's called 'the Present.'
Few cases of eyestrain have been developed by looking on the bright side of things.
Successful men follow the same advice they prescribe for others.
Content yourself with doing; let others do the talking.
The world is full of givers and takers; the takers may eat better, but the givers sleep better.
Shoot for the moon... even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.
If you can't be a highway,
Be a trail.
If you can't be the sun,
Be a star.
It's not by size
That you win or fail;
Be the best of what you are.
Education is not received. It is achieved.
The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do. - Walter Bagehot
Every action of our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity. - Edwin Hubbel
One sees great things from the valley, only small things from the peak. - Chesterton
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
It is never too late to be what you might have been. - George Eliot
I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have. - Thomas Jefferson
I always have to dream up there with the stars. If I don't dream I will make it, I won't even get close. - Henry Kaiser
The best way to predict the future is to invent it. - Alan Kay
Even if you're on the right track, if you just stand there --- you'll be run over. - Will Rogers
You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try. - Beverly Sills
No one knows what he can do till he tries. - Publilius Syrus
GENERAL
Regarding your D in Management, let me only say that sometimes a good scare is worth more than a good advice :-)
People can be divided into three groups:
Those who make things happen
Those who watch things happen
Those who wonder what happened.
Promise only what you can deliver, then deliver more than you promise.
Success in business is like riding a bicycle. Either you keep moving or you fall over. Keep it moving.
On a bumper sticker: "If you're headed in the wrong direction, God allows U-turns."
When you are angry or frustrated what comes out? whatever it is, it's a good indication of what you're made of.
Did you hear the story about the optimist and the pessimist? The optimist goes to the window every morning and says, "Good morning, God," The pessimist goes to the window and says "Good God, morning."
You know you're getting old when thieves break into your car and steal your cassette deck, but leave the tapes.
You'll learn more about a road traveling it than by consulting all the maps in the world.
Think highly of yourself, for the world takes you at your own estimate.
Only God is in a position to look down on anyone.
As a new sales associate, just remember that true salesmanship begins when the customer says "no".
Job security is being worth more than you're getting paid.
A sign above a clock in an office. "This clock will never be stolen. Too many people are watching it"
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