Executive Quotes & Sayings

We may regard the cell quite apart from its familiar morphological aspects, and contemplate its constitution from the purely chemical standpoint. We are obliged to adopt the view, that the protoplasm is equipped with certain atomic groups, whose function especially consists in fixing to themselves food-stuffs, of importance to the cell-life. Adopting the nomenclature of organic chemistry, these groups may be designated side-chains. We may assume that the protoplasm consists of a special executive centre (Leistungs-centrum) in connection with which are nutritive side-chains... The relationship of the corresponding groups, i.e., those of the food-stuff, and those of the cell, must be specific. They must be adapted to one another, as, e.g., male and female screw (Pasteur), or as lock and key (E. Fischer). — Paul R. Ehrlich

Consider Ireland ... You have a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Church, and in addition the weakest executive in the world. That is the Irish Question. — Benjamin Disraeli

Ethics must begin at the top of an organization. It is a leadership issue and the chief executive must set the example. — Edward F. Hennessey

With the film, you have a bunch of executive producers, directors, writers, scripts. There's, management, lighting, the union and etc. There are so many components a part of that game, so naturally it isn't my world. — Ashanti

Getting fired can produce a particularly bountiful payday for a CEO. Indeed, he can 'earn' more in that single day, while cleaning out his desk, than an American worker earns in a lifetime of cleaning toilets. Forget the old maxim about nothing succeeding like success: Today, in the executive suite, the all-too-prevalent rule is that nothing succeeds like failure. — Warren Buffett

The people in general ought to have regard to the moral character of those whom they invest with authority either in the legislative, executive, or judicial branches. — John Witherspoon

The TV generation is postliterate and retribalized. It seeks by violence to scrub the old private image and to merge in a new tribal identity, like any corporate executive. — Marshall McLuhan

Mexico is a country without political freedom, without freedom of speech, without a free press, without a free ballot, without a jury system, without political parties, without any of our cherJ ished guarantees of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is a land where there has been no contest for the office of president for more than a generation, where the executive rules all things by means of a standing army, where political offices are sold for a fixed price. I found Mexico to be a land where the people are poor because they have no rights, where peonage is the rule for the great mass, and where actual chattel slavery obtains for hundreds of thousands. — John Kenneth Turner

We have a country to turn around. This week you will nominate the most experienced executive to seek the presidency in 60 years in Mitt Romney. He has no illusions about what makes America great, and he doesn't confuse the presidency with celebrity, or loftiness with leadership. — Artur Davis

When the American people look at the political process play out, they hear all the spinning and all the doctrinaire language, and they still walk away with the belief that they're not being represented in Congress, that there's no trust in the executive branch. — David Gregory

In very rare circumstances, the executive branch might choose to ignore a court decision. — Newt Gingrich

When work relationships are reciprocal, ethical leadership emerges for both the executive and the participant unless the executive is trying to control the participant. — Peter J. Dean

Wall Street can never be allowed to threaten main street again. No bank can be too big to fail, no executive too powerful to jail. — Hillary Clinton

As the leader of twelve apostles, even Jesus had more executive experience than Obama. — Ann Coulter

And often when things turn to TV series there are so many different people with different agendas that things can morph. And so, you know, that was why having the executive producer title was important to me because even if I was the star and I had a concern, you know, that concern would only go so far. But having the title of executive producer actually makes them have to actually listen to me complain. — Debra Messing

If you put on a lousy production with white actors, it's lousy. There is a problem, or can be, at this stage of our social evolution, with mixing the casts. It may not be a question of race so much as class. You would rarely find a black man in a high executive position where he was swinging his weight around. — Howard Schultz

When you do a movie in the studio system, there's a committee. A committee of six or seven people you answer to. There's two or three producers, a studio executive and one or two people above that studio executive. — Thomas Lennon

Good union leaders make excellent public leaders in the legislative and executive branches. — Robert Kennedy

Whether this is your first Star Wars adventure, or one of many over the years: Thank you. Thank you for your dedication to and passion for the Star Wars galaxy. Because of fans like you around the world, the Force will be with us, always. Dave Filoni Executive Producer and Supervising Director, Star Wars Rebels — John Jackson Miller

Since we launched the original 'Pop Idol' in England, I've remained close with Simon Fuller. Working as executive producer on 'American idol' for its first seven years not only was an inspirational journey into the heart of American pop culture, it opened my eyes to the untapped potential of the incredibly dynamic young people in this world. — Nigel Lythgoe

The detention of Japanese Americans during World War II would qualify as an example of majoritarian tyranny and misuse of executive prerogative, driven by fear and racial bias. — Michael Ignatieff

Yes, the Commission wants to increase its powers, Yes, it is a non-elected body and I do not want the Commission to increase its powers at the expense of the House, so of course we differ. The President of the Commission, Mr Delors, said at a press conference the other day that he wanted the European Parliament to be the democratic body of the Community. He wanted the Commission to be the Executive and he wanted the Council of Ministers to be the Senate. No! No! No! — Margaret Thatcher

Vice President Dick Cheney reportedly has been disturbed over what he sees as the erosion of presidential powers since the Watergate scandal and has urged Bush to take a stronger stand against what Cheney sees as congressional intrusions into the executive branch. — Helen Thomas

I see top business schools working to bridge this gap [between academic research and business application] by respecting executive education, by having more mature students who proactively draw from faculty what they know they need, and by having faculty who are willing to leave their ivory towers for the murky world of business reality. Unfortunately, at other times, business professors have little or not interest or savvy about business issues. — Dave Ulrich

The administration is out lying through its teeth about all these people signing up and how great Obamacare is now. Meanwhile, Obama continues to break the law each and every day with executive actions - not even executive orders, executive actions - and proclamations. — Rush Limbaugh

Women have made enormous progress on the lower and middle rungs of the career ladder, but we are failing to make the leap into senior positions. Everyone jumps to the conclusion that it's motherhood that holds women back, but often the big roadblock is the lack of executive presence. — Sylvia Ann Hewlett

If you're tall enough, there's no good reason you should be a nerd. Unless you're a nerd that's kind of a dick, and you start your own company like Bill Gates or the Facebook guy or something, odds are you have a shitty job where you do most of the work and don't make anything, while a tall former prep is an executive or in sales, which are both easy and primarily just involve taking credit for a nerd's work, and also make a shitload more money. — A.D. Aliwat

Don't we realise that the student of today is the executive of tomorrow? — Anthony Carmona

Steve Jobs was rare: a C.E.O. who actually had a huge impact on his company's fortunes. Contrary to corporate mythology, most C.E.O.s could be easily replaced, if not by your average Joe, then by your average executive vice-president. But Jobs genuinely earned the label of superstar. — James Surowiecki

Los Angeles people are incapable of passively mainlining TV and movies. Here you have to read who produced or directed every episode, who wrote it, who had guests shots and whether you know them personally and if they like you. You have to figure out who everybody's agent is and whether yours is better. You not only know but deeply care about the difference between such job titles as Producer, Supervising Producer, and Executive Story Editor ... So while the rest of the country is lying stupid in a media-induced coma, people in L.A. are in constant withdrawal. — Cynthia Heimel

the government both in the executive and the legislative branches must carry out in good faith the platforms upon which the party was entrusted with power. But the government is that of the whole people; the party is the instrument through which policies are determined and men chosen to bring them into being. The animosities of elections should have no place in our Government, for government must concern itself alone with the common weal. — George Washington

I hold it the duty of the executive to insist upon frugality in the expenditure, and a sparing economy is itself a great national source. — Andrew Johnson

We all know perfectly well that the man who lives out his life as a consumer," he writes in "The Coming Crisis in Psychiatry," "a sexual partner, an 'other-directed' executive; who avoids boredom and anxiety by consuming tons of newsprint, miles of film, years of TV time; that such a man has somehow betrayed his destiny as a human being. — Scott Stossel

Certainly businesses the world over are facing greater competitive pressure than ever before, and this leads to executive stress which, in turn, tends to bring out authoritarian tendencies in many bosses. To balance this, we now know a lot more about how we can successfully cope with a situation that is not likely to improve in the near future. — Srikumar Rao

For seven years after college, I was a waitress at the Buttercup Bakery in Berkeley, and from there I got a job at Merrill Lynch as an account executive, from where I went to vice president of investments for Prudential-Bache Securities. I started my own firm in 1987. — Suze Orman

I've resisted pronouncing a sentence before guilt is found. I still have this old-fashioned notion that even with people like Osama, who is very likely to be found guilty, we should do our best not to, in positions of executive power, not to prejudge jury trials. — Howard Dean

As a registered Democrat, I am praying for a credible presidential candidate to emerge from the younger tier of politicians in their late 40s. A governor with executive experience would be ideal. — Camille Paglia

The Constitution makes very clear what the obligation of the United States Senate is and what the obligation of the president of the United States is. To allow a Supreme Court position to remain vacant for well over a year cuts against what I think the intentions of the framers are and what the traditions of the Senate and the executive are. — Cory Booker

Evidence of defendants' lavish lifestyles is often used to provide a motive for fraud. Jurors sometimes wonder why an executive making tens of millions of dollars would cheat to make even more. Evidence of habitual gluttony helps provide the answer. — Alex Berenson

It's not about the young or the old; it's about anyone who takes something from his or her imagination and makes it real. --Thom Beers, Executive Producer — Meredith Books

What about feedback you've received about your leadership style over the years? Years ago, an executive editor of mine said, "You should count the number of times you praise somebody and then double that." Even the toughest, steeliest writer or editor often really wants to be told, "Hey, that was a great piece." Early in my career as a manager, it probably took me a while to realize that everybody wants that. It's just a human need. — Anonymous

If I can impact an executive and his or her team, I can help to change the culture of an organization. — Srikumar Rao

I really only respect the Arab culture. I ain't really trying to pay no attention to, ya know, these little people in political positions and executive positions that ain't Arab culture oriented people because a lot of the times, what are you really showing all of this concern for? — Busta Rhymes

It has absolutely no meaning to me to be an executive producer on a film that I have nothing to do with except come to the wrap party or the premiere on; it's just meaningless. — Rick McCallum

I'm from New York, and yet I've done only one film executive-produced by Spike Lee and have never done a film that Spike Lee directed. I've never done a film that Keenan Wayans has directed, or Bill Duke. — Ving Rhames

Just think of what it's going to be like, the entire worlds run by three Executive Officer's, deciding who gets to settle where- when every settled place is slaved to meeting Earth's agenda. I've seen it already, Captain, so have you. You have been to the colonies and seen how they do everything to meet their contractual obligations. It's like every vestige of civil rights has been stripped away. — Matthew S. Williams

New Rule: Oil companies must stop with the advertisements implying they're friends of the environment. "At Exxon Mobil, we care about a thriving wildlife." Please
the only thing an oil executive has in common with a seagull is they'd both steal french fries from a baby. — Bill Maher

Not one Wall Street executive has been charged with crimes since the 2008 financial crash. — Haskell Wexler

The representatives of the people, in a popular assembly, seem sometimes to fancy that they are the people themselves, and betray strong symptoms of impatience and disgust at the least sign of opposition from any other quarter; as if the exercise of its rights, by either the executive or judiciary, were a breach of their privilege and an outrage to their dignity. — Alexander Hamilton

For twenty years it had been generally known that an insidious Lobby was maintained in Washington to influence legislation and executive action on behalf of vested interests ... The lobby was a creature of darkness. It worked behind closed doors and whispered in corners. This ancient industry was one form of invisible government. — Margaret Case Harriman

A crucial capability of System 2 is the adoption of "task sets": it can program memory to obey an instruction that overrides habitual responses. Consider the following: Count all occurrences of the letter f in this page. This is not a task you have ever performed before and it will not come naturally to you, but your System 2 can take it on. It will be effortful to set yourself up for this exercise, and effortful to carry it out, though you will surely improve with practice. Psychologists speak of "executive control" to describe the adoption and termination of task sets, and neuroscientists have identified the main regions of the brain that serve the executive function. One of these regions is involved whenever a conflict must be resolved. Another is the prefrontal area of the brain, a region that is substantially more developed in humans than in other primates, and is involved in operations that we associate with intelligence. — Daniel Kahneman

Just imagine how fast, innovative and excellent your business will be once every single teammate - from the janitor to the executive - begins to see themselves as the CEO of their own area of responsibility. — Robin S. Sharma

The great irony of executive compensation is, if you pay your employees more, you're gonna create more demand for your goods and services! Which is gonna lead to more executive compensation than if you pay your employees less and try to take all the cream off of the top. — Anthony Scaramucci

I would sign an executive order protecting religious liberty, our first amendment rights, so Christian business owners and individuals don't face discrimination for having a traditional view of marriage. — Bobby Jindal

Within months, Ray Quinn had died, but he'd kept his word. He'd kept it through the three men he'd made his sons. Those men had given the scrawny, suspicious, and scarred young boy a life.
They had given him a home, and made him a man.
Cameron, the edgy, quick-tempered gypsy; Ethan, the patient, steady waterman; Phillip, the elegant, sharp-minded executive. They had stood for him, fought for him. They had saved him.
His brothers. — Nora Roberts

My name is Wendell Potter and for 20 years I worked as a senior executive at health insurance companies, and I saw how they confuse their customers and dump the sick
all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors. — Wendell Potter

[Barack] Obama's executive amnesty has been frozen via a stay by a judge on the appellate court. You remember, this is the judge that discovered the Defense Department lawyers were lying to him in open court, and instead of actually sanctioning them, he demanded that they go to a new ethics course to learn the proper behavior and decorum and the law in court, that you just can't lie with impunity to a judge. — Rush Limbaugh

And obviously, with hindsight now, now knowing what went on in the company, it would have been absolutely appropriate back then for us to have the chief executive of the company, most senior person in the United Kingdom, come and answer for the policy they were pursuing. And we ducked that, and frankly that's a failure of Parliament. — Tom A. Watson

A well-dressed, self-assured business executive steps into a quiet corner of the conference room, crowded with people. Everyone there is aware of her presence. She's dark-haired, petite, and alluring. She is quick to smile, and when she does, her whole face lights up. Her enthusiasm is infectious. Young men and women nod as they pass by, briefly breaking off their conversations with colleagues. The executive looks down at her compact electronic device and quickly texts: "Smile. Talk into the mic. Good luck. — Jill Bryant

A producer is someone who actually calls the shots. An executive producer is just a guy that eats more food at craft service. — Ryan Reynolds

She smiled, nodded, and kept walking. She waved her badge at the proximity sensor, stepped into the revolving door, and entered the cavernous atrium. Right in the center, surrounded by tropical foliage, was a huge bronze globe, the continents sculpted in sharp relief. On the front of the globe, set at a jaunty angle, was the Gifford Industries logo, which couldn't have been more hokey: retro squared-off streamlined script that must have looked futuristic when it was designed in the 1930s. A couple more people waved at her, flashed sympathetic looks, and she ducked into the express elevator to the twenty-fourth floor. She slid her security card into the slot, and the elevator rose. The lights in the executive suite were already on, which surprised her. She was normally the first one in. She passed her prox badge against the sensor until it beeped, then pushed open the glass doors. When she rounded the corner, she saw someone sitting at her desk. Noreen Purvis. 23. — Joseph Finder

No executive has ever suffered because his subordinates were strong and effective. — Peter Drucker

[F]or the most part football these days is the opium of the people, not to speak of their crack cocaine. Its icon is the impeccably Tory, slavishly conformist Beckham. The Reds are no longer the Bolsheviks. Nobody serious about political change can shirk the fact that the game has to be abolished. And any political outfit that tried it on would have about as much chance of power as the chief executive of BP has in taking over from Oprah Winfrey. — Terry Eagleton

As the show's executive producer, I envisioned something akin to "Gilligan's Island" meets Lord of the Flies meets Ten Little Indians mets "The Real World." "Survivor" marks a return to a core element of adventure: staying alive. — Mark Burnett

So many people spend years (and money) studying to be doctors, lawyers, actors, dancers, business executives and scientists - when you're an author, you can be any of these things, and you don't need a degree or certificate; all you need is an imagination, a dream and an open mind. — Rebecca McNutt

From the Olympian heights of an executive suite, in an atmosphere where your success is judged by the extent to which you can maximise profits, the overwhelming tendency must be to see people as units of production, as indices in your accountants' books. — Jimmy Reid

This argument didn't seem to placate the critics, so the AAFP executive — Michael Greger

I worked on the line, I've been an executive chef, I've worked for the Mets, I've worked for various steakhouses, vegetarian restaurants, a lot of Middle Eastern stuff. I've worked my fair share of a lot of different things. I've worked at festivals and street fairs, you know? I've been through it all. — Action Bronson

[W]ar is a question, under our constitution, not of Executive, but of Legislative cognizance. It belongs to Congress to say whether the Nation shall of choice dismiss the olive branch and unfurl the banners of War. — Alexander Hamilton

When Congress exercises the powers delegated to it by the Constitution, it may impose affirmative obligations on executive and judicial officers of state and local governments as well as ordinary citizens. — David Souter

For example: (1) As if governed by Newton's First Law of Motion, an institution will resist any change in its current direction; (2) Just as work expands to fill available time, corporate projects or acquisitions will materialize to soak up available funds; (3) Any business craving of the leader, however foolish, will be quickly supported by detailed rate-of-return and strategic studies prepared by his troops; and (4) The behavior of peer companies, whether they are expanding, acquiring, setting executive compensation or whatever, will be mindlessly imitated. — Warren Buffett

Two paths lie ahead of today's CIOs. One leads to becoming a trusted senior executive leader of the enterprise; the other leads to a technical management, "just keep the lights on and do it cheap" role. — Marianne Broadbent

The chief ability of an executive should be his ability to recognize ability. — Evan Esar

The extraordinary power of influence is now within everyone's reach. Recent graduates, executive assistants, project managers, and business leaders can all benefit from Monarth's simple steps for 'getting everyone to follow your lead.' — Marshall Goldsmith

But we did see the process develop. I remember going to the Rocket Pictures base and they had something like 40 people there, drawing. They didn't know what the characters looked like yet and I remember on the walls seeing 30 or 40 different versions of Juliet. So, it was then that I realised that someone's got to come in and make some really executive decisions. — Matt Lucas

The symptoms of executive skills problems are generic enough that it is sometimes hard for people to see them as other than just bad behavior or signs of poor parenting. — Joyce Cooper-Kahn

The executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them, to the end that it may be a government of laws and not of men. — John Adams

The founding American generations did something that almost no others have ever done. They read the fine print! They taught their children to read bills, laws, court cases, legislative debates, executive decrees, and bureaucratic policies. They read them in schoolrooms and at home ... They said they would consider their children uneducated if they didn't read such things. — Oliver DeMille

As President Franklin Delano Roosevelt learned when he tried to pack the Supreme Court, the three branches of government are coequal for a reason. Neither the executive branch or the legislative branch should use the third branch to a pursue a partisan agenda. — Dan Pfeiffer

Mick required far less hand-holding than Michael. Signing the Stones, though, had required a full frontal assault worthy of General Patton, one of my heroes. The final battle exploded at the Ritz Hotel in Paris back in '83. After months of relentless pursuit, I had them. All they had to do was sign when suddenly at 3 A.M. Mick goes mental and calls me a "stupid motherfuckin' record executive." I lose it. I reach for his throat. I have a vision of punching out all ninety-eight pounds of him. I stop myself, envisioning tomorrow's headline - "Yetnikoff Kills Jagger." Jagger relents, signs and from then on it's wine and roses. It was Mick - wily and witty Mick - who later that year plotted with my girlfriend, the one called Boom Boom, to throw me a surprise fiftieth birthday bash where Henny Youngman emceed and Jon Peters, Barbra — Walter Yetnikoff

[The Judicial Branch] may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments. — Alexander Hamilton

verybody has an imagination. There's the construction worker who can close his eyes and imagine a Hawaiian vacation. There's the corporate executive with visions of that next big promotion. There's the stay-at-home mother and her perfectly built "cabana boy" who will sweep her off her feet. For a small group of us, we've been fortunate enough to be able to use our imaginations to make a living. — R.A. Salvatore

Lehman Brothers' Repo 105 program - which temporarily moved billions of dollars of liability off the bank's books at the end of each quarter and replaced them a few days later at the start of the next quarter - was intentionally designed to hide the firm's financial weaknesses. This was a carefully crafted fraud, detailed by a court-appointed Lehman examiner. But no former Lehman executive ever faced criminal prosecution for it. Contrast this with the fact that a teenager who sells an ounce of marijuana can be put away for years. — Robert B. Reich

Freedom of Will" - that is the expression for the complex state of delight of the person exercising volition, who commands and at the same time identifies himself with the executor of the order - who, as such, enjoys also the triumph over obstacles, but thinks within himself that it was really his own will that overcame them. In this way the person exercising volition adds the feelings of delight of his successful executive instruments, the useful "underwills" or under-souls - indeed, our body is but a social structure composed of many souls - to his feelings of delight as commander. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Bush violated FISA [ ... ] because he wanted to violate the law in order to establish the general 'principle' that he was not bound by the law, to show that he has the power to break the law, that he is more powerful than the law. — Glenn Greenwald

I am proud to offer my endorsement of Donald J. Trump for President of the United States. He is a successful executive and entrepreneur, a wonderful father, and a man who I believe can lead our country to greatness again. — Jerry Falwell Jr.

When you do a first movie, you're contractually supposed to do the second one and then you don't do it, you become an executive producer. That's why there are a ton of directors who have executive producer credits on other movies. — Louis Leterrier

You can't have the legislative and executive branch working in a parallel universe ... the partisanship that has gripped Washington has prevented us from dealing with the issues that this country needs to grapple with to determine its future. — Olympia Snowe

In the executive branch, winning by a whisker is as good as winning in a landslide, but not so in the Senate. — Lincoln Chafee

It was my fortune, or misfortune, to be called to the office of Chief Executive without any previous political training. — Ulysses S. Grant

To play with baubles is our ambition, not to deal with grave questions in a spirit of serious energy. But while we are playing with baubles, with our Legislative Councils, our Simultaneous Examinations, our ingenious schemes for separating the judicial from the executive functions, while we, I say, are finessing about trifles, the waters of the great deep are being stirred and that surging chaos of the primitive man over which our civilised societies are superimposed on a thin crust of convention, is being strangely and ominously agitated. — Sri Aurobindo

The transformation of the United States from a traditional republic to a democratic nation run in large measure by a single executive took a couple of hundred years. — Noah Feldman

...and from here I realized, with the deepest sense of my being, that we can erect and dismantle the great walls of the world, but we will only truly survive as a species when we dedicate ourselves to removing the walls from within. — Dawn Kohler

Of the various executive abilities, no one excited more anxious concern than that of placing the interests of our fellow-citizens in the hands of honest men, with understanding sufficient for their stations. No duty is at the same time more difficult to fulfil. The knowledge of character possessed by a single individual is of necessity limited. To seek out the best through the whole Union, we must resort to the information which from the best of men, acting disinterestedly and with the purest motives, is sometimes incorrect. — Thomas Jefferson

It is far better to have 10,000 Facebook friends who are in the same category or aligned with your values or a common inter- est than 100,000 random robot followers from around the world. — Brian E. Boyd Sr.

So when it was my turn to start developing projects, I knew the writers I wanted to work with, and I had met every head of studio, every executive and a lot of producers. I started finding things, little crumbs off other people's tables that I would make my own. — Rupert Sanders

Writers do the self-censoring before they even get to the studio executive, because they know the film will not run that gauntlet. They, because they want to get their films made, they censor it. — Terry Gilliam

The constitution has divided the powers of government into three branches, Legislative, Executive and Judiciary, lodging each with a distinct magistracy. The Legislative it has given completely to the Senate and House of Representatives. It has declared that the Executive powers shall be vested in the President, submitting special articles of it to a negative by the Senate, and it has vested the Judiciary power in the courts of justice, with certain exceptions also in favor of the Senate. — Thomas Jefferson

Let the roar in your heart be the fuel to making dreams a reality". — Pablo De Leon

tenure at Treasury was not as successful as his career at Alcoa. Almost immediately after taking office he began focusing on a couple of key issues, including worker safety, job creation, executive accountability, and fighting African poverty, among other initiatives. However, O'Neill's politics did not line up with those of President Bush, and he launched an internal fight opposing Bush's proposed tax cuts. He was asked to resign at the end of 2002. "What I thought was the right thing for economic policy was the opposite of what the White House wanted," O'Neill told me. "That's not good for a treasury secretary, so I got fired. — Charles Duhigg