Quotes & Sayings About Not Telling Your Business

Livingston: Some aspects of business turned out to be less of a mystery than you had thought. What did you find you were better at than you thought? Graham: I found I could actually sell moderately well. I could convince people of stuff. I learned a trick for doing this: to tell the truth. A lot of people think that the way to convince people of things is to be eloquent - to have some bag of tricks for sliding conclusions into their brains. But there's also a sort of hack that you can use if you are not a very good salesman, which is simply tell people the truth. Our strategy for selling our software to people was: make the best software and then tell them, truthfully, "this is the best software." And they could tell we were telling the truth. Another advantage of telling the truth is that you don't have to remember what you've said. You don't have to keep any state in your head. It's a purely functional business strategy. (Hackers will get what I mean.) — Jessica Livingston

The government has no business telling an individual what kind of light bulb to buy. — Michele Bachmann

Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist's business is lying.
The weather bureau will tell you what next Tuesday will be like, and the Rand Corporation will tell you what the twenty-first century will be like. I don't recommend that you turn to the writers of fiction for such information. It's none of their business. All they're trying to do is tell you what they're like, and what you're like
what's going on
what the weather is now, today, this moment, the rain, the sunlight, look! Open your eyes; listen, listen. That is what the novelists say. But they don't tell you what you will see and hear. All they can tell you is what they have seen and heard, in their time in this world, a third of it spent in sleep and dreaming another third of it spent in telling lies. [Introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness] — Ursula K. Le Guin

Blind luck, to arrive in the world with your properly formed parts in the right place, to be born to parents who were loving, not cruel, or to escape, by geographical or social accident, war or poverty. And therefore to find it so much easier to be virtuous. For a while, the case had left her numb, caring less, feeling less, going about her business, telling no one. But she became squeamish about bodies, barely able to look at her own or Jack's without feeling repelled. How was she to talk about this? Hardly plausible, to have told him that at this stage of a legal career, this one case among so many others, its sadness, its visceral — Ian McEwan

But the long hours of mechanical drudgery were telling on his active body and undisciplined nerves. He had begun too late to subject himself to the persistent mortification of spirit and flesh which is a condition of the average business life; and after the long dull days in the office the evenings at his grandfather's whist-table did not give him the counter-stimulus he needed. — Edith Wharton

It is better just to get on with the business of living and minding your own business and maybe, if God likes the way you do things, he may just let you flower for a day or a night. But don't go pestering and begging and telling him all your stupid little sins, that way you will spoil his day. — Bryce Courtenay

Mrs. B's story is well-known but worth telling again. She came to the United States 77 years ago, unable to speak English and devoid of formal schooling. In 1937, she founded the Nebraska Furniture Mart with $500. Last year the store had sales of $200 million, a larger amount by far than that recorded by any other home furnishings store in the United States. Our part in all of this began ten years ago when Mrs. B sold control of the business to Berkshire Hathaway, a deal we completed without obtaining audited financial statements, checking real estate records, or getting any warranties. In short, her word was good enough for us. Naturally, I was delighted to attend Mrs. B's birthday party. After all, she's promised to attend my 100th. — Warren Buffett

I also believe that government has no business telling us how we should live our lives. I think our lifestyle choices should be left up to us. What we do in our private lives is none of the government's business. That position rules out the Republican Party for me. — Jesse Ventura

I'm not in the business of telling people what to do. I'm much more in the business of describing things, situations and stuff like that and leaving them out there, and you can make up your minds about them. — Nick Cave

I see all art as a complement to telling people's stories. I'm in the storytelling business. I believe that the humanity that all of us share is the stories of our lives, and everybody has a story. Your story is as important as the next person's story. — Oprah Winfrey

A big business man was telling Henry Ford about a coach driver of super-expertness with his whip. The driver was telling how he could flick a fly off his horse's ear with his whip-and, a fly alighting just then, he promptly did so. Next he spied a grasshopper beside the road, and he flicked it off with equal dexterity. A little further along the road the passenger noticed an insect on a bush, and nudged the driver to get him. Not on your life, replied the master of the whip. That there insect is a hornet sitting on his nest with an organization behind him. I leave him alone. — B.C. Forbes

We're constantly getting these messages to mind our own business and look the other way if we want to be well liked, to not tell the truth or speak our mind or say anything too intense. Well, I'm telling you here that this approach not only makes you party to other people's crimes against themselves but is a prescription for mediocrity and delusion — Kelly Cutrone

He's not asking me to make a choice. He's telling me to take a stand. I'm either with him or against him. All or nothing. I'm disgusted with the whole business. I don't want smicha if the price I have to pay for it is to stop thinking. — Chaim Potok

Drop Activities that Zap your Energy. Let your feelings be your guide. If you're feeling resentful by investing time with a networking group where you aren't getting referrals (and you're always giving them) or spending time listening to colleagues complain, your feelings may be telling you it's time to move on. It's amazing what opens up for you when you let go of an activity or a relationship that no longer energizes you. — Lisa A. Mininni

The music business for me was never about buses and billboards you know, that was never the reason I got into the music business. The reason I wanted to get into the music business was because I genuinely, wholeheartedly love to sing. I love singing songs and telling stories and playing music, so that's why I got into the music business. — Johnny Reid

If you do not believe that listening to the best people in the business telling you what they know will help you succeed, then you have allowed your ego and arrogance to get the best of you. — Andy Albright

Women, you have all this power, I'm telling you. In business, you have something called an inferred fiduciary duty to yourself. Look at the other hugely successful women in industry, commerce, science and everywhere else and you'll see women who are feminine, beautiful but also do not rely on men for their self-empowerment. — Gene Simmons

Freedom of the press can never be the licence to say anything one desires. Freedom of the press is not the freedom to slander and attack and must never be used to fight other people's wars. It does not mean manipulating a story into speaking your views. One might think it common sense but in the world of journalism a lot of what makes sense is lost to the lure of favouritism, greed and fame. Sadly, in this truth-telling business truth is hard to find. — Aysha Taryam

Just watch. Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. When you try to take it too far, people turn the other way. I'm just telling you, when you've got a good thing and you get greedy, it always, always, always, always, always turns on you. That's rule No. 1 of business. — Mark Cuban

It really isn't anybody's business how many people we have working for us. What's offensive is that I'm portrayed as this prima donna with these sycophants telling me how great I am all the time. Yes, they do work for me, but we're working together for a higher good ... — Demi Moore

If the First Amendment means anything, it means that a state has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his house, what books he may read or what films he may watch. — Thurgood Marshall

Cannot possibly know who you are, you imagine that she is suspicious of all young people-as a matter of principle- and therefore what she sees when she looks at you is not you as yourself but you as yet one more querrilla fighter in the war against authority, an unruly insurrectionist who has no business barging into the sanctum of her library and asking for work. Such are the times you live in,the times you both live in. She instructs you to put the cards in order, and you can sense how deeply she wants you to fail, how happy it will make her to reject your application, and because you want the job just as much as she doesn't want you to have it, you make sure that you don't fail. — Paul Auster

I was telling somebody just the other day, there's technically such a hierarchy in this business. You have film, that's the ideal; then you have TV, and things like web series do not claim as much cred, but the fact is, if the material is solid and I believe and trust in the team that's involved, I don't care what format it is. — Tony Hale

..for a man ( Roger Scruton ) whose calling and raison d'etre is that difficult business - not just telling the truth but finding out what the truth would be like if we told it - it was a huge blow to be exposed as a lickspittle of tobacco giants. If your job is enquiry, you cannot accept money for providing the answers before the question has been examined. — A. N. Wilson

Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive ... Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist's business is lying ... Open your eyes; listen, listen. That is what the novelists say. But they don't tell you what you will see and hear. All they can tell you is what they have seen and heard, in their time in this world, a third of it spent in sleep and dreaming, another third of it spent in telling lies. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Fiction is an urgent business. It is the Dying Us telling stories to the Dying Us, trying to crack the nonsense in our heads open with a big hammer pronto, before Death arrives. — George Saunders

Donald Trump pulling off a world-class scam here. I mean, he's telling people he's all these things that he's never been his entire life. He says he's fighting for the little guy, the working class. He has spent his entire business career sticking it to working people. — Marco Rubio

For most people, creativity is a serious business. They forget the telling phrase 'the play of ideas' and think that they need to knuckle down and work more. Often, the reverse is true. They need to play. — Julia Cameron

I didn't tell him that I'd put his awful stories in boxes and stacked them on a shelf at the back of my mind. I could hear a quieter version of them still, from their dark place, through all the other business that occupied my brain, but I wouldn't unlid those boxes until I was ready to hear [his] stories again as they wanted to be heard. — Lauren Wolk

Most startups eventually pivot to adjust to what the market is telling them. — Alejandro Cremades

My mistake was in telling a stranger my private business. — Patricia Highsmith

My wife is the fact-checker, I'm in the story telling business. — Baz Luhrmann

I am telling folks that the Country as a whole is "Sound," and that all those who's heads are solid are bound to get back into the market again. I tell 'em that this Country is bigger than Wall Street, and if they don't believe it, I show 'em the map. — Will Rogers

I support Democrats and Republicans. And I'm telling you that the business community in this company is frightened to death of the weird political philosophy of the President of the United States. And until he's gone, everybody's going to be sitting on their thumbs. — Steve Wynn

What business do we have telling people who to vote for? They probably know more about it than we do. — Stan Laurel

The truth is that Fate does not go out of its way to be dramatic. If you or I had the power of life and death in our hands, we should no doubt arrange some remarkably bright and telling effects. A man who spilt the salt callously would be drowned next week in the Dead Sea, and a couple who married in May would expire simultaneously in the May following. But Fate cannot worry to think out all the clever things that we should think out. It goes about its business solidly and unromantically, and by the ordinary laws of chance it achieves every now and then something startling and romantic. Superstition thrives on the fact that only the accidental dramas are reported. — A.A. Milne

We call it keeping up with the Joneses. They buy a boat and we buy a bigger one. They get a new TV and we get a big screen. They start a business and we start planning our articles of incorporation and the first stock release. And while we're so busy keeping up, we ignore our soul, the inner voice, that's telling us that it really wants to teach children to read. While it helps to identify with each other, we're not the same. So why compare ourselves on the basis of material things? Are you walking a path with heart in your own life, regardless of what others have? — Melody Beattie

I deny the lawfulness of telling a lie to a sick man for fear of alarming him; you have no business with consequences, you are to tell the truth. — Samuel Johnson

In another telling anomaly of the meat-grinding business, many of the larger slaughterhouses will sell their product only to grinders who agree to not test their product for E. coli contamination
until after it's run through a grinder with a whole bunch of other meat from other sources ... It's like demanding of a date that she have unprotected sex with four or five other guys immediately before sleeping with you
just so she can't point the finger directly at you should she later test positive for clap. — Anthony Bourdain

In the short walk between his aeroplane and reaching the outside world at Heathrow, Michael Bywater encountered no fewer than 93 separate notices telling him off for things he hadn't done or which hadn't even occurred to him to do. Being bossed and patronised are two sensations that most sophisticated adults would sooner do without and yet we are bossed and patronised, by the media, by politicians, by business, by advertising agencies and the public services, more now than at any other time in our history. Why should this be? — Alexander Waugh

All you have to do is to make it your business to find out what people want ~ instead of assuming it, instead of telling them.
The one rule that sums up the job to be done ~ the one formula that is fully in harmony with the real world ~ the secret of success is:
Find out what people want and help them get it! — Harry Browne

I got this story from someone who had no business in the telling of it. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

I remember specifically my mother telling me growing up don't put my business in the street. I was like seven, and I am like, 'What does that mean.' — Karrine Steffans

Storytelling is a business of unique snowflakes. Every writer is different; every book is different; every reader is different. This is why it's so hard to give writing advice, because what works for me might be poison to someone else. But if I could make one absolute assertion, it would be this: If you are not enjoying your writing, you're doing it wrong. A book is not a battle, nor is it a conquest. A book is a story, and telling it should be an enjoyable exercise. So the next time you don't want to write, don't waste time beating yourself up. Instead, stop and ask yourself why. Why do you not want to do this fundamentally enjoyable thing? What's really going on? — Rachel Aaron

I was raised with a sense of entrepreneurship - my father owned a roofing business, and I grew up with the idea that you never want someone telling you what you can and cannot do. — Anthony Mackie

So, how'd you get the tattoo?" she said.
"Drunken frat boys don't say no to things their drunken frat brothers are telling them to do."
"That almost sounds like an admission of weakness from the invulnerable Andrew Sheffield."
"Not weakness. Stupidity, maybe. That, I'll cop to."
"I can't believe the man behind such a successful business is stupid."
"You'd be surprised. Just as there are different kinds of intelligence, there are different kinds of stupid. — Linda Morris

A friend who attended a prestigious MBA program once told me about the business ethics course he took there. The professor counseled honest business practices for two reasons. First, if you lie or cheat you may be caught, and that would be bad for business. Second, if people in the company know they ae working in an honest business, that will boost morale ... "Tell the truth
because it's to your own advantage," was the counsel. What happens, however, when you inevitable come to situations in which telling the truth would cost you dearly? What happens when telling a particular lie would be stupendously advantageous to you? — Timothy Keller

Language is material to shape and mold, not only a transparent or invisible medium for communication, business contracts, or telling stories. — Kenneth Goldsmith

Poetry is a special use of language that opens onto the real. The business of the poet is truth telling, which is why in the Celtic tradition no one could be a teacher unless he or she was a poet. — Huston Smith

The man who tells the tale if he has a tale worth telling will know exactly what he is about and this business of the artist as a sort of starry-eyed inspired creature, dancing along, with his feet two or three feet above the surface of the earth, not really knowing what sort of prints he's leaving behind him, is nothing like the truth. — William Golding

According to Adams, Jefferson proposed that he, Adams, do the writing [pf the Declaration of Independence], but that he declined, telling Jefferson he must do it.
Why?" Jefferson asked, as Adams would recount.
Reasons enough," Adams said.
What can be your reasons?"
Reason first: you are a Virginian and a Virginian ought to appear at the head of this business. Reason second: I am obnoxious, suspected and unpopular. You are very much otherwise. Reason third: You can write ten times better than I can. — David McCullough

Candidates have been telling you that if elected they would 'pull you from this bog hole of financial misery.' Now is a good chance to get even with 'em, by electing 'em, just to prove what a liar they are. — Will Rogers

We are essentially in the business of telling stories. We would like to think that most of our stories are basically human stories with sports as a backdrop. — Bryant Gumbel

If by 'intellectual' you mean people who are a special class who are in the business of imposing thoughts and forming ideas for people in power, and telling people what they should believe ... they're really more a kind of secular priesthood, whose task it is to uphold the doctrinal truths of the society. And the population SHOULD be anti-intellectual in that repect. — Noam Chomsky