Practical Business Quotes & Sayings

We had all opted to take City's financial reporting course work, which, in theory, meant we wanted to write about stock prices and corporate takeovers. That, of course, was a joke. No one still in their twenties, and broke, goes into journalism to write about money - a subject in which they still have zero practical experience. — Chris Ayres

The policy of letting things alone, in the practical sense that the Government should never interfere with business or go into business itself, is called Laisser-faire by economists and politicians. It has broken down so completely in practice that it is now discredited; but it was all the fashion in politics a hundred years ago, and is still influentially advocated by men of business and their backers who naturally would like to be allowed to make money as they please without regard to the interest of the public. — George Bernard Shaw

As the owner of the Arison Group, a philanthropic and business enterprise that spans across 40 countries in 5 continents, my ongoing challenge is to bridge the gap between what I envision and its understanding and practical implementation. The Arison Group operates to realize the overall vision of Doing Good. — Shari Arison

When you are waiting for a train, don't keep perpetually looking to see if it is coming. The time of its arrival is the business of the conductor, not yours. It will not come any sooner for all your nervous glances and your impatient pacing, and you will save strength if you will keep quiet. After we discover that the people who sit still on a long railroad journey reach that journey's end at precisely the same time as those who "fuss" continually, we have a valuable piece of information which we should not fail to put to practical use. — Anna Brackett

But truly, it was a practical decision, a smart business move. — Gillian Flynn

You of the West are practical in business, practical in great inventions, but we of the East are practical in religion. You make commerce your business; we make religion our business. — Swami Vivekananda

Great statesmen seem to direct and rule by a sort of power to put themselves in the place of the nation over which they are set, and may thus be said to possess the souls of poets at the same time they display the coarser sense and the more vulgar sagacity of practical men of business. — Woodrow Wilson

Peace is more than a lofty ideal. It is a practical principle that, with conscious effort, can become a normal part of our lives as we deal with matters both large and small. One habit that prevents inner peace is procrastination. It clutters our minds with unfinished business and makes us uneasy until we finish a task and get it out of the way. — Joseph B. Wirthlin

If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it. The more things you do, the more you can do. Lucille Ball

(Source:
brainyquote dot com)
. — Lucille Ball

The absence of trust is clearly inimical to a well-run society. The great Jane Jacobs noted as much with respect to the very practical business of urban life and the maintenance of cleanliness and civility on city streets. If we don't trust each other, our towns will look horrible and be nasty places to live. Moreover, she observed, you cannot institutionalize trust. Once corroded, it is virtually impossible to restore. — Tony Judt

He had liked to listen to the exotic (to a Belsey) chatter of business and money and practical politics; to hear that Equality was a myth, and Multiculturalism was a fatuous dream; he thrilled at the suggestion that Art was a gift from God, blessing only a handful of masters, and most Literature merely a veil for poorly reasoned left-wing ideologies. — Zadie Smith

You have to know accounting. It's the language of practical business life. It was a very useful thing to deliver to civilization. I've heard it came to civilization through Venice which of course was once the great commercial power in the Mediterranean. However, double entry bookkeeping was a hell of an invention. — Charlie Munger

I am writing this book so the doers, the drivers, and the hard
workers out there will have a Step-By-Step ultra-practical
guide that will teach the specific action steps one must take to
start and grow a successful business. If you take action and do
everything this book tells you to do, you will make millions. If
you just intend on doing everything in this book you will make
a mediocre living or you will be poor and it will be your own
fault. — Clay Clark

Dave Stark has taken the best of recent marketplace management concepts and married them to timeless biblical principles of leadership, translating business jargon into ministry language. The combination is an encouraging and practical guide to Christ-centered ministry leadership. This book will be helpful to anyone involved in leading a church or serious about modeling servant leadership. — Jonathan Reckford

If someone shows promise in a trade, why not give them practical business advice, teach them how to handle money, show them the ways they can start their own business, and help them to become fully trained? — Erin Osborne

She had not been conferred with a practical sense of how one went about this strange and all inverted business of being a girl, where seemingly natural stuff like going on about all the great things you just learned about Siberian tigers on National Geographic was suddenly weird, but totally weird stuff in and of itself like drawing around your eyeball with a pencil became normal, and it impressed to no end that it was a product of meticulous effort that made the twins seem so perfectly and effortlessly feminine. — Brian McGreevy

Any fool can make a quilt; and, after we had made a couple of dozen over twenty years ago, we quit the business with a conviction that nobody but a fool would spend so much time in cutting bits of dry goods into yet small bits and sewing them together again, just for the sake of making believe that they were busy at practical work. — Abigail Scott Duniway

Upon this theology he rarely pondered. The kernel of his practical religion was that it was respectable, and beneficial to one's business, to be seen going to services; that the church kept the Worst Elements from being still worse; and that the pastor's sermons, however dull they might seem at the time of taking, yet had a voodooistic power which 'did a fellow good
kept him in touch with Higher Things. — Sinclair Lewis

After the stock market crash, some New York editors suggested that hearings be held: what had really caused the Depression? They were held in Washington. In retrospect, they make the finest comic reading. The leading industrialists and bankers testified. They hadn't the foggiest notion what had gone bad. You read a transcript of that record today with amazement: that they could be so unaware. This was their business, yet they didn't understand the operation of the economy. The only good witnesses were the college professors, who enjoyed a bad reputation in those years. No professor was supposed to know anything practical about the economy. — Studs Terkel

Sell practical, tested merchandise at a reasonable profit, treat your customers like human beings - and they will always come back. — Leon Leonwood Bean

Women are not as sentimental as men, and are not so easily touched with the unspoken poetry of nature, being less poetical, and having less imagination; they are more fitted for practical affairs, and would make fewer failures in business. — Charles Dudley Warner

"Spirituality" in business sounds lofty. How practical is it? The answer is "very." There's a fundamental way in which Spirit and consciousness contribute to worldly success-and it has long been ignored. — Patricia Aburdene

I am more of a sponge than an inventor. I absorb ideas from every source. I take half-matured schemes for mechanical development and make them practical. I am a sort of a middleman between the long-haired and impractical inventor and the hard-headed business man who measures all things in terms of dollars and cents. My principal business is giving commercial value to the brilliant but misdirected ideas of others. — Thomas A. Edison

Why did the two of you fight so much?" "We fought plenty, but I always respected him." "But why all the arguing? The nitpicking? It always seemed strange to me." It would. He smiled and turned his face to the sky. For all her practical, level-headed business sense, Mollie didn't understand much about men. "Sometimes men just like to argue," he said simply. "We like the competition. We sniff out the opposition, measure it up, challenge it. Frank never backed down. Even though he was blind, Frank was still a man, and when I came on the scene, I think he immediately sensed my interest in you. Long before you ever did. — Elizabeth Camden

Constitutions are not designed for metaphysical or logical subtleties, for niceties of expression, for critical propriety, for elaborate shades of meaning, or for the exercise of philosophical acuteness or judicial research. They are instruments of a practical nature, founded on the common business of human life, adapted to common wants, designed for common use, and fitted for common understandings. — Joseph Story

Basic income is not a utopia, it's a practical business plan for the next step of the human journey. — Jeremy Rifkin

Let's end the notion that ideas have no value unless they turn into a business or have some other practical use. Save them all in a beautiful book like Leonardo did. You might want to give them away someday, perhaps to someone who needs an idea. Or your great-great-grandchildren might love knowing what a fascinating mind you had. Or your biographer might be very happy after you're gone. — Barbara Sher

The science of political economy is essentially practical, and applicable to the common business of human life. There are few branches of human knowledge where false views may do more harm, or just views more good. — Thomas Malthus

Three cardinal virtues of business: creativity, building community, practical realism. — Ted Malloch

It is a mistake to think of these men as visionary dreamers, playing around at Philadelphia with abstract conceptions of political theory, pulling a whole scheme of government out of the air like a rabbit out of a hat. True, many of them had read and studied enough about the science of politics to put the average statesman of today to shame. But political science was to them an extremely practical topic of discussion, dealing with the extremely practical business of running a government
not, as today, a branch of higher learning reserved for the use of graduate students. — Fred Rodell

The business of both parent and teacher is to enable and to help the child to educate himself, to develop his own intellectual, moral, aesthetic and practical capacities and to grow freely as an organic being, not to be kneaded and pressured into form like an inert plastic material — Sri Aurobindo

On a more practical level, anyone out there who wants to be a writer should clearly recognize that this is a brutal business, where even incredibly talented people sometimes never make a living. If you want to chase such a dream, please have a Plan B in place. — R.A. Salvatore

I'm much more of a realist. I'm really practical. I'm the kind of person that calls my business manager and says, OK, if it were all to end today, how many months do I have to live? — Courteney Cox

My objection to Liberalism is this that it is the introduction into the practical business of life of the highest kind namely, politics of philosophical ideas instead of political principles. — Benjamin Disraeli

Different portions of the brain all look for information (sexual, intuitive, practical), through modes so torturous, a first date can feel like a cross between having a pelvic examination while applying for a small business loan. First dates should require anesthesia, and in some states they do. — Marilyn Suzanne Miller

There is a direct line that runs from our doctrine to our actions, from what is in our minds to what is in our words and ways ... The heart spills over into life. Thoughts of God, and of all else, erupt into acts. The filling of the heart with wise thoughts of God becomes the most important, the most practical, business in the world. — Tom Wells

Ideas are dangerous, but the man to whom they are least dangerous is the man of ideas. He is acquainted with ideas, and moves among them like a lion-tamer. Ideas are dangerous, but the man to whom they are most dangerous is the man of no ideas. The man of no ideas will find the first idea fly to his head like wine to the head of a teetotaller. It is a common error, I think, among the Radical idealists of my own party and period to suggest that financiers and business men are a danger to the empire because they are so sordid or so materialistic. The truth is that financiers and business men are a danger to the empire because they can be sentimental about any sentiment, and idealistic about any ideal, any ideal that they find lying about, just as a boy who has not known much of women is apt too easily to take a woman for the woman, so these practical men, unaccustomed to causes, are always inclined to think that if a thing is proved to be an ideal it is proved to be the ideal. — G.K. Chesterton

I had always heard the merchants say that truth was not possible in business. I did not think so then, nor do I now. Even today there are merchant friends who contend that truth is inconsistent with business. Business, they say, is a very practical affair, and truth a matter of religion; and they argue that practical affairs are one thing, while religion is quite another. Pure truth, they hold, is out of the question in business; one can speak it only as far as is suitable. — Mahatma Gandhi

A businessman is someone who buys at ten and is happy to get out at twelve. The other kind of man buys at ten, sees it rise to eighteen and does nothing. He is waiting for it to get to twenty. The beauty of numbers. When it drops to ten again he waits for it to get back to eighteen. When it drops to two he waits for it to get back to ten. Well, it gets back there. But he has wasted a quarter of his life. And all he's got out of his money is a little mathematical excitement. — V.S. Naipaul

they "come to the business of life & the application of knowledge they find that they are inferior - & all their studies have not given them that practical good sense & mother wisdom & wit which grew up with our grandmothers at the spinning wheel, — Megan Marshall

The curious mind embraces science; the gifted and sensitive, the arts; the practical, business; the leftover becomes an economist — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Every single thing I learned about marketing and building my business, I learned from my mom, and she had never been in the workforce. She just had great practical sense. — Barbara Corcoran

Where has this book been? The Culture Engine demystifies the what and how of driving your company's culture to produce transformational business outcomes. Chris Edmonds operationalizes culture while offering practical tools necessary to align your people and gain profound competitive advantage. — Joseph Michelli

Even though I'm a hype man myself, I like the practicality of it all. People who understand how to turn a profit. At the end of the day, this is still business so I'm looking for real practical knowledge of how to actually make money, not necessarily raise it. — Gary Vaynerchuk

Is creativity some obscure, esoteric art form? Not on your life. It's the most practical thing a business-man can employ. — William Bernbach

The US has developed two coordinate governing classes: the one, called 'business,' building cities, manufacturing and distributing goods, and holding complete and autocratic power over the livelihood of millions; the other, called 'government,' concerned with preaching and exemplification of spiritual ideals, so caught in a mass of theory, that when it wished to move in a practical world it had to do so by means of a sub rosa political machine. — Thurman Arnold

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are a bunch of practical jokers who meet somewhere and decide to have a contest. They invent a character, agree on a few basic facts, and then each one's free to take it and run with it. At the end, they'll see who's done the best job. The four stories are picked up by some friends who act as critics: Matthew is fairly realistic, but insists on that Messiah business too much: Mark isn't bad, just a little sloppy: Luke is elegant, no denying that; and John takes the philosophy a little too far. Actually, though, the books have an appeal, they circulate, and when the four realize what's happening, it's too late, Paul has already met Jesus on the road to Damascus, Pliny begins his investigation ordered by the worried emperor, and a legion of apocryphal writers pretends also to know plenty ... It all goes to Peter's head; he takes himself seriously. John threatens to tell the truth, Peter and Paul have him chained up on the island of Patmos. — Umberto Eco

There is no conflict of interests among men, neither in business nor in trade nor in their most personal desires - if they omit the irrational from their view of the possible and destruction from their view of the practical? — Ayn Rand

Day baseball is now dead for all practical purposes. Sooner or later, the game will be played in its entirety at night, and as I've said before, then baseball will be squarely in the amusement, the entertainment business along with wrestling, midget auto racing and the trotting tracks. — Larry MacPhail

There is also the professional mentor, a person whose success in his or her career can be a source of practical wisdom and inspiration. This success might be mea sured in material gain or far-reaching influence, or in lives touched and relationships fostered. These mentors can offer a model for good business, ethical practices, and effective work habits, and they often provide the motivation we need to seize whatever opportunities come our way. — John Wooden

I have always understood that money made in the patent medicine business is a practical bar to social success. — George Presbury Rowell

Unless the distant goals of meaning, greatness, and destiny are addressed, we can't make an intelligent decision about what to do tomorrow morning
much less set strategy for a company or for a human life. Nothing is more practical than for people to deepen themselves. The more you understand the human condition, the more effective you are as a businessperson. Human depth makes business sense. — Peter Koestenbaum

The first business of philosophy is to account for things as they are; and till our theories will do this, they ought not to be the ground of any practical conclusion. — Thomas Malthus

Design must reflect the practical and aesthetic in business but above all ... good design must primarily serve people. — Thomas J. Watson

No one leaves life anywhere, all lives seem to be portable. They are naturally so. To be practical about it and drop the metaphysics, having a life is equivalent to having business, affairs, interests. And how can anyone strip himself of all that? Very well. But then how did I do it?
I don't know.
I've stood on the threshold of all the beauties, all the dangers. And the sums did not add up. The remainders did not remain, the multiplications were not multiplied, the divisions were not divided. — Cesar Aira

Tough management is a way to approach work. It is a practical, reasonable, and organized way to get to decisions more easily, make the numbers on a consistent basis, have those around you understand where you stand, and increase the business. — Chuck Martin

In general, I think what Donald Trump's message is, is: I'm a very practical, execution-oriented entrepreneur who built a successful business. I've demonstrated an ability to go global with my business. I can get along with a lot of different people. There are certain problems in the United States right now born from faulty policy. So what is happening right now is the lower and middle class are being left behind by the globalization and by the global elite. I think that's basically his message, and Bernie Sanders' is similar. — Anthony Scaramucci

Civically engaged, business oriented, technology obsessed, and socially skilled, Franklin was "our founding Yuppie," declares the New York Times columnist David Brooks. Franklin "would have felt right at home in the information revolution," Walter Isaacson writes in his biography of the statesman. "We can easily imagine having a beer with him after work, showing him how to use the latest digital device, sharing the business plan of a new venture, and discussing the most recent political scandals or policy ideas." The essence of Franklin's appeal is that he was brilliant but practical, interested in everything, but especially in how things work. — Fareed Zakaria

Pragmatism ... reflects with almost disarming candor the spirit of the prevailing business culture, the very same attitude of 'being practical' as counter to which philosophical meditation as such was conceived. — Max Horkheimer

If some of these answers seem radical or far-fetched today, then I say wait until tomorrow. Soon it will be abundantly clear that it is business as usual that is utopian, whereas creating something very new and different is a practical necessity. — James Gustave Speth

I'm not in the news business and won't tell people how to do their job. I'd like to restore trust in the news business, though, and feel that restoring fact-checking will really help. News business realities mean that such fact-checking has to be practical, it has to be fast and cheap. — Craig Newmark

One expects philosophy to promote, and even to accelerate, the practical and technical business of culture by alleviating it, making it easier. {9} — Martin Heidegger

In the corporate world, what is not showcased well simply doesn't exist for any practical purpose! — Abhishek Ratna