Running Business Quotes & Sayings

For millennia the two-million acre redwood ecosystem thrived and sheltered myriad species of life. In the last 150 years, 97 percent of the original redwood forests have been destroyed by timber corporations ... Big business cut-and-run logging operations have instilled a false dichotomy: jobs versus the environment. — Julia Hill

I'm an inventor. I don't enjoy running the business. — Woody Norris

Cash is the lifeblood of your business. There are very few things in business that will kill you, but running our of cash is one of those things. You can recover from almost any other mistake, but if you run out of cash you're dead. — Robert Herjavec

One runs a business ultimately to do well so you can do good for everyone. — Ted Malloch

The New Capitalism (arising from the global economic downturn) ... those running our biggest commercial businesses will have to be more visible. They'll have to manifest a genuine understanding not only of the anxieties of their employees but of all taxpayers. Those chief executives who succeed will be those who imbue in their businesses very simple, commonsense standards of decency — Robert Peston

It doesn't matter who you marry, as long as he thinks like you and is a gentleman and a Southerner and prideful. For a woman, love comes after marriage."
"Oh, Pa, that's such an Old Country notion!"
"And a good notion it is! All this American business of running around marrying for love, like servants, like Yankees! The best marriages are when the parents choose for the girl. For how can a silly piece like yourself tell a good man from a scoundrel? — Margaret Mitchell

The most knowledgeable person is not necessarily the person who runs the government, nor the church, nor the business. — Frederick Lenz

You know, I really miss sex scandals. They're generally colorful. They almost never mean anything over the long run. And while they're going on, the people who actually keep the government running are let alone to go about their business. Good old sex scandals. — Gail Collins

As you get older, I think everyone feels that, no matter what the job: to try a hand at running the business as opposed to simply being an employee. — Campbell Scott

People will set a New Year's resolution: "I'm gonna get in shape this year." But they don't set a parameter for how they're gonna measure it. Or if they do measure it, they wait until the first day of the next year. You'd never run a business that way. Document your progress. — Jack LaLanne

I'm in touch with Stick players all over the world, so I have a unique perspective on what they need from a website. Stick Enterprises is a small family-run business, but they have a depth of experience and committment that's pretty rare these days. I try to make sure that all the bases are covered for them, because I think what they do is really valuable to the music world. — Greg Howard

Any business owner or entrepreneur knows that there is no luck or good fortune about keeping a company up and running. It's nothing but hard work, consistency, determination, courage, staying focused, accepting failure, making changes, and simply keeping on with the grind. — Enaka Yembe

In Hollywood there are a lot of very insecure men running the business. — Rosanna Arquette

Running a business without marketing will kill it — Paul Cookson

You cannot run a successful retail business from memory. — John Hartford

I run my company according to feminine principles, principles of caring, making intuitive decisions, not getting hung up on hierarchy or all those dreadfully boring business-school management ideas; having a sense of work as being part of your life, not separate from it; putting your labor where your love is; being responsible to the world in how you use your profits; recognizing the bottom line should stay at the bottom. — Anita Roddick

The first year, I didn't have much capital so I did everything myself. I had to keep my overhead low by learning everything about running a business, from accounting to fixing the gears of my equipment. I really started from scratch. — Li Ka-shing

Christine O'Donnell is making a mockery of running for public office. She has no real history, no real success in any kind of business. And what that sends to my generation is, one day, you can just wake up and run for Senate, no matter how [much] lack of experience you have. — Meghan McCain

Is this good for English football? In the short run, Chelsea's rise has broken up what was turning into an irritating Arsenal-Manchester United duopoly. But football leagues (look at Scotland, look at Spain) can get along OK with duopolies. A monopoly, however, is a disaster. Everyone else in the Premiership has to operate on some kind of business footing, and the terror stalking Highbury and Old Trafford is that Chelsea will be immune from financial discipline forever. — Matthew Engel

My running ambition is to keep doing it until I'm way past the point where I have any business running. Just to keep doing it throughout my whole life - to stay fit and feel good. — Leroy Chiao

I have always believed you cannot run a successful enterprise from behind a desk. — Lou Gerstner

Entrepreneurialism, to me, means being able to fail. And I believe that kind of leadership is not necessary only in business, but it's necessary for running countries, too. You've got to be able to believe in something strongly enough that you want to do it even if there's a risk of failure. — Bernard L. Schwartz

I think running a business, doing what I've done for the last - since 1996, has taught me so many things because I started from just an idea and then had to figure out how to make it, market it, every single thing from soup to nuts on how to get a product done and out there. — Lori Greiner

Business runs hot and cold so the more you're in charge of your own destiny, the better off you are. — Bill Burr

We ought to start running the government like a private-sector business. I have that ability as CEO of our companies. I have line item vetoes, and if I didn't, we'd probably be out of business by now. — John Raese

By the 1980's and 1990's, Moore's Law had emerged as the underlying assumption that governed almost everything in the Valley, from technology to business, education, and even culture. The "law" said the number of transistors would double every couple of years. It dictated that nothing stays the same for more than a moment; no technology is safe from its successor; costs fall and computing power increases not at a constant rate but exponentially: If you're not running on what became known as " Internet time," you're falling behind. — John Markoff

Why do you hate me?"
"I have no emotion about you at all, Mac. I take care of my own. You are not my own." He moved past me, pressed his palm to the door, and stood waiting for me to exit. "Barrons wants you to see your parents so as you go about your business you will remember they are here. With me."
"Lovely," I muttered.
"I suffer them to live, against my better judgment, as a favor to Barrons. He's running out of favors. Remember that. — Karen Marie Moning

All this business of a labour to accomplish, before I can end, of words to say, a truth to recover, in order to say it, before I can end, of an imposed task, once known, long neglected, finally forgotten, to perform, before I can be done with speaking, done with listening, I invented it all, in the hope it would console me, help me to go on, allow me to think of myself as somewhere on a road, moving, between a beginning and an end, gaining ground, losing ground, getting lost, but somehow in the long run making headway. — Samuel Beckett

Running IT as a business, IT performance has to be clearly linked with the business performance. — Pearl Zhu

Building a professional relationship on respect as opposed to affection is a very good idea. Running your art projects the way you'd run a dry-cleaning business is also a really good idea. You shouldn't go into work like you're going on a date, like you're hanging out with friends. — Penn Jillette

You're through running from that sh*t. I get it now, I don't like it, but I get it. You still have unfinished business that's why they're always on your mind. I hope you'll get to the point where you stop running and start fighting back. — Jordan Silver

Our investments continue to be few in number and simple in concept: The truly big investment idea can usually be explained in a short paragraph. We like a business with enduring competitive advantages that is run by able and owner-oriented people. When these attributes exist, and when we can make purchases at sensible prices, it is hard to go wrong (a challenge we periodically manage to overcome). — Warren Buffett

It's a stereotype," he hissed. "It's a damn stereotype and it's harmful. If this catches on, we'll have all sorts of sorcerers running around, waving wands and chanting spells. Do you know how ridiculous we'd look?"
Tanith shrugged. "I liked Harry Potter."
"This ain't about Harry Potter!"
"You liked Harry Potter as well."
"They're good books," he snapped, "but I do not agree with this wand business. All those guys down there, criminals and mobsters and gangsters, and who are they taking orders from? A wizard with a wand. How can they take him seriously? How are they going to take us seriously when we attack? — Derek Landy

Why should how I act in my workplace be any different from how I interact with my family at home? It's making sure the company runs on feminine principles where the major ethic is care. — Anita Roddick

We like our current shareholders and don't want to entice anyone to become one. It would help current shareholders to hear our CEOs [of the Berkshireoperating subsidiaries], but we promised them they could spend 100% of their time on their business. We place no impediments on them running their businesses. Many have expressed to me how happy they are that they don't have to spend 25% of time on activities they didn't like. — Charlie Munger

You think I don't know what I want? You think I love the idea of relying on my looks for life? No! It's pathetic! In my head, I have a nice, quiet, normal job that involves me running my own business. I carry a briefcase around my office with important documents, I have a nice assistant who calls me boss, and people ask me questions - they ask for my advice because I matter! I'm important to them! I'm recognized as something more than a pretty face and a pair of legs. I have a brain and interests and thoughts about religion, and poverty, and economics. I'm not a miserable girl with a number attached to her chest, stripping her clothes off in a room full of people. — Elisa Marie Hopkins

For a real glimpse into an almost vanished world, one should look...at a scorpion who so obviously has no business lingering into the twentieth century. He is not shaped like a spider and he has too many legs to be an insect. Plainly, he is a discontinued model--still running but very difficult, one imagines, to get spare parts for. — Joseph Wood Krutch

When you delve deep enough, you find that practically every great fortune and great enterprise in America have sprung from the courageous enterprise of some individual. It was Commodore Vanderbilt's enterprise in switching first from running a ferryboat to running other ships, and then, when he was well along in years, his enterprise in switching into railroading, that created what was to become one of the most notable fortunes in the history of the world. — B.C. Forbes

Our lives ... are but a little while, so let them run as sweetly as you can, and give no thought to grief from day to day. For time is not concerned to keep our hopes, but hurries on its business, and is gone. — Euripides

So who the hell, exactly, are these guys, the boys and girls in the trenches? You might get the impression from the specifics of my less than stellar career that all line cooks are wacked-out moral degenerates, dope fiends, refugees, a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves, sluts and psychopaths. You wouldn't be too far off base. The business, as respected three-star chef Scott Bryan explains it, attracts 'fringe elements', people for whom something in their lives has gone terribly wrong. Maybe they didn't make it through high school, maybe they're running away from something-be it an ex-wife, a rotten family history, trouble with the law, a squalid Third World backwater with no opportunity for advancement. Or maybe, like me, they just like it here. — Anthony Bourdain

It takes a lot more to run a good business than just trailing commissions or kickbacks otherwise everybody would succeed, wouldn't they? — John Ilhan

Something out of the ordinary course of business is taking place that creates an investment opportunity. The list of corporate events that can result in big profits for you runs the gamut - spinoffs, mergers, restructurings, rights offerings, bankruptcies, liquidations, asset sales, distributions. — Joel Greenblatt

For too long, our country's version of an energy policy has consisted of Americans waking up every day and wondering how much it will cost to drive to work, how much it will cost to keep their business running, how much it will cost to heat or cool their homes. — Bob Beauprez

I have certain beliefs about how people should treat employees and how companies should be run, but I was really surprised though this process to learn that those beliefs are actually good business. — Adam McKay

The system-versus-goals model can be applied to most human endeavors. In the world of dieting, losing twenty pounds is a goal, but eating right is a system. In the exercise realm, running a marathon in under four hours is a goal, but exercising daily is a system. In business, making a million dollars is a goal, but being a serial entrepreneur is a system. — Scott Adams

There is an increasing gap between academic research and business application. Sometimes the incentives for success in the academic world are not consistent with what it takes to run a company. — Dave Ulrich

To speak of creativity is to speak of profound intimacy. It is also to speak of our connecting to the Divine in us and of our bringing the Divine back to the community. This is true whether we understand our creativity to be begetting and nourishing our children, making music, doing theater, gardening, writing, teaching, running a business, painting, constructing houses, or sharing the healing arts of medicine and therapy. — Matthew Fox

Money is not the motivating force. It's nice to have money, but I don't live high. What I enjoy is running the business. — Rupert Murdoch

There are fun parts of running a startup and not so fun parts, and Facebook handles the not so fun parts, like infrastructure, spam, sales. The real questions are, how big can 'Instagram' get? Is it 400 million, or bigger? Can it be a viable business if it is that big? These are at the top of the list for everyone in Silicon Valley. — Kevin Systrom

Whether you are running a business, an industry, or a nation - what is needed are insight, integrity, and inspiration. — Jaggi Vasudev

Routine is the god of every social system; it is the seventh heaven of business, the essential component in the success of every factory, the ideal of every statesman. The social machine should run like clockwork. — Alfred North Whitehead

To get your name well enough known that you can run for a public office, some people do it by being great lawyers or philanthropists or business people or work their way up the political ladder. I happened to become known from a different route. — John Glenn

Harry is my elder brother. He is the wiser one who leads Percept, he shows us the path. My job is to run it, create the relationships, and run the business as profitably as I can. Harry acquires, merges, expands he is responsible for Percept's growth. — Shailender Singh

When you raise prices, you've got to make sure you get it to the bottom line. You can fritter it away because of the way you're running the business, with maybe not a totally disciplined approach. — Jim Cantalupo

The time to go into a new business is when it's badly run by others. — Richard Branson

Quickest way to build trust: Keep promises you make, don't over-promise. Over-deliver, don't under-deliver. If you say you'll do something, make sure you do but if things then run late or go wrong, tell your client at the earliest opportunity — Phil Harding

When I returned from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1972, my father was running a forging business with a turnover of Rs 3.5 crore. But I had no patience and wanted to grow the business via exports. — Baba Kalyani

I wasn't running toward the theater but running away from the sporting goods store. Of course now that I'm selling spaghetti sauce (with Newman's Own), I begin to understand the romance of business.. the allure of being the biggest fish in the pond and the juice you get from beating out your competitors. — Paul Newman

You know what - gyms make the largest chunk of their profit from clients who pay their monthly dues on auto-pay but never bother to show up and use the gym. The DVD-rental companies make a good chunk of their profits from late fees; the credit-card companies make a fortune on sundry fines and penalties; the airlines' margins are highest on ticket changes and cancellations ... So, the key to running a successful business in America is to sign up a customer and pray he'll somehow screw up ... — Ali Sheikh

In this business, it takes all the running you can do just to stay in the same place. The — Gerald M. Weinberg

I have done things politically, and I've been running a business at the same time, but I sort of joke that to some extent I do more than most legislators have done in their whole careers, and I've been doing it as a part-time job. — Craig Benson

I am a great believer that you need passion and energy to create a truly successful business. Remember many new businesses do not make it and running a business will be a tough experience, involving long hours and many hard decisions - it helps to have that passion to keep you going. — Richard Branson

It's the uncertainty, the challenge and the willingness to put it all on the line that draws a lot of people to climb mountains. That can also apply to a lot of other challenges in life, whether it's running for office, starting a family, going to grad school or taking all of your cash and assets and starting a business. — Mark Udall

I have always considered myself a fast learner. I try to retain and absorb as much information and knowledge about the [music] business as I can. I don't want to just sit back and have other people do the hard work for me. I try to be involved in every process of my career as possible. I run my own social media, record, and try to vocal produce myself as much as possible, write my own songs, style myself, and learn the business side. If I didn't do acting or music, I was going to school for business. God has put me on this path and I can honestly say I wake up every day doing what I love. — Asher Monroe

There is no gaming table in the world where loaded dice are tolerated, no athletic field where men must not start fair. Yet Mr. Rockefeller has systematically played with loaded dice, and it is doubtful if there has ever been a time since 1872 when he has run a race with a competitor and started fair. — Ida Tarbell

IN EVERY ASPECT OF BUSINESS MAXIMUM INNOVATIONS BY NEW TIMELY HI-FI SOPHISTICATED CREATIONS WILL MAKE AND KEEP RESERVED SPACE TO ANY ONE TODAY IN 24/7 MULTI COLOUR FLASHING MODERN WORLD OF RUNNING CENTURY.. — Various

Some people are natural inventors who prefer to work without the pressure and expectations of the later business phases. Others are ambitious and see innovation as a path toward senior management. Still others are particularly skilled at the management of running an established business, outsourcing, and bolstering efficiencies and wringing out cost reductions. People should be allowed to find the kinds of jobs that suit them best. — Eric Ries

Now I have no doubt that Mitt Romney was worried about pink slips - whether he was going to have enough of them to hand out because his company Bain Capital with all the jobs that they killed, I'm sure he was worried that he'd run out of pink slips. There is something inherently wrong when getting rich off failure and sticking it to someone else is how you do your business and I happen to think that's indefensible. If you're a victim of Bain Capital's downsizing, it's the ultimate insult for Mitt Romney to come to South Carolina and tell you he feels your pain, because he caused it. — Rick Perry

The world is full of people who have dreams of playing at Carnegie Hall, of running a marathon, and of owning their own business. The difference between the people who make it across the finish line and everyone else is one simple thing: an action plan. — John Tesh

If I died tomorrow, I would regret growing so wealthy and still running the business when there are so many more people I could have helped. — John Caudwell

Companies, as they grow to become multi-billion-dollar entities, somehow lose their vision. They insert lots of layers of middle management between the people running the company and the people doing the work. They no longer have an inherent feel or a passion about the products. The creative people, who are the ones who care passionately, have to persuade five layers of management to do what they know is the right thing to do. — Steve Jobs

I'm not the businessman. I don't deal with the business at all. Not anymore. Occasionally, every four years or five years, they tell me I've run out of money, I have to go and make some more. — Mick Jagger

The son will run away from the family not at eighteen but at twelve, emancipated by his gluttonous precocity; he will fly not to seek heroic adventures, not to deliver a beautiful prisoner from a tower, not to immortalize a garret with sublime thoughts, but to found a business, to enrich himself and to compete with his infamous papa. — Charles Baudelaire

The US is a business-run huckster society, and its primary value is deceit. — Noam Chomsky

In the short run, the market is a voting machine, but in the long run it is a weighing machine. — Benjamin Graham

Maddie had seen commercials for Match Made Easy on TV. They seemed like a decent business and legit. She hoped. She prayed they weren't out of her price range. Not that it mattered - time was running out. She'd pay anything to prove to her family she wasn't cursed. Plus, Ryan would be there, most likely with that cheating blonde of his. She bet anything they'd both love to see her at her lowest point: jobless and dateless. Well, no one was going to feel sorry for her. Not her cousin and certainly not the best man, either. She'd show them all. And since she couldn't find a wedding date to her sister's wedding on her own, it looked as if she'd be forced to do the next best thing. Hire one. — Jennifer Shirk

I really do have rules for running and managing a business that have never been formalized before. — Martha Stewart

The goal of the corps of NCOs, whose duty is the day-to-day business of running the Army so that the officer corps has time to command it, is to continue to improve our Army at every turn. We want to leave it better than we found it. Regardless of the kind of unit you're in, it ought to be an "elite" outfit, because its NCOs can make it one. — William G. Bainbridge

Tomorrow always arrives. It is always different. And even the mightiest company is in trouble if it has not worked on the future. Being surprised by what happens is a risk that even the largest and richest company cannot afford, and even the smallest business need not run. — Peter Drucker

I guess show business is a lot like baseball: "Wait until next year!" You just never know. Some of the shittiest shows I've ever seen run forever, and some of the best things never get a chance. — Kurt Fuller

Religious freedom doesn't include the freedom to disregard the law and restrict another's freedom to believe and act differently. No one's forcing Catholic nuns to practice birth control, or priests to wear condoms (good idea tho). If you really feel your religious beliefs conflict with the mandates of running a business, the solution is simple: Get your ass out of the boardroom and back to the pulpit (where it belongs). — Quentin R. Bufogle

Linguistics is a good way of defining the culture of a brand. The vocabulary used by sports and lifestyle brands - running, fitness, training, motorsports - is all about functionality, whereas the vocabulary of the luxury business - handbags, ready-to-wear - is all about the product. — Francois-Henri Pinault

If you go running, you put on sneakers. When you go bowling, you take your personal bowling balls with you. In much the same fashion, it won't be long before you have your special sunglasses to take to the movie theater. — Jeffrey Katzenberg

I think the knowledge about how legislation really affects small businesses is extremely valuable. If you haven't run a small business, then you don't have this kind of knowledge about how a regulation passed or taxes increased affects your bottom line. If you recognize that every new regulation takes that much more time to comply with, requires that many more employees, then it really gives you that foundational basis to make those decisions. — Kristi Noem

In most cases the favorable price performance will be accompanied by a well-defined improvement in the average earnings, in the dividend, and in the balance-sheet position. Thus in the long run the market test and the ordinary business test of a successful equity commitment tend to be largely identical. — Benjamin Graham

I've got a phone,
answer machine, TV set,
computer, hand grenade
- everything you need
to run a business in
Los Angeles. — Ice-T

You can't run a business without taking risks. — Millard Drexler

If you are working or you are running a business you have to set aside time and money to invest in your continued formal education and skills acquisition. — Strive Masiyiwa

This 'oh let's hug it out' without taking any responsibility is exactly the problem ... We are not silly irrational little girls. We are running a serious business with investments from the biggest VCs in the Valley. — Sarah Lacy

The [film] business is run by men, and they're basically interested in their own species, and they're not so interested in women belonging to the human race. — Bette Midler

When things are running perfectly smoothly, with people and boxes on charts enjoying a one-to-one relationship, then the processes and infrastructure have caught up to the business. — Eric Schmidt

Today, National Geographic has a membership side with a magazine and some television side, and they generate about a billion dollars in revenue, and they're profitable. And so at the end of the year they have some bottom line profit which they can then reinvest, because they're running it as a not-for-profit in charitable endeavors. — Steve Case

When you enter a casino, remember that you are entering a place of business run by very shrewd business people who understand human emotions. — Henry Tamburin

I don't care how poor and inefficient a little country is - they like to run their own business. I know men that would -make my wife a better husband than I am but, darn it, I'm not going to give her to 'em — Will Rogers

I was 21 and had spent the last few years in Stanford University Engineering School at California. Many people advised me to take up a nice, cushy job rather than face the challenges of running a hydrogenated oil business. Looking back, I am glad I decided to take charge instead. Essentially leadership begins from within. It is a small voice that tells you where to go when you feel lost. If you believe in that voice, you believe in yourself. — Azim Premji

When a young woman tells me that she wants to become and actor, I say, 'No, be a writer. Or go to business school and learn how to run a studio.' The only real change will come from behind the scenes. — Halle Berry

Being general manager is like being the de facto owner. It's like wearing the crown of 'Restaurant Man' without being 'Restaurant Man.' You're trying to run the business, but you're running the ranch without riding the big horse. — Joe Bastianich

I never took classic business classes in college, so I don't have the background that any of the people running large companies have. — Howard Schultz

Good people have always been at the heart of the Virgin business, and that's largely because we have tried to keep our business small, and our management teams tight-knit. I feel that small, compact companies, are better run. That is partly because people feel more connected in small companies. — Richard Branson

When people run a business and open their door to the public, they must serve the public. That doesn't mean they can't say whatever they want to say. It doesn't mean they can't believe whatever they want to believe. Those are protected also. But businesses must serve the public. And that's a principle that we fought for in this country over many, many decades, when some were invoking religious freedom as an excuse to deny people on the basis of their race, on the basis of their religion, on the basis of sex and on the basis now of sexual orientation. Let's not confuse one thing with the other. — Chris Christie