Worst Business Quotes & Sayings

Happiness is the worst threat to my business. Dreams are what it's all about. Frustrations. Fantasies that never come true. — Anne Fortier

If I'm not working, I really have nothing to do with it - I'm not hanging out and mixing with film people. Not that I have anything against film people; they're some of the best people around and some of the worst people around, just like in any business ... they just gesticulate a little bit more. — Christian Bale

I had a major in business, and I graduated with a business degree, but I was perhaps the worst student to graduate from that program. — William Shatner

Commitments are one of the worst things to have in the music business. They're very annoying. — Neil Young

'Big business' was a bad phrase in India. To be accused of being big business was the worst accusation you could make. All that has gone now. The whole mindset has changed. — P. Chidambaram

Sometimes the Church patently tried to profit from such incidents: the Benedictine monks of Norwich Cathedral in England, encouraged by their bishop, were pioneers in the blood-libel business when in the 1140s they tried to foster in their own church a cult of an alleged young victim of the Jews called William. Unfortunately for the monks, the good folk of Norwich loathed their cathedral more than they did the Jews, and the pilgrimage to little St William never amounted to much. Other cults were more successful (see chapter 2, p. 59), and the blood-libel has remained a recurring motif in the worst atrocities against the Jews. — Diarmaid MacCulloch

I crossed a line by making his family's personal business my own. But isn't that what friendship is? Isn't that what love is? It's more than caring and laughing and inspiring. It's about taking hurt and anger off people's shoulders and helping to carry the weight. It's more important to love people on the worst days than their best. — Katie Kacvinsky

I do strongly feel that among the greatest pieces of luck for high achievement is ordeal. Certain great artists can make out without it, Titian and others, but mostly you need ordeal. My idea is this: the artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he's in business: Beethoven's deafness, Goya's deafness, Milton's blindness, that kind of thing. — John Berryman

The NFL pension is the worst in the world of business. It's an embarrassment. — Jim Brown

The worst disease which can afflict business executives in their work is not, as popularly supposed, alcoholism; it's egotism. — Harold S. Geneen

Too many people learn about war with no inconvenience to themselves. They read about Verdun or Stalingrad without comprehension, sitting in a comfortable armchair, with their feet beside the fire, preparing to go about their business the next day, as usual.
One should really read such accounts under compulsion, in discomfort, considering oneself fortunate not to be describing the events in a letter home, writing from a hole in the mud. One should read about war in the worst circumstances, when everything is going badly, remembering that the torments of peace are trivial, and not worth any white hairs. Nothing is really serious in the tranquility of peace; only an idiot could be really disturbed by a question of salary.
One should read about war standing up, late at night, when one is tired, as I am writing about it now, at dawn, while my asthma attack wears off. And even now, in my sleepless exhaustion, how gentle and easy peace seems! — Guy Sajer

The life of every citizen is becoming a business. This, it seems to me, is one of the worst interpretations of the meaning of human life history has ever seen. Man's life is not a business. — Saul Bellow

Thank God, 50 years ago I learned that a great song, our entire business is all based on two things; a great song and a great story. Film, television, if you don't have that story, nothing else matters. You don't call anybody else or direct anybody. The same with a song. A great song can make the worst singer in the world a star. — Quincy Jones

Worst of all, however, is the devastation wrought by the misuse of religious conviction for political ends. In truth, we cannot sharply enough attack those wretched crooks who would like to make religion an implement to perform political or rather business services for them. — Adolf Hitler

When people die," I said, "and you'll be able to verify this for yourself - most of 'em move on. A few of 'em stick around. But the ones who stick around are usually messed-up. Murders and suicides, or people with unfinished business. As for accidents and illness - at the very worst, they leave a little residue. A repeater. A psychic impression of the final moments, like a moving snapshot. I think the spirits of those repeaters, they're fine. They go wherever it is people ... go. When they die. — Jordan Castillo Price

like a stormy sea at best. 81. Making Cents of It All With over 1,500 projects under my belt as a freelancer and business owner, saying that I've experimented with pricing structures may be the understatement of the year. In my early years, nearly everything was based on a fixed bid. As my client list grew, I began landing some hourly gigs, retainers, and some dedicated resource structures. Each of these pricing structures has pros and cons, for you as a designer as well as for your client. Understanding these pricing structures, explaining them clearly to your clients, and choosing the right one for the job can make the difference between a blissful client experience and your worst nightmare. Fixed Bid Fixed-bid pricing is a set scope of work with a fixed price. You tell — Michael Janda

I made the best business decision at 14 when I decided to get into acting. The worst was owning 2 homes at the same time. — Tamala Jones

Here is a story in the worst way. I have no business being anywhere in it. It comes between me and the life I have coming. — Gary Lutz

If your business depends on you, you don't own a business - you have a job. And it's the worst job in the world because you're working for a lunatic! — Michael E. Gerber

The truth is despite the hard work and juggling required to keep the different facets of the frantic life afloat, the "superwoman" has one marvelous compensation. Being busy and being seen to be busy lets you off the hook. Buys you a way out of all aspects of your many roles you secretly despise ... like cleaning cupboards ... or entertaining your husband's business friends. When you combine wife, mother, career and all, each role become the perfect excuse for avoiding the worst aspects of the other. — Bettina Arndt

Unfinished business is our worst business. Perpetual procrastination must yield to perceptive preparation. Today we have a little more time to bless others-time to be kinder, more compassionate, quicker to thank and slower to scold, more generous in sharing, more gracious in caring. — Russell M. Nelson

My best business decision was going into business for myself and owning the box my pretty face was on instead of just being the pretty face on the box. And my worst was letting other people run my business. — Kam Williams

You have to free your brain to roam to places that are a little impractical, and innovation consultants have come up with some great ways to encourage that. One of my favorites comes from Legrand, who tells people in group brainstorming sessions to try to come up with the WORST possible ideas that they can think of ... Once you have a list of really, really bad suggestions - and coming up with them does force your brain to work in a different way - you try to flip them over into the positive. — Amanda Lang

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

Landlords in New York are generally the scum of the earth. They're beneficiaries of the worst kind of nepotism, eating off the good business decisions of their parents. They have no compassion because they've never had to work for shit to know how it feels to need a fucking break. (256-257) — Eddie Huang

When I first came in the business, I had a couple of close calls on planes going to London for shows. There was one time where the plane had to fly around until a storm ended, and then we started having a question about fuel, so we had to go through the storm. It was the worst thing that ever happened in my life. That really messed me up. — R. Kelly

War is such a dangerous business that mistakes that come from kindness are the very worst. — Carl Von Clausewitz

I've got to keep breathing. It'll be my worst business mistake if I don't. — Steve Martin

My best business decision was to be independent as a musician and artist. My worst was compromising on certain aspects of a deal for the sake of other members of my group when I shouldn't have, because I was right in the end. — Ziggy Marley

You know, I think the film business is its own worst enemy because it sells movies on DVD footage and 'behind the scenes,' and now it's a real struggle trying to keep storylines and plotlines a secret. — Daniel Craig

The worst part of success is to try to find someone who is happy for you. — Bette Midler

You must work well with others and be loyal to your team. Disloyalty is the worst of all traits. I seldom use the words "You're fired!" in business, unless somebody is really scum and stole from me. — Donald Trump

No business can do everything. Even if it has the money, it will never have enough good people. It has to set priorities. The worst thing to do is a little bit of everything. This makes sure that nothing is being accomplished. It is better to pick the wrong priority than none at all. — Peter Drucker

It was ironic, really - you want to die because you can't be bothered to go on living - but then you're expected to get all energetic and move furniture and stand on chairs and hoist ropes and do complicated knots and attach things to other things and kick stools from under you and mess around with hot baths and razor blades and extension cords and electrical appliances and weedkiller. Suicide was a complicated, demanding business, often involving visits to hardware shops.
And if you've managed to drag yourself from the bed and go down the road to the garden center or the drug store, by then the worst is over. At that point you might as well just go to work. — Marian Keyes

When we control business in the public interest we are also bound to encourage it in the public interest or it will be a bad thing for everybody and worst of all for those on whose behalf the control is nominally exercised. — Theodore Roosevelt

Read the Bible daily. Make it part of your everyday business to read and meditate on some portion of God's Word. Gather your manna fresh every morning. Choose your own seasons and hours. Do not scramble over and hurry your reading. Give your Bible the best, and not the worst, part of your time. But whatever plan you pursue, let it be a rule of your life to visit the throne of grace and the Bible every day. — J.C. Ryle

American Education has a long history of infatuation with fads and ill-considered ideas. The current obsession with making our schools work like a business may be the worst of them, for it threatens to destroy public education. Who will Stand up to the tycoons and politicians and tell them so? — Diane Ravitch

The worst sort of business is one that grows rapidly, requires significant capital to engender the growth, and then earns little or no money. Think airlines. Here a durable competitive advantage has proven elusive ever since the days of the Wright Brothers. Indeed, if a farsighted capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk, he would have done his successors a huge favor by shooting Orville down. — Warren Buffett

Said all the dwarves. "Dark for dark business! There are many hours before dawn." "Of course!" said Bilbo, and sat down in a hurry. He missed the stool and sat in the fender, knocking over the poker and shovel with a crash. "Hush!" said Gandalf. "Let Thorin speak!" And this is how Thorin began. "Gandalf, dwarves and Mr. Baggins! We are met together in the house of our friend and fellow conspirator, this most excellent and audacious hobbit - may the hair on his toes never fall out! all praise to his wine and ale! - " He paused for breath and for a polite remark from the hobbit, but the compliments were quite lost on poor Bilbo Baggins, who was wagging his mouth in protest at being called audacious and worst of all fellow conspirator, though no noise came out, he was so flummoxed. So Thorin went on: "We are met to discuss our plans, our ways, — J.R.R. Tolkien

I am the world's worst salesman, therefore, I must make it easy for people to buy. — Frank Winfield Woolworth

I haven't had a worst business decision, because I believe all things work together for good. — Tyler Perry

Now, I don't mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative. What we do know is, if you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original. If you're not prepared to be wrong. And by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong. And we run our companies like this, by the way, we stigmatize mistakes. And we're now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make. — Ken Robinson

The best decision is the right decision. The next best decision is the wrong decision. The worst decision is no decision. — Scott McNealy

Our mandate is to find the 200 best companies in the world and invest in them, and find the 200 worst companies in the world and go short on them. If the 200 best don't do better than the 200 worst, you should probably be in another business. — Julian Robertson

The work environment can bring out the 'best' or the 'worst' in you. — Abhishek Ratna

Genet raised his hand, and I squeezed my eyes shut, sure I would be receiving the worst backhanded slap of my life.
Genet froze and whimpered, but didn't back away.
"Oh, ho," said a familiar voice. "That was close !" I opened my eyes as North's free hand - the one that hadn't caught Genet's wrist - gently pulled my arm free. I pushed myself away from both of them.
"You interrupt my business ?" Genet sputtered. "Do you know what this wench just accused me of being ?"
"A filthy pig," North said good-naturedly. "But there's only one filthy pig allowed in her life, and the position's been filled. — Alexandra Bracken

Perhaps the Ci-ty dreamed of an-other, en-emy city, float-ing across the sea to invade the es-tuary ... or of waves of darkness ... waves of fire ... Perhaps of being swallowed again, by the immense, the si-lent Mother Con-tinent? It's none of my business, city dreams ... But what if the Ci-ty were a growing neo-plasm, across the centuries, always chang-ing to meet exactly the chang-ing shape of its very worst, se-cret fears? — Thomas Pynchon

I didn't know how to run a business. I was a terrible gallerist, the worst in history, possibly. — Jeffrey Deitch

The worst thing for worker's is their bosses business going out of business. — Sadiq Khan

The worst calamities that befall an army arise from hesitation — Sun Tzu

A lot of what I do is running businesses rather than buying stocks. My worst decision is probably when I know I have the wrong chief executive running the business, and I keep on waiting to make the difficult decision of replacing him. — Gerry Schwartz

Incrementalism is innovation's worst enemy. — Nicholas Negroponte

Those who oppose all reform will do well to remember that ruin in its worst form is inevitable if our national life brings us nothing better than swollen fortunes for the few and the triumph in both politics and business of a sordid and selfish materialism. — Theodore Roosevelt

I guess the worst moment I ever had in business was the fear that Southwest Airlines wouldn't get off the ground. — Herb Kelleher

Contract law is essentially a defensive scorched-earth battleground where the constant question is, if my business partner was possessed by a brain-eating monster from beyond spacetime tomorrow, what is the worst thing they could do to me? — Charles Stross

In most cases, the best strategy for a job interview is to be fairly honest, because the worst thing that can happen is that you won't get the job and will spend the rest of your life foraging for food in the wilderness and seeking shelter underneath a tree or the awning of a bowling alley that has gone out of business. — Lemony Snicket

Peter Drucker says that the worst kind of failure in business is success in the things that don't matter. — J.D. Greear

Leaving my first agent was both my best business decision and my worst business decision. It depends on how I want to look at my career because of opportunities that may have come had I stayed with him and because of the opportunities that did come because I had to fight harder for roles. — Carmen Ejogo

Good decision-making is like playing chess and you must avoid making hasty decisions without thinking of how that particular decision will impact on different aspects of your work and organization. The worst kind of decision-making is to decide to delay a difficult decision until later or to pass it to someone else to have to make. You will never excel and be valued by your colleagues if you get into these habits of procrastination and passing responsibility to others. — Nigel Cumberland

So often corporate America, business America, are the worst communicators, because all they understand are facts, and they cannot tell a story. They know how to explain their quarterly results, but they don't know how to explain what they mean. — Frank Luntz

you were to ask Christians around the world what God wants from the people he has saved, most would probably answer "obedience." There is great truth in that answer, but it is not enough. If the sovereign God's primary goal in sanctifying believers is simply to make us more holy, it is hard to explain why most of us make only "small beginnings" on the road to personal holiness in this life, as the Heidelberg Catechism puts it (see Catechism Q. 113). In reality, God wants something much more precious in our lives than mere outward conformity to his will. After all, obedience is tricky business and can be confusing to us. We can be obedient outwardly while sinning wildly on the inside, as the example of the Pharisees makes clear. In fact, many of my worst sins have been committed in the context of my best obedience. — Barbara R. Duguid

The worst thing in this business is to be thought of as a no-talent. — Jerry Stiller

The biggest defeat in every department of life is to forget, especially the things that have done you in, and to die without realizing how far people can go in the way of crumminess. When the grave lies open before us, let's not try to be witty, but on the other hand, let's not forget, but make it our business to record the worst of the human viciousness we've seen without changing one word. When that's done, we can curl up our toes and sink into the pit. That's work enough for a lifetime. — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

From behind Lissa, I heard Christian say, "Worst. Timing. Ever." Adrian studied Lissa and then looked at Christain sprawling on the bed on the far side of the suite.
"Huh," Adrian said, letting himself in. "So that's how you're going to fix the family problem. Little Dragomirs. Good idea." Christian sat up and strolled toward them.
"Yeah, that's exactly it. You're interrupting official Council business. — Richelle Mead

True, there
are those in our league who take even less time. But they don't do any research. They do a
handful of the more well-known spots, cruise through without eating a thing, write brief
comments. It's their business, not mine. If I may be perfectly frank, I doubt that many writers
take as many pains as I do at this level of reportage. It's the kind of work that can break you if
you're too serious about it, or you can kick back and do almost nothing. The worst of it is,
whether you're earnest or you loaf, the difference will hardly show in the finished piece. On the
surface. Only in the finer points can you find any hint of the distinction — Haruki Murakami

Capitalism drives the employers to do their worst to the employed, and the employed to do the least for them. And it boasts all the time of the incentive it provides to both to do their best! ... The reason the Capitalist system has worked so far without jamming for more than a few months at a time, and then only in places, is that it has not yet succeeded in making a conquest of human nature so complete that everybody acts on strictly business principles. — George Bernard Shaw

The whole crazy business seemed to pull out of my guts the very worst in me - my worst fears - the worst aspects of my character - my worst insecurities and feelings of shame and guilt. I didn't know it at the time, but that was exactly what was supposed to be happening. That's what Solomonic magick is all about. The worst in me was my problem. The worst in me was the demon. When it finally dawned on me that I had successfully evoked the demon, and I had the worst of me trapped in that magick Triangle, I had no alternative but to harness and redirect its monstrous power and give it new marching orders. From then on, that particular demon would be working for me rather than against me. — Lon Milo DuQuette

The artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he's in business. — John Berryman

Courage, dear miss! Courage! Business! The worst will be over in a moment; it is but passing the room-door, and the worst — Charles Dickens

You know, my goal, once I leave the music business, is like, 'Man, Lupe didn't lead us astray.' It comes directly from Islam: leading people astray is the worst thing you could do. Especially in perpetuity; like, your music continues to go on and live without you. That risk is too great for me; I'm gonna keep it positive. — Lupe Fiasco

Most of the heroes of Scripture rose to their greatest victories after their worst mistakes. God is in the redemption business, and He testifies of this through the lives of everyone He calls. — Rick Joyner

If 'Party of Five' hadn't done well, it would have been a bunch of names involved in the demise. But if 'Time of Your Life' doesn't do well, it will be my name. You have to prepare for the worst. This is a very fickle business. — Jennifer Love Hewitt

We can make market forces work better for the poor if we can develop a more creative capitalism-if we can stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or at least make a living, serving people who are suffering from the worst inequities ... You have more than we had; you must start sooner, and carry on longer. — Bill Gates

Ask for the sale when the mood is right. The worst possible place is in the prospects' office. Best place is a business breakfast, lunch or dinner. Next best is your office. Next best is a trade show. Ask early, and ask often. — Jeffrey Gitomer

My mother was a sociologist and an intellectual, and my father was an industrialist with a business in copper and aluminum wire. He was very strict and he wanted me to work in the family business - for him, the worst thing was having a daughter who worked in fashion. — Carmen Busquets

It seems superfluous to constrain trading in some of the newer derivatives and other innovative financial contracts of the past decade. The worst have failed; investors no longer fund them and are not likely to in the future. — Alan Greenspan

The worst enemy of good government is not our ignorant foreign voter, but our educated domestic railroad president, our prominent business man, our leading lawyer. — John Jay Chapman

I think the business affairs people at the studios get some kind of perverse satisfaction in finding the worst hotels for actors to stay in. — James Purefoy

But Galen hasn't been responsible in looking for road signs since this conversation first started. Even now, another exit-maybe theirs-zooms by them. He's in a bit of awe of human drivers who seem to be able to conduct all sorts of business while driving. Apparently, Galen isn't capable of carrying on simple conversations while watching for road signs. The worst part is, they should be reaching their exit any time now. But then again, Galen hasn't been able to drive the speed limit. Every time he gets up to speed, Grom tenses up and scowls at him until he slows down. Old people.
Abruptly, Galen sees their exit and takes it. He slows down to a crawl around the curve, which appears to irritate the driver behind him. But the driver behind him doesn't have hundreds of years left to put up with Grom. — Anna Banks

Tissue gas was an embalmer's worst nightmare - a highly infectious form of bacteria that thrived on dead tissue and released a noxious gas inside the body. Smell was usually the easiest way to detect it, but sometimes, as with this body, the smell was buried under other chemicals, and the only way to identify it was the 'skin-slip' Mom had found on the back, where interior gas bubbles separated the skin from the muscle. The gas itself was bad enough, because the stink would soon become so foul it would be all but impossible to cover up; that didn't reflect well on us when people showed up for the viewing. Even worse than the gas though, were the bacteria that made it. Once they got into your workspace, you might never get them out again. If we didn't put a stop to this right now, every body we embalmed would catch the same bacteria from our tools and table. It could destroy the entire business. — Dan Wells

Accept that the starting point is the worst your business will ever be. The — Jon Nastor

In the United States all business not transacted over the telephone is accomplished in conjunction with alcohol or food, often under conditions of advanced intoxication. This is a fact of the utmost importance for the visitor of limited funds ... for it means that the most expensive restaurants are, with rare exceptions, the worst. — John Kenneth Galbraith

Thus, I always began by assuming the worst; my appeal was dismissed. That meant, of course, I was to die. Sooner than others, obviously. 'But,' I reminded myself, 'it's common knowledge that life isn't worth living, anyhow.' And, on a wide view, I could see that it makes little difference whether one dies at the age of thirty or threescore and ten
since, in either case, other men will continue living, the world will go on as before. Also, whether I died now or forty years hence, this business of dying had to be got through, inevitably. — Albert Camus

Let's not forget, but make it our business to record the worst of the human viciousness we've seen without changing one word. — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Football is not, in my view, a sport: it is somewhere between a business racket and a mental illness. I associate it with all the worst aspects of our society - violence, drunkenness, drugs, racism, exploitation, greed and stupidity; and that's just for starters. — Simon Heffer

I wanted to ask my father about his regrets. I wanted to ask him what was the worst thing he'd ever done. His greatest sin. I wanted to ask him if there was any reason why the Catholic Church would consider him for sainthood. I wanted to open up his dictionary and find the definitions for faith, hope, goodness, sadness, tomato, son, mother, husband, virginity, Jesus, wood, sacrifice, pain, foot, wife, thumb, hand, bread, and sex.
"Do you believe in God?" I asked my father.
"God has lots of potential," he said.
"When you pray," I asked him. "What do you pray about?"
"That's none of your business," he said.
We laughed. We waited for hours for somebody to help us. What is an Indian? I lifted my father and carried him across every border. — Sherman Alexie

[Ron Paul's politics] is just savagery, and it goes across the board; in fact, this holds for the whole libertarian ideology. I mean, it may sound nice on the surface, but when you think it through, it's just a call for corporate tyranny; takes away any barrier to corporate tyranny. Its a step towards the worst ... but its all academic 'cause the business world would never permit it to happen, since it would destroy the economy. I mean, they can't live without a powerful 'nanny-state'. They know it. — Noam Chomsky

In cooking - as in business and war - hope for the best but plan for the worst. — Timothy Ferriss