What is good for our customers is also, in the long run, good for us.

Ingvar Kamprad

Don´t ever make an oral agreement, or trust a handshake. Always put everything down in writing. If you don´t follow this rule even the best lawyers in the world can´t help you.

Ingvar Kamprad

Once you start to get tired at 3 or 4 am in the morning, place your feet in cold water. That will help you last a little bit longer.

Ingvar Kamprad

Early on I learned that a 1 percent decrease in overall sales meant a 10 percent decline in overall profits. A 15 percent drop in overall sales would erase the profit of the company. That is why large volumes is so incredibly important.

Ingvar Kamprad

Ten minutes are not just one-sixth of your hourly pay. Ten minutes are a piece of yourself. Divide your life into ten-minute units and sacrifice as few of them as possible in meaningless activity.

Ingvar Kamprad

Making mistakes is the privilege of the active. It is always the mediocre people who are negative, who spend their time proving that they were not wrong.

Ingvar Kamprad

The word impossible has been and must remain deleted from our dictionary.

Ingvar Kamprad

Happiness is not reaching your goal. Happiness is being on the way. It is our wonderful fate to be just at the beginning.

Ingvar Kamprad

Simplicity and common sense should characterize planning and strategic direction.

Ingvar Kamprad

Most things still remain to be done.

Ingvar Kamprad

As long as your going to be thinking anyway, think big.

Donald Trump

What I admire most are people who put themselves directly on the line.

Donald Trump

You can’t be scared. You do your thing, you hold your ground, you stand up tall, and whatever happens, happens.

Donald Trump

Get in, get it done, get it done right, and get out.

Donald Trump

My style of deal-making is quite simple and straightforward. I aim very high, and then I just keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get what I’m after. Sometimes I settle for less than I sought, but in most cases I still end up with what I want.

Donald Trump

My experience is that if you’re fighting for something you believe in – even if it means alienating some people along the way – things usually work out for the best in the end.

Donald Trump

I don’t believe you can ever be hurt by buying a good location at a low price.

Donald Trump

When somebody challenges you, fight back. Be brutal, be tough.

Donald Trump

Experience taught me a few things. One is to listen to your gut, no matter how good something sounds on paper. The second is that you’re generally better off sticking with what you know. And the third is that sometimes your best investments are the ones you don’t make.

Donald Trump

Somewhere out there are a few men with more innate talent at golf than Jack Nicklaus, or women with greater ability at tennis than Chris Evert or Martina Navratilova, but they will never lift a club or swing a racket and therefore will never find out how great they could have been. Instead, they’ll be content to sit and watch stars perform on television.

Donald Trump

Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anybody else.

Sam Walton

Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction.

Sam Walton

Capital isn’t scarce; vision is.

Sam Walton

I think I overcame every single one of my personal shortcomings by the sheer passion I brought to my work. I don’t know if you’re born with this kind of passion, or if you can learn it. But I do know you need it.

Sam Walton

I have always been driven to buck the system, to innovate, to take things beyond where they’ve been.

Sam Walton

There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.

Sam Walton

Money and ownership alone aren’t enough. Set high goals, encourage competition, and then keep score.

Sam Walton

The two most important words I ever wrote were on that first Wal-Mart sign, “Satisfaction Guaranteed”. They’re still up there, and they have made all the difference.

Sam Walton

High expectations are the key to everything.

Sam Walton

If you love your work, you’ll be out there every day trying to do it the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you – like a fever.

Sam Walton

Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise.

Ted Turner

You should set goals beyond your reach so you always have something to live for.

Ted Turner

If you’ve got an innovative idea, and the majority does not poohpooh it, then the odds are you must not have a very good idea. When people thought I was loony, it did not bother me at all. In fact, I considered that I must really be onto something.

Ted Turner

I decided I wanted to be a success.

Ted Turner

When you lose small businesses, you lose big ideas. People who own their own businesses are their own bosses. They are independent thinkers. They know they can’t compete by imitating the big guys; they have to innovate. So they are less obsessed with earnings than they are with ideas.

Ted Turner

You can never quit. Winners never quit, and quitters never win.

Ted Turner

Do something. Either lead, follow or get out of the way.

Ted Turner

My son is now an “entrepreneur.” That’s what you’re called when you don’t have a job.

Ted Turner

All my life people have said that I wasn’t going to make it.

Ted Turner

I’ve never run into a guy who could win at the top level in anything today and didn’t have the right attitude, didn’t give it everything he had, at least while he was doing it; wasn’t prepared and didn’t have the whole program worked out.

Ted Turner

Entrepreneurs are never satisfied. They want to do things better. They strive for perfection and use all the ingenuity to their command to achieve it.

J Willard Marriot

Success seems to be connected to action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they never quit.

J Willard Marriot

Only close attention to the fine details of any operation makes the operation first class.

J Willard Marriot

A businessman once said, “A business succeeds not because it is long established or because it is big, but because there are men and women in it who live it, sleep it, dream it, and build great future plans for it”.

J Willard Marriot

No person can get very far in life working 40 hours a week.

J Willard Marriot

Great companies are built by people who never stop thinking about ways to improve the business.

J Willard Marriot

The price of success is a hard workout – not just 8 hours 5 days a week, but nearly all our waking hours. At least that has been my experience. When I started, it was about six and a half days and nights for many years. It paid off. I set an example for others and gave many who were willing to pay the price an opportunity to grow and have the good things of life.

J Willard Marriot

A man should keep on being constructive, and do constructive things. He should take part in the things that go on in this wonderful world. He should be someone to be reckoned with. He should live life and make every day count, to the very end. Sometimes it’s tough. But that’s what I’m going to do.

J Willard Marriot

In all the years that we have been testing for quality, we have found that there is very little difference between top quality and second and third grade. But I have found this – if you take second- and third-grade quality, even though the difference is hardly discernible, you will end up with a second- and third-rate quality product.

J Willard Marriot

All through the years, I’ve seen bad habits destroy brilliant, talented and fine men and women. So I know that the basis of my success is good habits and good character.

J Willard Marriot

There are one hundred men seeking security to one able man who is willing to risk his fortune.

J Paul Getty

Formula for success: rise early, work hard, strike oil.

J Paul Getty

In times of rapid change, experience could be your worst enemy.

J Paul Getty

The meek shall inherit the earth, but not its mineral rights.

J Paul Getty

The man who comes up with a means for doing or producing almost anything better, faster or more economically has his future and his fortune at his fingertips.

J Paul Getty

No one can possibly achieve any real and lasting success or get rich in business by being a conformist.

J Paul Getty

Patience; this is the greatest business asset. Wait for the right time to make your moves.

J Paul Getty

You must take risks, both with your own money or with borrowed money. Risk taking is essential to business growth.

J Paul Getty

If you owe the bank $ 100 that´s your problem. If you owe the bank $ 100 million, that´s the bank´s problem.

J Paul Getty

I buy when other people are selling.

J Paul Getty

I do not believe in excuses. I believe in hard work as the prime solvent of life’s problems.

J C Penney

Every man must decide for himself whether he shall master his world or be mastered by it.

J C Penney

Unless you are willing to drench yourself in your work beyond the capacity of the average man, you are just not cut out for positions at the top.

J C Penney

No serious-minded man should have time for the mediocre in any phase of his living.

J C Penney

The disciplined are free.

J C Penney

No matter what his position or experience in life, there is in everyone more latent than developed ability; far more unused than used power.

J C Penney

A merchant who approaches business with the idea of serving the public well has nothing to fear from the competition.

J C Penney

As a rule, we find what we look for; we achieve what we get ready for.

J C Penney

Men are not great or small because of their material possessions. They are great or small because of what they are.

J C Penney

Success cannot come from standstill men. Methods change and men must change with them.

J C Penney

Raise your sights! Blaze new trails!! Compete with the immortals!!!

David Ogilvy

The pursuit of excellence is less profitable than the pursuit of bigness but it can be more satisfying.

David Ogilvy

Don’t bunt. Aim out of the ball park. Aim for the company of immortals.

David Ogilvy

I believe in the Scottish proverb: “Hard work never killed a man.” Men die of boredom, psychological conflict and disease. They do not die of hard work.

David Ogilvy

The more prospects you talk to, the more sales you expose yourself to, the more orders you will get. But never mistake quantity of calls for quality of sales-manship.

David Ogilvy

It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night. I doubt if more than one campaign in a hundred contains a big idea.

David Ogilvy

I hate rules.

David Ogilvy

The most important decision is how to position your product.

David Ogilvy

You now have to decide what ‘image’ you want for your brand. Image means personality. Products, like people, have personalities, and they can make or break them in the market place.

David Ogilvy

If you ever find a man who is better than you are – hire him. If necessary, pay him more than you pay yourself.

David Ogilvy

Press on. Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

Ray Kroc

If you work just for money, you’ll never make it, but if you love what you’re doing and you always put the customer first, success will be yours.

Ray Kroc

The two most important requirements for major success are: first, being in the right place at the right time, and second, doing something about it.

Ray Kroc

Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get.

Ray Kroc

If you’re not a risk taker, you should get the hell out of business.

Ray Kroc

The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.

Ray Kroc

Perfection is very difficult to achieve, and perfection was what I wanted in McDonald’s. Everything else was secondary for me.

Ray Kroc

Its easy to have principles when you’re rich. The important thing is to have principles when you’re poor.

Ray Kroc

I didn’t invent the hamburger. I just took it more seriously than anyone else…

Ray Kroc

Sometimes Ed MacLuckie would have forgotten to turn the sign on when dusk began to fall, and that made me furious. Or maybe the lot would have some litter on it that Ed said he hadn’t had time to pick up. Those little things didn’t seem to bother some people, but they were gross affronts to me. I’d get screaming mad.

Ray Kroc

I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.

John D Rockefeller

Singleness of purpose is one of the chief essentials for success in life, no matter what may be one´s aim.

John D Rockefeller

The way to make money is to buy when blood is running in the streets.

John D Rockefeller

I would rather earn 1 % off a 100 people´s efforts than 100 % of my own efforts.

John D Rockefeller

Try to turn every disaster into an opportunity.

John D Rockefeller

If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.

John D Rockefeller

Don´t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.

John D Rockefeller

The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee, and I will pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun.

John D Rockefeller

I believe in the dignity of labour, whether with head or hand; that the world owes no man a living but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living.

John D Rockefeller

There’s no mystery in business success. If you do each day’s task successfully and stay faithfully within these natural operations of commercial laws which I talk so much about and keep your head clear, you will come out all right.

John D Rockefeller