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Quotes about business

69 quotes from 46 people

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The great art in writing advertisements is the finding out a proper method to catch the reader’s eye; without which a good thing may pass over unobserved, or be lost among commissions of bankrupt.
Joseph Addison1672–1719The Tatler, No. 224 (14 September 1710)
- Writing
AI will probably most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime, there’ll be great companies.
Sam Altmanborn 1985Head of Silicon Valley’s most important startup farm says we’re in a ‘mega bubble’ that won’t last, Business Insider (5 June 2015)
- Technology
Business, you know, may bring money, but friendship hardly ever does.
Jane Austen1775–1817Emma (1815)In context
- Friendship
Linux is not in the public domain. Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. That’s the way that the license works.
Steve Ballmerborn 1956“Microsoft CEO takes launch break with the Sun-Times” (1 June 2001) Chicago Sun Times
- Computers
A corporation, essentially, is a pile of money to which a number of persons have sold their moral allegiance.
Wendell Berry1934–2026“The Total Economy”, in Citizenship Papers (2003)
- Money
If you absolutely can’t tolerate critics, then don’t do anything new or interesting.
Jeff Bezosborn 1964What Amazon’s Jeff Bezos thinks about Peter Thiel and Hulk Hogan vs. Gawker (BoingBoing) (dubbed “The Bezos Principle” by Walt Mossberg) June 2016
Monks, a lay follower should not engage in five types of business. Which five? Business in weapons, business in human beings, business in meat, business in intoxicants, and business in poison.
Gautama Buddha501–501 BCAnguttara Nikaya (Numerical Discourses), 5.177: Vanijja Sutta, as translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu (2001)
After 25 years of buying and supervising a great variety of businesses, Charlie and I have not learned how to solve difficult business problems. What we have learned is to avoid them.
Warren Buffettborn 1930Letters to Shareholders (1957—2012), 1989 Chairman’s Letter
We don’t get paid for activity, just for being right. As to how long we’ll wait, we’ll wait indefinitely.
Warren Buffettborn 19301998 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting, quoted in Wait: The Art and Science of Delay (2012) by Frank Partnoy, p. 177
In fact, when we own portions of outstanding businesses with outstanding managements, our favorite holding period is forever.
Warren Buffettborn 1930Letters to Shareholders (1957—2012), 1988 Chairman’s Letter
The junk merchant doesn’t sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to his product. He does not improve and simplify his merchandise. He degrades and simplifies the client.
William S. Burroughs1914–1997“Letter from a Master Addict to Dangerous Drugs”, written in 1956, first published in The British Journal of Addiction, Vol. 52, No. 2 (January 1957), p. 1 and later used as footnotes in Naked Lunch
We have to make America the best place in the world to do business.
Dick Cheney1941–2025
- America
Market signals were clear: There’s no profit in preventing a future catastrophe.
Noam Chomskyborn 1928Chomsky: Ventilator Shortage Exposes the Cruelty of Neoliberal Capitalism, April 1, 2020
- Economics
Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. Give a man a sub-prime fish loan and you’re in business, buddy.
Stephen Colbertborn 1964The Colbert Report (14 May 2008)
- Comedy
The world of finance is a mysterious world in which, incredible as the fact may appear, evaporation precedes liquidation.
Joseph Conrad1857–1924Victory: An Island Tale (1915), part I, Ch. 1
- Money