Charles Schwab, US industrialist (1862-1939)
Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.
Arthur Schopenhaur, German philosopher (1788-1860)
The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight but has no vision.
Helen Keller, US author, lecturer (1880-1968)
Write the vision and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. Where there is no vision the people perish.
Habakkuk 2:2
The entrepreneur is essentially a visualiser and an actualiser. He can visualise something, and when he visualises it he sees exactly how to make it happen.
Robert L Schwartz, US executive, Rolls Royce (b. 1939)
The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps. We must step up the stairs.
Vance Hepner
Vision is the torch of leadership. Shared vision is the spark of great action.
David Williams, British author, presenter (b. 1950)
One sees great things from the valley, only small things from the peak.
G K Chesterton, British essayist, author, poet (1874-1936)
The great successful men of the world have used their imaginations, they think ahead and create their mental picture, and then go to work materialising that picture in all its details, filling in here, adding a little there, altering this bit and that bit, but steadily building, steadily building.
Robert Collier, US advertising copywriter (1885-1950)
Voice
The ability to express an idea is well nigh as important as the idea itself.
Bernard Baruch, US statesman, businessman (1870-1965)
The man is only half himself, the other half is his expression.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, US essayist, poet (1803-1882)
A good head and good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate tongue or pen, then you have something very special.
Nelson Mandela, South African statesman (b. 1918)
No leader sets out to be a leader. People set out to live their lives, expressing themselves fully. When that expression is of value they become leaders.
Warren Bennis, US academic, management author (b. 1925)
Winning
If it doesn’t matter who wins, then how come they keep score?
Vince Lombardi, US football coach (1913-1970)
He who hesitates is last.
Whoever said, ‘It’s not whether you win or lose that counts’, probably lost.
Martina Navratilova, Czech/US tennis player (b. 1956)
The will to win is important, but the will to prepare is vital.
Joe Paterno, US college football coach (b. 1926)
If anything goes bad, I did it. If anything goes semi-good, we did it. If anything goes really good, then you did it. That’s all it takes to get people to win football games for you.
Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant, US football coach (1913-1983)
Desire is one of the immense advantages that the underdog often has: simply wanting to win more than the top dog does.
William Bridges, US engineer, researcher, educator (b. 1934)
Please don’t ask me what the score is, I’m not even sure what the game is.
Ashleigh Brilliant, British philosopher, author (b. 1933)
The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win you’re still a rat.
Mary Jean ‘Lily’ Tomlin, US comic actress (b. 1939)
Wisdom
We can be knowledgeable with other men’s knowledge but we cannot be wise with other men’s wisdom.
Michel de Montaigne, French essayist (1533-1592)
Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much; Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
William Cowper, British poet (1731-1800)
The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.
H L Mencken, US journalist (1880-1956)
That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in the next.
John Stuart Mill, British philosopher, economist (1806-1873)
The believer is happy. The doubter is wise.
Hungarian proverb
An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while a pessimist sees only the red stoplight. The truly wise person is ‘colour-blind’.
Albert Schweitzer, Alsatian theologian (1875-1965)
If one is too late to think, too vain to do a thing badly, too cowardly to admit it, one will never attain wisdom.
Cyril Connolly, British critic, author (1903-1974)
Be wiser than other people, if you can, but do not tell them so.
Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, British statesman, letter-writer (1694-1773)
Working
If you don’t want to work, you have to work to earn enough money so that you won’t have to work.
Frederic Ogden Nash, US humorous writer, poet (1902-1971)
Every day I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I’m not there, I go to work.
Kenichi Ohmae, Japanese management consultant (b. 1943)
The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work.
Richard Bach, US author (b. 1936)
Find out what you like doing best and get someone to pay you for doing it.
Katherine Whitehorn, British journalist (b. 1928)
Work is not man’s punishment. It is his reward and his strength and his pleasure.
Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, known as George Sand, French author (1804-1876)
If you do not feel yourself growing in your work and your life broadening and deepening, if your task is not a perpetual tonic to you, you have not found your place.
Orison Swett Marden, US editor, author (1850-1924)
Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.
Thomas Alva Edison, US inventor (1847-1931)
My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition.