quotations
funny quotations, inspirational quotations, love quotations, quotations for motivational and leadership training, and public speaking
Quotations for training and public speaking - motivational and inspirational quotations, famous quotations, funny quotations, love quotations - for training, speaking, writing, fun and love. Some deep and meaningful; others deeply amusing. Quotations add spice to business and life. These quotations are funny, inspirational, and motivational.
main quotations page now here
Please note that where quotations refer to 'man' or 'men' this is not intended to be discriminatory.
predictions quotations
"Computers in the future will weigh no more
than 1.5 tons." (Popular Mechanics, forecasting advance of science, 1949.)
"I think there's a world market for maybe five computers." (Thomas Watson,
chairman of IBM, 1943.)
"I have travelled the length and breadth of
this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data
processing is a fad that won't last out the year." (Editor in charge of
business books for Prentice Hall, 1957.)
"But what is it good for?"
(Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, commenting on the
micro chip, 1968)
"There is no reason why anyone would want to have a
computer in their home." (Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital
Equipment Corp, 1977.)
"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to
be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently
of no value to us." (Western Union memo, 1876.)
"The wireless music
box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to
nobody in particular?" (David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings
for investment in the radio in the 1920's.)
"Who the hell wants to
hear actors talk?" (HM Warner, Warner Bros, 1927.)
"A cookie store is
a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say that America likes crispy
cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make." (Response to Debbi Fields'
idea of starting the Mrs Fields Cookies business.)
"We don't like
their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." (Decca Recording Company
rejecting the Beatles, 1962.)
"Heavier-than-air flying machines are
impossible." (Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.)
"If I had
thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full
of examples that said you can't do this." (Spencer Silver on the work that led
to the unique adhesives for 3M
Post-It Notepads.)
"So we went to Atari and said, `We've got this
amazing thing, even built with some of your parts and what do you think about
funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary,
we'll come work for you.' They said `No'. Then we went to Hewlett-Packard; they
said, `We don't need you. You haven't got through college yet'." (Apple
Computer founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and H-P interested in his
and Steve Wozniak's personal computer.)
"Drill for oil? You mean drill
into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy." (Drillers whom Edwin L
Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil, 1859.)
"Stocks
have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." (Irving Fisher,
Economics professor, Yale University, 1929.)
"Airplanes are interesting
toys but of no military value". (Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of
Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.)
"Everything that can be invented
has been invented." (Charles H Duell, Commissioner, US Office of Patents,
1899.)
"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction."
(Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872.)
"The
abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of
the wise and humane surgeon." (Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon,
appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria, 1873.)
"640K ought
to be enough for anybody." (Bill Gates of Microsoft, 1981.)
"Fred Astaire - Can't act, can't sing, balding... Can dance a little." (MGM telent scout, 1928.)
"What can you do with a guy with ears like that?" (Jack Warner, movie mogul, rejecting Clark Gable, 1930.)
"You ain't goin' nowhere son. You ought to go back to drivin' a truck." (Jim Denny of the Grand Ole Opry, Nashville, firing Elvis Presley after his first performance.)
"I'm sorry Mr Kipling, but you don't know how to use the English language." (Editor of the San Francisco Examiner, rejecting a short story.)
(With thanks to Tony Wills for his contributions.)
the 1st law of cybernetics
"The unit within the system with the most behavioural responses available to it controls the system."
love quotations
"Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness." (Bertrand Russell)
"Come, let us make love deathless." (Herbert Trench, 1901)
"And so to bed..." (Samuel Pepys - not exactly written originally in a love context, but it works...)
"All's fair in love and war." (Francis Smedley, from his novel 'Frank Farleigh', 1850)
"Man's love is of man's life a thing apart, 'Tis woman's whole existence." (Lord Byron, from Don Juan, 1824.)
"Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes sin's a pleasure." (Lord Byron, from Don Juan, 1824.)
"Of all pains, the greatest pain, Is to love, and to love in vain." (George Granville, 1666- 1735.)
"Heaven has no rage, like love to hatred turned, Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorned." (William Congreve, from 'The Mourning Bride', 1697.)
"The nakedness of woman is the work of God." (William Blake)
"Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder." (Matthew 91:22)
"The female of the species is more deadly than the male." (Rudyard Kipling, 1919)
"C'mon, baby, light my fire." (Jim Morrison and Robby Krieger, from the Doors' 'Light My Fire', 1967.)
latin love quotations
"Omnia vincit amor." (Love conquers all - unknown origin)
"Ad infinitum." (Endlessly)
"Aeternus." (Everlasting)
"Meminerunt omnia amantes." (Lovers remember everything - Ovid)
"Odi et amo: quare id faciam, fortasse requiris. Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior." ("I hate and I love: why I do so you may well ask, but I feel it happen and am in agony." (Catullus, Roman poet, 84-54BC, from 'Carmina'.)
funny love quotations
"It's so long since I had sex I've forgotten who ties up whom." (Joan Rivers)
"Sexual intercourse is a grossly overrated pastime; the postion is undignified, the pleasure momentary and the consequences damnable." ( Lord Chesterfield)
"When a man steals your wife there is no better revenge than to let him keep her." (Sasha Guitry)
"Splendid couple - slept with both of them." (Maurice Bowra)
"My wife is a sex object - every time I ask for sex, she objects." (Les Dawson)
"She was stark naked expect for a PVC raincoat, deess, net stockings, undergarments, shoes, rain hat and gloves." (Keith Waterhouse)
"Bisexuality doubles your chances of a date on a Saturday night." (Woody Allen)
"It's impossible to obtain a conviction for sodomy from an English jury. Half of them don't believe that it can physically be done, and the other half are doing it." (Winston Curchill)
"I'll come to your room at five o'clock. If I'm late, start without me." (Tallulah Bankhead)
"I've been in love with the same woman for forty years - if my wife finds out she'll kill me." (Henry Youngman)
on business and life skills, and life quotations
"You can't talk your way out of a situation you behave yourself into." (Dr Steven Covey - thanks Eric Welburn)
"Catch a man a fish - feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and feed him for life." (Unknown)
"Better go home and make a net, rather than dive for fish at random." (Chinese proverb)
"I keep six honest serving-men, (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When, And How and Where and Who." (Rudyad Kipling, from 'Just So Stories', 1902.)
"A dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than the giant himself." (Didacus Stella, circa AD60 - and, as a matter of interest, abridged on the edge of an English £2 coin)
"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." (Sir Isaac Newton, 1676.)
"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful." (Samuel Johnson 1709 - 84)
"The most important thing in life is not to capitalise on your successes - any fool can do that. The really important thing is to profit from your mistakes." (William Bolitho, from 'Twelve against the Gods')
"It is with the heart that one sees rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." (Antoine de Saint-Exupery from The Little Prince)
"Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be, For my unconqureable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud: Under the bludgeonings of chance my head is bloody but unbowed . . . . . "It matters not how strait the gait, how charged with punishements the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul." (WE Henley, 1849-1903, from 'Invictus')
"Everybody can get angry - that's easy. But getting angry at the right person, with the right intensity, at the right time, for the right reason and in the right way - that's hard." (Aristotle)
"Politics is the art of the possible." (Prince Otto von Bismark, 1867.)
"We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run down." (Aneurin Bevan.)
"The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do." (Thomas Jefferson.)
"Seek first to understand, and then to be understood." (Dr Steven Covey)
"Management means helping people to get the best out of themselves, not organising things." (Lauren Appley)
"He who wishes to talk well must first think well." (Origin unknown)
"When you speak, your speech should be better than your silence would have been." (Origin unknown)
"It's not the critic who counts, not the one who points out how the strong man stumbled or how the doer of deeds might have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred with the sweat and dust and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes up short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himslf in a worthy cause and who, at best knows the triumph of high achievement and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." (Theodore Roosevelt, 23 April 1923.)
"Experto Credite." ("Trust one who has proved it." Virgil, 2,000 years ago.)
"Life is like a very short visit to a toyshop between birth and death." (Desmond Morris, 1991.)
"Whoever in debate quotes authority uses not intellect, but memory." (Leonardo Da Vinci)
"If you don't agree with me it means you haven't been listening." (Sam Markewich.)
"The world is divided into people who do things, and people who get the credit. Try, if you can, to belong to the first class. There's far less competition." (Dwight Morrow, 1935.)
"What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure." (Samuel Johnson.)
"This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read." (Sir Winston Churchill.)
"I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." (Confucius 551-479 BC)
"When you are thirsty, it's too late to dig a well." (Japanese Proverb.)
"You can't clear the swamp when you're up to your arse in alligators." (Traditional, unknown.)
"The future of work consists of learning a living." (Marshall McLuhan, 1911-1980.)
"If it ain't broke don't fix it." (Bert Lance - member of Jimmer Carter's US government, 1977.)
"The best time to fix the roof is when the sun is shining." (John F Kennedy)
"He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and dance; one cannot fly into flying." (Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900.)
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." (Nietzsche.)
"What does not kill us makes us stronger." (Nietzsche.)
"The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas." (Linus Pauling.)
"What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to do it." (Ambrose Bierce, 1842-1914.)
"Behind an able man there are always other able men." (Chinese Proverb.)
"Understanding human needs is half the job of meeting them." (Adlai Stevenson, 1900-1965.)
"I have always said that if I were a rich man I'd hire a professional praiser." (Sir Osbert Sitwell, 1892-1969.)
"A life spent in making mistakes is not only more honourable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing." (George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950.)
"Managers are people who never put off until tomorrow what they can get somebody else to do today." (Unknown.)
"I praise loudly. I blame softly." (Catherine the Great, 1729-1796.)
"Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardour and attended to with diligence." (Abigail Adams in 1780) Thanks to John Mcgregor.
"The cream always rises to the top." (Unknown.)
"Nature abhors a vacuum." (Unknown.)
"You've got to be before you can do, and you've got to do before you can have." (Zig Ziglar)
"What is fame? an empty bubble; Gold? a transient shining trouble." (James Grainger, from 'Solitude', 1755.)
quotations from sales interviews
"I only came to the interview to confirm my feeling that I should never have been called for the interview.."
"I was handling a market research project on accident prevention, but I couldn't interview any of the target respondents because they were all dead.."
"I am not married to either a man or a woman.."
"Pressurising people is all part of giving customer satisfaction.."
"At my present company they are all bastards including my boyfriend who I met there.."
"The water in your washrooms is exceptionally wet today.."
reasons for transport requests to the clinic quotations
(from the Chiropodists Association Journal)
I'm under the doctor and can't breathe.
I can't walk to the bus stop and my wife is bent.
I can't breathe and haven't done so for years.
I live five miles from the clinic and the postman says I should have it.
I have got athritis and heart failure in both feet and knees.
I am unable to walk now as my dog has died.
I cannot drive a car because I haven't got one.
My husband's dead and won't bring me.
I need transport as I have funnny feet.
If my mum goes out alone she gets into trouble.
I must have your man as I cannot go out or even do up my suspenders.
When your man brings me back could you ask him to drop me off at the White Swan.
I hope you will send your driver as my husband is quite useless.
My wife must have transport as she is over 80 and drives me mad.
I cannot walk up a hill unless it is down and the hill to your clinic is up.
I want transport as bus drivers do funny things to me and make me feel queer.
prince phillip gaffes quotations
(On receiving a gift from a Kenyan native woman) "You are a woman aren't you?.."
(To a Cayman Islander) "Aren't most of you descended from pirates?.."
(To a British ex-pat in Hungary) "You can't have been here that long, you haven't got a pot-belly yet.."
(To a Scottish driving instructor) "How do you keep the natives from being inebriated long enough to pass their test?.."
george w bush gaffes quotations
"It's got lots of numbers so it must be a budget..."
"I think people misunderestimate me..."
"You teach a child to read and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test..." (Promoting his education reform plans.)
"My wife Laura tells me - ' don't try to be charming, or witty or debonair, just be yourself '..."
real newspaper headlines quotations
Include Your Children When Baking Cookies
Something Went Wrong In Jet Crash, Experts Say
Police Begin Campaign To Run Down Jaywalkers
Drunks Get Nine Months In Violin Case
Iraqi Head Seeks Arms
Is There A Ring Of Debris Around Uranus?
Prostitutes Appeal To Pope
Panda Mating Fails, Veterinarian Takes Over
British Left Waffles On Falkland Islands
Teacher Strikes Idle Kids
Clinton Wins Budget; More Lies Ahead
Plane Too Close To Ground, Crash Probe Told
Miners Refuse To Work After Death
Juvenile Court To Try Shooting Defendant
Stolen Painting Found By Tree
Two Sisters Reunited After 18 Years In Checkout
War Dims Hope For Peace
If Strike Isn't Settled Quickly, It May Last A While
Couple Slain; Police Suspect Homicide
Man Struck By Lightning Faces Battery Charge
New Study Of Obesity Looks For Larger Test Group
Astronaut Takes Blame For Gas In Space
Kids Make Nutritious Snacks
Local High School Dropouts Cut In Half
Typhoon Rips Through Cemetery; Hundreds Dead
real letters to Islington Council's Housing Department quotations
I want some repairs done to my cooker as it has backfired and burnt my knob off.
I wish to complain that my father hurt his ankle very badly when he put his foot in the hole in his back passage.
Their 18 year old son is continuously banging his balls against my fence.
I wish to report that tiles are missing from the roof of the outside toilet and I think it was bad wind the other night that blew them off.
The lavatory seat is cracked, where do I stand?
I am writing on behalf of my sink which is coming away from the wall.
Will you please send someone to mend the garden path. My wife tripped and fell on it yesterday and now she is pregnant.
I request your permission to remove my drawers in the kitchen.
Can you please tell me when the repairs will be done as my wife is about to become an expectant mother.
I am still having trouble with smoke in my built-in drawers.
The toilet is blocked and we cannot bath the children until it is cleared.
Will you please send a man to look at my water, it is a funny colour and not fit to drink.
Our lavatory seat is broken in half and now it is in three pieces.
Would you please send a man to repair my sprout. I am an old age pensioner and need it straight away.
I want to complain about the farmer across the road; every morning at 6am his cock wakes me up and it's getting too much.
The man next door has a large erection in the back garden, which is unsightly and dangerous.
Our kitchen floor is damp. We have two children and would like a third so will you please send someone around to do something about it.
I am a single woman living in a downstairs flat and would be pleased if you could do something about the noise made by the man I have on top of me every night.
Please send a man with clean tools to finish the job and satisfy the wife.
I have had the Clerk of the Works down on the floor six times, but still have no satisfaction.
We are getting married in September and would like it in the garden before we move into the house.
This is to let you know that our lavatory seat is broken and we can't get BBC2.
appraisals put-downs quotations
"His men would follow him anywhere, but only out of curiosity.."
"He would be out of his depth in a car park puddle.."
"This person has delusions of adequacy.."
"Since my last report has reached rock-bottom, and has started to dig.."
"Sets low standards and consistently fails to achieve them.."
"Has the wisdom of youth and the energy of old age.."
"Works well under contant supervision and when cornered like a rat in a trap.."
"You are on the crest of a slump." (thanks to Eric Welburn)
main quotations page now here
Please note that where quotations refer to 'man' or 'men' this is not intended to be discriminatory.
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