Businessman Quotes

It's true that I tend to daydream. I'm the same person in business as I am in music: I can be distracted and absentminded. It's my style.

If you have more money than you need, you have to give it away. It's a duty. I get to choose whom to sponsor, and I like to give to the areas that I know something about.

I've managed to dodge the curse. Not all my family have. Of course, music helped me - music is all about civilization, about something worthwhile. It's all about ideas.

I've had every advantage in the world, despite the 18 years of silence which were nobody's fault but mine.

I'm a terrible singer, but it helps when I have to call a taxi.

I was in Paris at an English-language bookstore. I picked up a volume of Dickinson's poetry. I came back to my hotel, read 2,000 of her poems and immediately began composing in my head. I wrote down the melodies even before I got to a piano.

I want to make the world better.

I see only adaptations - not revolutions.

I personally do not write highbrow music. If I do, it's by accident.

I just have to take my chances like any other composer.

I feel that I belong to the 19th century. Some composers' music is very topical. It almost says, 'This is about what I read in newspapers yesterday.' Not mine.

I don't think events in your life affect your music.

I do not think that music keeps evolving. It evolved through Bach; since then, in my humble opinion, all the innovations added nothing.

Either your understanding of the meaning of music is there from the beginning or it is not.

Both parents were very encouraging - especially my father. My father thought the sun rose and set with me. Neither one had a musical background or any musical talent. They liked classical music, but neither could carry a tune.

The next thing is: we can make IBM even better. We brought IBM back but we're gunning for leadership.

Computers are magnificent tools for the realization of our dreams, but no machine can replace the human spark of spirit, compassion, love, and understanding.

This really is a merger of equals. I wouldn't have come back to work for anything less than this fantastic opportunity. This lets me combine my two great loves - technology and biscuits.

If life was so easy that you could just go buy success, there would be a lot more successful companies in the world. Successful enterprises are built from the ground up.

I want to become a student. I want to read Chinese history and go on a dig.

Watch the turtle. He only moves forward by sticking his neck out.

You can never be comfortable with your success, you've got to be paranoid you're going to lose it.

We must not be hampered by yesterday's myths in concentrating on today's needs.

Uncertainty will always be part of the taking charge process.

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

Performance stands out like a ton of diamonds. Nonperformance can always be explained away.

Performance is your reality. Forget everything else.

Management manages by making decisions and by seeing that those decisions are implemented.

It's better to take over and build upon an existing business than to start a new one.

It is an immutable law in business that words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises-but only performance is reality.