A business like an automobile, has to be driven, in order to get results.

Mickey Mouse popped out of my mind onto a drawing pad 20 years ago on a train ride from Manhattan to Hollywood at a time when business fortunes of my brother Roy and myself were at lowest ebb and disaster seemed right around the corner.

Getting money is not all a man’s business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.

When I started Virgin from a basement in west London, there was no great plan or strategy. I didn’t set out to build a business empire… For me, building a business is all about doing something to be proud of, bringing talented people together and creating something that’s going to make a real difference to other people’s lives.

Everybody could be an entrepreneur, but very few will become very rich entrepreneurs.

I’ve noticed that when I am selling a lot of records, certain things become easier. I’m not talking about getting a table in a restaurant.

By reading, you learn through others‘ experiences, generally, a better way to do business, especially in our line of work where the consequences of incompetence are so final for young men.

My protest about the post exchange seating bore some results. More seats were allocated for blacks, but there were still separate sections for blacks and for whites. At least I had made my men realize that something could be accomplished by speaking out, and I hoped they would be less resigned to unjust conditions.

The thing most people don’t pick up when they become an entrepreneur is that it never ends. It’s 24/7.

Your premium brand had better be delivering something special, or it’s not going to get the business.

Skype actually does get a fair bit of revenue.

It is necessary to look at the results of observation objectively, because you, the experimenter, might like one result better than another.

A man should never neglect his family for business.

I like the city. I like the concrete. I like big business. I like being a CEO of my own company and having a lot of responsibilities. At the same time, when I can go off with a backpack or off on a surfboard or even off on a run somewhere in the woods – that’s where I’m really happy.

Put it this way: If I asked, ‚How’s business?‘ and you say, ‚Boomin‘ or ‚Amazing,‘ I already know the answer.

The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet. The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.

I believe the returns on investment in the poor are just as exciting as successes achieved in the business arena, and they are even more meaningful!

The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away.

What prudent merchant will hazard his fortunes in any new branch of commerce when he knows not that his plans may be rendered unlawful before they can be executed?

If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a friendship. We’d never go into business, because we’d be cynical. Well, that’s nonsense. You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.

Competition is the keen cutting edge of business, always shaving away at costs.

When a team takes ownership of its problems, the problem gets solved. It is true on the battlefield, it is true in business, and it is true in life.

No person will make a great business who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit.

In business or in life, don’t follow the wagon tracks too closely.

Once the automobile appeared you could have predicted that it would destroy as many people as it did.

When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.

Any time an investment company has to spend heavily on advertising, it’s probably a bad business in which to invest.

In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.

The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business.

Throughout my years in business, I discovered something. I would always ask why you do things. The answers that I would invariably get are: ‚Oh, that’s just the way things are done around here.‘ Nobody knows why they do what they do. Nobody thinks very deeply about things in business.

We’re running the company to serve more people.

Philanthropy should be taking much bigger risks that business. If these are easy problems, business and government can come in and solve them.

The richest people in the world look for and build networks; everyone else looks for work.

Let me remind you that credit is the lifeblood of business, the lifeblood of prices and jobs.

One thing is certain in business. You and everyone around you will make mistakes.

To me, business isn’t about wearing suits or pleasing stockholders. It’s about being true to yourself, your ideas and focusing on the essentials.

Realists do not fear the results of their study.

If you like a person you say ‚let’s go into business together.‘ Man is a social animal after all, but such partnerships are fraught with danger.

No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.

I am certainly not one of those who need to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am the prod.

I respect Drake not only as a creative person but as a business mind as well. I think Drake’s important.

Foreigners don’t want to invest any more in France – and this is not working.

We get paid for bringing value to the market place.

I bought a company in the mid-’90s called Dexter Shoe and paid $400 million for it. And it went to zero. And I gave about $400 million worth of Berkshire stock, which is probably now worth $400 billion. But I’ve made lots of dumb decisions. That’s part of the game.

I just hate meetings. Though it’s true that once you’ve made a lot of money, people around you might be full of ideas about ways to make lots more money and might be disappointed that you don’t want to seize every opportunity to do so.

I don’t think the government should be in the trailer-park business. I don’t think they know how to run a trailer park.

To be successful, you need results in a row. You can’t win, lose, win, lose.

Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.

In business, if you realize you’ve made a bad decision, you change it.

A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.

Prophesy is a good line of business, but it is full of risks.

Over a 10-year period, 99 out of 100 new entrepreneurs will fail. Only one will be left standing as others get pushed out of the market or burn out from working so hard. It’s really sad.

Nothing is so intolerable to man as being fully at rest, without a passion, without business, without entertainment, without care.

The first mistake in public business is the going into it.

Providence has its appointed hour for everything. We cannot command results, we can only strive.

When you’re young, you look at television and think, there’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want.

I strongly believe that missionaries make better products. They care more. For a missionary, it’s not just about the business. There has to be a business, and the business has to make sense, but that’s not why you do it. You do it because you have something meaningful that motivates you.

I love big business!

The ways of the Lord are different from the ways of man. Man’s ways remove people from office or business when they grow old or become disabled. But man’s ways are not and never will be the Lord’s ways.

For the first time we’re allowing developers who don’t work at Facebook to develop applications just as if they were. That’s a big deal because it means that all developers have a new way of doing business if they choose to take advantage of it. There are whole companies that are forming whose only product is a Facebook Platform application.

To turn really interesting ideas and fledgling technologies into a company that can continue to innovate for years, it requires a lot of disciplines.