I don’t think it’s a good idea to plan to sell a company.

Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.

Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon.

The state of the economy is not the issue when it comes to growing a business. The relevant questions are always: ‚What business are you in? Furthermore, is it adapting to the times?‘

In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.

In this industry, there’s a lot of cases of being a competitor in one way, but you’re often a customer and a vendor in another way. It’s not atypical in aerospace. Actually, it’s not that atypical in a lot of industries.

A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts.

Wise kings generally have wise counselors; and he must be a wise man himself who is capable of distinguishing one.

I always thought that if I made it big or got successful at what I had started out to do, that I wanted to come back to my part of the country and do something great, something that would bring a lot of jobs into this area.

Life is a matter of really tough choices.

Unless a president can protect the privacy of the advice he gets, he cannot get the advice he needs.

My justification is that most people my age spend a lot of time thinking about what they’re going to do for the next five or ten years. The time they spend thinking about their life, I just spend drinking.

Entrepreneurs are natural problem-solvers, which means that we always have ideas for new businesses popping into our heads. Having a lot of options is great, but sometimes it can be hard to focus on one when you are keen to move onto the next.

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.

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.

I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.

If I want to do well in racing I need to be more focused so I stopped going to school. If I wasn’t a very good driver it would not be a wise decision, but it gives me an advantage over my competitors.

Right now it’s only a notion, but I think I can get the money to make it into a concept, and later turn it into an idea.

Politics is like football; if you see daylight, go through the hole.

I’ve noticed a terrible thing, which is I will agree to anything if it’s far enough in the future.

A good name is rather to be chosen than riches.

I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone – and I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions that move the ball forward.

The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray.

Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.

Don’t swap horses in crossing a stream.

‚Tis better to bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of.

Any man can call time out, but no man can say how long the time out will be.

A president either is constantly on top of events or, if he hesitates, events will soon be on top of him. I never felt that I could let up for a moment.

I’m very aware and very conscious of the path I chose in life, and very aware of the path I didn’t choose.

Anything important is never left to the vote of the people. We only get to vote on some man; we never get to vote on what he is to do.

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.

When you’re 40, you can’t ride the fence anymore. You gotta make definite decisions about your life.

Our will is always for our own good, but we do not always see what that is.

And you know, I’ve had great fun turning quite a lot of different industries on their head and making sure those industries will never be the same again, because Virgin went in and took them on.

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

I’m substantially concerned about the policy directions of the space agency. We have a situation in the U.S. where the White House and Congress are at odds over what the future direction should be. They’re sort of playing a game and NASA is the shuttlecock that they’re hitting back and forth.

There are hunters, and there are victims. By your discipline, cunning, obedience, and alertness, you will decide if you are a hunter or a victim.

The way to develop decisiveness is to start right where you are, with the very next question you face.

I think I’ve got my business notions and my sense for that sort of thing from my dad. My dad never had a chance to go to school. He couldn’t read and write. But he was so smart. He was just one of those people that could just make the most of anything and everything that he had to work with.

It is always your next move.

What matters in the Sun-tzu universe are not positions of strength and power, but situations in which you have options, full of potential force.

If you are the kind of person who is waiting for the ‚right‘ thing to happen, you might wait for a long time. It’s like waiting for all the traffic lights to be green for five miles before starting the trip.

I just usually go with my own taste. If I like something, and it happens to be against the law, well, then I might have a problem.

If you’re a quarterback, you want everything on your shoulders. You want to be the one to make the decisions.

At one point he decided enough was enough.

To summarize, draft resistance can make use of the inegalitarian nature of American society as a technique for increasing the cost of American aggression, and it threatens values that are important to those in a decision-making position.

People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything.

A hustler has to deal with danger and risk. It’s part of the game. You cannot control it all, nor would you want to. Chaos, unknown factors are not something to be anxious about.

I built a company at the same time I built a career.

Every successful businessman will have experienced set-backs and failures – they’re lying if they say they haven’t. Virgin has had some tremendously successful businesses and some that have not quite worked out. Virgin Cola springs to mind – the product wasn’t distinct enough from Coca-Cola.

I have not endorsed Trump and will not do so.

There are two ways of being happy: We must either diminish our wants or augment our means – either may do – the result is the same and it is for each man to decide for himself and to do that which happens to be easier.

It’s a question of whether we’re going to go forward into the future, or past to the back.

I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn’t, than live as if there isn’t and to die to find out that there is.

Quitting is the easiest thing to do.

A people free to choose will always choose peace.

The commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless proved otherwise.

As I have done in every election since I started voting so many years ago, I always like to take my time and examine the two candidates, see not only the two candidates but the policies they will bring in, the people they will bring in, who they might appoint to the Supreme Court, and look at the whole range of issues before making a decision.

The business aspect is one of the most important things about having a music career, because every choice you make in a management meeting affects your life a year-and-a-half from now.

My mom was on the United Way group that decides how to allocate the money and looks at all the different charities and makes the very hard decisions about where that pool of funds is going to go.

If you are a small company taking on a big company, you need to have a sense of humor.