Quotes For Entrepreneurs–November 2011

You can follow @skmurphy to get these hot off the mojo wire or wait until the end of the month when these quotes for entrepreneurs are collected on the blog. Enter your E-mail if you would like new blog posts to your inbox.

Quotes For Entrepreneurs–November 2011

Theme this month is getting your ducks–or geese as the case may be–in a row: organizing and executing around a higher purpose.

“To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.”
Donald A. Adams

+ + +

“Abbot Zerchi smiled thinly. ‘You don’t have a soul, Doctor. You are a soul. You have a body, temporarily.'”
Walter M. Miller “A Canticle for Leibowitz“

hat tip to “My Small Boat” blog.  Related

“Never tell a child you have a soul. Teach him, you are a soul; you have a body. As we learn to think of things always in this order, that the body is but the temporary clothing of the soul, our views of death and the unbefittingness of customary mourning will approximate to those of Friends of earlier generations.”
George Macdonald in 1892 (“Friends” here is a reference to Quakers)

h/t Mere Orthodoxy

+ + +

“Advice is like snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind.”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

+ + +

“If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not find it; for it is hard to be sought out and difficult.”
Heraclitus (Fragment 18)

I used this as the opening quote for “Customer Interviews: Allow Yourself to Be Surprised”

+ + +

“When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.
Paulo Coelho “The Alchemist”

I used this as a coda to Customer Interviews: Allow Yourself To Be Surprised

h/t to Johnnie Moore’s “Decisions” where he offers this additional insight:

“People are easily preoccupied with the idea of making a decision as if it’s all about creating certainty. What it’s more about embarking on an adventure? And if it is, are we looking to press gang the crew or are we taking willing volunteers?”
Johnnie Moore

+ + +

“I need to get some sleep. People on the Internet will still be wrong tomorrow.”
Jim Treacher

A riff on xkcd’s “Duty Calls” that I used for Late Night Comments and E-Mail” but Treacher offers better advice.

+ + +

“The long tail is for organizations that own warehouses.”
Seth Godin in “The Starfish and the Long Tail Have Trouble Getting Along“

+ + +

“We are responsible for actions performed in response to circumstances for which we are not responsible”
Allan Massie

+ + +

“When in doubt, choose to go deeper rather than faster. Accept the idea that reflection and understanding your own nature, including the dark side, is the key to effective action.”
Peter Block in “The Answer to How is Yes“

I used this quote to close “Record to Remember, Pause to Reflect”

+ + +

“Not only should you calculate the Lifetime Value of your customers, but also their perception of the Lifetime Value of your solution.”
Chris Hopf

+ + +

“Health is not valued till sickness comes.”
Thomas Fuller

+ + +

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.”
Thornton Wilder

I used this as the opening quote for my Thanksgiving 2011” post.

+ + +

“Without a clear vision of the goal state, I expect movements to devolve into identifying enemies and engaging in wars.”
Jason Yip

I took this to relate to the Lean Software, Lean Startup, Agile Software movements because those are the topics he commonly blogs about.

+ + +

“We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities.”
Walt Kelly in “Pogo“

I used this as inspiration for the title to “In a Wilderness of Free Association Surrounded by Insurmountable Opportunities”

+ + +

“Work while you have the light. You are responsible for the talent that has been entrusted to you.”
Henri Frederic Amiel

+ + +

“To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.”
Leonard Bernstein Elbert Hubbard

Update from Quote Investigator “Two Necessities In Doing a Great and Important Work: A Definite Plan and Limited Time”

Aphorist Elbert Hubbard edited and published a journal called “The Fra” for an artisan community in East Aurora, New York. The September 1911 issue featured the following epigraph: Two Necessities In Doing A Great And Important Work: A Definite Plan And Limited Time

The journal issue included a short article by H.C. Peters that elaborated on this adage:

If I were trying to condense in a few words the best plan for efficient action, I would say: Have a definite thing to do and a limited time to do it. About fifty per cent of the people engaged in business never reach the point where they set their minds on doing some one definite thing…

It is left for the men who decide on a definite thing to do within a limited time, to keep the wheels of progress moving.

Apparently, H.C. Peters developed the core idea, and Elbert Hubbard crafted and popularized a concise statement. Alternatively, Hubbard constructed the adage, and he next asked Peters to write on the subject.

+ + +

Photo Credit (c) 2020 Dale Janzten, used with permission.