Not every financial company toppled during the 2008 crisis, and some seized the opportunity to take advantage of weaker competitors in the midst of the tumult.

Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.

Great vision without great people is irrelevant.

Managing your problems can only make you good, whereas building your opportunities is the only way to become great.

The moment you feel the need to tightly manage someone, you've made a hiring mistake. The best people don't need to be managed. Guided, taught, led-yes. But not tightly managed.

Building a visionary company requires one percent vision and 99 percent alignment.

Good is the enemy of great. That's why so few things become great.

True leadership has people who follow when they have the freedom not to.

The difference between a good leader and a great leader is humility.

If you have more than three priorities then you don't have any.

The purpose of bureaucracy is to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline.

Art, freedom and creativity will change society faster than politics.

You're making sense, old man, a sense of your own. You're not crazy the way they think. Yes...I see...

Perhaps it is better not to tell what you wish. if you cannot have it.

Governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deducted from it.

A dowried wife, friends, beauty, birth, fair fame, These are the gifts of money, heavenly dame: Be but a moneyed man, persuasion tips Your tongue, and Venus settles on your lips.

Your ability to communicate to your young people will determine your success.

Life is going by. Don't waste a minute being negative, offended, or bitter. Choose to be happy.

Tell the trial lawyers to get out of your state and to quit costing businessmen and women.

God wastes nothing, so use what He has given you as fuel for your soul's journey.

Sometimes we need to tell ourselves that we're not going to do certain things, just in order to stay sane.