Efficiency Quotes

“The suppression of unnecessary offices, of useless establishments and expenses enabled us to discontinue our internal taxes. These covering our land with officers, and opening our doors to their intrusions, had already begun that process of domiciliary vexation which, once entered, is scarcely to be restrained from reaching successively every article of produce and property.”

“Waste is worse than loss. The time is coming when every person who lays claim to ability will keep the question of waste before him constantly. The scope of thrift is limitless.”

“When a love comes to an end, weaklings cry, efficient ones instantly find another love, and the wise already have one in reserve.”

“It is contrary to our principles to multiply organizations, since, in all conscience, there are enough of them. And when organizations are created they need individuals to look after them.”

“Most of the time, songs that I write end up being finished in 30 minutes or less.”

“A free government is of all others the most energetic.”

“A lawsuit is the suicide of time.”

“First be sure a thing is wanted or needed, then go ahead.”

“Being busy does not always mean real work.”

“I took a course in speed reading. Then I got Reader's Digest on microfilm. By the time I got the machine set up, I was done.”

“Life is as if you were traveling a ridge crest. You have the gulf of inefficiency on one side and the gulf of wickedness on the other, and it helps not to have avoided one gulf if you fall into the other.”

“I hate the way people use PowerPoints instead of thinking”

“Economy does not consist in saving the coal, but in using the time while it burns.”

“A small team of (A plus) players can run circles around a giant team of B and C players.”

“Somewhere between the janitor and the CEO, reasons stop mattering.”

“You should never go to a meeting or make a telephone call without a clear idea of what you are trying to achieve.”

“The system is that there is no system. That doesn't mean we don't have process. Apple is a very disciplined company, and we have great processes. But that's not what it's about. Process makes you more efficient ... But innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that shoots holes in how we've been thinking about a problem. It's ad hoc meetings of six people called by someone who thinks he has figured out the coolest new thing ever and who wants to know what other people think of his idea.”

“That's been one of my mantras - focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”

“Show me an executive that works long hard hours and I'll show you a bad executive.”

“The system is that there is no system. That doesn't mean we don't have process. Apple is a very disciplined company, and we have great processes. But that's not what it's about. Process makes you more efficient.”

“You may say organize, organize, organize; but there may be so much organization that it will interfere with the work to be done.”

“What is the real function, the essential function, the supreme function, of language? Isn't it merely to convey ideas and emotions? Certainly. Then if we can do it with words of fonetic brevity and compactness, why keep the present cumbersome forms?”

“If I had more time, I would have written less.”

“I fast for greater physical and mental efficiency”

“Better to complete a small task well, than to do much imperfectly.”