"It has always been my rule in..." - Quote by John D Rockefeller

“Often-times the most difficult competition comes, not from the strong, the intelligent, the conservative competitor, but from the man who is holding on by the eyelids and is ignorant of his costs, and anyway he's got to keep running or bust!”

“You know that great prejudice exists against all successful business enterprise - the more successful, the greater the prejudice.”

“Save when you can and not when you have to.”

“A thoroughbred business man cannot enter heartily upon the business of life without first looking into his accounts.”

“[We in Microsoft] are not the only software company but we are a great software company doing some unique work.”

“The speed at which a business success is recognized, furthermore, is not that important as long as the company's intrinsic value is increasing at a satisfactory rate. In fact, delayed recognition can be an advantage: It may give us the chance to buy more of a good thing at a bargain price.”

“Most of what we say and do is unnecessary: remove the superfluity, and you will have more time and less bother. So in every case one should prompt oneself: 'Is this, or is it not, something necessary?' And the removal of the unnecessary should apply not only to actions but to thoughts also: then no redundant actions either will follow.”

“One can either work or meet. One cannot do both at the same time.”

“Habit is the enormous flywheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision. Full half the time of such a man goes to the deciding, or regretting, of matters which ought to be so ingrained in him as practically not to exist for his consciousness at all.”