“My mentality is that of a samurai. I would rather commit seppuku than fail.”

“I have made the mistaken assumption - and I will attempt to be better at this - of thinking that because somebody is on Twitter and is attacking me that it is open season. And that is my mistake.”

“I started SpaceX with the expectation of failure.”

“Even if producing CO2 was good for the environment, given that we're going to run out of hydrocarbons, we need to find some sustainable means of operating.”

“Optimism, pessimism, f**k that; we're going to make it happen. As God is my bloody witness, I'm hell-bent on making it work.”

“Once a year ask the boss, "What do I or my people do that helps you to do your job?" and "What do I or my people do that hampers you?"”

“An employer has no business with a man's personality... The task is not to change personality, but to enable a person to achieve and to perform.”

“An employer has no business with a man's personality. Employment is a specific contract calling for a specific performance... Any attempt to go beyond that is usurpation. It is immoral as well as an illegal intrusion of privacy. It is abuse of power. An employee owes no "loyalty," he owes no "love" and no "attitudes" - he owes performance and nothing else. .... The task is not to change personality, but to enable a person to achieve and to perform.”

“Individuals score points, but teams win games.”

“It is easy to see that what is best written or done by genius in the world, was no man's work but came by wide social labor, whena thousand wrought like one, sharing the same impulse.”

“The whole purpose of democracy is that we may hold counsel with one another, so as not to depend upon the understanding of one man.”

“Now, my masters, happy man be his dole, say I; every man to his business.”

“In friendship, as in love, we are often happier through our ignorance than our knowledge.”

“Some there be that shadows kiss; Such have but a shadow's bliss.”