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When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us. Happiness does not consist in pastimes and amusements but in virtuous activities. Happiness resides not in possessions and not in gold; the feeling of happiness dwells in the soul. In the hopes of reaching the moon men fail to see the flowers that blossom at their feet. Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities. The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions—the little soon-forgotten charities of a kiss, a smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment in the disguise of a playful raillery, and the countless other infinitesimals of pleasurable thought and genial feeling. Men spend their lives in anticipations,—in determining to be vastly happy at some period when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other—it is our own. Past opportunities are gone, future have not come. We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine; but if we defer the tasting of them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age. Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others, and in their pleasure takes joy, even as though 'twere his own. The chances are that you have already come to believe that happiness is unattainable. But men have attained it. And they have attained it by realizing that happiness does not spring from the procuring of physical or mental pleasure, but from the development of reason and the adjustment of conduct to principles. Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress. Happiness depends more on the inward disposition of mind than on outward circumstances. There is only one way to happiness, and that is to cease worrying things which are beyond the power of our will. I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than attempting to satisfy them. You're happiest while you're making the greatest contribution. Action may not always bring happiness; Great effort from great motives is the best definition of a happy life. The rays of happiness, like those of light, are colorless when unbroken. Happiness grows at our own firesides, and is not to be picked in strangers' gardens. Happiness is where we find it, but rarely where we seek it. To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others. Happiness depends upon ourselves. Try to be happy in this present moment, and put not off being so to a time to come,—as though that time should be of another make from this which has already come and is ours. Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness. No man is happy who does not think himself so. Our minds are as different as our faces: we are all traveling to one destination; --happiness; but few are going by the same road.
"I believe that corporations should be membership communities... In order to hold people inside the corporation, we can't really talk about their being employees anymore... There has to be some kind of continuity and some sense of belonging."
"I still thrive on competition, and when I feel those competitive juices flowing, I've got to find an outlet. Of course, at 68, it's not going to be playing basketball.."
"You know what's great about this country? You don't have to be witty or clever, as long as you can hire someone who is."
"Fellers, I don't want you to feel bad about this. This has been a team effort. No one or two guys could have done all this."
l to '62 N.Y. Mets who lost a record 120 games "Stengel was the best manager I was ever around, considering everything-public relations, his ability to judge the players as individuals. And he was an infinitely kind man...[After Barber lost hearing in one ear, Stengel] shooed the writers out of the clubhouse, took thirty minutes, and he told me about the ball club in detail. He was always wonderful."
Re: winning "It's a lot like cologne. If you splash it on, it makes you feel good. But if you drink it, that's when it becomes a problem."
"If you have a choice of sinning against God or the bureaucracy, sin against God, because He will forgive you, and the bureacracy will not."
"Have you noticed how many of the old expressions are losing their meaning? For instance, Bill Gates saying he feels like a million."
"Show me a great company and I'll show you one that has radically changed itself and is looking forward to the opportunity of doing so again."
"Whenever an individual or a business decides that success has been attained, progress stops."
"Men are not prisoners of fate, only prisoners of their own minds."
"Courage is endurance of the soul."
"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I ever met."
"Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art."
"No institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organized in such a way as to be able to get along under leadership composed of average human beings."
"If you want to be content, you should be a dog."
"Any company that cannot imagine the future won't be around to enjoy it."
"If only it weren't for the people, the goddamned people, always getting tangled up in the machinery. If it weren't for them, the world would an engineer's paradise."
"Leadership is about taking an organization to a place it would not have otherwise gone without you, in a value-adding, measurable way"
"In the conventional mode, people want to know whether the followers believe in the leader; a more searching question is whether the leader believes in the followers."
"In my line of work, only schizophrenics have vision, and we give them medication."
"Strategy is not the consequence of planning, but the opposite: its starting point."
"Is it dumb enough?" That has stayed with me all my life. He was saying, "Is it simple enough communication to be just totally understood in plain language?"
"The genius of leadership lies in the manner in which leaders see and act on their own and their follower's values and motivations."
"Enlightened leadership is service, not selfishness."
"The Tao of Leadership Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others; it is the only means."
"No country can today isolate its economic, political, or social environment from any other nation."
"Real time is what I call our sense of ultracompressed time and foreshortened horizons in these years of the millennial countdown... Real time occurs when time and distance vanish, when action and response are simultaneous."
"Time, history, and memory become qualitatively different concepts in a world where electronic mass communication is possible... This capacity of electronic mass communication to transcend time and space creates instability by disconnecting people from past traditions, but also liberates people by making the past less determinate of experiences in the present."
"In the knowledge society the most probable assumption for organizations - and certainly the assumption on which they have to conduct their affairs - is that they need knowledge workers far more than knowledge workers need them."
"Criticism is easy; achievement is difficult."
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- Arthur Martinez, CEO, Sears
"The higher the monkey climbs, the more you see his ass."
"The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time."
"You do not lead by hitting people over the head-that's assault, not leadership."
"The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office."
- Lao Tzu
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