"If you're remarkable, then it's likely that some people won't like you. That's part of the definition of remarkable. Nobody gets unanimous praise -- ever. The best the timid can hope for is to be unnoticed. Criticism comes to those who stand out."

--Seth Godin - In Praise of the Purple Cow

OPPORTUNITY WASTES NO EFFORT LOOKING FOR THE PERSON WHO IS WASTING TIME THROUGH IDLENESS OR DESTRUCTIVE ACTION.

"Opportunities somehow always seem to gravitate toward busy people who can hardly keep up with those they already have. Logically, it would seem that opportunities would make an effort to seek out individuals who have an abundance of time available, but instead opportunities appear for those who have goals and dreams and a plan for achieving them. We often think of opportunity as a living, moving thing, something that actively seeks out a willing recipient. In face, the reverse is true. Opportunities are ideas or concepts that exist only in the minds of those who recognize them. When you have no goals or plans, opportunities mean nothing to you. They become opportunities only when you recognize them as ideas that you can implement to help you move toward your goal."
-- Napoleon Hill

"In the short-run, the market is a voting machine - reflecting a voter-registration test that requires only money, not intelligence or emotional stability - but in the long-run, the market is a weighing machine."

Ben Graham

If my universe of business possibilities was limited, say, to private companies in Omaha, I would, first, try to assess the long-term economic characteristics of each business; second, assess the quality of the people in charge of running it; and, third, try to buy into a few of the best operations at a sensible price. I certainly would not wish to own an equal part of every business in town. Why, then, should Berkshire take a different tack when dealing with the larger universe of public companies? And since finding great businesses and outstanding managers is so difficult, why should we discard proven products? (I was tempted to say "the real thing.") Our motto is: "If at first you do succeed, quit trying."

Warren E. Buffett
http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/1991.html

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.”

--Mark Twain

[Usually, when I'm putting off the completion of an item on my To Do list, it's because I haven't defined it well enough and broken it down into a stupid simple Next Action --jr].

"A real decision is measured by the fact that you've taken a new action. If there's no action, you haven't truly decided."

-- Anthony Robbins

"If you look at highly successful people, they make the same number of mistakes as others, but they recover quickly. They don't sit around moaning about what they've done wrong." (paraphrased)

--Jim (James) McCann