Great Quotes
You’ve probably noticed the quotations from notable people throughout this website. We started using these in our very first brochure and website in 1996 and they have sort of become a trademark of our company.
Below are some additional quotations we found particularly thought-provoking, wise, or intriguing. If you have a favorite quotation, we’d love to hear from you. Please send it to us at: info@ellisonresearch.com
Research • Advertising & Marketing • Beliefs • Faith • Giving and Helping • General Wisdom • Excellence • Knowledge •
Creativity • Opportunity • Money • Work • Vision • Attitude
THE TOP REGRETABLE QUOTES OF ALL TIME
The following is a list of statements made many years ago by experts in their fields.
“With over fifteen types of foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn’t likely to carve out a big share of the market for itself.” – Business Week, August 2, 1968
“There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.” – Albert Einstein, 1932
“The phonograph has no commercial value at all.” – Thomas Edison, American inventor, 1880s
“If excessive smoking actually plays a role in the production of lung cancer, it seems to be a minor one.” – W. C. Heuper, National Cancer Institute, 1954
“They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist-“ – Last words of Gen. John Sedgwick, spoken as he looked out over the parapet at enemy lines during the Battle of Spotsylvania in 1864
“Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote.” – Grover Cleveland, U.S. President, 1905
“I’m sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don’t know how to use the English language.” – The San Francisco Examiner, rejecting a submission by Rudyard Kipling in 1889
“Just so-so in center field.” – New York Daily News after the premiere of Willie Mays, 1951
“I’m just glad it’ll be Clark Gable who’s falling on his face and not Gary Cooper.” – Gary Cooper, on declining the lead role in Gone with the Wind
“You better get secretarial work or get married.” – Emmeline Snively, director of the Blue Book Modelling Agency, advising would-be model Marilyn Monroe in 1944
"There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home." Kenneth Olsen, President and founder of Digital Equiptment Corporation, in 1977
"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." Marshal Ferdinand Foch, French Military Strategist and Future World War 1 Commander, in 1911
"(Man will never reach the Moon) regardless of all future scientific advances." Dr Lee De Forest, inventor of the Audion Tube and Father of Radio, in 1926
"(Television) won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night." Darryl F. Zanuck, head of 20th Century-Fox in 1946
"We don't like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out." Decca Records rejecting the Beatles, in 1962
"For the majority of people, the use of tobacco has a beneficial effect." Dr. Ian G. Macdonald, Los Angeles Surgeon, as quoted in Newsweek, November 18, 1969
"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." Western Union internal memo, in 1876
"The Earth is the center of the Universe." Ptolemy, the great Egyptian astronomer, in the second century
"Nothing of importance happened today." Written by King George III of England on July 4, 1776
Research
“If politics is the art of the possible, research is surely the art of the soluble. Both are immensely practical-minded affairs.” Sir Peter Medawar, British immunologist
“A fact is like a sack—it won’t stand up if it’s empty. To make it stand up, first you have to put in it all the reasons and feelings that caused it in the first place.” Luigi Pirandello, Italian playwright
“Research serves to make building stones out of stumbling blocks.” Arthur D. Little, founder of the first management consulting firm
“Research is simply to find out what you are going to do when you can’t keep on doing what you are doing now.” Charles Kettering, founder of Delco
“Supposing is good, but finding out is better.” Mark Twain, American author
“Research - The process of going up alleys to see if they're blind.” Barstow Bates
“Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.” Zora Neale Hurston, US dramatist
“What is research, but a blind date with knowledge.” William Henry, pioneering British chemist
"The outcome of any serious research can only be to make two questions grow where only one grew before.” Thorstein Veblen, U.S. social scientist
"Basic research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing.” Wernher von Braun, German scientist
Advertising & Marketing
"Too often, we creative people have a dangerous tendency to 'talk to ourselves.' We need the counterbalance of research." - Bob Lutz, Vice Chairman, General Motors
“Products are made in the factory, but brands are created in the mind.” Walter Landor, U.S. branding pioneer
“An advertising agency is 85% confusion and 15% commission.” Fred Allen, comedian
“A brand name is more than a word. It is the beginning of a conversation.” unknown
“Nothing except the mint can make money without advertising.” Thomas B. Macaulay, English historian
“Stopping your advertising to save money is like stopping your watch to save time.” Unknown
Beliefs
“A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding.” Marshall McLuhan, Canadian communications theorist
"If you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there." Will Rogers, U.S. humorist
“No two people see the external world in exactly the same way. To every separate person a thing is what he thinks it is – in other words, not a thing, but a think.” Penelope Fitzgerald, British author
"A belief is not true because it is useful." Henri-Frédéric Amiel, Swiss philosopher
"The outer conditions of a person's life will always be found to reflect their inner beliefs." James Lane Allen, American novelist
“We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over.” Aneurin Bevan, British Labour politician
Faith
“The world isn’t looking at our tracts and rallies and telecasts and study manuals. It is looking at us and how we behave.” Chuck Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries
“Supposing is good, but finding out is better.” Mark Twain
“One with God is a majority.” Billy Graham, American evangelist
“The question confronting the Church today is not any longer whether the man in the street can grasp a religious message, but how to employ the communications media so as to let him have the full impact of the Gospel message.” Pope John Paul II
“The first time I sang in the church choir; two hundred people changed their religion.” Fred Allen, comedian
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” G. K. Chesterton, English author
“The English Bible – a book which, if everything else in our language should perish, would alone suffice to show the whole extent of its beauty and power.” Thomas Babington Macauley, English historian
“The only thing the world believes is behavior, because we all see it instantaneously. None of us may preach anymore. We must behave.” Max DePree, retired CEO of furniture maker Herman Miller
"You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it." Samuel Butler, English poet
"Religion is meant to be bread for daily use, not cake for special occasions.” Unknown
"Religion holds the solution to all problems of human relationship, whether they are between parents and children or nation and nation. Sooner or later, man has always had to decide whether he worships his own power or the power of God.” A. J. Toynbee, English historian
"Going to church doesn't make you a Christian anymore than going to the garage makes you a car.” Laurence J. Peter, Canadian author
"Through faith man experiences the meaning of the world; through action he is to give to it meaning.” Rabbi Leo Baeck, Holocaust survivor
"Strike from mankind the principle of faith and men would have no more history than a flock of sheep." Mark Beltaire
Giving and Helping
“From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life.” Arthur Ashe, U.S. athlete
“Truly successful people are the ones who help others cross the finish line. Genuinely caring about people generally leads to success.” Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy’s
“It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, American author
“For it is in giving that we receive.” St. Francis of Assisi
General Wisdom
“Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: if you're alive, it isn't.” Richard Bach, American novelist
“The family is the nucleus of civilization.” Will Durant, American historian
“Worry is the misuse of your imagination.” (unknown)
“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” Galileo Galilei, Italian astronomer
"We really don't learn anything from our experience. We only learn from reflecting on our experience." Robert Sinclair
“To every disadvantage there is a corresponding advantage.” W. Clement Stone, U.S. philanthropist
“Stumbling is not falling.” Portuguese proverb
“What is wise? He that learns from everyone.” Benjamin Franklin, U.S. statesman
“If you see a snake, just kill it. Don't appoint a committee on snakes.” H. Ross Perot, U.S. business executive
“Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, U.S. philosopher
“Every great mistake has a halfway moment – a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied.” Pearl S. Buck, U.S. author
“Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do.” James Harvey Robinson, U.S. historian
“Truth never damages a cause that is just.” Mohandas K. Gandhi, Indian political leader
Excellence
“Well done is better than well said.” Benjamin Franklin, U.S. statesman
"Sports serve society by providing vivid examples of excellence." George F. Will, American author
“Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better.” Pat Riley, NBA coach
“It takes less time to do a thing right than it does to explain why you did it wrong.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, U.S. author
“Good is the enemy of excellent.” Unknown
“Excellence is always a choice – it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction, and skillful execution.” Willa Foster
“It is priceless to find a person who will take responsibility, who will finish and follow through to the final detail.” Richard Evans, author
Knowledge
“Better be ignorant of a matter than half know it.” Publilius Syrus Roman playwrite
"I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.” Groucho Marx, entertainer
"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." Aldous Huxley, English author
“It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.” John Wooden, basketball coach
“A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.” Kahlil Gibran, Lebanese poet
“Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.” Douglas Adams, British author
“Knowledge is the most democratic source of power.” Alvin Toffler, U.S. author
“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” Galileo Galilei, Italian astronomer
"It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts." Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, English author
“Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.” Samuel Johnson, English author
“In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.” Eric Hoffer, U.S. philosopher
“Education costs money, but then so does ignorance.” Sir Claus Moser, British academic
“Knowledge tells us that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom prevents us from putting it into a fruit salad.” Miles Kington, British humorist
“Chance favors only the prepared mind.” Louis Pasteur, French scientist
Creativity
"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep." Scott Adams, U.S. cartoonist
"I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free." Michelangelo
“Whatever creativity is, it is in part a solution to a problem.” Brian Aldiss, English author
Opportunity
“Nine-tenths of wisdom consists in being wise in time.” Theodore Roosevelt, U.S. President
“People think that at the top there isn’t much room. They tend to think of it as an Everest. My message is that there is tons of room at the top.” Margaret Thatcher, British prime minister
“It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.” Eric Hoffer, U.S. philosopher
“There is no security on this earth, there is only opportunity.” General Douglas MacArthur
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” Thomas A. Edison, U.S. inventor
“You always pass failure on the way to success.” Mickey Rooney, actor
Money
“Money frees you from doing things you dislike. Since I dislike doing nearly everything, money is handy.” Groucho Marx, entertainer
“I have enough money to last me the rest of my life, unless I buy something.” Jackie Mason, comedian
“A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart.” Jonathan Swift, Irish satirist
“A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money.” U.S. Senator Everett Dirksen
Work
“The individual activity of one man with backbone will do more than a thousand men with a mere wishbone.” William J.H. Boetcker, Presbyterian minister
“The simpler you can keep it, the better you can execute it.” Gordon Teter, former president of Wendy’s
“Intellectual ‘work’ is misnamed; it is a pleasure, a dissipation, and is its own highest reward.” Mark Twain, U.S. author
“In the end, you’re measured not by how much you undertake but by what you finally accomplish.” Donald Trump, U.S. businessman
“What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.” Samuel Johnson, British author
Vision
“If you don’t know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.” Yogi Berra, New York Yankees manager
“Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen, and thinking what nobody has thought.” Albert Szent-Györgyi Von Nagyrapolt, Nobel Prize winner in medicine
“It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” Yogi Berra, New York Yankees manager
“A vision without the ability to execute is probably a hallucination.” Stephen M. Case, co-founder, America Online
“It is an old and ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way.” Rollo May, U.S. clinical psychologist
“If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it.” Abraham Lincoln, U.S. President
“If we're going to triumph over trials, it's imperative that we anticipate them.” R.L. Russell
Attitude
"A positive attitude will not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort." Herm Albright
“I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. We are in charge of our attitudes.” Chuck Swindoll, U.S. minister
