Businesspeople From The United States

"It was the custom when men received nominations to come to me for contributions, and I made them and considered them good paying investments for the company. In a Republican district I was a strong Republican; in a Democratic district I was Democratic, and in doubtful districts I was doubtful. In politics I was an Erie Railroad man all the time."

"I sometimes think I should like to give up business entirely. The care and worriment attending large business interests are very great, but besides that fact the manner in which motives are impugned and characters assailed is most unpleasant"

"The ultimate result will be to annihilate the Indians & open up the Big Horn & Black Hills to development & settlement & in this way greatly benefit us."

"I expected Vischer’s story to be interesting, but I wasn’t ready for a thriller. The book begins with Vischer relating his childhood in a light and fun manner, but by the middle of the book when he was pouring out gritty details from his heart, I kept stopping myself from flipping to later chapters to see how exactly this story would end up."

"Have you ever been tempted to start your own business- First read this cautionary tale, especially if you think your ideas come from God."

"The impact God has planned for us doesn't occur when we're pursuing impact. It occurs when we're pursuing God."

"I am growing increasingly convinced that if every one of these kids burning with passion to write that hit Christian song or make that hit Christian movie or start that hit Christian ministry to change the world would instead focus their passion on walking with God on a daily basis, the world would change."

"Why does God want us to let go of our dreams? Because anything you are unwilling to let go of is an idol, and you are in sin."

"I never swore as a kid. Honestly. Never. I never smoked a cigarette and I never tasted alcohol until I got to Bible College."

"Fairly early in life, I noticed my brain was weird. By that I mean that I noticed it had a way of looking at normal things from a slightly twisted angle--just twisted enough that it often made me chuckle."

"In truth, I sat down in 1992 to make a kids’ show that I would want to watch with my kids. That would work for me. That would have sincerity in it, but not too much. That would mix what I loved about Monty Python and David Letterman with what I hungered for from Thomas Aquinas and Mother Theresa."

"Telling the complete story of VeggieTales would require much more time than we have before us tonight. Since this is Yale, I decided to craft a shorter version of the story, using very large words. Remembering though that I was kicked out of Bible College before I’d had a chance to learn many very large words, I concluded that my only remaining option was to tell the story simply, using simple words, and chance the consequences."

"VeggieTales is something that, on paper, makes no sense at all. It is a series of children’s videos where limbless, talking vegetables act out Bible stories. Try raising money with that pitch."

"Thanks for coming! And, I have to make another movie, now."

"And for two years, we had this sign up saying we will finish this movie and we changed it to 'did' finish the movie."

"Say you've been to MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) Disney Studios in Orlando, you'll know that there's an animation studio where you actually walk out of the back door of the animation studio and you're in a theme park. Now you say, hey, that's pretty cool. Could any animation studio have a sort of situation like that that is any cooler? And you think not. Well, you're wrong, I'd say, because here at Big Idea when we walk out our back door, We have the Timework button, we push the button, we open the door[...] and, we're in a mall. Disney has nothing on this. You can be animating one moment, buying candy by the pound the next, or taking a ride on a little train, or going to the food court."

"That's right! You're watching the DVD! So, the coolness of what the bowing man is doing is self-evident to you!"

"As you can see, we're about to visit our lower level which is--for the most part--full of "Mens" and "Infants"."

"This is where we store our bicycles. A lot of people ride their bikes to work here. And, of course, there has to be a robot to protect them and make sure they don't get stolen like R2D2 in episode two where he did a very bad job in protecting Princess Amidala from those worm things. But this robot is significantly more effective as a theft-deterrent system than R2D2 was in that film. That's why the bikes are here."

"I'll very often just start humming my way through a scene. Say, OK the tempo should be about like this, it should pause here, it should pick up here. And very often I'll make up a little melody just to do that. About half of the little melodies in the score for Jonah are those little melodies that I made up just to use to kind of pace a scene and then we got kind of attached to them."

"The ending of the film seems so bizarre. It is actually probably the most literal retelling of the story of Jonah from the Bible that you've ever bumped into."

"It is pretty clear in the Bible story that the whale swallowing Jonah wasn't meant as a punishment from God, it was God saving him from drowning. So it was actually provision to give him a second chance. The whale itself was the start of Jonah's second chance."

"When we retell a Bible story at Big Idea we will go through the Bible story very carefully. We'll figure out the key plot points, they key themes and we'll set those aside as, you know, sacred, cannot be messed with. And then, we'll mess with everything else. We'll just have lots and lots of goofy fun with everything else to make the story fresh even to grown-ups."

"The most important thing is not the work I can do for God. The most important thing is to make God the most important thing."

"The messages our kids receive from teachers, coaches--and even, with the best intentions, from us — can push them toward pride or despair...toward self-righteousness or self-hatred."

"We're all broken. We're all messed up pigs. When we can accept that, we're ready to become the new creations God intended us to be. And that's when the fun starts!"

"An odd outlook on life is the beginning of good comedic writing."

"If you have been healed or saved or blessed through TBN and have not contributed to (the) station, you are robbing God and will lose your reward in heaven."

"God draws no distinction between Himself and us. God opens up the union of the very godhead (Trinity), and brings us into it."

"I am a little god! Critics, be gone!"

"If you look at any institution in history – look at the Roman Empire – anything in history, and what it looks like when it’s peaking. Look at Apple, and how can you say it’s not peaking? ... The thing is, it may take another year or two before it starts to decline, but it has to – everything does."

"[PlayStation 2] is a new canvas for humanity that takes us back to our nature."

"[The PlayStation 2 is a] historic, a mass-market appliance that fundamentally changes society in the way the printing press did."

"Sergey’s the Google playboy. He was known for getting his fingers caught in the cookie jar with employees that worked for the company in the masseuse room. He got around."

"If what you’re doing is not seen by some people as science fiction, it’s probably not transformative enough."

"Having come from a totalitarian country, the Soviet Union, and having seen the hardships that my family endured–both while there and trying to leave—I certainly am particularly sensitive to the stifling of individual liberties."

"... whenever I have met with our elected officials they are invariably thoughtful, well-meaning people. And yet collectively 90% of their effort seems to be focused on how to stick it to the other party."

"Technology is an inherent democratizer. Because of the evolution of hardware and software, you’re able to scale up almost anything. It means that in our lifetime everyone may have tools of equal power."

"We came up with the notion that not all web pages are created equal. People are – but not web pages."

"When it’s too easy to get money, then you get a lot of noise mixed in with the real innovation and entrepreneurship. Tough times bring out the best parts of Silicon Valley."

"re gmail, great user experience has helped other email systems (others have increased storage etc). there are areas that have been overlooked in industry, much as search was overlooked in the 90's. thinks they have technology, distribution infrastructure to address those things."

"To this day, the Turkish government refuses to acknowledge the Armenian genocide. This is strange, since the historical evidence of what happened is plentiful. Western observers like the US ambassador in Constantinople, Henry Morgenthau, wrote detailed reports about what was being done - including the telling statement of Mehmed Talaat Pasha, the Interior Minister, that all the Armenians had to perish because 'those who were innocent today might be guilty tomorrow'. Western missionaries too wrote harrowing accounts of what they witnessed. Their testimony formed an important part of the wartime report on 'The Treatment of the Armenians' compiled by Viscount Bryce, who had also investigated the German atrocities in Belgium in 1914."

"When the Turks and the Bulgarians left, Macedonia remained a purely Greek region."

"….The Greek War of Independence, which came to a successful conclusion in 1832, affected less than one half of the Greeks in the Turkish Empire. It did not bring freedom to the Greeks of Macedonia and Thrace, of Crete and the Aegean Islands, nor to the more than two million Greeks in Asia Minor and Constantinople."

"The imagination of these conquered peoples was dazzled by the introduction of Greek art, literature, philosophy, and public works. Though the successors of Alexander were unable to maintain the political control of the lands he conquered, and though successive waves of Roman, Arabian, and Tartar conquests swept over these lands in succeeding centuries, none of the later conquerors has been able wholly to eradicate the influence of Greek culture, nor to exterminate that element of population which was of Greek blood."

"Soon after Athens had reached the height of its glory under Pericles in the Fifth Century, B. C., and had started on its decline, the rise of Macedon under Philip carried Greek influence into new regions. The glory of Athens had been based upon sea power, but the conquests of Macedon were the work of land armies— Philip invented the invincible phalanx. Upon Philip's death his son, Alexander the Great, set forth to conquer the whole of the then known world, and as that world in his day lay to the east, his marches were in that direction. In a few years he had overrun the fertile plains and opulent cities of Asia Minor, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Persia, and had carried his conquests to the gates of Delhi. In all the cities in the intervening countries he left large garrisons of Greek soldiers. In many of these countries he founded flourishing new cities. In every place his soldiers were followed by large colonies of Greek civilians. The result was that the whole of western Asia, and of what we call the Near East, including Asia Minor, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Babylonia, Mesopotamia, Persia, and northwestern India, was saturated with the Greek influence and with Greek colonies."

"Those who fell by the wayside. Scenes like this were common all over the Armenian provinces in the spring and summer months of 1915. Death in its several forms—massacre, starvation, exhaustion—destroyed the larger part of the refugees. The Turkish policy was that of extermination under the guise of deportation."

"Let's Declare Victory and Get Out!"

"Today the Republican Party attracts neither the farmer nor the industrial worker. Why not? To represent the people one must know them. Lincoln did. The Republican Party leadership does not. The greatest praise I can give Lincoln on this his anniversary is to say he would be ashamed of his party's leadership today."

"La razón no grita, la razón convence."