Top 200 Strategy Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Business has only two basic functions – marketing and innovation.”

— Peter F. Drucker

52. “The wise ones bet heavily when the world offers them that opportunity. They bet big when they have the odds. And the rest of the time, they don’t. It’s just that simple.”

— Charlie Munger

53. “Don’t take action with a trade until the market, itself, confirms your opinion. Being a little late in a trade is insurance that your opinion is correct. In other words, don’t be an impatient trader.”

— Jesse Lauriston Livermore

54. “Perception is strong and sight weak. In strategy it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things.”

— Miyamoto Musashi

55. “Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions – Why am I doing it, What the results might be and Will I be successful. Only when you think deeply and find satisfactory answers to these questions, go ahead.”

— Chanakya

56. “Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people.”

— Henry Kissinger

57. “We miss 100 percent of the sales we don’t ask for.”

— Zig Ziglar

58. “If you could get all the people in an organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.”

— Patrick Lencioni

59. “Once a decision is made, you should stop worrying and start working. It’s not always what we know that makes it a good decision. It is what we do to implement and execute it that makes it a good decision.”

— John C. Maxwell

60. “When you are hunting elephants, don’t get distracted chasing rabbits.”

— T. Boone Pickens

61. “With a wonderful business, you can figure out what will happen; you can’t figure out when it will happen. You don’t want to focus on when, you want to focus on what. If you’re right about what, you don’t have to worry about when.”

— Warren Buffett

62. “We’re not competitor obsessed, we’re customer obsessed. We start with the customer and we work backwards.”

— Jeff Bezos

63. “Always think, ‘what’s the worst that can happen’ and have some kind of strategy to deal with it.”

— Richard Branson

64. “Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.”

— Andy Grove

65. “The task of leadership is to create an alignment of strengths so strong that it makes the system’s weaknesses irrelevant.”

— Peter F. Drucker

66. “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.”

— Mario Puzo

67. “What you have to learn is to fold early when the odds are against you, or if you have a big edge, back it heavily because you don’t get a big edge often. Opportunity comes, but it doesn’t come often, so seize it when it does come.”

— Charlie Munger

68. “So there are five ways of knowing who will win. Those who know when to fight and when not to fight are victorious. Those who discern when to use many or few troops are victorious. Those whose upper and lower ranks have the same desire are victorious.”

— Sun Tzu

69. “Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire and begin at once, whether you are ready or not, to put this plan into action.”

— Napoleon Hill

70. “Most people don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan.”

— John J. Beckley

71. “The elements of good trading are: 1, cutting losses. 2, cutting losses. And 3, cutting losses. If you can follow these three rules, you may have a chance.”

— Ed Seykota

72. “Focus on one thing, make it your priority, and stick with it no matter what!”

— Tyler Perry

73. “Never take your eyes off the cash flow because it’s the life blood of business.”

— Richard Branson

74. “He who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not, will be victorious.”

— Sun Tzu

75. “In all fighting, the direct method may be used for joining battle, but indirect methods will be needed in order to secure victory.”

— Sun Tzu

76. “Your margin is my opportunity.”

— Jeff Bezos

77. “Unless structure follows strategy, inefficiency results.”

— Alfred D. Chandler, Jr.

78. “Goal-setting is powerful because it provides focus. It shapes our dreams. It gives us the ability to hone in on the exact actions we need to perform to achieve everything we desire in life.”

— Jim Rohn

79. “I’m not emotional about investments. Investing is something where you have to be purely rational and not let emotion affect your decision making – just the facts.”

— Bill Ackman

80. “The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.”

— Sun Tzu

81. “If I am able to determine the enemy’s dispositions while at the same time I conceal my own, then I can concentrate and he must divide.”

— Sun Tzu

82. “To Subdue an enemy without fighting is the greatest of skills.”

— Sun Tzu

83. “You can’t get different results by doing things the same way.”

— Richard Moran

84. “Whatever it takes to win.”

— Pat Riley

85. “Don’t start the day until you have it finished. Don’t start the week until you have it finished. Don’t start the month until you have it finished. Plan your day.”

— Jim Rohn

86. “If we can keep our competitors focused on us while we stay focused on the customer, ultimately we’ll turn out all right.”

— Jeff Bezos

87. “Plan for what is difficult when it is easy, do what is great when it is small.”

— Sun Tzu

88. “All warfare is based on deception. There is no place where espionage is not used. Offer the enemy bait to lure him.”

— Sun Tzu

89. “Against those skilled in attack, an enemy does not know where to defend; against the experts in defense, the enemy does not know where to attack.”

— Sun Tzu

90. “Only the paranoid survive.”

— Andy Grove

91. “Observe calmly; secure our position; cope with affairs calmly; hide our capacities and bide our time; be good at maintaining a low profile; and never claim leadership.”

— Deng Xiaoping

92. “A plan without action is not a plan. It’s a speech.”

— T. Boone Pickens

93. “Never try to sell at the top. It isn’t wise. Sell after a reaction if there is no rally.”

— Jesse Lauriston Livermore

94. “What is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy’s strategy.”

— Sun Tzu

95. “Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”

— Sun Tzu

96. “You adapt, evolve, compete or die.”

— Paul Tudor Jones

97. “Long range planning does not deal with future decisions, but with the future of present decisions.”

— Peter F. Drucker

98. “Win through your actions, never through argument.”

— Robert Greene

99. “Reduce your plan to writing. The moment you complete this, you will have definitely given concrete form to the intangible desire.”

— Napoleon Hill

100. “Humble words and increased preparations are signs that the enemy is about to advance. Violent language and driving forward as if to the attack are signs that he will retreat.”

— Sun Tzu