Richard Branson

If you’re bringing up kids, you just want to smother them with love and praise and enthusiasm. So I don’t think you can mollycoddle your kids too much really.

Life is a helluva lot more fun if you say yes rather than no.

Only a fool never changes his mind.

Acquiring the habit of note-taking is therefore a wonderfully complementary skill to that of listening.

So I’ve seen life as one long learning process. And if I see – you know, if I fly on somebody else’s airline and find the experience is not a pleasant one, which it wasn’t in – 21 years ago, then I’d think, well, you know, maybe I can create the kind of airline that I’d like to fly on.

The music industry is a strange combination of having real and intangible assets: pop bands are brand names in themselves, and at a given stage in their careers their name alone can practically gaurantee hit records.

I suspect that many corporations have begun to understand that they have an important role to play in the lives of their communities, and that allocating funds to support local groups helps them discharge that function and also burnish their image.

The art of effective listening is essential to clear communication, and clear communication is necessary to management success.

What’s the quickest way to become a millionaire? Borrow fivers off everyone you meet.

The consumer isn’t a moron. She is your wife.

There is no failure except failure to serve one’s purpose.

No unemployment insurance can be compared to an alliance between a man and a plot of land. With one foot in the land, human society is firmly balanced against most economic uncertainties. With a job to supply him with cash, and a plot of land to guarantee him support, the individual is doubly secure. Stocks may fail, but seedtime and harvest do not fail.

I have had the top people in the world into One Hyde Park, and they have seen everything and they say there is nothing quite like this.

A world where men ran half our homes and women ran half our institutions would be just a much better world.

Advertising is only evil when it advertises evil things.

Every business is a monarchy with, not a man, but an idea as king.

You don’t have to hold a position in order to be a leader.

I believe in trusting men, not only once but twice – in giving a failure another chance.

Only a fool never changes his mind.

Not everybody is some kind of media model.

I never made any public statements, at least I tried never to make any public statements. I know I don’t do it well, I become very nervous, I forget what it is that I mean to say, I can’t really convey my logic and my thought to the journalists, so I decided this is not my thing, I really shouldn’t be doing it.