Richard Branson

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

While I love technology and social media, a text or a tweet can never replace the real value of conversation.

We, we – as I say, we go in and shake up other industries and I think, you know, we do it differently and I think that industries are not quite the same as a result of Virgin attacking the market.

My philosophy is that if I have any money I invest it in new ventures and not have it sitting around.

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.

You don’t learn to walk by following rules, you learn by doing and by falling over.

The other people I don’t take too seriously are the critics-except when they stand in the way of my projects. In my opinion, they mostly write to impress each other, and they’re just as swayed by fashions as anyone else. One week it’s spare glass towers they are praising to the skies. The next week, they’ve rediscovered old, and they’re celebrating detail and ornamentation.

Anything that is not right, whether it temporarily favors the employees or the employers, cannot last-because it is not right.

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.

[On Laura Nyro] I said to Laura ‘You know Laura, I think we should sell your music publishing company. I think right now is the right time you have three songs in the top ten this may never happen again and I think we can get a lot of money for it.’ And I made a deal with Clive Davis to sell Tuna Fish Music for $4 million. And that was a hell of a lot of money in 1969. It made her famous, it made her rich. It got people to listen to her music with her singing.

Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.

What is virtue but the Trade Unionism of the married?

We get real results only in proportion to the real values we give.

The thought in my mind was that I must be a good merchant. If I were a good merchant, the rest would probably take care of itself.

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.

An imitation may be quite successful in its own way, but imitation can never be Success. Success is a first-hand creation.

No king on earth is as safe in his job as a Trade Union official. There is only one thing that can get him sacked; and that is drink. Not even that, as long as he doesn’t actually fall down.

I was never involved in arms trading. In the Russian Federation, arms trading is the prerogative of the state.

If it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative.

Every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution to the complex symbol which is the brand image.

We’ve created a recognisable brand that has the ability to be the Louis Vuitton of our era.