Richard Branson

Nobody’s ever called me Sir Richard. Occasionally in America, I hear people saying Sir Richard and think there’s some Shakespearean play taking place. But nowhere else anyway.

Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming.

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

I wanted to be an editor or a journalist, I wasn’t really interested in being an entrepreneur, but I soon found I had to become an entrepreneur in order to keep my magazine going.

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.

I get my design inspiration from Christian Dior and Chanel.

I have very good executives and great children. They’re very good.

My mother was an entrepreneur… She found being on relief humiliating. She built this business from scratch… In 1951 my mother opened this store…

Sales are contingent upon the attitude of the salesman, not the attitude of the prospect.

Building a mission and building a business go hand in hand. The primary thing that excites me is the mission. But we have always had a healthy understanding that we need to do both.

Our modern industrialism, changed to motives of public service, will provide means to remove every injustice that gives soil for prejudice.

Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming.

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

Money will ruin the life of any man who treats it like anything but a tool with which to work.

Only one thing makes prosperity, and that is work.

A low wage business is always insecure.

It took only 10 minutes to do Chelsea deal with Roman Abramovich but I had to Google him first … I wasn’t sure if Jeremy Beadle was going to jump out.

Ninety-nine percent of advertising doesn’t sell much of anything.

One client didn’t want to go out so had us build him a nightclub in his house.

No company can afford not to move forward. It may be at the top of the heap today but at the bottom of the heap tomorrow, if it doesn’t.