Richard Branson

I really believe that being in the moment is the key to happiness and success, and being constantly glued to your phone can have a big impact on your relationship.

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.

I believe in benevolent dictatorship provided I am the dictator.

Only a fool never changes his mind.

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

It’s all too easy to miss out on the important moments in life because you’re too busy staring at your phone.

Some people have so much respect for their superiors they have none left for themselves.

If you ever have the good fortune to create a great advertising campaign, you will soon see another agency steal it. This is irritating, but don’t let it worry you; nobody has ever built a brand by imitating somebody else’s advertising.

The way out of the depression is to start spending and doing things.

Nations are great as they are prosperous as they are industrious as they are just.

It was impossible to operate in the aluminium business without krysha – very real physical protection.

Reduce the layers of management. They put distance between the top of an organization and the customers.

We started learning ourselves, understanding ourselves, reading, researching, going around the world and looking at what was defined as the very best.

Investors have very short memories.

The great need of the world has always been for leaders. With more leaders we could have more industry. More industry, more employment and comfort for all.

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

I always kind of see how I want things to be better, and I’m generally not happy with how things are or the level of service that we’re providing for people or the quality of the teams that we built. But if you look at this objectively, we’re doing so well on so many of these things. I think it’s important to have gratitude for that.

What you say in advertising is more important than how you say it.

On Beverly Hills we paid too much. One hundred per cent, we did over-pay. We didn’t do our research properly.

Exchange ideas frequently.

For a long time now, I have believed that industry and agriculture are natural partners and that they should begin to recognize and practice their partnership. Each of them is suffering from ailments which the other can cure. Agriculture needs a wider andsteadier market; industrial workers need more steadier jobs. Can each be made to supply what the other needs? I think so. The link between is Chemistry. In the vicinity of Dearborn we are farming twenty thousand acres for everything from sunflowers to soy beans. We pass the crops through our laboratory to learn how they may be used in the manufacture of motor cars and, thus provide an industrial market for the farmers’ products.