Richard Branson

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

A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts.

Listen more than you talk. Nobody learned anything by hearing themselves speak.

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.

Only a fool never changes his mind.

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

Our aim is to compete with any luxury brand. Candy & Candy will be a luxury brand, recognised in Rodeo Drive, New York, Dubai, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo and London. Those are the major centres in the world. It will be synonymous with the design of homes, houses, flats, yachts, aircraft and retail.

Entrepreneurs are always taking feedback, especially from their customers, bankers, workers, and sales force. Without straightforward feedback, entrepreneurs cannot make sound decisions.

I don’t hire a lot of number-crunchers, and I don’t trust fancy marketing surveys. I do my own surveys and draw my own conclusions.

The highest use of capital is not to make more money, but to make money do more for the betterment of life.

There are good examples of companies – Coca-Cola is one – that invested before there was a huge market in countries, and I think that ended up playing out to their benefit for decades to come.

It’s not just about being better. It’s about being different. You need to give people a reason to choose your business.

A nation that knows how to work will never suffer.

Although Mr. Edison was called ‘The Wizard’ of the electrical world and everyone thought that electricity was the coming thing, he actually encouraged me to go with my second car.

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

I cannot remember a time when the Golden Rule was not my motto and precept, the torch that guided my footsteps.

My style of deal-making is quite simple and straightforward. I aim very high, and then I just keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get what I’m after.

Some manufacturers illustrate their advertisements with abstract paintings. I would only do this if I wished to conceal from the reader what I was advertising.

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

Building a brand may be more important than building a business.

There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: make the best quality goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.