Bill Gates Quotes

Patience is a key element of success


Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.


It’s fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.


People always fear change. People feared electricity when it was invented, didn’t they?


If you can’t make it good, at least make it look good.


I have been struck again and again by how important measurement is to improving the human condition.


If I’d had some set idea of a finish line, don’t you think I would have crossed it years ago?


We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Don’t let yourself be lulled into inaction.


To win big, you sometimes have to take big risks.


We’ve got to put a lot of money into changing behavior.


Of my mental cycles, I devote maybe 10% to business thinking. Business isn’t that complicated. I wouldn’t want that on my business card.


I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.



Television is not real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.


Life is not fair – get used to it!


If geek means you’re willing to study things, and if you think science and engineering matter, I plead guilty. If your culture doesn’t like geeks, you are in real trouble.


Don’t compare yourself with anyone in this world. If you do so, you are insulting yourself.


As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.


‘I don’t know’ has become ‘I don’t know yet’


I really had a lot of dreams when I was a kid, and I think a great deal of that grew out of the fact that I had a chance to read a lot


Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning


Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping – they called it opportunity.


Our success has really been based on partnerships from the very beginning.


This is a fantastic time to be entering the business world, because business is going to change more in the next 10 years than it has in the last 50


The world won’t care about your selfesteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself


If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.


Expectations are a form of firstclass truth: If people believe it, it’s true.


We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve