Business Quips and Witticism |
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Published June 9, 2021
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Definition of Witticism (see Mark Twain)
A cleverly witty and often biting or ironic remark. Synonyms within the context of this page include: wise crack, one-liner, maxim, saying, proverb or adage.
A cleverly witty and often biting or ironic remark. Synonyms within the context of this page include: wise crack, one-liner, maxim, saying, proverb or adage.
Business Quips and Witticism
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"If you use fear to light a fire under an employee, expect the individual to eventually flame out."
Peter E. Greulich, July 17, 2019
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"The man who knows 'how,' will always have a job, but the man who knows 'why,' will always be his boss. … Men become really important after they graduate from 'how' to 'why.'
F. W. Nichol, IBM Vice-President
IBM Sales School,1935 |
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"Assign individual targets, but focus on team attainment."
Peter E. Greulich, October 20, 2019
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"Long-distance supervision shows a short-distance mind. ... Nothing makes me more impatient, more restless, more irritable, than to be controlled by something or someone I can’t see and don’t know."
George F. Johnson
George F. Johnson and His Industrial Democracy, 1935 |
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"In an army of blind men, a one-eyed man will be the leader."
Edward A. Filene
Successful Living in the Machine Age, 1931 |
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If Ida M. Tarbell were alive today, I wonder if this is a question the muckraker might ask of us: "Have we really had a fundamental change in our society if 'Good old boy networks' are replaced by nothing more than 'Good old girl networks?' Aren't we just replacing yes-men with yes-women?' "
Peter E. Greulich, Observations on the changes at IBM
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"If our children have ability we can thank God, but as to health and character we contribute something."
Gerard Swope, Swope of GE, 1930s
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"The past should never be a hitching post, but a lamp post to highlight past successes and failures and thereby increase the odds of future success by eliminating the repetition of the failures."
Peter E. Greulich, A thought while reading True Steel by Christy Borth, 2020
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"Gentlemen's agreements fail for want of gentlemen."
The Story of George M. Verity, True Steel
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"I find it hard to breathe in a data vacuum."
Claudia Goldin, Professor at Harvard University
Freakonomics Interview, 2016 "It isn't so much the 'data vacuums' that bother me, as much as 'vacuous thinking' that accepts so many 'data soundbites' without question."
Peter E. Greulich, 2021
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"A business organization made up of second-class men all working together will be more effective than one made up of stars who work only for themselves."
Harvey S. Firestone, The Book of Business, 1920
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A life insurance agent boasted to his competitor, "My company paid a widow the day after the funeral of her husband."
"That's nothing," replied the rival agent. He pointed to a nearby multi-story high-rise in New York City and said, "One of my patrons recently fell from the top of that building over there. I handed him a check for the full amount of his policy as he passed the second-story window." Adapted from The Equitable Record, Spring, 1902
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