Creativity dies in an indisciplined environment.

The best CEOs in our research display tremendous ambition for their company combined with the stoic will to do whatever it takes, no matter how brutal (within the bounds of the company's core values), to make the company great. Yet at the same time they display a remarkable humility about themselves, ascribing much of their own success to luck, discipline and preparation rather than personal genius.

Greatest danger is not failure, but be successful and not know why.

The signature of mediocrity is not an unwillingness to change. The signature of mediocrity is inconsistency.

Mediocrity results first and foremost from management failure, not technological failure.

The only way to deliver to the people who are achieving is to not burden them with the people who are not achieving.

In the end, it is impossible to have a great life unless it is a meaningful life. And it is very difficult to have a meaningful life without meaningful work. Perhaps, then you might gain that great tranquility that comes from knowing that you've had a hand in creating something of intrinsic excellence that makes a contribution. Indeed, you might even gain that deepest of all satisfactions: knowing that your short time on this earth has been well spent, and that it mattered.