214 Quotes by James C. Collins

It is more important to know who you are than where you are going, for where you are going will change as the world around you changes.

Change your practices without abandoning your core values.

In an ironic twist, I now see Good to Great not as a sequel to Built to Last, but more of a prequel. Good to Great is about how to turn a good organization into one that produces sustained great results. Built to Last is about how you take a company with great results and turn it into an enduring great company of iconic stature.

Good is the enemy of great. That's why so few things become great.

If I'm going really, really fast, I can do a page of finished text a day, on average.

Those who build great companies understand that the ultimate throttle on growth for any great company is not markets, or technology, or competition, or products. It is one thing above all others: the ability to get and keep enough of the right people.

People are not your most important asset....the right people are.

For no matter what we achieve, if we don't spend the vast majority of our time with people we love and respect, we cannot possibly have a great life. But if we spend the vast majority of our time with people we love and respect - people we really enjoy being on the bus with and who will never disappoint us - then we will almost certainly have a great life, no matter where the bus goes. The people we interviewed from the good-to-great companies clearly loved what they did, largely because they loved who they did it with.

Bad decisions made with good intentions, are still bad decisions.