I’ve had great fun turning quite a lot of different industries on their head and making sure those industries will never be the same again, because Virgin went in and took them on.
– Richard Branson
Complexity is your enemy. Any fool can make something complicated. It is hard to keep things simple.
– Richard Branson
A business is simply an idea to make other people’s lives better.
– Richard Branson
My general attitude to life is to enjoy every minute of every day. I never do anything with a feeling of, “Oh God, I’ve got to do this today.”
– Richard Branson
I don’t think of work as work and play as play. It’s all living.
– Richard Branson
You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.
– Richard Branson
Having a personality of caring about people is important. You can’t be a good leader unless you generally like people. That is how you bring out the best in them.
– Richard Branson
A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts.
– Richard Branson
The time to go into a new business is when it’s badly run by others.
– Richard Branson
What does the name Virgin mean? We are a company that likes to take on the giants. In too many businesses, these giants have had things their own way. We are going to have fun competing with them.
– Richard Branson
The brave may not live forever – but the cautious do not live at all.
– Richard Branson
Because I don’t see Virgin as a company but as a way of life and I fully enjoy it, I don’t think I’ll ever retire.
– Richard Branson
Ridiculous yachts and private planes and big limousines won’t make people enjoy life more, and it sends out terrible messages to the people who work for them. It would be so much better if that money was spent in Africa and it’s about getting a balance.
– Richard Branson
You only live once, and I just don’t want to waste a minute of my life.
– Richard Branson
Records are made to be broken. It is in man’s nature to continue to strive to do just that.
– Richard Branson
It is only by being bold that you get anywhere. If you are a risk-taker, then the art is to protect the downside.
– Richard Branson
I tend to make up my mind about people within thirty seconds of meeting them, I also make up my mind about whether a business proposal excites me within about thirty seconds of looking at it.
– Richard Branson
The more responsibility you give people the better they will perform.
– Richard Branson
My mother was determined to make us independent. When I was four years old, she stopped the car a few miles from our house and made me find my own way home across the fields. I got hopelessly lost.
– Richard Branson
Screw it, let’s just do it.
– Richard Branson
Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming.
– Richard Branson
I am prepared to try anything once.
– Richard Branson
To be successful, you have to be out there, you have to hit the ground running, and if you have a good team around you and more than a fair share of luck, you might make something happen. But you certainly can’t guarantee it just by following someone else’s formula.
– Richard Branson
A business can be started with very little money.
– Richard Branson
You shouldn’t blindly accept a leader’s advice. You’ve got to question leaders on occasion.
– Richard Branson
If you want to be a millionaire, start with a billion dollars and launch a new airline.
– Richard Branson
Entrepreneurship is about turning what excites you in life into capital, so that you can do more of it and move forward with it.
– Richard Branson
I rely far more on gut instinct than researching huge amounts of statistics.
– Richard Branson
There is no greater thing you can do with your life and your work than follow your passions – in a way that serves the world and you.
– Richard Branson
My biggest motivation? Just to keep challenging myself. I see life almost like one long university education that I never had – every day I’m learning something new.
– Richard Branson
Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to.
– Richard Branson
I became an entrepreneur by mistake. Ever since then I’ve gone into business, not to make money, but because I think I can do it better than it’s been done elsewhere. And, quite often, just out of personal frustration about the way it’s been done by other people.
– Richard Branson
Some 80% of your life is spent working. You want to have fun at home; why shouldn’t you have fun at work?
– Richard Branson
The funny thing is people won’t let me pay for things. I’ll be in a restaurant and the manager will say, “Oh no, it’s on the house.”
– Richard Branson
I believe that drudgery and clock-watching are a terrible betrayal of that universal, inborn entrepreneurial spirit.
– Richard Branson
Right now I’m just delighted to be alive and to have had a nice long bath. – Richard Branson
I think because I have great difficulty saying the word “no,” almost every day’s a different adventure.
– Richard Branson
Although my spelling is still sometimes poor, I have managed to overcome the worst of my difficulties through training myself to concentrate.
– Richard Branson
Most “necessary evils” are far more necessary than evil.
– Richard Branson
There’s an inherent danger in letting people think that they have perfected something. When they believe they’ve “nailed it,” most people tend to sit back and rest on their laurels while countless others will be laboring furiously to better their work.
– Richard Branson
I think it’s quite great to set yourself a big challenge, and then you’ve got another reason for
keeping fit.
– Richard Branson
Throwing yourself into a job you enjoy in one of life’s greatest pleasures.
– Richard Branson
A company is people. Employees want to know: Am I being listened to or am I a cog in the
wheel? People really need to feel wanted.
– Richard Branson
First and foremost, any business proposal I like must sound fun.
– Richard Branson
If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later.
– Richard Branson
Life is a helluva lot more fun if you say yes rather than no.
– Richard Branson
As much as you need a strong personality to build a business from scratch, you also must understand the art of delegation. I have to be good at helping people run the individual businesses, and I have to be willing to step back. The company must be set up so it can continue without me.
– Richard Branson
Only a fool never changes his mind.
– Richard Branson
Unless you dream, you’re not going to achieve anything.
– Richard Branson
Above all, you want to create something you’re proud of. This has always been my philosophy of business. I can honestly say that I have never gone into any business purely to make money. If that is the sole motive, then I believe you are better off not doing it.
– Richard Branson
Don’t think what’s the cheapest way to do it or the fastest way to do it. Think what’s the most amazing way to do it!
– Richard Branson
We’re going where no one has gone before. There’s no model to follow, nothing to copy. That is what makes this so exciting.
– Richard Branson
You can never go too far wrong by thinking like a customer who’s new to the business.
– Richard Branson
To me, business isn’t about wearing suits or pleasing stockholders. It’s about being true to yourself, your ideas and focusing on the essentials.
– Richard Branson
My philosophy is that if I have any money I invest it in new ventures and not have it sitting around.
– Richard Branson
One thing is certain in business – you and everyone around you will make mistakes.
– Richard Branson
We look for opportunities where we can offer something better, fresher, and more valuable, and we seize them. We often move into areas where the customer has traditionally received a poor deal, and where the competition is complacent.
– Richard Branson
My interest in life comes from setting myself huge, apparently unachievable challenges and trying to rise above them.
– Richard Branson
Find somebody else to run your business on a day-to-day basis.
– Richard Branson
I was born under a lucky star, and I have nothing whatsoever to regret. I wouldn’t change a thing about my life.
– Richard Branson
Making money never was my incentive. I just want to fight big companies.
– Richard Branson
The companies that look after their people are the companies that do really well. I’m sure we’d like a few other attributes, but that would be the most important one.
– Richard Branson
I believe in benevolent dictatorship provided I am the dictator.
– Richard Branson
Respect is how to treat everyone, not just those you want to impress.
– Richard Branson
We believe that within five years, 96 per cent of British consumers will have access to the internet, whether it be through a personal computer, a set-top box or a mobile phone.
– Richard Branson
We’d love to be involved with the creation of something very special, something quite large and something quite exciting.
– Richard Branson
You can create a business, choose a name, but unless people know about it you’re not going to sell any products.
– Richard Branson
Good brands reflect the histories of the time and the group of people that made them. They can not be copied. They can not be recycled.
– Richard Branson
My parents always encouraged us to have our own opinions and rarely gave us advice unless we asked for it.
– Richard Branson
Fantasising about the future is one of my favourite pastimes.
– Richard Branson
There was a great sense of teamwork within our family. Whenever we were within Mum’s orbit we had to be busy. If we tried to escape by saying that we had something else to do, we were firmly told we were selfish.
– Richard Branson
I cannot remember a moment in my life when I have not felt the love of my family. We were a family that would have killed for each other – and we still are.
– Richard Branson
As usual when people warn me against doing something once my mind is made up, I grow increasingly determined to try it.
– Richard Branson
Once you have a great product it is essential to protect its reputation with vigilance. It’s not just a question of getting it into the marketplace.
– Richard Branson
Many people ask me what the limits to Virgin are, and whether we haven’t stretched the brand name beyond its natural tolerance. With monotonous regularity, they point out that there is no other company in the world that puts its name to such a wide variety of companies and products. They are absolutely right, and it’s something of which I am
proud.
– Richard Branson
Well, I think that there’s a very thin dividing line between success and failure. And I think if you start a business without financial backing, you’re likely to go the wrong side of that dividing line.
– Richard Branson