Treat failure as a lesson on how not to approach achieving a goal, and then use that learning to improve your chances of success when you try again. Failure is only the end if you decide to stop.
Richard BransonRead
I truly believe that capitalism was created to help people live better lives, but sadly over the years it has lost its way a bit. The short-term focus on profit has driven most businesses to forget about the important long-term role they have in taking care of people and the planet.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Capitalism aims to improve lives, but has often prioritized short-term profits over long-term welfare.
Richard Branson reflects on the original intent of capitalism, which was to enhance the quality of life for individuals. However, he laments that over time, many businesses have become too focused on immediate financial gains, neglecting their responsibilities towards society and the environment, thereby straying from capitalism's foundational goals.
Themes
CapitalismProfitSocietyResponsibilitySustainability
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech addressing young entrepreneurs, one might use this quote to highlight the importance of ethical business practices.
More from Richard Branson
All quotes →It's a common misconception that money is every entrepreneur's metric for success. It's not, and nor should it be.
Richard BransonRead
Some 80% of your life is spent working. You want to have fun at home; why shouldn't you have fun at work?
Richard BransonRead
Values cannot be speedily forgotten if it is inconvenient or commercially expedient. Values have to have meaning and longevity; otherwise they are valueless. You cannot embrace innovation up to a point or only sometimes. Branding demands commitment; commitment to continual re-invention; striking cords with people to stir their emotions; and commitment to imagination. It is easy to be cynical about such things, much harder to be successful.
Richard BransonRead
Please don’t get hung up on this question of whether you need to have experience in an industry before you launch your startup.
Richard BransonRead
What's the most critical factor in any business decision you'll ever have to make? Basically, it boils down to this question: If this all crashes, will it bring the whole house tumbling down like a pack of cards? One business matra remains embedded in my brain - protect the downside.
Richard BransonRead
Similar quotes
What an extraordinary episode in the economic progress of man that age was which came to an end in August, 1914!
John Maynard KeynesRead
If farming were to be organised like the stock market, a farmer would sell his farm in the morning when it was raining, only to buy it back in the afternoon when the sun came out.
John Maynard KeynesRead
In our high-tech, high-skilled economy where low-skilled work is being scaled back, phased out, exported, or severely under-compensated, all the right behavior in the world won't create better jobs with more pay.
Michael Eric DysonRead
I'm of those who believe that excesses in all matters are not a good idea, whether it's formation of bubbles, whether it's excess in the financial market, whether it's excess of inequality, it has to be watched, it has to be measured, and it has to be anticipated in terms of consequences.
Christine LagardeRead
I believe myself to be writing a book on economic theory which will largely revolutionize - not, I suppose, at once but in the course of the next ten years - the way the world thinks about economic problems.
John Maynard KeynesRead
No matter what anyone may say about making the rich and the corporations pay the taxes, in the end they come out of the people who toil. It is your fellow workers who are ordered to work for the Government, every time an appropriation bill is passed. The people pay the expense of government, often many times over, in the increased cost of living. I want taxes to be less, that the people may have more.
Calvin CoolidgeRead