Michael Bloomberg famous quotes

The people who are worried about privacy have a legitimate worry. But we live in a complex world where you're going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Thinking #Law #Worry

Nobody wants a job where they don't have authority to go along with the responsibility. Quite the contrary. The more authority you give people, the better people you can attract, and the harder they're going to work, and the more loyal they are going to be.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Jobs #Responsibility #Giving

No place epitomizes the American experience and the American spirit more than New York City.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#New York #Cities #Spirit

In science, a path that turns out to be a dead end is very useful because you don't devote resources to focusing on that; you go elsewheres.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Path #Resources #Dead Ends

The next day after I got fired, literally the next day, I started a new company.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Next #Company #New Company

If you can't prove it's not true then a certain number of people will glom on and say it is true.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Numbers #People #Certain

And because no matter who you are, if you believe in yourself and your dream, New York will always be the place for you.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Dream #New York #Believe

We have an energy policy - we're transferring our wealth to overseas to a bunch of countries that don't have the same values as us. In some cases, they're using our money to finance terrorism against us.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Country #Energy #Wealth

Life is too short to spend your time avoiding failure,
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Life Is Too Short #Life Is #Too Short

What the Democrats have to understand is that while we do need to reform our regulation and we do need more restrictions, it is true that it is capitalism and free enterprise and companies that create jobs and wealth for every American.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Jobs #Needs #Regulation

Being an entrepreneur isn't really about starting a business. It's a way of looking at the world: seeing opportunity where others see obstacles, taking risks when others take refuge.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Opportunity #Entrepreneur #Risk

Look at all of the great strengths of America: entrepreneurialship, work ethic, natural resources, a democracy, a transparency, a willingness to be critical. Around the world, they look at us, and they say, "Why are you criticizing yourself? Why are you people arguing during the political process to elect a president or somebody else?" That's the great strength of this country.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Country #America #People

I am heading straight in. I have earned my place in heaven. It’s not even close.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Heaven #Headings

We have an expression in New York City government - "In God we trust, but for everyone else, bring data." It's so easy to pick up a sound byte and say, "Oh, yeah, yeah, I believe that," without really thinking.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#New York #Believe #Thinking

Don't be afraid to assert yourself, have confidence in your abilities and don't let the bastards get you down.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Business #Ability #Have Confidence

We need people from all around the world. We need entrepreneurs, we need students that we're educating in our schools that we then throw out and we should make sure they can stay here. If we don't have the new flux of immigrants, nobody's going to create the jobs for the Americans who are currently out of work.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Jobs #School #People

You bet I did and I enjoyed it.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Marijuana

America was built by immigrants. Almost nobody that I know is any more than three generations, maybe four generations, American.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#America #Four #Three

I've always respected those who tried to change the world for the better, rather than just complain about it.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Charity #Complaining #World

I have two daughters that are the loves of my life and I want to leave them a better world, a better country, a better state and a better city.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Country #Daughter #Cities

We will go forward... we will never go back.
-- Michael Bloomberg

In business, when you fail at something, when something doesn't work, you say okay, we've learned that that's not a path to go down.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Path #Failing #Okay

Every one of my positions cuts - out half the country. I'm pro-choice, I'm pro-gay rights, I'm pro-immigration, I'm against guns, I believe in Darwin.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Country #Believe #Cutting

I am what I am and, you know, I'm a very lucky guy.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Success #Business #Good Luck

The truth of the matter is: you can create a great legacy, and inspire others, by giving it to philanthropic organizations.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Organization #Giving #Inspire

I do think there are certain times we should infringe on your freedom.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Freedom #Thinking #Certain

What we shouldn't do is let people who want to come here make the decision themselves. America should be in control of its own borders.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#America #People #Decision

After hard work, the biggest determinant is being in the right place at the right time.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Hard Work #Right Time

We're America, and we have to stop worrying about what happens overseas, and to be optimistic, even though nobody should think we're not going to have some difficult times.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Optimistic #Thinking #America

You must first be willing to fail — and you must have the courage to go for it anyway.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Firsts #Failing #Willing

The estate taxes, on balance, are good. They get people to give money to charity, and they prevent these family dynasties which keep other people from having opportunities. It may be good for a family, but for society it's probably not good. And I've always been in favor of having an estate tax.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Opportunity #Giving #People

America is built around this premise that you can do it, and there are an awful lot of people who are unlikely to have done it who did.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#America #People #Done

When it comes to public school education, we have been unwilling to measure our results. We've been unwilling to pay based on performance. We have tenure where, even if you can't teach, you can't get fired. We've been unwilling to invest in new schools.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#School #Pay #Results

Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question: Should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion?
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Thinking #Government #House

The problem of dealing with the financial industry is that you can measure it with interest rates coming down. You can measure it with the quantity of loans, and that sort of thing. The problem is, that nobody wants to take the loans. Once the banks are willing to give it, that's only half the problem.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Giving #Half #Want

When I came into office, people said, 'Billionaire? How do they live? What do they eat? How do they sleep?' Today, they see me on the subway coming uptown. A couple of people say hi, some people smile and nod. Some people just sleep. It's not an issue.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Smile #Couple #Sleep

Nobody should ever mistake and think that our country [USA] is weakened, or that authority is diffuse and unspecified, and that we are vulnerable.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Country #Mistake #Thinking

This is the city of dreamers and time and again it's the place where the greatest dream of all, the American dream, has been tested and has triumphed.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Dream #Native American #Cities

We need our president to be successful because our futures are all tied to the success of America, which means America's government, which means, in essence, the president.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Mean #Successful #Essence

My father, a bookkeeper who never earned more than $11,000 a year in his life, sat there, writing out a $25 check to the NAACP. When I asked him why, he said discrimination against anyone is discrimination against us all. And I never forgot that. Indeed, his philanthropy was a gift, not just to that organization, but to me.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Father #Writing #Years

If you want to know how to solve society's problems, you start out with better public education.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Want #Problem #Public Education

Ten years have passed since a perfect blue sky morning turned into the blackest of nights. Since then we've lived in sunshine and in shadow, and although we can never unsee what happened here, we can also see that children who lost their parents have grown into young adults, grandchildren have been born and good works and public service have taken root to honor those we loved and lost.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Morning #Children #Taken

If you are honest with yourself and if you want to like what you see in the mirror, is you have to say what you really believe.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Believe #Mirrors #Want

What has changed is that people have stopped working together.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#People #Together #Working Together

The public wants elected officials who have character. The public wants elected officials who are willing to stand up and say things, even if they don't agree with them.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Character #Want #Agree

The mistake that was made in the '70s is we stopped policing the streets, we stopped cleaning the streets, we stopped cleaning the graffiti off buildings, we stopped supporting our cultural institutions and building parks and schools and all those kinds of things.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Mistake #School #Parks

If you have one farm worker, typically they create three jobs with higher compensation and higher skills - the people that pack, the people that ship, the people that inspect, the people that sell, that sort of thing.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Jobs #Skills #People

I do not think that anybody should get paid for lousy performance. I've said that for a long time. If you work hard and you do good, you get paid well.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Hard Work #Thinking #Long

When I care about something, I care about something. I think I have an obligation as an American to - and as a citizen, as - as a human being, to help others. Smoking is going to kill a billion people this century. I've put six hundred million dollars from my own money into trying to stop the tobacco companies from getting kids to smoke and convincing adults that it's not in their health.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Kids #Helping Others #Thinking

Getting the job done has been the basis for the success my company has achieved.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Jobs #Inspiration #Done

Five years have come, and five years have gone, and still we stand together as one. We come back to this place to remember the heartbreaking anniversary - and each person who died here - those known and unknown to us, whose absence is always with us.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Heart #Years #September 11

Throughout our history each and every generation has expanded upon the freedoms won by their parents and grandparents. Each and every generation has removed some of the barriers to full participation in the American dream. And the next great barrier standing before our generation is the prohibition on marriage for same-sex couples
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Dream #Sex #Couple

The fact is, the most painful and tragic lesson of the 20th century was that regimes based on racial superiority and religious hatred can't be trusted to keep their word to the international community.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Religious #Racism #Community

You can't sit there and worry about everything.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Worry

What goes on in Europe concerns us greatly because, if Europe comes apart, the E.U. comes apart, then you're going to have enormous impact on America, that's a very big trading partner of ours, and people own securities around the world in this day and age.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Birthday #Europe #America

Buy what's deliverable, not what could be.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Expectations

I like the theater, dining and chasing women. Let me put it this way: I am a single, straight billionaire in Manhattan. It's like a wet dream.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Dream #Power #Manhattan

Look, we live in a very dangerous world. We know there are people who want to take away our freedoms. New Yorkers probably know that as much if not more than anybody else after the terrible tragedy of 9/11.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#People #Tragedy #Looks

I don't know why you should be proud of something. It doesn't make you any better or worse. You are what you are.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Proud #Should #Be Proud

Like Israel, New York City's history has been defined by immigrants who come in search of freedom and the opportunity to build a better life. And like Israel, New York City has remained a target for terrorists who seek to destroy that freedom
-- Michael Bloomberg

#New York #Opportunity #Cities

In the game of life, when the final buzzer sounds, the only stat you carry with you is the number of assists you made.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Graduation #Games #Numbers

Government caters to those screaming the loudest, regardless of what they're screaming about. In business, it's exactly the opposite! You invest more in the most successful departments, and less in those that aren't performing.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Business #Successful #Opposites

You know, if you look back in the 1930s, the money went to infrastructure. The bridges, the municipal buildings, the roads, those were all built with stimulus money spent on infrastructure. This stimulus bill has fundamentally gone, started out with a $500 rebate check, remember. That went to buy flat-screen TVs made in China.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Bridges #Looks #Gone

Yes, they broke the law, but we can't deport them. Let's get over this pointing fingers and do something about that, whether it - they have to pay a fine, learn to speak English, the history, you can do that. And then you have to give visas for the skills we need.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Law #Skills #Giving

I think that all money can do is to get your message out. Unfortunately, we live in a world where you have to use mass media to communicate with the people, and it just costs an awful lot of money.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Communication #Thinking #Media

Many of America's and New York's sons and daughters are around the world fighting for the freedoms that the Statue of Liberty stands for.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Mother #Daughter #New York

Even though New York is the safest big city in the nation, there are still far too many illegal guns on our streets. Nearly all of them arrive from out of state - and most are sold by a small group of rogue gun dealers who refuse to obey federal laws.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#New York #Gun #Law

I've always wondered if people who block each other from expressing their opinions do so because they have so little confidence in their own. To me, encountering an opposing point of view is a chance to gain a deeper understanding of the issues at stake and develop my own point of view. But the first thing you've got to do is you've got to let people speak and you've got to listen. And that's what the first amendment is all about. That's what really distinguishes this country from others.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Country #Block #Views

Millions of Americans have contributed to building a stronger Israel; I've been proud to be one of them. Last year, I went to Jerusalem to help dedicate in my father's name a new MDA medical facility which treats people of all faiths and all nationalities absolutely equally.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Father #Israel #Years

There will be ups, there will be downs, there will be sideways. I can just tell you I have been hired, I have been fired, I have been lauded, I have been vilified. I've said some of the most brilliant things that just by accident appeared on my tongue, and I've said some of the dumbest things that you could imagine. But each day - even the day that I knew I was going to be fired - I looked forward to because I've always believed that tomorrow was going to be the best day of my life.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Each Day #Tongue #Tomorrow

We're paying more for the privilege of getting sick and dying early. Once again, it makes no sense. And once again, no one in Washington is talking about how to fix it.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Talking #Sick #Dying

Most people won't have opportunity to do full-time service, but those lucky enough to have monetary wealth or some spare time really can make an enormous difference. As someone who's now in the public sector, and is seeing up-close-and-personal the real impact of what we do and what we give, I can tell you: every dollar and every volunteer help, in more ways than you can count.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Real #Opportunity #Differences

We all know that election reform takes time. That's because those who have benefited from the system are the ones who fight hardest to preserve it. So if we're going to succeed, we need an independent coalition of citizens who believe in reform, who believe that our election laws should treat every voter equally, who believe that low levels of competition and participation are not healthy for democracy. The Independence Party is helping to build that coalition and I am happy to join you in doing so.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Party #Believe #Independent

Today, you're a piranha if you are seen having coffee with somebody from the other party in many cases.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Party #Coffee #Today

The press really is not doing its job of holding the candidates' feet to the fire. The tough questions are not what are you in favor of, but how are you going to get it through Congress?
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Jobs #Feet #Fire

Government by three men in a room has turned New York State into a national symbol of governmental dysfunction. Enough is enough!
-- Michael Bloomberg

#New York #Men #Dysfunction

When you go to Washington now, you can feel a sense of fear in the air - the fear to do anything, or say anything, that might affect the polls, or give the other side an advantage, or offend a special interest.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Air #Giving #Say Anything

Our climate is changing. And while the increase in extreme weather we have experienced in New York City and around the world may or may not be the result of it, the risk that it may be - given the devastation it is wreaking - should be enough to compel all elected leaders to take immediate action.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#New York #Cities #Weather

I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh biggest army in the world.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Army #Nypd #World

Organizing around a common interest is a fundamental part of democracy. We should no more try to take away the right of individuals to collectively bargain than we should try to take away the right to a secret ballot.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Secret #Trying #Democracy

If it wasn't for O'Flanagan's Pub on Manhattan's Upper East Side, I don't know where I would have spent my Friday nights as a young man.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Friday #Night #Men

In our democracy, near equality is no equality. Government either treats everyone the same, or it doesn't. And right now it doesn't.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Government #Democracy #Treats

If you think of all the publicity about the terrible tragedy of Virginia Tech, we have a Virginia Tech in this country every day. It's just spread across 50 states.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Country #Thinking #Virginia

Nobody's going to elect me president of the United States.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#President #United States #States

One's a dog-eat-dog world, and the other one's just the opposite.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Dog #Opposites #World

Ironically, it is exactly because we are a city that embraces freedom, that welcomes everyone and encourages their dreams, that New York remains on the front lines in the war on terror.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Dream #New York #War

I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh biggest army in the world. I have my own State Department, much to Foggy Bottom’s annoyance. We have the United Nations in New York, and so we have an entree into the diplomatic world that Washington does not have,
-- Michael Bloomberg

#New York #Army #Nypd

I was a Democrat before I was a Republican before I became an independent and I never changed my principles.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Independent #Funny Graduation #Principles

Central planning didn't work for Stalin or Mao, and it won't work for an entrepreneur either.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Entrepreneur #Planning #Mao

Well, we have to provide the world's best schools. We certainly don't have them, but that's our objective.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#School #World #Wells

Is your company so small you have to do everything for yourself? Wait until you're so big that you can't. That's worse.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Waiting #Growth #Bigs

I never liked anyone who didn't have a temper. If you don't have a temper, you don't have any passion.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Passion #Catchy #Temper

If you don't encounter setbacks in your career, if you don't have doubts and disappointments , let me tell you, you're not dreaming big enough.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Dream #Disappointment #Careers

My personal view is, why don't you get out there and try to do something about the things that you don't like, create the jobs that we are lacking, rather than just yell and scream. But if you want to yell and scream, we'll make sure you can do it.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Jobs #Wall #Views

When you come in to court as a plaintiff or as a defendant, it is terribly important that you look up at the bench and feel that that person represents you and will understand you, that that person is reflective of our community and of our society.
-- Michael Bloomberg

#Community #Important #Benches