Peter Thiel Quotes

My biggest challenge in my career is not looking or sounding like anybody.

There's a large opportunity for Bon Iver to be a special thing, even from a business standpoint - just trying to do cooler things. Every band sells t-shirts and plays certain auditoriums, but I'm sick of being like everyone else, because I'm not.

Business fascinates me. It's very creative.

I always took a great deal of pride in being original.

No man was ever great by imitation.

What another would have done as well as you, do not do it. What another would have said as well as you, do not say it; what another would have written as well, do not write it. Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but in yourself-and thus make yourself indispensable.

In my movies, I'm not trying to erase any old image of myself, really. And also I'm not trying to imitate anyone or follow in their footsteps, because I know, Burt Reynolds was just one of the people that told me this, I know how you can only last in this business if you got something special to offer, just by being yourself.

I've helped some of my classmates on how to strategize to get to the next level of their businesses. And it's interesting, because here I am sitting there from the entertainment industry and the fashion industry, and I'm giving a billionaire that has a business that's been in his family for 300 years - I'm giving him advice about strategy!

I don't want to get myself in trouble - and I don't think I'm super important or anything - but I think it's so funny that when you look at the business and the way that people make decisions in their lives, whether they're in art or music or they're in industry, they forget that being unique is the answer.

Not everyone is born to run a $4 billion company. There is no magic formula. I've learned, and I've grown by learning. That's why I've enjoyed being in business so much: It's stretched me.

I think it is very important in this business to be an individual.

You want to stake your own claim. You don't want to be called a copycat.

At the end of the day, you can't do a copy of somebody.

I want to have an empire. I want to make my own stuff.

I am very passionate about this business, and I always have been.

I always aspired to do something different.

I get that there is no one quite like me, nor should there be anybody quite like anybody else in any field. I've always said, 'Don't be the next anyone; be the first you.'

I am not trying to be the next anyone - I am going to be the first Dolph Ziggler!

I have to be ahead of myself so I don't just fit into the realm of everybody who sounds like me.

Write about what makes you different.

You have to be unique.

We can't be afraid to be weird.

Originality is being different from oneself, not others.

I do not believe great organizations have ever been built by trying to emulate another, any more than individual greatness is achieved by trying to copy another 'great person'.

Just because I had a winner, it doesn't mean I'm gonna be like, "OK, I need a new 'Successful.'" That's silly. I just don't want anything to sound like anything else, which I hope is everybody's vision.