David Ogilvy Quotes

Be more assertive with what you want to do.

You must ask for what you really want.

If you don't ask, you don't get.

Command is often not what you do but the way you do it…. one can't command sitting on one's ass in the rear.

If I feel compelled or feel that I really need to say something at a certain time, I'll say it. But more do than not; I'm trying to lead by example.

If you want to be clear, act.

Don't make assumptions. Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want.

The habit of writing clearly soon comes to the writer who is a severe critic to himself.

You cannot teach somebody to write a masterpiece, but you can certainly teach them how to improve their writing skills. And you can teach them that they can make their own voices more effective by being able to communicate more clearly and forcefully. It makes people feel more capable when they can write - for instance to make a request - of a politician - and when they are able to receive a reply.

Lack of orders is no excuse for inaction.

I write as straight as I can, just as I walk as straight as I can, because that is the best way to get there.

The right word is always a power, and communicates its definiteness to our action.

The difficulty is not to write, but to write what you mean.

But if you never did anything you couldn't undo you'd end up doing nothing at all.

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage.

If you’re frustrated because you’re not getting what you want, stop for a second: Have you actually flat-out asked for it? If you haven’t, stop complaining. You can’t expect the world to read your mind. You have to put it out there, and sometimes putting it out there is as simple as just saying, “Hey, can I have that?

Successful leaders have the courage to take action while others hesitate.

I wish my prose to be transparent—I don't want the reader to stumble over me; I want him to look through what I'm saying to what I'm describing. I don't want him ever to say, Oh, goodness, how nicely written this is. That would be a failure.

I thought clarity of communication was the most important thing in writing, and if you really cared about getting your idea across, you would say it in the most straightforward way possible. Later, in college and grad school, I came to realize that language is a technology like any other, and that it's always evolving - clarity of expression is always evolving.

I write with two things in mind. I want to be right with my fellow economists. After all, I've made my life as a professional economist, so I'm careful that my economics is as it should be. But I have long felt that there's no economic proposition that can't be stated in clear, accessible language. So I try to be right with my fellow economists, but I try to have an audience of any interested, intelligent person.

Most people never pick up the phone and call. Most people never ask, and that’s what separates the people who do things from the people who just dream about them.

One should aim not at being possible to understand, but at being impossible to misunderstand.

I don't like to be overly directing people either. I tell them what I want and I tell them when it's wrong. I tell them no, that's not what I want. I want it more like this or more like that. I'm pretty direct with everyone, and I treat everyone the same which might be good.

But I will tell you that I didn't go to Washington to sit around and wait for Congressional action. Never done that before, and don't plan to in the future.

Like with anything, good writing suggest itself pretty strongly.