Richard Branson Quotes

1. A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts.




2. Business opportunities are like buses, there's always another one coming.

3. I believe in benevolent dictatorship provided I am the dictator.


4. You don't learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.

5. 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."

6. I was dyslexic, I had no understanding of schoolwork whatsoever. I certainly would have failed IQ tests. And it was one of the reasons I left school when I was 15 years old. And if I - if I'm not interested in something, I don't grasp it.

7. For a successful entrepreneur it can mean extreme wealth. But with extreme wealth comes extreme responsibility. And the responsibility for me is to invest in creating new businesses, create jobs, employ people, and to put money aside to tackle issues where we can make a difference.

8. Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.




9. 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.

10. Fortunately we're not a public company - we're a private group of companies, and I can do what I want.







11. Lightning is something which, again, we would rather avoid.

12. I never get the accountants in before I start up a business. It's done on gut feeling, especially if I can see that they are taking the mickey out of the consumer.

13. 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.

14. 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.

15. And you know, 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.



16. Right now I'm just delighted to be alive and to have had a nice long bath.

17. And obviously, from our own personal point of view, the principal challenge is a personal challenge.

18. If you want to be a Millionaire, start with a billion dollars and launch a new airline.




19. I wanted to be an editor or a journalist, I wasn't really interested in being an entrepreneur, but I soon found I had to become an entrepreneur in order to keep my magazine going.

20. We believe that within five years, 96 percent of British consumers will have access to the Internet, whether it be through a personal computer, a set-top box or a mobile phone.





21. With the casino and the beds, our passengers will have at least two ways to get lucky on one of our flights.

22. 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.

23. You never know with these things when you're trying something new what can happen. This is all experimental.




24. I don't think so, in that Virgin is already a global brand. Brands like Amazon have had to spend hundreds of millions of pounds you know, building their brands, whereas Virgin is already well-known around the world.

25. I love the freedom of movement that my phone gives me. That has definitely transformed my life.

26. I'm a lad of the '60s. I started a magazine to try and end the Vietnam war, but it was a number of years before I had the profile, the financial resources and the time to do more.

27. My philosophy is that if I have any money I invest it in new ventures and not have it sitting around.

28. One thing is certain in business. You and everyone around you will make mistakes.




29. Nobody's ever called me Sir Richard. Occasionally in America, I hear people saying Sir Richard and think there's some Shakespearean play taking place. But nowhere else anyway.

30. So I've seen life as one long learning process. And if I see - you know, if I fly on somebody else's airline and find the experience is not a pleasant one, which it wasn't in - 21 years ago, then I'd think, well, you know, maybe I can create the kind of airline that I'd like to fly on.

31. 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."

32. The balloons only have one life and the only way of finding out whether they work is to attempt to fly around the world.


33. The jet stream is a very strong force and pushing a balloon into it is like pushing up against a brick wall, but once we got into it, we found that, remarkably, the balloon went whatever speed the wind went.

34. The music industry is a strange combination of having real and intangible assets: pop bands are brand names in themselves, and at a given stage in their careers their name alone can practically gaurantee hit records.

35. We're introducing separate rooms with double beds in all of our planes so people can actually go with their partner and have a proper night's sleep.


36. We, we - as I say, we go in and shake up other industries and I think, you know, we do it differently and I think that industries are not quite the same as a result of Virgin attacking the market.

37. We've always had a pretty competitive and pretty ferocious battle with British Airways... It's lasted now about 14 years, and we're very pleased to have survived it.

38. 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.

39. Well, the odds must be against anybody being able to fly around the world in a balloon on the first attempt. All of us who are attempting to go around the world in balloons are effectively flying in experimental craft because these craft cannot be tested.

40. Well, we know that people in Australia love the idea of both Impulse and Virgin Blue getting up and adding a bit of competition, and it's fun to be able to deliver it.




41. Customers shouldn't just think of your business as a place to buy a product or use a service - it should be a fun place to be.

42. First and foremost, any business proposal I like must sound fun.

43. I am prepared to try anything once.





44. I prefer to have a great time and to keep my wits about me.

45. I think the most important thing is that in the last seven days we've just had the greatest adventure of our lifetimes.

46. I'm inquisitive…and I love a new challenge…and if I feel that we can do it better than it's been done by other people, we'll have a go.





47. Some 80% of your life is spent working. You want to have fun at home; why shouldn't you have fun at work?

48. Throwing yourself into a job you enjoy is one of the life's greatest pleasures!

49. We'd love to be involved with the creation of something very special, something quite large and something quite exciting.





50. 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.

51. All you have in life is your reputation: you may be very rich, but if you lose your good name, then you'll never be happy. The thought will always lurk at the back of your mind that people don't trust you. I had never really focused on what a good name meant before, but that night in prison made me understand.

52. Branding is everything. A young girl once came up to me and told me I could be famous because I looked just like Richard Branson!






53. First of all, if you're setting up a new company, you want to try to find a brand that can work on a global basis.

54. 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.

55. If you get your face and your name out there enough, people will start to recognize you.


56. In the beginning it was just about the business - now it's about the brand.

57. Protect your reputation.  Don't be afraid of making mistakes.

58. Quality brands never go bankrupt.

59. Above all, you want to create something you're proud of. This has always been my philosophy of business.

60. 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.




61. 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.

62. Every business, like a painting, operates according to its own rules. There are many ways to run a successful company. What works once may never work again. What everyone tells you never to do may just work, once.





63. I've had to create companies that I believe in 100%. These are companies I feel will make a genuine difference. Then I have to be willing to find the time myself to talk about them, promote them and market them. I don't want to spend my life doing something that I'm not proud of.

64. 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.


65. I know enough to know that no man is an island.

66. Respect is how to treat everyone, not just those you want to impress.


67. 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.

68. Life is a helluva lot more fun if you say yes rather than no.

69. Once again, I was the captain of my ship and master of my fate.  I believe in myself. I believe in the hands that work, in the brains that think, and in the hearts that love.

70. You shouldn't blindly accept a leader's advice.  You've got to question leaders on occasions.

71. What's the quickest way to become a millionaire? Borrow fivers off everyone you meet.

72. Complexity is your enemy. Any fool can make something complicated. It is hard to keep things simple.

73. Although my spelling is still sometimes poor, I have managed to overcome the worst of my difficulties through training myself to concentrate.

74. I don't think of work as work and play as play. It's all living.

75. 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.

76. A generation ago, the image was that you had to trample everyone else down to succeed - but I don't believe that makes good business sense. If you're the kind of person that jumps down the throat of people, you're not going to be successful.

77. I'm a bit like the Queen in that I don't carry much cash.






78. If you're embarking around the world in a hot-air balloon, don't forget the toilet paper.

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