Bill Gates

Whether it's the best of times or the worst of times, it's the only time we've got.

Our success has really been very simple: Before we got into any business, we'd look at something and say, 'Why hasn't there been more progress than there has been?'

The PC has improved the world in just about every area you can think of. Amazing developments in communications, collaboration and efficiencies. Many people think it's just a simple device for word processing, but it's so much more.

People always fear change. People feared the automobile when it was introduced.

Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.

The most meaningful way to differentiate your company from your competition, yes, is to do an outstanding job with information.

How you gather, manage, and use information will determine whether you win or lose.

Until we're educating every kid in a great way, until we have more women in the workforce as we should, until we have health care for all, deep changes in poverty and inequality, we're not done.

In terms of allocation of time and focus, it makes sense to focus on the things that you're effective at.

I was lucky to get into computers when it was a very young and idealistic industry. There's no industry that's run by older people that is as enthusiastic and welcoming to young people as the computer industry.

The browser is the most important software invention since the spreadsheet.

Microsoft is not about computers. We're about empowering people to do great things.

If you can't make it good, at least make it look good.

The hardest thing to understand in the world is the income tax.

I've always been an optimist and I suppose that the main reason was that I've always looked at what could be achieved rather than what has been achieved.

We need to challenge old assumptions about what we can achieve as a society. We need to ask hard questions and face uncomfortable truths.

Philanthropy is a very personal business, and that shouldn't be held up... You're not doing it to make a favorable impression on the internal Revenue Service.

It's possible, in a poem or short story, to write about happenings that are unique, that are different from what surrounds us, but not accumulatively. In a novel, the common life in the sequence of days must dominate.

The quality of our lives is determined by the quality of our thoughts.

Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.