Michael Bloomberg Quotes

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.

We have to get control of our borders. You can only do that if you make companies obey the law and not hire undocumented or illegals. They can only do that is if they have a Social Security Card that has biometrics so they know whether the person is legal or not.

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

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

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.

Last I looked - and I'm not a candidate - but last time I checked reading about the Constitution, the Electoral College has nothing to do with parties, has absolutely nothing to do with parties. It's most states are winners take all.

If you really believe that you're making a difference and that you can leave a legacy of better schools and jobs and safer streets, why would you not spend the money? The objective is to improve the schools, bring down crime, build affordable housing, clean the streets - not to have a fair fight.

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.

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

Progress is not inevitable. It's up to us to create it.

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

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

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.

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.

Life is too short to spend your time avoiding failure.

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.

Working collectively and collaboratively is the difference between mediocrity by yourself or success as a team. You have to share the pain and the responsibility and if you do then you will also share in the rewards.

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.

If someone tells me they skied all day and never fell down, I tell them to find another mountain.

Entrepreneurship is having an idea to do something great and not entirely have a plan on how to do it but the drive and will power to make it work

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

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

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.

I think if you look at people, whether in business or government, who haven't had any moral compass, who've just changed to say whatever they thought the popular thing was, in the end they're losers.

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.

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.

We all must recognize that homeland security funds should be allocated by threat and no other reason.

You bet I did and I enjoyed it.

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

Cities with clean air gain an economic advantage, because where people want to live and work, businesses want to invest.

Design does matter. And not necessarily in a way that people realize. A lot of what you do, people take for granted - that a park has always been here, that a bicycle lane has always been there, that the street is safe or clean.

The CIA will only hire people with impeccable credentials to be a translator. 'Impeccable credentials' means you've never lived outside the United States.

On Sept. 11, 2001, thousands of first responders heroically rushed to the scene and saved tens of thousands of lives. More than 400 of those first responders did not make it out alive. In rushing into those burning buildings, not one of them asked, 'What God do you pray to?' What beliefs do you hold?'

We've shown the world that New York can never be defeated, because of its dynamic and diverse population and because it embodies the spirit of enterprise and the love of liberty. And because no matter who you are, if you believe in yourself and your dream, New York will always be the place for you.

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.

You're entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.

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.

What has changed is that people have stopped working together.

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.

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.

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

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

Well, you have the public not wanting any new spending, you have the Republicans not wanting any new taxes, you have the Democrats not wanting any new spending cuts, you have the markets not wanting any new borrowing, and you have the economists wanting all of the above. And that leads to paralysis.

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.

The system [in U.S.] is designed for a two-party system. And those two parties have an interest in keeping third parties out. There's too much of the structure that works in the two-party way. They will keep the third party out.

The World Trade Center site will forever hold a special place in our city, in our hearts. But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans if we said no to a mosque in lower Manhattan.

I've always thought if we don't want to enforce laws on the books, we should remove them from the books. But when you have laws, you breed contempt if you don't enforce them.

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.

You have to take away some of tax breaks for the wealthy, and you have to cut back on some entitlements. Because, unless we do all of these things, it just doesn't work. And what's good theater and what's good politics isn't necessarily good economic policy.

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.