Richard Branson Quotes

A brand is only as good as your products.

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

A company is people ... [employees want to know] ... am I being listened to or am I a cog in the wheel? People really need to feel wanted.

At some stage, we're going to need an East Coast base. If you have to set up on the East Coast somewhere, I can't think of anywhere better than Cape Canaveral.

Both [units] are extremely important carriers of the Virgin brand worldwide.

British Airways was doing everything they could do to put Virgin Atlantic out of business -- what's become famous here as the dirty tricks campaign, ... We felt that we needed the financial muscle to combat them. And I still had a lot to prove at Virgin Atlantic whereas we proved that we could, you know, build and run a successful record company.

Business is all about life.

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

Can you afford to ignore China? It's like saying you can afford to ignore the Internet. I don't think so!

Despite the name of our company, our planes and trains do go the whole way.

... employees first, customers second, and shareholders third.

Fantasizing about the future is one of my favourite pastimes.

Generally speaking, when someone goes for a record-breaking attempt, you start with five or six people in the plane. He chose to go it alone.

He gave me a lot of very useful advice when I set up Virgin Atlantic 21 years ago. Perhaps his best advice was to make sure that I took British Airways to court before they bankrupted us -- not after, as he did.

I am slightly biased, but I think it is an incredible achievement -- the last great aviation record left inside the Earth's atmosphere.

I am so excited by the thought of Virgin Cola taking on Coke and Pepsi in their home territory, ... I have always believed that you can never truly be an international cola until you have launched in the home of the colas -- America.

I am sorry to have let people down.

I believe in benevolent dictatorship provided I am the dictator.

I don't think of work as work and play as play. It's all living. I'm living and learning every day ... it's like being at a university, studying a course you're really fascinated by. And in between all that, I am surrounded by family and friends.

I have made it clear that I'm happy to become the largest shareholder in NTL and for other shareholders in Virgin Mobile to join me in taking shares in NTL. NTL has made a cash offer as well, and other shareholders can also accept the cash offer.

I've taken a reduction in the price in order to get the deal done. We will reap our reward from the increased share price by holding our shares in this new combined company.

I have always lived my life by thriving on opportunity and adventure. Some of the best ideas come out of the blue, and you have to keep an open mind to see their virtue.

I have enjoyed life a lot more by saying yes than by saying no.

I love learning about things I know little about. I love people, and I don't like to say no all the time. We've got people all over the world who are coming up with great new ideas, and it doesn't actually cost us a lot relative to the overall size of the group. Four months ago, I went into a juice bar in Sydney called Pulp. Fantastic. Healthy. Delightful staff. I knew the guy who set it up. So let's give it a go outside Australia.

I love the freedom that my phone gives me.

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

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.

I read the Sunday Telegraph stories. They're not too far off what may be happening.

I started out at 16 and I didn't have any experience at business. I didn't have any experience at anything, actually. That's why I called the company Virgin.

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

I think it's very important that the competition authorities listen to the slightly smaller companies (and) try to create a level playing field so that the consumer gets the benefit of choice and gets the benefit of competition. I wish Pepsi well in that and I hope that Pepsi will not behave in the same way when we come knocking on the doors of some of the big retailers that they are in.

I want Virgin to be as well-known around the world as Coca-Cola.

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.

If I was a businessman, or saw myself as a businessman, I would have never gone into the airline business.

If we were purely a money-making machine, with our one reason for being to get a 35% to 40% return annually, I suspect that we wouldn't do as many new ventures and we would be marginally more focused than we are. Having said that, our returns are still pretty astounding -- maybe triple what they would be if you invested in the stock market or with other venture capitalists.

If you are trying to do something for the first time, it's always an enormous challenge, and there is no guarantee of success. If anybody can pull it off, it will be Steve.

If you can run one business well, you can run any business well.

If you don�t take risks you won�t achieve anything.

In America you've got an excellent airline in JetBlue and a good airline, a pioneer airline, but slightly tiring, in Southwest. It's the Tower Records of the airline business: a great reputation in the past, but now .... And then most of the other airlines are just pretty awful.

In any adventure like this, there are always uncertainties.

India is an incredibly vibrant market, which Virgin already, through Virgin Atlantic, has the pleasure of working in. I am delighted that Virgin Comics will not only help to launch the Indian comic market and spin it into the West, but will develop new and exciting talent.

It already has been through the rigors of flying around the world.

It is not for me (to decide). It is up to the company to decide whether the price is fair or not.

It's as inspiring as always, it's brilliant.

It's been the most magnificent trip.

It's incredible to get people to turn out right in the middle of nowhere.

It's looking hopeful that the transaction will get done over the next couple of months.

It has been like hitting up against a solid brick wall. All day and all night long, we battled to get through it.

It was the most hairy landing I've ever been through.

Like getting into a bleeding competition with a blood bank.

My biggest motivation? Just to keep challenging myself. I see life almost like one long University education that I never had -- every day I'm learning something new.

My dad has put his hand up and will be 90 at the time, my kids definitely want to come and if there is room for my mum she will come as well.

Obviously we are disappointed about not making it when we had it in our grasp.

Oh, I don't like the look on his face.

... our first priority should be the people who work for the companies, then the customers, then the shareholders. Because if the staff are motivated then the customers will be happy, and the shareholders will then benefit through the company's success.
[ complete quote ]

Our vision of the future is a complete deregulation of everything from routes and airline access rights, all the way through to changing ownership and control regulations which would allow mergers and acquisitions.

Peter Gabriel -- a Virgin artist for 20 years -- is still pre-eminent in the business. Whether the new artists will do the same is more questionable.

Records are made to be broken. It is in man's nature to continue to strive to do just that.

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.

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

So if we were to set up base in this area, I think you would find that it would bring a lot of people to the area to watch the flights as well as fly.

Some of the magic will be lost now that the girls are only four. It's sad to see people so close split in this way.

Sometimes, I do wake up in the mornings and feel like I've just had the most incredible dream. I've just dreamt my life.

Statistically, there is about a 6 percent chance that in any one year of the next 10 years this becomes a person-to-person problem, and we just have to hope it is not this year.

Thank you to the Chinese government,

There are already 30 people in the world who have collected enough air miles to fly into space.

There's always a risk. But the much bigger risk is to let your reputation erode away by not getting it right. There's no room for second best. In the airline business that's particularly the case.

There is no one to follow, there is nothing to copy. We may even allow those aliens who landed here 50 years ago a chance to go home.

The brand is only as good as your products, so, I mean if people have a good experience on Virgin Atlantic or if they have a good experience on Virgin trains or, you know, if they have a Virgin mobile phone and they can get straight through to our people and they're well looked after and then they'll try the next product that we launch. And so brand is something that you build over many years and you build and it's something that's very important to protect and to keep trust with people.

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.

The number one thing that matters, especially if you're going to be manager at Virgin, is how good you are with people. If you're --- if you're good with people and you've got --- you know, and you really care, genuinely care about people then I'm sure we could find a job for you at Virgin. I think, you know, that, you know, that 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.

The time to go into a business is when it's abysmally run by other people.

We are disappointed at the way this was dealt with at the boardroom level.

We are embarrassed to have entered the airspace without permission and relieved that they understand our position.

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.

We have enormous sympathy for him. He has done a fantastic job. It is sad they have to come down so soon.

We have always felt that a company with music at its core rather than technology could do so much better for music fans. It is so user friendly that even I could use it.

We have not scratched the surface, ... It does seem that it needs to be treated like a war.

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

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.

We've got an engaging, edgy, vibrant, fun product, ... It may or may not work, but we're going to give it our best shot.

Well, I'm somebody who is just living...living life, and if I get frustrated by something, then I like to try to put it right,

We embarked on consciously building Virgin into a brand which stood for quality, value, fun and a sense of challenge. We also developed these ideas in the belief that our first priority should be the people who work for the companies, then the customers, then the shareholders. Because if the staff are motivated then the customers will be happy, and the shareholders will then benefit through the company's success.

We pamper our passengers like no airline pampers them.

We told him he had to land alive. He actually had to land alive, because if he didn't land alive he wouldn't get the record.

We're going where no one has gone before.

We're happy to be alive.

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

What was worse -- a possible storm ahead or the 'storms' of Iraq? ... We decided to risk the thunder and press on.

When I'm here [Necker Island], normally I misbehave myself atrociously. On this particular trip, I've decided to cleanse myself. I'm trying to do a month without drinking at the moment. Very dull, very boring.

When I saw her I just wanted to put her across my knee and spank her for being such a naughty, naughty girl.
[ referring Courtney Love, who abused Virgin staff on a transatlantic flight ]

Wine, like life, is meant to be enjoyed. All the pomp and ceremony currently associated with wine just gets in the way of enjoying it.

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

Virtually every part of the empire will have some form of e-commerce facility by the end of 1999, from the largest company, Virgin Atlantic, to one of the smallest, Virgin Bride.

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