“One of the fundamental aspects of leadership, I realized more and more, is the ability to instill confidence in others when you yourself are feeling insecure.”

We are not in the coffee business serving people, we are in the people business serving coffee.

At its core, I believe leadership is about instilling confidence in others.

Don’t be threatened by people smarter than you.

In times of adversity and change, we really discover who we are and what we’re made of.

Beverages have to be created. And they’re created by looking at what trend is in, say, the fashion industry – what color’s hot right now.

I don’t have any secret sauce and I’m no smarter than anyone else. I will say I have surrounded myself with unbelievable talent that has made my job easier.

Everyone starts strong. Success comes to those with unwavering commitment to be at the end.

My passion. My commitment. This is the most important thing in my life other than my family.

I conduct my life with an expectation that people will do the right thing. Yet even with all my experience, I am still surprised when they do not.

Every step of the way, I made a point to underpromise and overdeliver. In the long run, that’s the only way to ensure security in any job.

Grow with discipline. Balance intuition with rigor. Innovate around the core. Don’t embrace the status quo.

China traditionally has been a tea-drinking country but we turned them into coffee drinkers.

When we began Starbucks, what I wanted to try to do was to create a set of values, guiding principles, and culture.

You cant build any kind of organization if you’re not going to surround yourself with people who have experience and skill base beyond your own.

Be bold, but be fair. Don’t give in. If others around you have integrity, too, you can prevail.

You must find something that you deeply love and are passionate about and are willing to sacrifice a lot to achieve.

We simply must have faith in each other, faith in our ability to govern ourselves, and faith in the future of this Nation. Restoring that faith and that confidence to America is now the most important task we face.

The ability to hold two competing thoughts in one’s mind and still be able to function is the mark of a superior mind

I don’t think I could do a reality show, no.

A retentive memory may be a good thing, but the ability to forget is the true token of greatness.

Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.

The most important thing a writer can have [is] the ability to live with the constant loneliness and a strong sense of revulsion for the banalities of everyday socializing.

Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over.

It is not merely enough to have the ability to be persistant, you must also have the ability to start over.