“Don’t be threatened by people smarter than you.”

I can’t imagine a day without coffee. I can’t imagine!

While we are a coffee company at heart, Starbucks provides much more than the best cup of coffee—we offer a community gathering place where people come together to connect and discover new things.

Business leaders cannot be bystanders.

Cutting prices or putting things on sale is not sustainable business strategy. The other side of it is that you can’t cut enough costs to save your way to prosperity.

Starbucks trying to build a different kind of company around the balance of profitably and benevolence. A social conscience. And that isn’t a program it has to be a way of life.

Any business today that embraces the status quo as an operating principle is going to be on a death march.

Great companies are defined by their discipline and their understanding of who they are and who they are not.

Authentic brands don’t emerge from marketing cubicles or advertising agencies. They emanate from everything the company does.

Success is empty if you arrive at the finish line alone.

In this ever-changing society, the most powerful and enduring brands are built from the heart.

To be an enduring, great company, you have to build a mechanism for preventing or solving problems that will long outlast any one individual leader.

We woke up one day, and all the sudden Starbucks was in the middle of this political crossfire between the people who want to bring a gun into Starbucks and the people who want to prevent it. It is a very difficult, fragile situation.

Cutting prices or putting things on sale is not sustainable business strategy.

A great business has to have a conscience. You have to know who you are and who you are not.

At an early age, my mother gave me this feeling that anything is possible, and I believe that.

People want guidance, not rhetoric. They need to know what the plan of action is, and how it will be implemented. They want to be given responsibility to help solve the problem and authority to act on it.

I’d like to be clear that a number of people find me intolerable, and they don’t hesitate to say so – which they and I cherish.

Open, honest communication is the best foundation for any relationship, but remember that at the end of the day it’s not what you say or what you do, but how you make people feel that matters the most.

The economy is not the problem, how people respond is the problem!

Martial arts is for defense. It’s not for attacking. So when people are fighting, always, always, defend.

I want to do things that are true to me and give people a sense of who I am.

Rich people invest money and poor people spend it.

I want to make people feel intensely alive. I’d rather have them against me than indifferent.

Having a story is what people connect with, but the story alone doesn’t allow you to achieve greatness and results. It’s the day-to-day consistency of providing value to your audience.