50 Inspirational Phil Knight Quotes [2024]

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Updated: January 20th, 2022

Phil Knight is an American businessman.

Phil Knight is the co-founder and chairman emeritus of Nike, Inc., and was previously chairman and CEO of the company.

Phil Knight was a CPA, first with Coopers & Lybrand, and then Price Waterhouse. Phil Knight then became an accounting professor at Portland State University.

We've put together an incredible collection of Phil Knight quotes to read.

Here they are:

50 Inspirational Phil Knight Quotes [2024]

List of Inspiring Phil Knight Quotes

“Make history or be a part of it.” — Phil Knight

“Play by the rules, but be ferocious.” — Phil Knight

“Dream audaciously. Have the courage to fail forward. Act with urgency.” — Phil Knight

“Dare to take chances, lest you leave your talent buried in the ground.” — Phil Knight

“It’s alright to be Goliath but always act like David.” — Phil Knight

“The trouble in America is not that we are making too many mistakes, but that we are making too few.” — Phil Knight

“Nike is a marketing-oriented company, and the product is our most important marketing tool.” — Phil Knight

“A brand is something that has a clear-cut identity among consumers, which a company creates by sending out a clear, consistent message over a period of years until it achieves a critical mass of marketing.” — Phil Knight

“Perception can be changed.” — Phil Knight

“The cowards never started and the weak died along the way – that leaves us.” — Phil Knight

“There is an immutable conflict at work in life and in business, a constant battle between peace and chaos. Neither can be mastered, but both can be influenced. How you go about that is the key to success.” — Phil Knight

“It is possible to tell a customer “no”, and have the customer thank you for doing it.” — Phil Knight

“The cowards never started and the weak died along the way. That leaves us, ladies and gentlemen. Us.” — Phil Knight

“I’m Phil Knight, and I don’t believe in advertising.” — Phil Knight

“I don’t consider myself enigmatic, but I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about my public persona.” — Phil Knight

“My job is to listen to ideas, maybe cook up a few of my own, and make decisions based on what’s good for the shareholders and for the company.” — Phil Knight

“Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods are really part of a very big advertising program, and the fact that they make so much money is because the markets have dictated that they get that money, and the fact that they endorse our products allows us to sell more products and create more jobs.” — Phil Knight

“When you see only problems, you’re not seeing clearly.” — Phil Knight

“You can’t explain much in 60 seconds, but when you show Michael Jordan, you don’t have to. It’s that simple.” — Phil Knight

“We used to think that everything started in the lab. Now we realize that everything spins off the consumer.” — Phil Knight

“We wanted Nike to be the world’s best sports and fitness company. Once you say that, you have a focus. You don’t end up making wing tips or sponsoring the next Rolling Stones world tour.” — Phil Knight

“Beating the competition is relatively easy. Beating yourself is a never-ending commitment.” — Phil Knight

“If my life was to be all work no play, I wanted my work to be play.” — Phil Knight

“Sports is like rock ‘n’ roll. Both are dominant cultural forces, both speak an international language, and both are all about emotions.” — Phil Knight

“Life is growth. You grow or you die.” — Phil Knight

“It doesn’t matter how many people you offend, as long as you’re getting your message to your consumers. I say to those people who do not want to offend anybody: You are going to have a very, very difficult time having meaningful advertising.” — Phil Knight

“You are remembered, he said, prophetically, for the rules you break. I.” — Phil Knight

“How can I leave my mark on the world, I thought, unless I get out there first and see it?” — Phil Knight

“No brilliant idea was ever born in a conference room,” he assured the Dane. “But a lot of silly ideas have died there,” said Stahr. – F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Last Tycoon.” — Phil Knight

“Fight not to win, but to avoid losing. A surefire losing strategy.” — Phil Knight

“I wanted to build something that was my own, something I could point to and say: I made that. It was the only way I saw to make life meaningful.” — Phil Knight

“Bowerman was forever griping that people make the mistake of thinking only elite Olympians are athletes. But everyone’s an athlete, he said. If you have a body, you’re an athlete.” — Phil Knight

“There were many ways down Mount Fuji, according to my guidebook, but only one way up. Life lesson in that, I thought. Signs.” — Phil Knight

“I still get real nervous when I go in front of more than two people.” — Phil Knight

“There were many ways down Mount Fuji, according to my guidebook, but only one way up.” — Phil Knight

“Like it or not, life is a game. Whoever denies that truth, whoever simply refuses to play, gets gets left on the sidelines, and I didn’t want that.” — Phil Knight

“But my hope was that when I failed, if I failed, I’d fail quickly, so I’d have enough time, enough years, to implement all the hard-won lessons. I wasn’t much for setting goals, but this goal kept flashing through my mind every day, until it became my internal chant: Fail fast.” — Phil Knight

“When it came rolling in, the money affected us all. Not much, and not for long, because none of us was ever driven by money. But that’s the nature of money. Whether you have it or not, whether you want it or not, whether you like it or not, it will try to define your days. Our task as human beings is not to let it.” — Phil Knight

“The single easiest way to find out how you feel about someone. Say goodbye.” — Phil Knight

“Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that.” — Phil Knight

“All is vanity, says the Bible. All is now, says Zen, All is dust, says the desert.” — Phil Knight

“To study the self is to forget the self. Mi casa, su casa.” — Phil Knight

“Each of us found pleasure, whenever possible, in focusing on one small task. One task, we often said, clears the mind. And.” — Phil Knight

“I was a linear thinker, and according to Zen linear thinking is nothing but a delusion, one of the many that keep us unhappy. Reality is nonlinear, Zen says. No future, no past. All is now.” — Phil Knight

“Someone somewhere once said that business is war without bullets, and I tended to agree. I.” — Phil Knight

“I truly believe the American consumer doesn’t want to buy products made under abusive conditions.” — Phil Knight

“Every runner understands this. Front runners always work the hardest, and risk the most. Long.” — Phil Knight

“If you’re following your calling, the fatigue will be easier to bear, the disappointments will be fuel, the highs will be like nothing you’ve ever felt. I’d.” — Phil Knight

“Though I’ve been known to call business war without bullets, it’s actually a wonderful bulwark against war. Trade is the path of coexistence, cooperation. Peace feeds on prosperity.” — Phil Knight

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few. – Shunryu.” — Phil Knight

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Pat Walls

I'm Pat Walls and I created Starter Story - a website dedicated to helping people start businesses. We interview entrepreneurs from around the world about how they started and grew their businesses.

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