Best Larry Ellison Quotes

If I want to relax, I'll read a book.

The larger risk was in growing too slow.

Quality is absolutely the right strategy to kill our competition.

The only way if you adhere to conventional wisdom, and do everything else that everyone else does – you're going to lose.

I have to do the best I can possibly do.

Being loved is more important than being admired.

A corporation's primary goal is to make money. Government's primary role is to take a big chunk of that money and give to others.

Building Oracle is like doing math puzzles as a kid.

I have had all the disadvantages required for success.

I think after a certain amount, I'm going to give almost everything I have to charity. What else can you do with it? You can't spend it, even if you try. I've been trying.

It's Microsoft versus mankind, with Microsoft having only a slight lead.

The most important aspect of my personality as far as determining my success goes; has been my questioning conventional wisdom, doubting experts and questioning authority. While that can be painful in your relationships with your parents and teachers, it's enormously useful in life.

When I do something, it is all about self-discovery. I want to learn and discover my own limits.

I have had all of the disadvantages required for success.

Great achievers are driven, not so much by the pursuit of success but by the fear of failure.

When you innovate, you've got to be prepared for everyone telling you you're nuts.

See things in the present, even if they are in the future.

A corporation's primary goal is to make money.

I love problem solving. How to make the closet bigger in the house I'm designing. I know, it sounds funny. SAP is twice as big. Now, there's no growth–what do we do? It's all problem solving. Designing, building, problem-solving.

I enjoy the competition and the process of learning as we compete. The whole thing is just fascinating. I don't know what I'll do when I retire. When I go sailing, I look around … anyone want to race? I just love competing as opposed to just going out and watching the sunset.

When I started Oracle, what I wanted to do was to create an environment where I would enjoy working. That was my primary goal. Sure, I wanted to make a living. I certainly never expected to become rich, certainly not this rich. I mean, rich does not even describe this. This is surreal.

I believe people have to follow their dreams—I did.

You can't spend as much money as I have, even if you try. I've been trying.

All you can do is every day, try to solve a problem and make your company better. You can't worry about it, you can't panic when you look at the stock market's decline. You get frozen like a deer in the headlights. All you can do is all you can do.

We think we're going to be especially strong in platform where we have our two platform brands: our database brand is the Oracle Database 12c, and our programming language brand is this thing called Java.

Oracle's latest database, version 12c, was specifically designed for the cloud. Oracle 12c makes all your Oracle applications multitenant applications without you having to make any changes whatsoever to your applications.

We've announced an Oracle Virtual Compute Appliance, a bunch of low-cost commodity servers running Linux, integrated in our case, with InfiniBand - connected with InfiniBand vs. the traditional Ethernet.

There is no more important platform for Oracle than HP and Itanium.

I don't think Oracle and IBM want another Microsoft in Red Hat.

Joe brings perspective and experience not commonly found in Silicon Valley companies, ... In the last few years we have transformed Oracle Corporation into the leader in e-business. Joe will help us clearly and broadly communicate the benefits of e-business and e-government.

It also strengthens our No. 1 positions in the application business in North America. And it moves us closer to our goal of being No. 1 in applications globally.

Our applications business is strong and getting stronger, ... Oracle's new e-Business Suite puts every aspect of a business - marketing, sales, service, procurement, supply chain, manufacturing, accounting, human resources - everything, on the Internet. All the applications in our suite are designed and engineered to work together, so customers buying the entire suite don't need to do any systems integration.

What can a sales person say to somebody to get them to buy a product that they already use every day if they don't like it? Nothing.

Once the business data have been centralized and integrated, the value of the database is greater than the sum of the preexisting parts.

I think about the business all the time. Well I shouldn't say all the time. I don't think about it when I am wake-boarding. But even when I am on vacation, or on my boat; I am on email everyday. I am always prowling around the internet looking at what our competitors are doing.

If you do everything that everyone else does in business, you're going to lose. The only way to really be ahead, is to 'be different'.