Ross Perot (1930–2019,) fully Henry Ross Perot, was an American entrepreneur, businessperson, and politician.
Born into Depression-era poverty in Texarkana, Texas, Perot attended the United States Naval Academy and served in the navy for four years. He took a job as a salesperson with IBM and quit in 1962 to start his computer services firm, Electronic Data Systems (EDS.) After selling EDS to General Motors in 1984, Perot acquired interests in real estate, gas, and oil. He also started another computer services company called Perot Systems Corporation, which he sold to Dell in 2009.
Drawing on his vast fortune to buy media time, Perot ran as a third-party candidate for an American president in the 1992 and 1996 elections. Although he lost, he made a credible showing and received significant fractions of the popular vote. Especially in the 1992 elections, Perot collected a remarkable 19 % of the popular vote—it had been 80 years since a third-party candidate performed so well in a presidential election.
Perot wrote the autobiography Ross Perot: My Life & The Principles for Success (2002.)
More: Wikipedia (via CC-BY-SA license) • READ: Works by Ross Perot
Failures are like skinned knees–painful, but superficial.
—Ross Perot
Topics: Failure
Eagles don’t flock–you have to find them one at a time.
—Ross Perot
Topics: Leaders, Leadership
Something in human nature causes us to start slacking off at our moment of greatest accomplishment. As you become successful, you will need a great deal of self-discipline not to lose your sense of balance, humility, and commitment.
—Ross Perot
Topics: Commitment, Humility, Discipline, Success
If you can’t stand a little sacrifice and you can’t stand a trip across the desert with limited water, we’re never going to straighten this country out.
—Ross Perot
Topics: Politicians, Politics
The activist is not the man who says the river is dirty. The activist is the man who cleans up the river.
—Ross Perot
Topics: Action
If someone is blessed as I am is not willing to clean out the barn, who will?
—Ross Perot
It takes five years to design a new car in this country. Heck, we won World War II in four years.
—Ross Perot
Topics: Progress
Spend a lot of time talking to customers face to face. You’d be amazed how many companies don’t listen to their customers.
—Ross Perot
Which one of the three candidates would you want your daughter to marry?
—Ross Perot
Topics: Elections
Business is not just doing deals; business is having great products, doing great engineering, and providing tremendous service to customers. Finally, business is a cobweb of human relationships.
—Ross Perot
Topics: Business, Engineering
Most people give up just when they’re about to achieve success. They quit on the one-yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game, one foot from a winning touchdown.
—Ross Perot
There is no accountability in the public school system – except for coaches. You know what happens to a losing coach. You fire him. A losing teacher can go on losing for 30 years and then go to glory.
—Ross Perot
Topics: Teaching
If we decide to take this level of business creating ability nationwide, we’ll all be plucking chickens for a living.
—Ross Perot
Topics: Business
If we did not have such a thing as an airplane today, we would probably create something the size of N.A.S.A. to make one.
—Ross Perot
Topics: Bureaucracy
When building a team, I always search first for people who love to win. If I can’t find any of those, I look for people who hate to lose.
—Ross Perot
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