Phil Knight

I still get real nervous when I go in front of more than two people.

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

I’d tell men and women in their midtwenties not to settle for a job or a profession or even a career. Seek a calling. Even if you don’t know what that means, seek it.

Phil Knight

If 1967 had been the Summer of Love, 1970 was the Summer of Liquidity, and I had none.

Phil Knight

If my life was to be all work no play, I wanted my work to be play.

Phil Knight

In one sense our campus is a topographical map of Nike’s history and growth; in another it’s a diorama of my life. In yet another sense it’s a living, breathing expression of that vital human emotion, maybe the most vital of all, after love. Gratitude.

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

It is possible to tell a customer ‘no’, and have the customer thank you for doing it.

Phil Knight

It’s hard enough to invent and manufacture and market a product, but then the logistics, the mechanics, the hydraulics of getting it to the people who want it, when they want it – this is how companies die, how ulcers are born.

Phil Knight

It’s never just business. It never will be. If it ever does become just business, that will mean that business is very bad.

Phil Knight