The Best Howard Schultz quotes

Don’t buy preground coffee. — Howard Schultz

Starbucks has always been about so much more than coffee. But without great coffee, we have no reason to exist. — Howard Schultz

There’s this myth that has been exacerbated by others that Starbucks means a $4 cup of coffee, which is not true. — Howard Schultz

Starbucks has a role and a meaningful relationship with people that is not only about the coffee. — Howard Schultz

Coffee is the product, but it’s not the business we’re in. — Howard Schultz

We are not in the coffee business serving people, we are in the people business serving coffee. — Howard Schultz

This is an opportunity for us to educate our core customer and new customers about the exotic nature of these rare, small–lot coffees. — Howard Schultz

Starbucks represents something beyond a cup of coffee. — Howard Schultz

I can’t imagine a day without coffee. I can’t imagine! — Howard Schultz

My kids probably started drinking coffee in their late teens. — Howard Schultz

We sell tea in Starbucks, but I think the experience is very different. I think coffee is something that is quick–it’s transactional. I think tea is more Zen–like. It requires a different environment. — Howard Schultz

The premium single–cup segment is the fastest–growing business within the global coffee industry. — Howard Schultz

Certainly the caffeine in coffee, whether it’s Starbucks or generic coffee, is somewhat of a stimulant. But if you drink it in moderation, which I think four or five cups a day is, you’re fine. — Howard Schultz

China traditionally has been a tea–drinking country but we turned them into coffee drinkers. — Howard Schultz

In many places where coffee is grown, deforestation is a major issue. — Howard Schultz

The point of a coffee store was not just to teach customers about fine coffee but to show them how to enjoy it. — Howard Schultz

I was taken by the power that savoring a simple cup of coffee can have to connect people and create community. — Howard Schultz

I think if you’re an entrepreneur, you’ve got to dream big and then dream bigger. — Howard Schultz

Who wants a dream that’s near–fetched? — Howard Schultz

Dream more than others think practical. Expect more than others think possible. Care more than others think wise. — Howard Schultz

Believe in your dreams and dream big. And then after youve done that, dream bigger. — Howard Schultz

Don’t settle! Embrace a dream––and keep dreaming. Don’t be a bystander. Take it personally. — Howard Schultz

We must do everything We can to reclaim and reimagine the american dream. — Howard Schultz

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, . . . begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.–GOETHE — Howard Schultz

It’s one thing to dream, but when the moment is right, you’ve got to be willing to leave what’s familiar and go out to find your own sound. — Howard Schultz

Everyone must have a shot at the American Dream. — Howard Schultz

This may sound a bit naive, but I got here by believing in big dreams. — Howard Schultz

But when you really believe–in yourself, in your dream–you just have to do everything you possibly can to take control and make your vision a reality. No great achievement happens by luck. — Howard Schultz

If you pour your heart into your work, or into any worthy enterprise, you can achieve dreams others may think impossible. — Howard Schultz

You must find something that you deeply love and are passionate about and are willing to sacrifice a lot to achieve. — Howard Schultz

Entrepreneurs must love what they do to such a degree that doing it is worth sacrifice and, at times, pain. But doing anything else, we think, would be unimaginable. — Howard Schultz

Starbucks is rekindling America’s love affair with coffee, bringing romance and fresh flavor back to the brew. — Howard Schultz

If you don’t love what you’re doing with unbridled passion and enthusiasm, you’re not going to succeed when you hit obstacles. — Howard Schultz

When we love something, emotion often drives our actions. — Howard Schultz

I think my whole life, because of where I came from, I had a fear of failure. — Howard Schultz

Customers have different need states and life experiences. — Howard Schultz

In life, you can blame a lot of people and you can wallow in self–pity or you can pick yourself up and say listen, I have to be responsible for myself. — Howard Schultz

My passion. My commitment. This is the most important thing in my life other than my family. — Howard Schultz

I conduct my life with an expectation that people will do the right thing. Yet even with all my experience, I am still surprised when they do not. — Howard Schultz

My parents really wanted me to get out of New York, be exposed to other people, other ways of life. — Howard Schultz

There are moments in our lives when we summon the courage to make choices that go against reason, against common sense and the wise counsel of people we trust. — Howard Schultz

Passionate conviction … sparks romances, wins battles, and drives people to pursue dreams others wouldn’t dare. Belief in ourselves and in what is right catapults us over hurdles, and our lives unfold. — Howard Schultz

Life is a sum of all your choices,’ wrote Albert Camus. Large or small, our actions forge our futures, hopefully inspiring others along the way. — Howard Schultz

If Vancouver did not succeed as Starbucks from ’87 on, our entire international business, which is now thousands of stores and a significant amount of growth and profit, may not have existed. — Howard Schultz

Do I take criticism of Starbucks personally? Of course I do. — Howard Schultz

I could’ve just walked away but I never could have forgiven myself to allow Starbucks to drift into mediocrity or not be relevant. I just couldn’t be a bystander. — Howard Schultz

The incident has prompted us to reflect more deeply on all forms of bias, The role of our stores in communities and our responsibility to ensure that nothing like this happens again at starbucks. — Howard Schultz

Post–9/11, we saw an immediate uptick in the amount of people in our stores, all over the country. People wanted that human connection. We are not going to fracture the Starbucks experience. — Howard Schultz

The companies that are lasting are those that are authentic. — Howard Schultz

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

We think of Starbucks not as a coffee company but a media company. — Howard Schultz

When you start a company, it’s a singular focus. You have the wind at your back. — Howard Schultz

Starbucks is not an advertiser; people think we are a great marketing company, but in fact we spend very little money on marketing and more money on training our people than advertising. — Howard Schultz

We are never going to allow any coffee company, domestically or around the world, to put us in a subordinate position in terms of quality and access to the highest grade arabica coffee. — Howard Schultz

Great companies that build an enduring brand have an emotional relationship with customers that has no barrier. And that emotional relationship is on the most important characteristic, which is trust. — Howard Schultz

My mother taught me something at a young age–she said ‘you are the company you keep’. To define yourself by some label or some level of resources–that’s pretty shallow. — Howard Schultz

In the 1960s, if you were a blue collar worker or uneducated, and you had an injury on the job, the company basically dismissed you. — Howard Schultz

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

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. — Howard Schultz

When companies fail, or fail to grow, it’s almost always because they don’t invest in the people, the systems, and the processes they need. — Howard Schultz

Infusing work with purpose and meaning, however, is a two–way street. Yes, love what you do, but your company should love you back. — Howard Schultz

There’s an energy and excitement when you’re building a company. You have so much tail wind. You’re planting new seeds. But it’s also scary, because there’s no safety net. — Howard Schultz

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. — Howard Schultz

I do think–as self–serving as it sounds–that I was the right person, given the very, very strong headwind we had from the economy and our own issues, to come back and rewrite the future of the company. — Howard Schultz

When you’re building a business or joining a company you have to be transparent, you can’t have two sets of information for two sets of people. — Howard Schultz

We have no patent on anything we do and anything we do can be copied by anyone else. But you can’t copy the heart and the soul and the conscience of the company. — Howard Schultz

Mass advertising can help build brands, but authenticity is what makes them last. If people believe they share values with a company, they will stay loyal to the brand. — Howard Schultz

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. — Howard Schultz

We determined that insufficient support and training, a company policy that defined customers as paying patrons–versus anyone who enters a store–and bias led to the decision to call the police. — Howard Schultz

I never took classic business classes in college, so I don’t have the background that any of the people running large companies have. — Howard Schultz

All great companies have passed through bad years that forced soul–searching and rethinking of priorities. How we deal with them will be the litmus test. — Howard Schultz

What we know, factually, is that over 40 percent of the electorate is either a registered independent or currently affiliates themselves as an independent. — Howard Schultz

The entrepreneurial opportunity in America is alive and well. — Howard Schultz

The leaders in Washington have got to come together in a bipartisan way and do the right thing for the people who are being left behind. We cannot have an America that is only based on the wealthy. — Howard Schultz

Most business people today are not going to invest in the uncertainty that exists in America. — Howard Schultz

I’m much more concerned about America than the Democratic Party. — Howard Schultz

The lifeblood of job creation in America is small business, but they can’t get access to credit. — Howard Schultz

We have a big opportunity in China. We think the number of stores here can rival the number in North America. — Howard Schultz