Phil Knight

“We could see that he was a charismatic guy who jumps over the moon and is very competitive, but nobody could have predicted what he would become to our culture.”

“I think a businessman can be an artist just as much as a writer or a sculptor, so I'm real proud of what the company has become.”

“There is no drama like the drama on the athletic field.”

“I think everyone born in Oregon is an environmentalist by birth.”

“I've said many times that I might as well have webs between my toes.”

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

“When I took the entrepreneurship class at Stanford, the first lecture was about an entrepreneur and his personality. They described it as being different than a businessman, who is an overall scientific manager.”

“Up until the time I was 14 years old, I was sure that I was going to be a big-league baseball player. But that dream came to a rude awakening when I got cut from my high school baseball team.”

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

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

“Meeting sports athletes that are the best in the world is a thrill to this day.”

“At first, we couldn't be establishment, because we didn't have any money. We were guerrilla marketers, and we still are, a little bit. But, as we became No. 1 in our industry, we've had to modify our culture and become a bit more planned.”

“Business is no more about making money than the human body is about making blood. Yes you need to make the stuff, but only to serve your higher aims.”

“If there was no Bill Bowerman, there would have been no me. He had about as much of an impact on my life as any one person could have. He taught me about competition and ingrained it in me. He taught me not to praise ordinary performances.”

“He was easy to talk to, and easy not to talk to-equally important qualities in a friend. Essential in a travel companion.”

“Any entrepreneur has to prepare for a lot of dark days, and they've got to really like what they are doing, and they have to have a reason for it to succeed.”

“A shoe dog is somebody that really loves shoes, and that was me. I was a runner... that became important to me, and it's been with me ever since.”

“No parent should have their child die before he or she does.”

“When we changed from Tiger to Nike, we had to have a design for the shoe. And where do you go to? There's no 'dial 9-1-1' for design.”

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