Phil Knight Quotes

102 Phil Knight Quotes

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There is no shoe school, so where do you recruit people for a company that develops and markets running shoes? The running track… We and the consumer were one and the same.
Phil Knight

Even though about 60% of our product is bought by people who don’t use it for the actual sport, everything we did was aimed at the top.
Phil Knight

Whether you’re talking about the core consumer or the person on the street, the principle is the same: you have to come up with what the consumer wants, and you need a vehicle to understand it.
Phil Knight

[On signing up Michael Jordan in 1984 when he was just 21 years old] 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.
Phil Knight

A few years ago there was a poll in china to name the greatest man ever. The winner was Mao, but there was a tie for second between [revolutionary hero] Zhou Enlai and Michael Jordan of the Chicago Red Oxen!
Phil Knight

I used to believe that a good product sold itself.
Phil Knight

Sports is like rock ‘n’ roll. Both are dominant cultural forces, both speak an international language, and both are all about emotions.
Phil Knight

We’re not in the fashion business… We’re in the sports business, and there’s a big difference.
Phil Knight

We were guerilla marketers, and we still are, a little bit.
Phil Knight

Sometimes I look out there and I get goosebumps…
Phil Knight



You’re got to worry about what’s coming up to stay ahead of the curve…
Phil Knight

If you want to spend time saying this is cool, you’re going to get your ass kicked.
Phil Knight

[On Howard White] Rather than say to young people that they should have a goal and focus on it, he reverses it: ‘Any road will get you there if you don’t know where you’re going.’ Most often, on reflection, you will grow to understand that what had passed for a funny commnet of the moment has a good deal of wisdom behind it.
Phil Knight

A brand is something that has a clear-cut identity among consumers, which a company creates by sending out a clear, consistent message over a period of years until it achieves a critical mass of marketing.
Phil Knight

Once you hit the critical mass, you can’t push it much further. Otherwise the meaning gets fuzzy and confused, and before long, the brand is on the way out.
Phil Knight

Not only was the casual shoe effort a failure, but it was diluting our trademark and hurting us in running.
Phil Knight

America gets its opinions from advertising.
Phil Knight

Humor is always a risky business.
Phil Knight

I’ve always believed that businesses should be good citizens…
Phil Knight

It’s not enough to do good things. You have to let people know what you’re doing.
Phil Knight



Nike is not about going to a ball game. It’s a business.
Phil Knight

You only have to succeed the last time.
Phil Knight



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