Ursula Burns Quotes

#1. I don't think paper will go away. I do believe that the value of paper will change, and Xerox is working on changing that value. Consider a color page. Actual life is in color, but you keep reproducing it in black and white. You remove value. It's a bad thing to do.

Ursula Burns

#2. My mother was pragmatic, focused and extremely, exceedingly practical, and she was the ultimate self-determining person.

Ursula Burns

#3. Xerox is really good at managing documents, and we're definitely good at managing through a process.

Ursula Burns

#4. Dreams do come true, but not without the help of others, a good education, a strong work ethic, and the courage to lean in.

Ursula Burns

#5. I say to my team all the time that this is how I grew up: Always thinking that, at any minute, I could be unemployed. You have to scramble. You have to work hard and get ahead of things.

Ursula Burns

#6. I realized I was more convincing to myself and to the people who were listening when I actually said what I thought, versus what I thought people wanted to hear me say.

Ursula Burns

#7. Race and gender definitely came up, occasionally, in my life at work. But the bigger challenge that I had was age. I took roles earlier in my career than people expected, and so a lot of what I got was, 'Do you actually know enough to do this?'

Ursula Burns

#8. I want to stop transforming and just start being.

Ursula Burns

#9. I went to an all-girls Catholic high school. The three things that they focused on were reading, writing, and arithmetic. My goodness, this is a novel idea in this modern society. I was really good at all three of these things. I was particularly good at math.

Ursula Burns

#10. Where you are is not who you are

Ursula Burns

#11. Xerox manages the infrastructure of E-ZPass for a large number of states. So when you say E-ZPass, and get some bill from E-ZPass, or call and ask a question about E-ZPass, you're talking to a Xerox person.

Ursula Burns

#12. CEOs resign when the internal dynamics of the company and the external dynamics of the company actually come together to say it is appropriate. When the internal dynamics ask you whether you have a replacement. I think the transition from CEOships have also become cartoonish.

Ursula Burns

#13. Admiration takes on a whole new level when you appreciate just how complex it is to run a modern business.

Ursula Burns

#14. The best way to change it is to do it. Right? And then after a while you become it, and it's easy.

Ursula Burns

#15. Impatience is a virtue.

Ursula Burns

#16. The world is changing. We all know this. And as that world changes, if you don't transform your company, you're stuck.

Ursula Burns

#17. Kids are pretty resilient. You don't have to be at every volleyball game. We can't guilt ourselves.

Ursula Burns

#18. Unlike people, companies outlive their founders and their leaders.

Ursula Burns

#19. My perspective comes in part from being a New York black lady, in part from being an engineer. I know I'm smart and have opinions worth being heard.

Ursula Burns

#20. I'm an advocate for change and eager to break a little glass when needed,

Ursula Burns

#21. My mother raised us to think that if we worked hard, and if we put our end of the bargain in, it would work out OK for us.

Ursula Burns

#22. The world is full of opportunities - every day there's something new that you can do. For example, you could make dirty water potable. Why does anyone not have potable water? Because it's a problem that hasn't been solved yet, but it can be.

Ursula Burns

#23. I don't want to overemphasize this, but not a day goes by when I don't think about my mother and what she would think about what I just did. I often adjust my approach.

Ursula Burns

#24. Believe that there are no limitations, no barriers to your success
you will be empowered and you will achieve.

Ursula Burns

#25. I've had many mentors, but the one that has the most impact was my mother.

Ursula Burns

#26. If you go to Norway, Finland, Russia or Australia, you'll see Xerox or Fuji-Xerox people, not just the name on the door. We have human beings who live and work and serve customers everywhere around the globe.

Ursula Burns

#27. My mother was amazing. I guess, in our community, if you wanted to get by you had to work hard. So she cleaned offices. She did everything that you could imagine. We were really poor. But she would say, 'Where you are is not who you are.'

Ursula Burns

#28. This old notion that work is drudgery is nonsense. Most days, even back when Xerox was under siege, I could not wait to get to the office.

Ursula Burns

#29. I use your love as a man burns a candle, burns it away, to light his steps.

Ursula K. Le Guin

#30. I'm less concerned about whether being a good corporate citizen burnishes a company's reputation. That's just an added benefit. I believe it's a responsibility, and there is no negotiating on responsibilities.

Ursula Burns

#31. I'm a black lady from the Lower East Side of New York. Not a lot intimidates me.

Ursula Burns