The Quote Garden ™

 I dig old books. ™

 Est. 1998

Home      Search      About      Contact      Terms      Privacy

In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins:  cash and experience. Take the experience first; the cash will come later. ~Harold Geneen


CORPORATION, n.  An ingenious device for securing individual profit without individual responsibility. ~Ambrose Bierce


Hire character. Train skill. ~Peter Schutz


I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself, than this incessant business. ~Henry David Thoreau


[M]y mother was a shy, frightened soul like myself; she did not realize that a successful career consists in impressing oneself upon people. A much larger percentage of men would succeed in business if they realized this truth as boys. The preliminary training in personal contact ought to take precedence over algebraic equations. ~Edward Mott Woolley, "Adventures in Business: The Merchant Who Needed a Press Agent," in The Saturday Evening Post, 1912 September 21st  #networking


Competition brings out the best in products and the worst in man. ~Author unknown


There are so many men who can figure costs, and so few who can measure values. ~Author unknown


Industry is the parent of fortune. ~German proverb


Blessed are the Price-Makers, for they shall inherit the earth. ~Gideon Wurdz (Charles Wayland Towne), "Standard Oil Maxims," Foolish Finance, 1905


"What makes a Merchant, Man of Trade?"
"Not Selling Wares, but Getting Paid!"
~Arthur Guiterman, "Of Merchants," A Poet's Proverbs, 1924


In the fable the wolf called the ox a robber. In the modern version they get together and form a trust. ~"Poor Richard Junior's Philosophy," The Saturday Evening Post, 1903, George Horace Lorimer, editor


Our marketing strategy is driven by the customer experience, not by "growth hawking." We believe companies should be about fewer games, fewer hoops, and more value. We feel like open content speaks to that. ~Gregory Ciotti, "Why We're Opting Out of Opt-in Resources," HelpScout.com


No matter what your business may be, if you are an employer, you will find that no investment you can make will pay you so well as the effort to scatter heart sunshine through your establishment... Many business men are beginning to discover that it pays not only to make employees comfortable but happy... Men can produce more; they are more efficient, they do their best work when happiest. Our mental attitude has everything to do with our productiveness. ~Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living, 1913


The trouble with a lot of merchants lies in their wild yearning to steal somebody's copyright. ~Edward Mott Woolley, "Adventures in Business: The Merchant Who Needed a Press Agent," in The Saturday Evening Post, 1912 September 21st


If the ancient person who had too many irons in the fire lived to-day he would probably organize them into a steel trust. ~"Poor Richard Junior's Philosophy," The Saturday Evening Post, 1903, George Horace Lorimer, editor


When persons, having business with you, offer to feast you, beware of them. ~James Lendall Basford (1845–1915), Sparks from the Philosopher's Stone, 1882  [Vendor lunches‽ —tεᖇᖇ¡·g]


[A]nd now I saw, though too late, the folly of beginning a work before we count the cost, and before we judge rightly of our own strength to go through with it. ~Daniel Defoe, The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner, 1719


How can any undervalue business-habits? as if anything could be done without them. ~Florence Nightingale, "Una and the Lion," in Good Words, 1868


Here was a lesson in economics. And economics is simply the science of business, and business is the science of human service. ~Elbert Hubbard, "Let Thrift Be Your Ruling Habit," Loyalty in Business and One and Twenty Other Good Things, 1921


Don't say it, write it. You can't file a conversation. ~Business saying, quoted in Industrial Productivity, Industrial Relations Research Association, 1951


Christmas cards prove that if there is much sentiment in business, there is even more business in sentiment. ~20,000 Quips & Quotes by Evan Esar, 1968


Science and the classics of education are not rivals. Science and invention must not be slighted. Newton, Faraday, Kelvin, Bessemer, and Siemens are just as great as a corresponding number of your foremost scholars. It is not a question whether scientific education or a study in the humanities develops the highest type of man. It is a question what type of man is now needed to keep each country abreast of its competitors, especially in manufacturing... Business is neither classics nor science. The study of human nature, I think, is the best education for any business man... But whichever education a young man chooses, he should not remain long at college if he wishes to pursue a business career. All my brilliant partners have begun hard practical work in their teens. A course at a modern university will not teach a young fellow to be as successful a business man as if he had been sent into business in a subordinate capacity. This is not disparaging university education, for I limit the observation to the business career. ~Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919)  [altered —tg]


Big business don't go broke any more. The minute it looks bad for them, they combine with something else and issue more stock. ~Will Rogers (1879–1935)


We are living in an age of "Mergers" and "Combines." When your business is not doing good you combine with something and sell more stock. ~Will Rogers, 1930


Customers overwhelmingly show appreciation for great service with their wallets. ~HelpScout.com, "75 Customer Service Facts, Quotes & Statistics: How Your Business Can Deliver With the Best of the Best"


I don't spend more than 20 minutes a day in my office. I'm out in the plant. The people need to know why they are doing the things they do. And I need to know if they've got a better way to do it. ~Karsten Solheim (1911–2000), in Tri-City Herald, 1991, as quoted in Jeffrey B. Ellis, And the Putter Went… PING, 2017  [engineer, inventor, golf club designer, and founder of PING, www.ping.com —tg]


A real merger is only for two souls with but a single thought. Corporations have no souls. ~"Poor Richard Junior's Philosophy," The Saturday Evening Post, 1904, George Horace Lorimer, editor


Every corporation has a complaint process that begins with someone telling you that you are the first person to ever complain about this. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com


Work as if you own the company and soon you just might. ~Mike Dolan, @HawaiianLife, tweet


You may find men who will become famous as specialists in many branches of life, especially in the professions. Great talents in one line will atone for the lack of many other qualities. But in the business career there must, I think, be an all-roundness to secure success. The decisions a business man is called upon to make every day, sometimes every hour, are momentous, and involve many interests. His judgment needs to be sure upon a wide range of subjects. ~Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919)


It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite easy to imagine it run by a board of gods. ~H. L. Mencken


A committee is a thing which takes a week to do what one good man can do in an hour. ~Elbert Hubbard, 1909


A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain. ~Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love: The Lives of Lazarus Long, 1973


The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling. ~Ambrose Bierce


LADY FREDERICK BEROLLES.  Then let me give you one warning — don't gamble.
MADAME CLAUDE.  Oh, no, my lady. I gamble quite enough in my business as it is. I never know when my customers will pay their bills — if ever.
~W. Somerset Maugham, Lady Frederick, 1907


Every one contributes some special quality to the general whole. They naturally serve each other. I do not believe any one man can make a great success of a business nowadays. I am sure I never could have done so without my partners, of whom I had thirty-two, the brightest and cleverest young fellows in the world. I have often said that if I had to lose all the capital I had in the works or lose my partners, I should let all my capital go and start again without a dollar, but with the organization intact... No man will make a great business who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit of doing it. That spirit is fatal and a sure proof of a small mind. ~Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919)


To take something from a person and keep it for oneself: that is robbery. To take something from one person and then turn it over to another in exchange for as much money as you can get: that is business. Robbery is so much more stupid, since it is satisfied with a single, frequently dangerous profit; whereas in business it can be doubled without danger. ~Octave Mirbeau, The Torture Garden, 1899, translated from the French by Alvah C. Bessie, 1931


Any business with customers is in the "people" business. ~HelpScout.com, "75 Customer Service Facts, Quotes & Statistics: How Your Business Can Deliver With the Best of the Best"


A consultant is a man sent in after the battle to bayonet the wounded. ~Author unknown


Pick out industries that don't have celebrities — then become the first one. Big ponds are overrated. ~Scott Ginsberg, hellomynameisscott.com


But the wisest policy that an employer can pursue toward his men is to show by his actions that he has a heart. In cases of accident, distress, or any trouble, the firm should show that its heart has been touched, and that it can be generous and benevolent. The firm that has a reputation for taking the best care of its men has the best chance of success, because the best men... will gravitate to that firm and stay with it. Nothing pays so well in business as generous treatment. Indeed, the firm which sees that its men make the highest earnings is certain to be the most successful. ~Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919)


APPRECIATE everything your associates do for the business. A paycheck and a stock option will buy one kind of loyalty. But all of us like to be told how much somebody appreciates what we do for them. We like to hear it often, and especially when we have done something we're really proud of. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They're absolutely free — and worth a fortune. ~Sam Walton, "Running a Successful Company: Ten Rules That Worked for Me" (Sam's Rules for Building a Business), Made in America: My Story, 1992, co-authored with John Huey


Advice to big business: Don't buy the patent; hire the guy who got it. ~Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962)


The trouble with not being into social networking is that people think you're anti-social when you're only anti-networking. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com


The results of quality work last longer than the shock of high prices. ~Author unknown


When developing and designing products that invite people to use them, just do it right from the start and put your heart into it. It's harder and it takes longer, but everyone wins in the end. ~Michael D. Harris


I believe firmly in youths as executive agents. Older heads should be reserved for counsel. It is astonishing what a young man can do if he is only trusted... There should be no promotion of outsiders over the heads of aspiring young men. The employer who has not made the material around him fit for promotion will not be found to be much of a captain of industry. If the employer is indispensable to the young man the young man can soon make himself indispensable to his employer. ~Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919)


A verbal agreement is not worth the paper it's written on. ~Bryan O'Loghlen  [Nabbed this one from the great Quote Investigator at quoteinvestigator.com. Thanks, Mr O'Toole! —tεᖇᖇ¡·g]


A Mission Statement is a dense slab of words that a large organization produces when it needs to establish that its workers are not just sitting around downloading Internet porn. ~Dave Barry, Dave Barry Hits Below the Beltway, 2001, davebarry.com


COMMERCE, n..  A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money belonging to E. ~Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's World Book, 1906


PIRACY, n.  Commerce without its folly-swaddles, just as God made it. ~Ambrose Bierce

Home      Search      About      Contact      Terms      Privacy

www.quotegarden.com/business.html
Last saved 2023 Feb 22 Wed 08:47 PST