B. C. Forbes Quotes - Page 6

Quotes about:

• The man who is intent on making the most of his opportunities is too busy to bother about luck.

  B. C. Forbes

  Opportunity, Men, Luck

  7 Copy quote

• Any business arrangement that is not profitable to the other fellow will in the end prove unprofitable for you. The bargain that yields mutual satisfaction is the only one that is apt to be repeated.

  B. C. Forbes

  Business, Yield, Satisfaction

  4 Copy quote

• Work done with little effort is likely to yield little result.

  B. C. Forbes

  Yield, Effort, Done

  5 Copy quote

• Anything that inspires unselfishness makes for our ennoblement. Christmas does that. I am all for Christmas.

  B. C. Forbes

  Inspire, Doe, Unselfishness

  4 Copy quote

• The majority of America's colossal fortunes have been made by entering industries in their early stages and developing leadership in them.... Think of what opportunities the present and the future contain in such fields as ship-building and ship-owning, aircraft, electrical development, the oil industry, different branches of the automotive industry, foreign trade, international banking, invention, the chemical industry, moving pictures, color photography, and, one night add, labor leadership.

  B. C. Forbes

  Photography, Moving, Thinking

  4 Copy quote

• It is a great mistake for presidents and other leading executives of organizations having branches throughout the country to chain themselves to their desks at headquarters and send out rigid instructions to those in charge of distant branches and offices. Because a man sits in a palatial office in New York or Chicago or Philadelphia or Detroit and draws a big salary, it does not necessarily follow that he knows better than the man on the spot what ought to be done.... Paul, Caesar, Napoleon did not merely sit at home and issue long-range instructions.

  B. C. Forbes

  Country, New York, Mistake

  4 Copy quote

• Accuse American businessmen of being responsible for radicalism and they would indignantly deny the accusation. Yet, in one fundamental sense, they are responsible. They are responsible in the sense that they have utterly neglected to take part in the work and the organization which precede the choosing of candidates for political office. Local political organizations all over the land are conducted and controlled, as a rule, by politicians.... Businessmen have shirked such responsibilities, leaving an untrammeled field to others less capable of carrying on the administration of government.

  B. C. Forbes

  Responsibility, Government, Land

  4 Copy quote

• Ugliness, squalor are breeding grounds for revolution. Beauty is conducive to tranquillity, happiness. Beautifying of homes and places of worship began with the dawn of civilization. Beautifying of workplaces is only in its infancy. Yet, since men normally spend more than half of their waking hours at work, surely it is important that adequate attention be devoted to elevating their working environment, whether office or factory, foundry or machine shop, mine or warehouse. Beautiful surroundings subtly encourage beautiful living. Drab surroundings, bad air, bad light, evoke bad reactions.

  B. C. Forbes

  Beautiful, Work, Home

  5 Copy quote

• If the World War [I] demonstrated anything it was that government ownership is fraught with the gravest dangers and usually leads to disaster. Take Britain. The two problems which have caused the greatest trouble since the war ended have been transportation and coal. The government seized both industries when the war broke out. It got them into such a hopeless mess that it does not know how to turn [In] coal; the government now realizes, it took hold of the tail of a wild animal and is afraid to let go.

  B. C. Forbes

  Letting Go, War, Animal

  4 Copy quote

• Here's a pointer culled from the careers of men who have attained notable success: Don't sit in your office during the hours prospects can be seen. Do your office work before or after the hours during which possible customers can be reached. This may mean adding an hour or two quite often to your day's work; but in times like this particularly, the securing of a satisfactory amount of business through the expenditure of an extra hour or two a day is not an unreasonable price to pay.

  B. C. Forbes

  Mean, Men, Office Work

  8 Copy quote

• Justice must be blind to the hardness or softness of a man's hands, as well as to the leanness or fatness of his pocketbook

  B. C. Forbes

  Men, Hands, Justice

  22 Copy quote

• How many men I know who are earning dollars aplenty, but who are really earning little of what counts. They are so overwhelmingly engrossed in business that they get nothing from their dollars. The Juggernaut of dollar-making has crushed out of them every capacity for genuine enjoyment, every grace, every unselfish sentiment and instinct.

  B. C. Forbes

  Money, Men, Grace

  5 Copy quote

• Golf is an ideal diversion, but a ruinous disease.

  B. C. Forbes

  Golf, Disease, Diversion

  7 Copy quote

• Lady Luck generally woos those who earnestly, enthusiastically, unremittingly woo her.

  B. C. Forbes

  Luck, Lady Luck

  4 Copy quote

• Life is just an endless chain of judgements. . . . The more imperfect our judgement, the less perfect our success.

  B. C. Forbes

  Perfect, Decision, Judgement

  7 Copy quote

• What one thing does the world need most today-apart, that is, from the all-inclusive thing we call righteousness? Aren't you inclined to agree that what this old world needs is just the art of being kind? Every time I visit a factory or any other large business concern, I find myself trying to diagnose whether the atmosphere is one of kindliness or the reverse. And somehow, if there is palpably lacking that spirit of kindness, the owners ... have fallen short of achieving 24-carat success no matter how imposing the financial balance sheet may be.

  B. C. Forbes

  Art, Kindness, Atmosphere

  4 Copy quote

• It is not a case of whether we want to wash our hands of Europe or want to help her to regain her feet. The troubles of Europe have been laid on our doorstep, so to speak, and will plague us, if we do nothing to cure them, whether we like it or not.

  B. C. Forbes

  Hands, Europe, Feet

  4 Copy quote

• The more I move among workers and factories and other plants, the stronger I become convinced that it is advisable to have as [a company] president a practical man, preferably one who has risen from the very bottom of the ladder. Workmen, I find, have far more respect for such men than for collar-and-cuff executives knowing little or nothing about the different kinds of work which have to be done by the workers. Wherever circumstances call for placing a financier or lawyer or a papa's son at the head of a large organization, he should be made chairman or some other title, but not president.

  B. C. Forbes

  Moving, Son, Men

  4 Copy quote

• America, in the eyes of the world, typifies above all else this quality of initiative. The greatest successes are nearly all the fruit of initiative. Why do we hold in such high esteem the achievements of the Wright brothers? Because they were illustrious examples of initiative and tenacity. And ideas are born of initiative, the children of men and women of initiative. Advancement is applied initiative. Don't imitate. Initiate.

  B. C. Forbes

  Brother, Children, Eye

  6 Copy quote

• He is a wise man who seeks by every legitimate means to make all the money he can honestly, for money can do so many worthwhile things in this world, not merely for one's self but for others. But he is an unmitigated fool who imagines for a moment that it is more important to make the money than to make it honestly. One of the advantages of possessing money is that it facilitates one's independence and mental attitude. The man head over heels in debt is more slave than independent.

  B. C. Forbes

  Wise, Money, Attitude

  10 Copy quote

• If the United States is to produce a nation of investors-as we must if we are to gain financial world-leadership-it is imperative that boards of directors be so constituted as to adequately represent the interests and inspire the complete confidence of investors of moderate substance.

  B. C. Forbes

  Inspire, Directors, United States

  4 Copy quote

• A magazine editor recently asked me to sit down on my 40th birthday and write an article on the most important things I had learned in my first 40 years. I told him that the chief thing I had learned was that the copybook maxims are true, but that too many people forget this once they go out into the heat and hustle and bustle of the battle of life and only realize their truth once one foot is beginning to slip into the grave. The man who has won millions at the cost of his conscience is a failure.

  B. C. Forbes

  Writing, Men, Years

  5 Copy quote

• A nation's economic salvation does not lie in the amount of money its rich inhabitants can squander recklessly. A nation's economic salvation lies in the amount of money its inhabitants can save and invest after providing themselves with all the necessaries and all the reasonable comforts of life.

  B. C. Forbes

  Lying, Comfort, Doe

  4 Copy quote

• New Year, the season for changes in positions and advances in salaries, approaches. If you have in your employ some who deserve more salary, do not compel them to go through the unpleasant ordeal of asking a raise, but, rather, voluntarily increase their remuneration. A raise that comes from the boss without asking is worth a lot more than one that has to be gouged out of him. Is it not true that a great many employers who would not dream of overcharging their customers have no qualms whatever about underpaying their employees if the latter will submit without protest?

  B. C. Forbes

  Dream, New Year, Deserve More

  5 Copy quote

• Next to the dog, the wastebasket is your best friend.

  B. C. Forbes

  Dog, Next, Your Best Friend

  4 Copy quote

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