quotations about business
Few people do business well who do nothing else.
EARL OF CHESTERFIELD
letter to his son, Aug. 7, 1749
It is probably true that business corrupts everything it touches. It corrupts politics, sports, literature, art, labor unions and so on. But business also corrupts and undermines monolithic totalitarianism. Capitalism is at its liberating best in a noncapitalist environment.
ERIC HOFFER
The New York Times Magazine, April 25, 1971
Business before pleasure, I am ready to grant; but when there is none, il faut s'amuser.
LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON
Romance and Reality
Business has continued to be more interested in thinking, in general, than any other sector of society. The explanation for this is because there is a reality test. There is a bottom line. There are sales figures and profit figures. There are results.
EDWARD DE BONO
"Leadership and the need for creative thinking", Management-Issues, June 3, 2010
Clothes don't make the man, but they make all of him except his hands and face during business hours, and that's a pretty considerable area of the human animal.
GEORGE HORACE LORIMER
Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son
In business -- every business -- the bottom line is understanding the process. If you don't understand the process, you'll never reap the rewards of the process.
DONALD TRUMP
How to Get Rich
Profit to a business is like food to a human body: the body must grow and develop.
W.C.F. HARTLEY
An Introduction to Business Accounting for Managers
Many a man acquires a fortune by doing his business thoroughly, while his neighbour remains poor for life, because he only half does it.
P.T. BARNUM
The Art of Money Getting
The man of business knows that only by years of patient, unremitting attention to affairs can he earn his reward, which is the result, not of chance, but of well-devised means for the attainment of ends.
ANDREW CARNEGIE
The Empire of Business
There is no better ballast for keeping the mind steady on its keel, and saving it from all risk of crankiness, than business.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
New England Two Centuries Ago
Most men are individuals no longer so far as their business, its activities, or its moralities are concerned. They are not units but fractions.
WOODROW WILSON
speech in Chattanooga, Tennessee, August 31, 1910
A successful business maximizes the present value of future earnings. The first requirement, therefore, of business success is sustainable profits. One-time winnings, in business as in casinos, are disappointing. We expect more from our investments than that.
STEPHEN YOUNG
Moral Capitalism: Reconciling Private Interest with the Public Good
As long as politics is the shadow cast on society by big business, the attenuation of the shadow will not change the substance.
JOHN DEWEY
"Policies for a New Party", The Later Works
To those men and women in business, remember the ultimate end of your work: to make a better product, to create better lives. I ask you to plan for the longer term and avoid that temptation of quick and easy paper profits.
GEORGE H. W. BUSH
address to joint session of Congress, Feb. 9, 1989
"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"
CHARLES DICKENS
A Christmas Carol
A man's success in business today turns upon his power of getting people to believe he has something that they want.
GERALD STANLEY LEE
Crowds
Many leaders of big organizations, I think, don't believe that change is possible. But if you look at history, things do change, and if your business is static, you're likely to have issues.
LARRY PAGE
interview, CNNMoney , May 1, 2008
All businesses need to be young forever. If your customer base ages with you, you're Woolworth's.
JEFF BEZOS
Business Insider, July 16, 2015
My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people's.
OSCAR WILDE
Lady Windermere's Fan
The chief business of the American people is business.
CALVIN COOLIDGE
speech, Jan. 17, 1925