I get the facts, I study them patiently, I apply imagination.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Imagination
Colleges don’t teach economics properly. Unfortunately we learn little from the experience of the past. An economist must know, besides his subject, ethics, logic, philosophy, the humanities and sociology, in fact everything that is part of how we live and react to one another.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Economy
If you get all the facts, your judgment can be right; if you don’t get all the facts, it can’t be right.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Facts
Whatever failures I have known, whatever errors I have committed, whatever follies I have witnessed in private and public life have been the consequence of action without thought.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Thought, Planning
Save for gold, jewels, works of art, perhaps good agricultural land, and a very few other things, there ain’t no such animal as a permanent investment.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Wealth
A political leader must keep looking over his shoulder all the time to see if the boys are still there. If they aren’t still there, he’s no longer a political leader.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Politics, Politicians
The art of living lies not in eliminating but in growing with troubles.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Life and Living, Realistic Expectations
Never follow the crowd.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Follow, Individuality
Approach each new problem not with a view of finding what you hope will be there, but to get the truth, the realities that must be grappled with. You may not like what you find. In that case you are entitled to try to change it. But do not deceive yourself as to what you do find to be the facts of the situation.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Facts
Never pay the slightest attention to what a company president ever says about his stock.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Attention
In America, if you put your mind to it you can have anything you want. You just can’t have everything you want.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: America
Whatever task you undertake, do it with all your heart and soul. Always be courteous, never be discouraged. Beware of him who promises something for nothing. Do not blame anybody for your mistakes and failures. Do not look for approval except the consciousness of doing your best.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Self-reliance, Realization, Responsibility, Confidence, Self-Discovery, Blame, Acceptance, Awareness, Failures, Excellence, Mistakes
One of the secrets of a long and fruitful life is to forgive everybody, everything, every night before you go to bed.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Questions, Curiosity, Questioning
You can overcome anything if you don’t bellyache.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Problems, Complaining, Hedonism, Self-Pity
There is too much emphasis on the alleged need for more purchasing power. What the country needs stable purchasing power. Increased wages, higher pensions, more unemployment insurance, all are of no avail if the purchasing power of money falls faster.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Business, Money
Bears don’t live on Park Avenue.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Only as you do know yourself can your brain serve you as a sharp and efficient tool. Know your failings, passions, and prejudices so you can separate them from what you see. Know also when you actually have thought through to the nature of the thing with which you are dealing and when you are not thinking at all.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Identity, Self-Knowledge
Higher prices are themselves inflation and not merely the result of it. They are accelerated and not stopped by taxation…. It isn’t high prices that persuade the high cost and marginal producer to make the investment necessary to bring him into production. It is the promise of profit. High prices without profit merely requires more investment to support turnover and inventory.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Profit
Most of the successful people I’ve known are the ones who do more listening than talking.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Success, Success & Failure
Making a success of the job at hand is the best step toward the kind you want.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Work
Old age is fifteen years older than I am.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Birthdays, Age
Even when we know what is right, too often we fail to act. More often we grab greedily for the day, letting tomorrow bring what it will, putting off the unpleasant and unpopular.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Responsibility
Gold has worked down from Alexander’s time… When something holds good for two thousand years I do not believe it can be so because of prejudice or mistaken theory.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Gold
Every man has a right to be wrong in his opinions. But no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Opinions, Facts, Opinion
Don’t try to buy at the bottom and sell at the top. This can’t be done, except by liars.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Business
The ability to express an idea is well nigh as important as the idea itself.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Communication, Speech
The greatest blessing of our democracy is freedom. But in the last analysis, our only freedom is the freedom to discipline ourselves. Discipline is deciding not to be led around by our gotta haves. It is the task of a lifetime, an indispensable prerequisite to success, and the only way to be truly free.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Freedom
I am quite sure that in the hereafter she will take me by the hand and lead me to my proper seat.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Teaching
The terror created by weaponry has never stopped men from employing them.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Weapon
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Ray Dalio American Investor
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Henry R. Kravis American Businessman
T. Boone Pickens American Businessman, Financier
Eli Broad American Entrepreneur
Peter Thiel American Entrepreneur