Malcolm Stevenson Forbes (1919–90) was an American business leader and socialite. The owner-publisher of the Forbes magazine 1957–90, he was notorious for his opulent lifestyle and his self-glorification.
Born in Brooklyn, New York City, Forbes inherited his wealth from his father, B. C. Forbes, who launched Malcolm at the Fairfield Times newspaper as owner and publisher only days after his matriculation from Princeton University.
After serving in the Army during World War II, Malcolm became a state senator in New Jersey 1951–58 and contested unsuccessfully for governor his 1957. When his father died in 1954, Malcolm Forbes became publisher and editor in chief of Forbes. Under his direction, the glossy business magazine flourished from a circulation of 100,000 to 720,000. He also founded the Nation’s Heritage magazine and a journal for art lovers called Egg.
A well-known collector, Forbes developed properties in California, Maine, and Fiji, and owned a château in Normandy, a mansion in London, an island in the South Seas, a palace in Tangier, Morocco, and collections of motorcycles, Peter Carl Fabergé imperial Easter eggs, and Oriental paintings. He set six world records in hot air ballooning.
Branded as a man who adored the spotlight, Forbes was well known for his extravagant lifestyle. He earned the nickname “the happiest millionaire.” On his last birthday, he incited controversy by giving a $2 million party, for which he flew some 1,000 guests to Tangier, Morocco. Not only that, he went out of his way to make sure that everyone who had not been invited knew what they had missed.
Forbes wrote More Than I Dreamed: A Lifetime of Collecting (1989.) A famous biography is Christopher Winans’s Malcolm Forbes: The Man Who Had Everything (1990.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Malcolm S. Forbes
Working at what you enjoy is far more important than what you’re working at.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Work
It ticks me no end when people get ticked off at those of us who comment audibly and in print on events and problems. That’s what we’re paid for. Why clutter up your mind with a bunch of facts that might inhibit the solve-ability of us who must express an opinion? After all, all the world cries out for a solution to its problems, and we supply them right and left. Come to think of it, it’s we who should be giving our deplorers and detractors the blast; because 99% of the time they don’t do as we say.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Writing
There is no such thing as no chance.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Chance, Possibilities
People who matter are most aware that everyone else does, too.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Worth
Over the years, I’ve evolved a somewhat heretical but time-and mind-saving approach to books, articles, editorials that deal with weighty matters. More often than not, by beginning at the end and contemplating the conclusions, one can determine if it’s worth going through the whole to get there.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Books
He who says he never needs help, most does.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Help
If you have no critics you’ll likely have no success.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Criticism
It’s always worthwhile to make others aware of their worth.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
How to get taken: Spend most of your time making sure you’re not.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Fools
It doesn’t take much of a rule to measure a mean man.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Anger
We’d all like to be taken for what we’d like to be.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Desires
If I owned any of these Hot New Issues that have doubled, tripled, quintupled or umptupled within days and in some cases hours after they were issued, I most certainly would grab my fabulous windfall, thank my lucky stars and invest the money. It’s utter nonsense to think any newly issued stock is really worth two, ten or 20 times the (offering) price…. A management so stupid as to sell shares (cheap), and an underwriter so obtuse as not to discern the real value, together would provide reason enough for a sensible man to get rid of his shares.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
It doesn’t matter to me if a man is from Harvard or Sing Sing. We hire the man, not his history.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Business
Once you’ve given advice to someone, you’re obligated.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Advice
Experts kill me. Economic experts, that is. Corporations, foundations, publications and governments pay them by the bucketful, and they fill buckets with forecasts that change more frequently than white-collar, workers do shirts. What Lies Ahead is the usual title. What Lies would often be more appropriate. If women’s hemlines changed as rapidly as an economist’s forecasts, the fashion people and the textile industry would be more profitable than any other. In fact, if all the country’s economists were laid end to end, they still wouldn’t reach a conclusion.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Knowledge
It’s clear that something must be done about the effectively disruptive tactics of anarchistic handfuls (at political rallies). Handling the occasional heckler is a storied, valuable art in politics; but a militant group of grubs (have) announced their determination to rape the right of candidates to be heard and of citizens to hear. Far, far too often these stinky finkies succeeded…. Free speech is the first requisite of freedom and a viable, functioning democracy. The exercise of it cannot be at the option of those who think the right to dissent includes the right to destroy.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Politics, History, Historians
If you don’t know what to do with many of the papers piled on your desk, stick a dozen colleagues’ initials on ’em, and pass them along. When in doubt, route.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Control
Listening to advice often accomplishes far more than heeding it.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Advice
Hopeless cases: Executives who assert themselves by saying No when they should say Yes.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Blaming destiny is a poor out for those who don’t reach desired destinations.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Destiny
To measure the man, measure his heart.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Character, Honesty
When what we are is what we want to be, that’s happiness.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Happiness
After the fact, our hearts always go out to the fallen Goliaths. Yet we invariably root for their Davids. Until they’re winners.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Winning
In buying stock, buy brains and you’ll profit.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
If you don’t know what you want to do, it’s harder to do it.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Goals
It’s more fun to arrive at a conclusion than to justify it.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Isn’t it fortunate how selective our recollections usually are.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Memory
Hoarding one’s hurts hurts only the hoarder.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
The more sympathy you give, the less you need.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: One liners, Giving, Kindness, Sympathy, Charity
One thing that previous practice doesn’t always make perfect marriage.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Marriage
Those carried away by power are soon carried away.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Power
Contrary to the cliche, genuinely nice guys most often finish first or very near it.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Kindness
The biggest mistake people make in life is not trying to make a living at doing what they most enjoy.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
The top people of the biggest companies are, surprisingly, often the nicest ones in their company I’m not sure, though, if they got there because they were good guys or that they’re now good guys because they can afford to be.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
The ultimate in futility is owning important jewelry. Insurers often insist on the wearing of paste replicas because necks with real rocks around ’em risk wringing.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Security
If you don’t know, it’s not always necessary to admit it.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Knowledge
At the heart of any good business is a chief executive officer with one.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Heart
Ability will never catch up with the demand for it.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Ability, One liners
When young, you’re shocked by the number of people who turn out to have feet of clay. Older, you’re surprised by the number of people who don’t.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Doubt
Elected leaders who forget how they got there won’t the next time.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Politics, Politicians, Power
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Katharine Graham American Publisher
William Feather American Publisher
M. F. K. Fisher American Writer
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Frederick Buechner American Presbyterian Clergyman
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Isadora Duncan American Dancer
Andy Warhol American Painter