You have no idea how big the other fellow’s troubles are.
—B. C. Forbes
Topics: Reality, Opportunities
Employers, have you ever stopped to reckon what the goodwill of your workers is worth? … In most large concerns it would be worth more in dollars and cents to have the goodwill of the working force than of those on the outside. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that the average working force is capable of increasing its production 25% or more whenever the workers feel so inclined. Workers animated by ill will cannot possibly give results equal to those of workers animated by goodwill. The tragic fact appears to be that a tremendous number of working forces are not so animated. … .
—B. C. Forbes
Topics: Goodwill
Opportunity rarely knocks on your door. Knock rather on opportunity’s door if you ardently wish to enter.
—B. C. Forbes
Topics: Opportunity
If a pig could pray, it would pray for swill. What do you pray for?
—B. C. Forbes
Topics: Prayer
The man who is intent on making the most of his opportunities is too busy to bother about luck.
—B. C. Forbes
Topics: Fortune, Luck
Without self-respect there can be no genuine success. Success won at the cost of self-respect is not success? For what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own self-respect.
—B. C. Forbes
Topics: Self-respect, Self Respect
I played golf some time ago with John D. Rockefeller. The other day, I played with Charles M. Schwab…. Both played exactly the same. Neither overreached (or) tried to do more than he was capable of…. Most golfers, like most businessmen, swat the ball with all their might and trust more or less to luck as to the result…. Now, both Rockefeller and Schwab hit a straight ball nine times out of ten. In fact, in the first 17 holes I played with Schwab, he didn’t foozle a single shot. I could drive a ball 25 to 50 yards further than he, but quite often it flew wild. The result was that Schwab licked me decisively.
—B. C. Forbes
Topics: Sports
How we love to blame others for our misfortunes! Almost every individual who has lost money in stock speculation has on the tip of his tongue an explanation which he trots out to show that it wasn’t his own fault at all … Hardly one loser has the manliness to say frankly, “I was wrong”.
—B. C. Forbes
Topics: Blame, Confidence, Self-reliance, Responsibility
Many a man has walked up to the opportunity for which he has long been preparing himself, looked it full in the face, and then begun to get cold feet … when it comes to betting on yourself and your power to do the thing you know you must do or write yourself down a failure, you’re a chicken-livered coward if you hesitate.
—B. C. Forbes
Topics: Commitment, Secrets of Success, Dedication, Courage to Begin
To become an earner, be a learner.
—B. C. Forbes
Topics: Education
Only he can be taught who is willing to learn.
—B. C. Forbes
Jealousy is an inner consciousness of one’s own inferiority. it is a mental cancer.
—B. C. Forbes
Topics: Envy, Jealousy
Any business arrangement that is not profitable to the other person 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
Pity the human being who is not able to connect faith within himself with the infinite He who has faith has … an inward reservoir of courage, hope, confidence, calmness, and assuring trust that all will come out well—even though to the world it may appear to come out most badly.
—B. C. Forbes
Topics: Faith, Belief
Work is the meat of life, pleasure the dessert.
—B. C. Forbes
Topics: Work
The person who renders loyal service in a humble capacity will be chosen for higher responsibilities, just as the biblical servant who multiplied the one pound given him by his master was made ruler over ten cities.
—B. C. Forbes
Topics: Leadership, Leaders
The human being who lives only for himself finally reaps nothing but unhappiness. Selfishness corrodes. Unselfishness ennobles, satisfies. Don’t put off the joy derivable from doing helpful, kindly things for others.
—B. C. Forbes
Topics: Kindness, Selfishness, Giving, Service
Diamonds are only lumps of coal that stuck to their jobs.
—B. C. Forbes
Topics: Endurance, Wealth, Jobs, Persistence, Perseverance, Resolve
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
Topics: Money
Whimpering never kept a leaking vessel from foundering. Vigorously manning the pumps has. Get busy with your head and hands, not your chin.
—B. C. Forbes
Topics: Work
Frank W. Woolworth once told me that the turning-point in his career did not come until he was thrown flat on his back by illness. He was sure that his business would go to pieces during his long, enforced absence. Instead, he discovered that he had in his employ men who could overcome difficulties when given power to exercise initiative. After that Woolworth left many problems and difficulties to be solved by subordinates and turned his attention to big things.
—B. C. Forbes
It is when things go hardest, when life becomes most trying, that there is greatest need for having a fixed goal. When few comforts come from without, it is all the more necessary to have a fount to draw from within.
—B. C. Forbes
Topics: Goals, Aspirations
The man of fixed ingrained principles who has mapped out a straight course, and has the courage and self-control to adhere to it, does not find life complex. Complexities are all of our own making.
—B. C. Forbes
Topics: Simplicity, Simple Living
Tackle troubles one at a time. Get through one day at a time.
—B. C. Forbes
If you were to visit a certain rural section of Vermont, you would be shown two farms only a few miles apart, and you would be told that a lad raised on one of the farms today occupies the most responsible position in the whole world, the Presidency of the United States. From the other farm, you would be told, there went forth another lad who is today the head of one of the leading railroads in the U.S…. Whenever I hear wild denunciations of this country and its institutions I cannot but feel that … no other country on earth offers such advantages and opportunities for children born in humble circumstances.
—B. C. Forbes
Topics: Opportunities
Which class is happiest, the rich, the middle class or the poor? A very successful executive of a large organization touches upon this vital subject in a long letter to all his salesmen. He uses as his text a passage from Robinson Crusoe which included this: “My Father bid me observe it, and I should always find that the calamities of life were shared among the upper and lower part of mankind; but that the middle station had the fewest disasters, and were not exposed to so many vicissitudes as the higher or lower part of mankind”.
—B. C. Forbes
Topics: Class
Life is just an endless chain of judgements…. The more imperfect our judgement, the less perfect our success.
—B. C. Forbes
Topics: Decisions
What would you call America’s most priceless asset? Surely not its limitless natural resources, not its matchless national wealth, not its unequalled store of gold, not its giant factories, not its surpassing railroads, not its unprecedented volume of cheap power. Is not its most priceless asset the character of its people, their indomitable self-confidence, their transcendent vision, their sleepless initiative and, perhaps above all, their inherent, irrepressible optimism?
—B. C. Forbes
Topics: America
The real friend is he or she who can share all our sorrow and double our joys.
—B. C. Forbes
Topics: Friendship, Sharing
Better to be occasionally cheated than perpetually suspicious.
—B. C. Forbes
Topics: Doubt, Deception
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