Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) was a Scottish-born American steel magnate and philanthropist. He built up a fortune in the steel industry, became one of the richest men in the world, and dedicated his wealth to charitable purposes—particularly libraries, education, and the arts.
Born in Dunfermline, Scotland, Carnegie grew up in Scotland and migrated to America in 1848. He taught himself using library books, became a telegraph operator, and then secretary of a Pennsylvania Railroad executive. He soon became Pennsylvania Railroad’s vice president, then an investor, and gradually built a steel empire by manufacturing steel rails for America’s burgeoning railroad industry.
At the height of his career, in 1901, after selling the Carnegie Steel Company to financier J. P. Morgan for 250 million dollars ($7 Billion in 2017,) Carnegie decided to retire and devote himself to giving his wealth all away. He later gave money to create more than 2,500 “free to the people” libraries all over the United States and in Britain.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Andrew Carnegie
We accept and welcome… as conditions to which we must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of environment; the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few; and the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but essential for the future progress of the race.
—Andrew Carnegie
Topics: Equality
It marks a big step in a man’s development when he comes to realize that other men can be called in to help him do a better job than he can do alone.
—Andrew Carnegie
Topics: Work
And while the law of ‘competition’ may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it ensures the survival of the fittest in every department.
—Andrew Carnegie
Topics: Capitalism, Survival
One of the serious obstacles to the improvement of our race is indiscriminate charity.
—Andrew Carnegie
Topics: Charity
I have had a long, long life full of troubles, but there is one curious fact about them—nine-tenths of them never happened.
—Andrew Carnegie
Topics: Trouble
Immense power is acquired by assuring yourself in your secret reveries that you were born to control affairs.
—Andrew Carnegie
Topics: Positive Attitudes, Assurance, Power, Confidence, Optimism
It was from my own early experience that I decided there was no use to which money could be applied so productive of good to boys and girls who have good within them and ability and ambition to develop it as the founding of a public library.
—Andrew Carnegie
Topics: Reading
No man is a true gentleman who does not inspire the affection and devotion of his servants.
—Andrew Carnegie
Topics: Manners
At the end, the acquisition of wealth is ignoble in the extreme. I assume that you save and long for wealth only as a means of enabling you the better to do some good in your day and generation.
—Andrew Carnegie
Topics: Wealth
Let us pity and forgive those who urge increased armaments, for “they know not what they do.”
—Andrew Carnegie
Topics: War
As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.
—Andrew Carnegie
Topics: Doing, Attention, Action
The first man gets the oyster, the second man gets the shell.
—Andrew Carnegie
Topics: Winners, Winning, Life
You can’t push anyone up the ladder unless he is ready to climb himself.
—Andrew Carnegie
Topics: Planning, Preparation
Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.
—Andrew Carnegie
Topics: Teams, Teamwork
A word, a look, an accent, may affect the destiny not only of individuals, but of nations. He is a bold man who calls anything a trifle.
—Andrew Carnegie
Topics: Destiny
In bestowing charity, the main consideration: should be to help those who will help themselves; to provide part of the means by which those who desire to improve may do so; to give those who desire to rise the aids by which they may rise; to assist, but rarely or never to do all. Neither the individual nor the race is improved by almsgiving. Those worthy of assistance, except in rare cases, seldom require assistance. The really valuable men of the race never do, except in case of accident or sudden change. Every one has, of course, cases of individuals brought to his own knowledge where temporary assistance can do genuine good, and these he will not overlook. But the amount which can be wisely given by the individual for individuals is necessarily limited by his lack of knowledge of the circumstances connected with each. He is the only true reformer who is as care ful and as anxious not to aid the unworthy as he is to aid the worthy, and, perhaps, even more so, for in almsgiving more injury is probably done by rewarding vice than by relieving virtue.
The rich man is thus almost restricted to following the examples of…others, who know that the best means of benefiting the community is to place within its reach the ladders upon which the aspiring can rise: free libraries, parks, and means of recreation, by which men are helped in body and mind; works of art, certain to give pleasure and improve the public taste; and public institutions of various kinds, which will improve the general condition of the people; in this manner returning their surplus wealth to the mass of their fellows in the forms best calculated to do them lasting good.
—Andrew Carnegie
Topics: Charity
I would as soon leave my son a curse as the almighty dollar.
—Andrew Carnegie
Topics: Inheritance
This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of wealth: First, to set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him; and, after doing so, to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer, and strictly bound as a matter of duty to administer in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community—the man of wealth thus becoming the mere trustee and agent for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience and ability to administer, doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves.
—Andrew Carnegie
Topics: Wealth, Riches
The surest foundation of a manufacturing concern is quality. After that, and a long way after, comes cost.
—Andrew Carnegie
Topics: Quality
There is no use whatever trying to help people who do not help themselves. You cannot push anyone up a ladder unless he be willing to climb himself.
—Andrew Carnegie
Topics: Helping, Progress, Self-improvement
People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.
—Andrew Carnegie
Topics: Life, People, Motivation, Knowledge, Thought, Success, Compassion, Kindness
The secret of happiness is renunciation.
—Andrew Carnegie
Topics: Happiness
Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!
—Andrew Carnegie
Topics: Achieve, Vision, Life, Achievements, Business, Success, Achievement
Upon the sacredness of property civilization itself depends – the right of the laborer to his hundred dollars in the savings bank, and equally the legal right of the millionaire to his millions.
—Andrew Carnegie
Topics: Property
I can’t afford to pay them any other way.
—Andrew Carnegie
Topics: Money
It is not the rich man’s son that the young struggler for advancement has to fear in the race for life, nor his nephew, nor his cousin. Let him look out for the dark horse in the boy who begins by sweeping out the office.
—Andrew Carnegie
Topics: Improvement
The man who enters a library is in the best society this world affords; the good and the great welcome him, surround him, and humbly ask to be allowed to become his servants.
—Andrew Carnegie
The problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth, so that the ties of brotherhood may still bind together the rich and poor in harmonious relationship.
—Andrew Carnegie
Topics: Wealth
Public sentiment will come to be, that the man who dies rich dies disgraced.
—Andrew Carnegie
Topics: Riches, Philanthropy
There is no way of making a business successful that can vie with the policy of promoting those who render exceptional service.
—Andrew Carnegie
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