John Pierpont Morgan Sr. (1837–1913) was an American financier, art collector, and philanthropist. He was one of the world’s leading financial celebrities during the two pre-World War I decades. He helped build a credit bridge between Europe and America, and fiscally rescued the United States government twice. He also reorganized several major railroads and consolidated the United States Steel, International Harvester, and General Electric corporations.
Born in Hartford, Connecticut, John Pierpont was the son of financier Junius Spencer Morgan. John Pierpont studied abroad, and after working in a New York City banking house became the New York agent and then sole manager for J. S. Morgan & Company.
Morgan rapidly established a dominant presence in international finance. He developed a railroad empire, financed manufacturing and mining, controlled banks, insurance companies, shipping lines, and communications systems. In 1901, he established U.S. Steel, the world’s first billion-dollar corporation.
Many of Morgan’s commercial ventures, including gold speculation during the Civil War, the sale of obsolete carbines to the Union, and his lending practices and financial dominance during the panics of 1895 and 1897, provoked controversy.
In April 1912, Morgan was booked on the maiden voyage of the British passenger liner Titanic but was forced to cancel, allegedly because of sickness. The ship sank with a significant loss of life.
An avid sportsman, yachtsman, and art collector, Morgan bankrolled many philanthropies. While dominating Wall Street for many years, he accumulated one of the largest private art collections of all time. He left legacies to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Pierpont Morgan Library and Museum, and the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by J. P. Morgan
A man generally has two reasons for doing a thing. One that sounds good, and a real one.
—J. P. Morgan
Topics: Reason, Hypocrisy
You can’t pick cherries with your back to the tree.
—J. P. Morgan
Topics: Action
When you expect things to happen—strangely enough—they do happen.
—J. P. Morgan
Topics: Expectation
A man always has two reasons for what he does good one, and the real one.
—J. P. Morgan
Topics: Reason, Logic
No problem can be solved until it is reduced to some simple form. The changing of a vague difficulty into a specific, concrete form is a very essential element in thinking.
—J. P. Morgan
Topics: Thinking, Truth, Difficulty
Go as far as you can see; when you get there, you’ll be able to see farther.
—J. P. Morgan
Topics: Possibilities, Potential
If you have to ask how much it costs, you can’t afford it.
—J. P. Morgan
Topics: Value
The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.
—J. P. Morgan
The wise man bridges the gap by laying out the path by means of which he can get from where he is to where he wants to go.
—J. P. Morgan
Topics: Planning
Well, I don’t know as I want a lawyer to tell me what I cannot do. I hire him to tell how to do what I want to do.
—J. P. Morgan
Topics: Business
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