After 40, one’s face begins to tell more than one’s tongue.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Aging
In business, there’s such a thing as an invaluable person, but no such thing as an indispensable one.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Business
Isn’t it fortunate how selective our recollections usually are.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Memory
How to succeed: try hard enough. How to fail: Try too hard.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Mistakes, Failure, Failures, Success
When things are bad we take a bit of comfort in the thought that they could always be worse. And when they are, we find hope in the thought that things are so bad they have to get better.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Problems, Adversity
In all the thrashing about that results from our dwindling gold reserves, it’s about time that this country and other countries get some perspective on the situation. The day this country is out of the stuff, that day gold becomes what it’s worth as a metal and no longer will have much significance as a monetary measurement. It isn’t the gold we have that makes this nation rich. It’s what we make, our knowhow, our productivity. So long as this country produces more and better, the world will continue to want what we make.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Wealth
All work and no play makes jack. With enough jack, Jack needn’t be a dull boy.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Money
You have to come up in the world before it’s worthwhile for those worth less to put you down.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Success
U.S. Steel. It’s probably hard for the younger generation to realize what a giant in every way, shape and form United States Steel once was in our economy. The fabled ogre of corporate folklore is now sick and tired, more likely to be pitied than pilloried. Since Ben Fairless’ day, Big Steel has fumbled from one costly wrong decision to another, been heard when silence would have been wiser, been silent when speaking up would have been in order; spent wads for what were often the wrong new facilities and saved when salvation lay in modernizing. Sure it’s still big. But it’s sad to see the giant in such need of succor.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Business
Note to salary setters: Pay your people the least possible and you’ll get from them the same.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Management
Economists’ unanimity that bad business is ahead is the most reassuring news possible. It’s very unlikely that this will be the one time they’re right.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Business
Victory is sweetest when you’ve known defeat.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Defeat, Victory, One liners
No one’s a leader if there are no followers.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Leadership
Failure is success if we learn from it.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Success, Strength, Adversity, Failure
Food may be essential as fuel for the body, but good food is fuel for the soul.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Soul
What’s an expert? I read somewhere, that the more a man knows, the more he knows, he doesn’t know. So I suppose one definition of an expert would be someone who doesn’t admit out loud that he knows enough about a subject to know he doesn’t really know how much.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Experts, Professionalism
When you don’t understand, it’s sometimes easier to look like you do.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Understanding
All too often we say of a man doing a good job that he is indispensable. A flattering canard, as so many disillusioned and retired and fired have discovered when the world seems to keep on turning without them. In business, a man can come nearest to indispensability by being dispensable in his current job. How can a man move up to new responsibilities if he is the only one able to handle his present tasks? It matters not how small or large the job you now have, if you have trained no one to do it as well, you’re not available; you’ve made your promotion difficult if not impossible.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
If you don’t watch your figure, you’ll have more figure to watch.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Food
Pundits often poke fun at President Johnson’s tendency to grab the phone and personally issue an order or a request to someone 25 layers below the top. I guess though that in these instances Mr. Johnson’s long years of experience in government taught him where the inaction begins to set in. If Presidents have such trouble moving the federal bureaucracy, what chance is there for us mere citizens? It’s a point to keep in mind next time we start to say, Let’s have the Government do it. That’s often a way, it would seem, of making sure that whatever it is that should be done isn’t.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Government
The best vision is insight.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Prophecy, Vision
Thinkers perish, thoughts don’t.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Thought
Speaking of birthdays, our firstborn (recently turned 2). As parents sometimes fondly do, we reminisced a bit about his early days on earth-the excitement, the wonder, the fears when we brought him home. His every squeak or squawk we were sure heralded some terrible crisis; I tested the warmth of formulas from dusk to dawn, it seemed. We were so germ-conscious my wife even sterilized the skin of the oranges before squeezing them. How firstborns ever survive their parents’ attentions is beyond me. However, they do, and he did, and, in spite of our efforts, he turned out to be quite a good guy.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Children
People who matter are most aware that everyone else does, too.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Worth
People are talking about the new “civilized” way to fire executives. You kick ’em upstairs. They’re given a little, a liberal tithe, nothing to do, and a secretary to do it with. What a way to go.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Blaming destiny is a poor out for those who don’t reach desired destinations.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Destiny
People who never get carried away should be.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Enthusiasm, Attitude, Passion
Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Education
Things there are no solution to: Inflation, bureaucracy & dandruff.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Life
The more sympathy you give, the less you need.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Sympathy, Charity, Kindness, One liners, Giving
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Katharine Graham American Publisher
- William Feather American Author, Publisher
- M. F. K. Fisher American Writer
- C. P. Scott British Journalist, Editor
- B. C. Forbes Scottish-born American Journalist
- Helen Gurley Brown American Publisher
- Frederick Buechner American Writer, Theologian
- Marlene Dietrich German-American Actress, Singer
- Isadora Duncan American Dancer
- Andy Warhol American Painter
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