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
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
When looking back, usually I’m more sorry for the things I didn’t do than for the things I shouldn’t have done.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Doing
The hardest time to tell: when to stop.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Action
I heard one wheel describe another: “He’s absolutely copeless”.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Life
Investor: One who bought stocks that went up.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Wealth
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
How would you know what happy is if you’ve never been otherwise.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Happiness
Corporate chieftains usually last less long than political potentates.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Experience
Speculator: One who bought stocks that went down.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Business
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
Isn’t it fortunate how selective our recollections usually are.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Memory
Lie detectors may have some limited uses, but for sure one of them isn’t in the corporate hiring process. For the CIA, the FBI, the military’s supersecret areas, lie detectors may have some psychological value. As proof positive, for sure they are not. According to a recent New York Times article, Leading academic critics contend that lie detectors are lucky to be right 70% of the time and are often no better than chance. Pentagon officials stress that “no machine can detect a lie”; lie detectors can only detect stress, may well reflect fear, surprise or anger at the interrogation rather than guilt. … .
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Lies
The only unforgivable sin: Being unforgiving.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Forgiveness
When profit is unshared, it’s less likely to grow greater.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Profit
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
When you don’t understand, it’s sometimes easier to look like you do.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Understanding
Bringing Home The Boys has been a top objective of Americans ever since we first sent some of them overseas decades ago. At the close of World War I the phrase flowered, though I’ll bet it was used in connection with the Spanish American War. Probably even before that, when Americans stormed the forts outside Mexico City in 1847. Thank God we’re doing so again from Vietnam. But the Return of Americans shouldn’t be confined to battle zones. We are neither wanted, nor needed, nor should we be in large numbers in such places as Germany, Korea, Thailand, Okinawa, Japan, the Philippines, Turkey, Spain and so on, ad nauseam.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: War
Most oldsters are fascinated by the Future, while the young love to look back to earlier days, especially their own.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Generations
Too few accomplish twice as much as too many.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
In buying stock, buy brains and you’ll profit.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
How in heck are they handling their surplus population in Hell these days? Maybe by the time you and I are in the queue there won’t be room for us.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Evil
Nobody can make anybody be someone he or she doesn’t want to be.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Man
Blaming destiny is a poor out for those who don’t reach desired destinations.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Destiny
Working at what you enjoy is far more important than what you’re working at.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Work
Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Education
Success follows doing what you want to do. There is no other way to be successful.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Success & Failure, Secrets of Success, Follow, Success, Doing
The difference between towering and cowering is totally a matter of inner posture.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Strength
He who hesitates is sometimes wise.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Wisdom
Everybody has to be somebody to somebody to be anybody.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Service
One worthwhile task carried to a successful conclusion is worth half-a-hundred half-finished tasks.
—Malcolm S. Forbes
Topics: Time Management
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