Andrew Carnegie Quotes

Concentrate your energy, your thoughts and your capital.

He that cannot reason is a fool. He that will not is a bigot. He that dare not is a slave.

People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.

Every act you have ever performed since the day you were born was performed because you wanted something.

Take away my people, but leave my factories and soon grass will grow on the factory floors......Take away my factories, but leave my people and soon we will have a new and better factory.

Every man gravitates to where he belongs in life, just as surely as water seeks and finds its level. His position is measured precisely by the quality and quantity of the service he renders, plus the mental attitude with which he relates himself to other people.

You are what you think. So just think big, believe big, act big, work big, give big, forgive big, laugh big, love big and live big.

No man becomes rich unless he enriches others.

A man who was generous with his wealth. It has been reported that during his lifetime, Carnegie gave away over $350 million of his money to help others.

Be king in your dreams. Make your vow that you will reach that position, with untarnished reputation, and make no other vow to distract your attention.

I spent the first half of my life making money and the second half of my life giving it away to do the most good and the least harm.

Those who would administer [charity] wisely must, indeed, be wise, for one of the serious obstacles to the improvement of our race is indiscriminate charity. It were better for mankind that the millions of the rich were thrown into the sea than spent to encourage the slothful, the drunken, the unworthy. Of every thousand dollars spent in so-called charity today, it is probable that nine hundred and fifty dollars is unwisely spent - so spent, indeed, as to produce the very evils which it hopes to mitigate or cure.

The 'morality of compromise' sounds contradictory. Compromise is usually a sign of weakness, or an admission of defeat. Strong men don't compromise, it is said, and principles should never be compromised.

Why should men leave great fortunes to their children? If this is done from affection, is it not misguided affection? Observation teaches that, generally speaking, it is not well for the children that they should be so burdened.

I give money for church organs in the hope the organ music will distract the congregation's attention from the rest of the service.

The average person puts only 25% of his energy and ability into his work.

Do not look for approval except for the consciousness of doing your best.

Pioneering don't pay.

Pittsburgh entered the core of my heart when I was a boy and cannot be torn out.

There is no class so pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else.

I shall argue that strong men, conversely, know when to compromise and that all principles can be compromised to serve a greater principle.

Success is the power to acquire whatever one demands of life without violating the rights of others.

Success can be attained in any branch of labor. There’s always room at the top in every pursuit.

There are two types of people who never achieve very much in their lifetimes. One is the person who won't do what he or she is told to do, and the other is the person who does no more than he or she is told to do.

It is trying to be other than one's self that unmans one. Be your own natural self and go ahead.

There is no idol more debasing than the worship of money.

A sunny disposition is worth more than [a monetary] fortune. Young people should know that it can be cultivated; that the mind like the body can be moved from the shade into sunshine.

I demand riches in definite terms; I have a definite plan for acquiring riches;I am engaged in carrying out my plan, and I am giving an equivalent,in useful service, of the value of those riches I demand.

The day is not far distant when the man who dies leaving behind him millions of available wealth, which was free for him to administer during life, will pass away unwept, unhonored, and unsung, no matter to what uses he leave the dross which he cannot take with him. Of such as these the public verdict will then be: The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced. Such, in my opinion, is the true gospel concerning wealth, obedience to which is destined some day to solve the problem of the rich and the poor.

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.

Mutual ignorance breeds mutual distrust.

The man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else to which he is justly entitled.

The man of business knows that only by years of patient, unremitting attention to affairs can he earn his reward, which is the result, not of chance, but of well-devised means for the attainment of ends.

The public only knows one side of [Mark Mark Twain] - the amusing part. Little does it suspect that he was a man of strong convictions upon political and social questions and a moralist of no mean order.

It is more difficult to give money away intelligently than to earn it in the first place.

The morality of compromise sounds contradictory.

The secret of happiness is renunciation.

You develop millionaires the way you mine gold. You expect to move tons of dirt to find an ounce of gold, but you don't go into the mine looking for the dirt-you go in looking for the gold.

There is little success where there is little laughter.

You must capture and keep the heart of the original and supremely able man before his brain can do its best.

Here is the prime condition of success: Concentrate your energy, thought and capital exclusively upon the business in which you are engaged. Having begun on one line, resolve to fight it out on that line, to lead in it, adopt every improvement, have the best machinery, and know the most about it.

Mr. Morgan buys his partners; I grow my own.

I can't afford to pay them any other way.

Watch the costs and the profits will take care of themselves.

Whatever I engage in, I must push inordinately.

Not evil, but good, has come to the race from the accumulation of wealth by those who have the ability and energy that produce it.

Men who reach decisions promptly usually have the capacity to move with definiteness of purpose in other circumstances.

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.