I have never known a concern to make a decided success that did not do good, honest work, and even in these days of fiercest competition, when everything would seem to be a matter of price, there lies still at the root of great business success the very much more important factor of quality. The effect of attention to quality, upon every man in the service, from the president of the concern down to the humblest laborer, cannot be overestimated.

Neither the individual nor the race is improved by almsgiving. The best means of benefiting the community is to place within its reach the ladders upon which the aspiring can rise.

While the law [of competition] may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it insures the survival of the fittest in every department. We accept and welcome, therefore, 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.

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 have had a long, long life full of troubles, but there is one curious fact about them-nine-tenths of them never happened.

I resolved to stop accumulating and begin the infinitely more serious and difficult task of wise distribution.

I would as soon leave my son a curse as the almighty dollar.