I choose free libraries as the best agencies for improving the masses of the people, because they give nothing for nothing. They only help those who help themselves.

Young man, make your name worth something.

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.

Wealth is not to feed our egos but to feed the hungry and to help people help themselves.

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

Mutual ignorance breeds mutual distrust.

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.