Andrew Carnegie Quotes

To kill a man will be considered as disgusting [in the twentieth century] as we in this day consider it disgusting to eat one.

Immense power is acquired by assuring yourself in your secret reveries that you were born to control affairs.

Show me a man of average ability but extraordinary desire and I'll show you a winner every time.

There is no way of making a business successful that can vie with the policy of promoting those who render exceptional service.

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.

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

No man can become rich without himself enriching others

You cannot push any one up a ladder unless he be willing to climb a little himself.

The problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth, so that the ties of brotherhood may still bind together the rich and poor in harmonious relationship.

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.

Those who would administer wisely must, indeed, be wise, for one of the serious obstacles to the improvement of our race is indiscriminate charity.

The price which society pays for the law of competition, like the price it pays for cheap comforts and luxuries, is great; but the advantages of this law are also greater still than its cost- for it is to this law that we owe our wonderful material development, which brings improved conditions in its train.

Concentration is my motto - first honesty, then industry, then concentration.

The secret of success lies not in doing your own work, but in recognizing the right man to do it.

Do real and permanent good in this world.

It marks a big step in your development when you come to realize that other people can help you do a better job than you could do alone.

There is no use whatsoever in trying to help people who do not help themselves.

Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.

Here lies one who knew how to get around him men who were cleverer than himself

Don't be content with doing only your duty. Do more than your duty. It's the horse that finishes a neck ahead that wins the race.

The man who dies rich, dies disgraced.

The sound rule in busi­ness is that you may give money freely when you have a sur­plus, but your name never-nei­ther as en­dorser nor as mem­ber of a cor­po­ra­tion with in­di­vid­ual li­a­bil­ity

That 95 per cent. fail of those who start in business upon their own account seems incredible, and yet such are said to be the statistics upon the subject.

I will give a million dollars for any convincing proof of a future life.

There is scarcely an instance of a man who has made a fortune by speculation and kept it

Any idea that is held in the mind, that is emphasized, that is either feared or revered, will begin at once to cloth itself in the most convenient and appropriate form available.

All honor's wounds are self-inflicted.

Instead of the question "What must I do for my employer?" substitute "What can I do"

The only irreplaceable capital an organization possesses is the knowledge and ability of its people. The productivity of that capital depends on how effectively people share their competence with those who can use it.

A man's reading program should be as carefully planned as his daily diet, for that too is food, without which he cannot grow mentally.

Private Property, the Law of Accumulation of Wealth, and the Law of Competition... these are the highest results of human experience, the soil in which society so far has produced the best fruit.

There is very little success where there is very little laughter.

A word, a look, an accent, may affect the destiny not only of individuals, but of nations. He is a bold man who calls anything a trifle.

The man of wealth [should] consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer to produce the most beneficial results for the community - the man of wealth thus becoming the mere trustee and agent for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience and ability to administer, doing for them better than that they would or could do for themselves.

Give me a man with an average ability but a burning desire to succeed and I will give you a winner in exchange every time.

In [my] life ... I did not understand steam machinery, but I tried to understand that much more complicated piece of mechanism - man.

Nothing tells in the long run like a good judgment, and no sound judgment can remain with the man whose mind is disturbed by the mercurial changes of the stock exchange. It places him under an influence akin to intoxication. What is not, he sees, and what he sees, is not.

Put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.

Touch his head, and he will bargain and argue with you to the last; Touch his heart, and he falls upon your breast.

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.

The Republic may not give wealth or happiness, she has not promised these. It is the freedom to pursue these, not their realization, we can claim.

When I did big things, some large corporations like the Pennsylvania Railroad Company were behind me and responsible party.

Steel is prince or pauper.

Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!

The battle of life is already half won by the young man who is brought in contact with high officials; and the great aim of every boy should be to do something beyond the sphere of his duties- something which attracts the attention of those over him.

Ninety percent of all millionaires become so through owning real estate. More money has been made in real estate than in all industrial investments combined. The wise young man or wage earner of today invests his money in real estate.

Anything in life worth having is worth working for.

The older I get the less I listen to what people say and the more I look at what they do.