The British have their own conception of what constitutes the typical American. He must have a flavor of the Wild West about him. He must do spectacular things. He must not be punctilious about dignity, decorum and other refinements characteristic of the real British gentleman. The Yankee pictured by the Briton must be a bustler. If he is occasionally flagrantly indiscreet in speech and action, then he is so much more surely stamped the genuine article. The most typical American the British ever set their eyes on was, in their judgment, Theodore Roosevelt.
B. C. ForbesThere is more credit and satisfaction in being a first-rate truck driver than a tenth-rate executive.
B. C. ForbesHenry Ford has several times sneered at unproductive stockholders.... Well, now. Let's see. Who made Henry Ford's own automobile company possible? The stockholders who originally advanced money to him. Who makes it possible for you and me to be carried to and from business by train or street car? Stockholders.... Who made our vast telephone and telegraph service possible? Stockholders.... Were stockholders all over the country to withdraw their capital from the enterprises in which they are invested, there would be a panic ... on a scale never before known.
B. C. ForbesIt is well for civilization that human beings constantly strive to gain greater and greater rewards, for it is this urge, this ambition, this aspiration that moves men and women to bestir themselves to rise to higher and higher achievement. Individual success is to be won in most instances by studying and diagnosing the kind of rewards human hearts seek today and are likely to seek tomorrow.
B. C. ForbesMany a man has walked up to the opportunity for which he has long been preparing himself, looked it full in the face, and then begun to get cold feet... when it comes to betting on yourself and your power to do the thing you know you must do or write yourself down a failure, you're a chicken-livered coward if you hesitate.
B. C. ForbesIs America becoming decadent? Do we no longer regard our promises and pledges as sacred? ... We promised to make peace with Germany only in conjunction with the Allies; but we brought forward a separate peace, demanding for ourselves all the advantages of the Treaty of Versailles but rejecting all the responsibilities embodied in the Treaty. It was America's President who induced Europe to form a League of Nations; and then America was the first country that refused to joint it.... If these are not the symptoms of national decadency, what are they?
B. C. Forbes