Many of the most successful men I have known have never grown up. They have retained bubbling-over boyishness. They have relished wit, they have indulged in humor. They have not allowed ‘dignity’ to depress them into moroseness. Youthfulness of spirit is the twin brother of optimism, and optimism is the stuff of which American business success is fashioned. Resist growing up!
B. C. ForbesThe bell of public opinion is today making the Morgan-Rockefeller-Vanderbilt class jump. Nor are the strongest of our corporations immune. The railroads have had to jump pretty lively, and certain gigantic industrial combinations are also being put through their paces.
B. C. ForbesThe 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. ForbesA young financial writer once brought ridicule upon himself by stating that a certain company had nothing to commend it except excellent earnings. Well, there are companies whose earnings are excellent but whose stocks I would never recommend. In selecting investments, I attach prime importance to the men behind them. I'd rather buy brains and character than earnings. Earnings can be good one year and poor the next. But if you put your money into securities run by men combining conspicuous brains and unimpeachable character, the likelihood is that the financial results will prove satisfactory.
B. C. ForbesThe bargain that yields mutual satisfaction is the only one that is apt to be repeated.
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. ForbesThe human being who lives only for himself finally reaps nothing but unhappiness. Selfishness corrodes. Unselfishness ennobles, satisfies.
B. C. ForbesIt is the hard-boiled employer, not the soft-hearted species, that incites most of our strikes and does most ot endanger the harmonious progress of democracy.
B. C. ForbesManaging the other fellow's business is a fascinating game. Trade unionists all over the country have pronounced ideas for the reform of Wall Street banks; and Wall Street bankers are not far behind in giving plans for the tremendous improvement of trade union policies. Wholesalers have schemes for improving the retailer; the retailer knows just what is wrong in the conduct of wholesale business-and we might go through a long list.... Yet for some reason the classes that ought to be helped keep on stubbornly clinging to their own method of running their affairs.
B. C. ForbesI don't feel myself that I Know it all, but I have enough conceit to be successful. That observation was made by a businessman in his 30s who was making notable headway, although his path bristled with difficulties. Business places no premiums on shrinking violets. Employers prefer men who have self-assurance, forcefulness, go-aheadness, men who know their jobs and know that they know it.
B. C. ForbesThe man who is intent on making the most of his opportunities is too busy to bother about luck.
B. C. ForbesCall the roll in your memory of conspicuously successful [business] giants and, if you know anything about their careers, you will be struck by the fact that almost every one of them encountered inordinate difficulties sufficient to crush all but the gamest of spirits. Edison went hungry many times before he became famous.
B. C. ForbesHow we love to blame others for our misfortunes! Almost every individual who has lost money in stock speculation has on the tip of his tongue an explanation which he trots out to show that it wasn't his own fault at all.... Hardly one loser has the manliness to say frankly, "I was wrong.
B. C. ForbesEnthusiasm is the electric current that keeps the engine of life going at top speed. Enthusiasm is the very propeller of progress.
B. C. ForbesWithout self-respect there can be no genuine success. Success won at the cost of self-respect is not success ? for what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own self-respect.
B. C. ForbesAn idea, like a machine, must have power applied to it before it can accomplish anything.
B. C. ForbesWhen it comes to betting on yourself... you're a chicken-livered coward if you hesitate.
B. C. ForbesTalking things over has its place in an organization [but] so-called conferences are being grossly overdone. One executive stops at the desk of another to tell him, perhaps, about the wonderful score he made at golf on Saturday afternoon. This chin-chin immediately becomes a conference, and neither the office boy nor the telephone operator must disturb either gentleman. More idle gossip is indulged in at many business conferences these days than an old wives' sewing circle would be guilty of.
B. C. ForbesThe Christmas spirit brings home to us-or should bring home to us-the profound Biblical truth that it is more blessed to give than to receive. Anything which inspires unselfishness makes for our ennoblement. Christmas does that. I am all for Christmas.
B. C. ForbesUncertainty hurts business. It annoys individuals. Why keep the whole country, including business and individuals, in uncertainty over the extent of the tax burdens to be placed upon us? How many of those who voted for Calvin Coolidge imagined for a moment that would do nothing to bring about tax relief before 1926?.... But if the Administration persists in opposing a special session then it will inevitably be 1926 before action is taken.... Coolidge and Congress should ease our minds and grease our activities by reforming and reducing taxation as soon as feasible after March 4.
B. C. ForbesWith all thy getting, get understanding, is the banner under which these Forbes editorials have appeared since the first issue of the publication. We have no illusions about what great wealth can do and what it cannot do. We believe in the worthwhileness of striving by all worthy means to attain success and to attain wealth. Simply because we are convinced that no amount of money is worth the sacrifice of one's better instincts, of one's self-respect-of one's soul, if you wish-simply because we are convinced that riches not gained legitimately and decently are not worth having.
B. C. ForbesOpportunity can benefit no man who has not fitted himself to seize it and use it. Opportunity woos the worthy, shuns the unworthy. Prepare yourself to grasp opportunity, and opportunity is likely to come your way. It is not so fickle, capricious and unreasoning as some complain.
B. C. ForbesThe more I move among workers and factories and other plants, the stronger I become convinced that it is advisable to have as [a company] president a practical man, preferably one who has risen from the very bottom of the ladder. Workmen, I find, have far more respect for such men than for collar-and-cuff executives knowing little or nothing about the different kinds of work which have to be done by the workers. Wherever circumstances call for placing a financier or lawyer or a papa's son at the head of a large organization, he should be made chairman or some other title, but not president.
B. C. ForbesBackboneless employees are too ready to attribute the success of others to luck. Luck is usually the fruit of intelligent application. The man who is intent on making the most of his opportunities is too busy to bother about luck.
B. C. ForbesThat which is useless dies. Animals that fail to serve some useful purpose in the scheme of things slowly but surely become extinct. Let any part of the human body cease to perform its ordained function, and it withers-as when an arm is kept long in a sling. This same decree, that nothing useless is permitted to survive, runs through the mind of the industrial world.
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. ForbesThe young man who addresses himself in stern earnest to organizing his life-his habits, his associations, his reading, his study, his work-stands far more chance of rising to a position affording him opportunity to exercise his organizing abilities than the fellow who dawdles along without chart or compass, without plan or purpose, without self-improvement and self-discipline.
B. C. ForbesHow you start is important, very important, but in the end it is how you finish that counts. It is easier to be a self-starter than a self-finisher. The victor in the race is not the one who dashes off swiftest but the one who leads at the finish. In the race for success, speed is less important than stamina. The sticker outlasts the sprinter in life's race. In America we breed many hares but not so many tortoises.
B. C. ForbesWhenever possible, I like to have the supreme head of a company show me over the works. It is extremely illuminating to note the attitude of workers towards their boss, and equally interesting to note the attitude towards the workers. It is tragic to notice how many chief executives of large concerns are absolutely unknown, even by sight, to the rank and file of their workers.
B. C. Forbes