Good businesses can survive a little bad management.

Opportunity comes to the prepared mind.

We get these questions a lot from the enterprising young. It's a very intelligent question: You look at some old guy who's rich and you ask, 'How can I become like you, except faster?'

I get flack for saying [when I visit a college and give a speech], "This is a nice college, but the really great educator is McDonald's." They hate me for saying this and think I'm a slimy creature. But McDonald's hires people with bad work habits, trains them, and teaches them to come to work on time and have good work habits. I think a lot of what goes on there is better than at Harvard.

There is the sheer amount of Franklin's wisdom. And the talent. Franklin played four instruments. He was the nation's leading scientist and inventor, plus a leading author, statesman, and philanthropist. There has never been anyone like him.

I would argue that a majority of the horrors we face would not have happened if the accounting profession developed and enforced better accounting.

It's a finite and very competitive world. All large aggregations of capital eventually find it hell on earth to grow and thus find a lower rate of return.