Great hospitals do two things. They look after patients, and they teach young doctors. We look after clients, and we teach young advertising people.

It is important to admit your mistakes, and to do so before you are charged with them. Many clients are surrounded by buckpassers who make a fine art of blaming the agency for their own failures. I seize the earliest opportunity to assume the blame.

I avoid clients for whom advertising is only a marginal factor in their marketing mix. They have an awkward tendency to raid their advertising appropriations whenever they need cash for other purposes.

I have an inviolable rule against employing nepots and spouses, because they breed politics. Whenever two people get married, one of them must depart - preferably the female, to look after the baby.

Our offices must always be headed by the kind of men who command respect. Not phonies, zeros or bastards.

People who think well, write well

Leaders grasp nettles.