I came then to a conviction that has never left me: that there is too much for me to attend to in this mortal life without overspeculation on the immortal, that it is not necessary to my peace of mind or to my effort to be a decent and useful person, to have a definite assurance about the affairs of the next world.

Buy cheap and sell high is a rule of business, and when you control enough money and enough banks you can always manage that a stock you want shall be temporarily cheap. No value is destroyed for you - only for the original owner.

[John D. Rockefeller] didn't care about anyone he did anything just to be rich and be the only company standing without any competition. He destroyed anyone else.

Perhaps our national ambition to standardize ourselves has behind it the notion that democracy means standardization. But standardization is the surest way to destroy the initiative, to denumb the creative impulse above all else essential to the vitality and growth of democratic ideals.

One of the most depressing features of the ethical side of the matter is that instead of such methods arousing contempt they are more or less openly admired. And this is logical. Canonise 'business success,' and men who made a success like that of the Standard Oil Trust become national heroes!

I decided to write the book to open the eyes of the people of how corrupt John D. Rockefeller company was and the unfair ways he used to be successful. I wanted the people to know the truth about the Standard Oil Company.

The whole force of the respectable circles to which I belonged, that respectable circle which knew as I did not the value of security won, the slender chance of replacing it if lost or abandoned, was against me.