Malcolm Forbes Quotes

The smart ones ask when they don't know. And, sometimes, when they do.

Diversity: the art of thinking independently together.

If the shoe fits you're lucky.

How to get taken: Spend most of your time making sure you're not.

Food may be essential as fuel for the body, but good food is fuel for the soul.

After the fact, our hearts always go out to the fallen Goliaths. Yet we invariably root for their Davids. Until they're winners.

Some of the biggest bores I've ever known are men who have been highly successful in business, particularly self-made heads of big companies. Before the first olive has settled into the first martini, they pour the stories of their lives into the nearest and sometimes the remotest ears capturable.... These men have indeed paid the price of success. To rise to the top of a big company often takes a totality of effort, concentration and dedication. Others, too, have to pay part of the price. Wife and children are out of mind even when in sight.

Few businessmen are capable of being in politics, they don't understand the democratic process, they have neither the tolerance or the depth it takes. Democracy isn't a business.

There's no way to move without making waves.

A bore is someone who persists in holding his own views after we have enlightened him with ours.

Those who act as if they know more than their boss seldom do.

The difference between towering and cowering is totally a matter of inner posture.

If you don't know, it's not always necessary to admit it.

The day nothing turns you on - you're dead. No matter how many more years you go on breathing.

If I owned any of these Hot New Issues that have doubled, tripled, quintupled or umptupled within days and in some cases hours after they were issued, I most certainly would grab my fabulous windfall, thank my lucky stars and invest the money. It's utter nonsense to think any newly issued stock is really worth two, ten or 20 times the [offering] price.... A management so stupid as to sell shares [cheap], and an underwriter so obtuse as not to discern the real value, together would provide reason enough for a sensible man to get rid of his shares.

Those who talk loudly are rarely listened to.

Security isn't securities. It's knowing that someone cares whether you are or cease to be.

Knowing when to keep your mouth shut is invariably more important than opening it at the right time.

Never hire someone who knows less than you do about what he's hired to do.

As you get older there shouldn't be anything you won't try. The payoff is that you open up whole new avenues that are fun. It's a misinterpretation of life to live it only in preparation for the next one. To subordinate the one you've got to an indefinite next round is foolish. It's a waste of this life not to live this life. What's next is anybody's guess.

It's more fun to arrive a conclusion than to justify it.

When looking back, usually I'm more sorry for the things I didn't do than for the things I shouldn't have done.

Crime in the city streets is more than a political issue. It's a too rampant fact.... In Indianapolis they have come up with a most sensible, affordable approach to the problem. Policemen are assigned their police patrol cars for personal use after hours. They are encouraged to use the police car while taking the family shopping, to the movies, and everywhere one takes one's family. As a result, says the Police Chief's assistant, we may have as many as 400 cars on the street instead of 100 or so per shift. [And] the presence of the police car obviously indicates the proximity of policemen.

It's always worthwhile to make others aware of their worth.

Pay your people the least possible and you'll get from them the same.

A little reciprocity goes a long way.

Failure is success if we learn from it.

Socialism will be here the day we share our profits to the degree we share our failures.

Occasionally indulging in a do-nothing day is more than worth the price.

You can't fool the mirror-what you see is what you are.

The hardest time to tell: when to stop.

If you don't know what you want to do, it's harder to do it.

Noone's a leader if there are no followers.

If you can read and don't, you're dumb.

Nothing is sometimes the right thing to say.

Drinking more often brings out the best in the good than the worst in the bad.

As you get older, don't slow down. Speed up. There's less time left!

If you expect nothing, you're apt to be surprised. You'll get it.

When you cease to dream you cease to live.

In the long run, a short cut seldom is.

Personal & Confidential. Letters so marked should be. When the contents are only printed matter, though, the minifrauder succeeds in sowing illwill & ire.

When things are bad, we take comfort in the thought that they could always get worse. And when they are, we find hope in the thought that things are so bad they have to get better.

Most of us are better when things go better.

It is unfortunate we can't buy many business executives for what they are worth and sell them for what they think they are worth.

There's one post-Christmas chore I love-writing thank-you letters.... Lots of companies for many reasonable reasons, I guess, have a policy against sending even Christmas cards, never mind things, at Christmastime. But our clan gets a big kick out of opening the Warner-Lambert box containing an assortment of their wares; we argue over which of the boys is to get the Union Oil Co. necktie [and] all the holiday long we play the marvelous Christmas music sent by Goodyear.... None of these things means that Forbes or Forbeses have been had. But all of us like being thought of.

There are more fakers in business than in jail.

A gun in the hand is worth any number being tested.

Give naught, get same. Give much, get same.