The last thing you do the best is what you have the most joy doing.

Some people as a result of adversity are sadder, wiser, kinder, more human. Most of us are better, though, when things go better.

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.

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

I hope a start at getting some oil out of the enormous Alaska field isn't indefinitely mired in a bureaucratic morass as a result of our national concern for the ecology. This concern must not be so misguided, misdirected, misused that it serves to stop economic growth, to bankrupt companies, to stifle new development, new jobs, new horizons. In fighting new pollution and stemming present pollution, exciting, sometimes costly means and methods exist and others will evolve. But blanket legislative naysaying to expanding power and energy sources is stupid, self-defeating.

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

Economists' unanimity that bad business is ahead is the most reassuring news possible. It's very unlikely that this will be the one time they're right.