Don't get so stuck in your ways that you can't change.

I pay low wages. I can take advantage of that. We're going to be successful, but the basis is a very low-wage, low-benefit model of employment.

If you don't listen to your customers, someone else will.

Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there's a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction. But be prepared for a lot of folks to wave you down and tell you you're headed the wrong way. I guess in all my years, what I heard more often than anything was: a town of less than 50,000 population cannot support a discount store for very long.

Keep everybody guessing as to what your next trick is going to be. Don't become too predictable.

I'd hate to see any descendants of mine fall into the category of what I'd call 'idle rich' - a group I've never had much use for.

I think my constant fiddling and meddling with the status quo may have been one of my biggest contributions to the later success of Wal-Mart.