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.

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.

Exceed your customer's expectations. If you do, they'll come back over and over. Give them what they want - and a little more.

Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anybody else.

After a lifetime of swimming upstream, I am convinced that one of the real secrets to Wal-mart's phenomenal success has been that very tendency.

You can make a lot of mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you're too inefficient.

There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.