A business man’s conversation should be regulated by fewer and simpler rules than any other function of the human animal. They are: Have something to say. Say it. Stop talking.
When a man makes a specialty of knowing how some other fellow ought to spend his money, he usually thinks in millions and works for hundreds.
When the tongue lies, the eyes tell the truth.
Because a fellow has failed once or twice or a dozen times, you don’t want to set him down as a failure till he’s dead or loses his courage.
What you know is a club for yourself, and what you don’t know is a meat-ax for the other fellow.
In all your dealings, remember that today is your opportunity; tomorrow some other fellow’s.
The aim of the college, for the individual student, is to eliminate the need in his life for the college; the task is to help him become a self-educating man.
When a fortune comes without calling, it’s apt to leave without asking.
When you make a mistake, don’t make a second one – keeping it to yourself. Own up. The time to sort out rotten eggs is at the nest. The deeper you hide them in the case the longer they stay in circulation, and the worse impression they make when they finally come to the breakfast table.
When an office begins to look like a family tree, you’ll find worms tucked away snug and cheerful in most of the apples.
When a fellow’s got what he set out for in this world, he should go off into the woods for a few weeks now and then to make sure that he’s still a man, and not a plug-hat and a frock-coat and a wad of bills.
If there’s anything worse than knowing too little, it’s knowing too much. Education will broaden a narrow mind, but there’s no known cure for a big head. The best you can hope is that it will swell up and bust.
The great secret of good management is to be more alert to prevent a man’s going wrong than eager to punish him for it.
Clothes don’t make the man, but they make all of him except his hands and face during business hours, and that’s a pretty considerable area of the human animal.
There are two unpardonable sins in this world – success and failure.
Never threaten, because a threat is a promise to pay that it isn’t always convenient to meet, but if you don’t make it good it hurts your credit. Save a threat till you’re ready to act, and then you won’t need it.
Some men are like oak leaves – they don’t know when they’re dead, but still hang right on; and there are others who let go before anything has really touched them.
Doing the same thing in the same way year after year is like eating a quail a day for thirty days. Along toward the middle of the month a fellow begins to long for a broiled crow or a slice of cold dog.
There’s a vast difference between having a carload of miscellaneous facts sloshing around loose in your head and getting all mixed up in transit, and carrying the same assortment properly boxed and crated for convenient handling and immediate delivery.
Colleges don’t make fools, they only develop them.
You can trust any number of men with your money, but mighty few with your reputation.