"It is nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice"
About this Quote
Templeton’s line works because it flatters ambition while quietly demoting it. “It is nice to be important” nods to the ego every businessman is trained to cultivate: status, influence, the scoreboard of titles and net worth. Then the pivot lands like a moral short-sell: “but it’s more important to be nice.” The word “important” changes meanings midstream. First it refers to public ranking; second it shifts to private value. Same term, different currency. That linguistic sleight of hand is the point: he’s reminding elites that the market’s definition of importance is a narrow, unstable metric.
Coming from John Templeton - financier, philanthropist, avatar of respectable capitalism - the subtext is reputational as much as ethical. “Nice” isn’t just kindness; it’s social lubrication, the trait that keeps power from looking like brute force. It’s also a defense against the caricature of the cold-blooded capitalist. Templeton built a brand around optimism and moral seriousness, and this quote reads like a distillation of that posture: you can win, but don’t become the kind of winner people secretly root against.
The context is late-20th-century business culture, when wealth and philanthropy increasingly traveled together, and moral language became part of executive identity. The line functions as a portable conscience for the powerful - a reminder that prestige without decency curdles fast. In an age of performative niceness, it also asks a harder question: are you being “nice” because it’s right, or because it’s useful?
Coming from John Templeton - financier, philanthropist, avatar of respectable capitalism - the subtext is reputational as much as ethical. “Nice” isn’t just kindness; it’s social lubrication, the trait that keeps power from looking like brute force. It’s also a defense against the caricature of the cold-blooded capitalist. Templeton built a brand around optimism and moral seriousness, and this quote reads like a distillation of that posture: you can win, but don’t become the kind of winner people secretly root against.
The context is late-20th-century business culture, when wealth and philanthropy increasingly traveled together, and moral language became part of executive identity. The line functions as a portable conscience for the powerful - a reminder that prestige without decency curdles fast. In an age of performative niceness, it also asks a harder question: are you being “nice” because it’s right, or because it’s useful?
Quote Details
| Topic | Kindness |
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