Business Quotes

"If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business"

Abraham Lincoln, President

"It is clearly better that property should be private, but the use of it common; and the special business of the legislator is to create in men this benevolent disposition"

Aristotle, Philosopher

"My objection to Liberalism is this that it is the introduction into the practical business of life of the highest kind namely, politics of philosophical ideas instead of political principles"

Benjamin Disraeli, Statesman

"The first rule of business is: Do other men for they would do you"

Charles Dickens, Novelist

"Performing doesn't turn me on. It's an egomaniac business, filled with prima donnas - including this one"

Dan Rather, Journalist

"Modern poets talk against business, poor things, but all of us write for money. Beginners are subjected to trial by market"

Robert Frost, Poet

"I don't think meals have any business being deductible. I'm for separation of calories and corporations"

Ralph Nader, Lawyer

"Politics is just like show business. You have a hell of an opening, coast for a while, and then have a hell of a close"

Ronald Reagan, President

"If we must have a tyrant, let him at least be a gentleman who has been bred to the business, and let us fall by the axe and not by the butcher's cleaver"

Lord Byron, Poet

"Prosperous farmers mean more employment, more prosperity for the workers and the business men of every industrial area in the whole country"

Franklin D. Roosevelt, President

"I'm called away by particular business - but I leave my character behind me"

Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Playwright

"I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business"

Henry David Thoreau, Author

"Only he is successful in his business who makes that pursuit which affords him the highest pleasure sustain him"

Henry David Thoreau, Author

"When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact"

Warren Buffett, Businessman

"The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective"

Warren Buffett, Businessman

"In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield"

Warren Buffett, Businessman

"We mean by "politics" the people's business - the most important business there is"

Adlai E. Stevenson, Politician

"Anybody who finds it easy to make money on the horses is probably in the dog food business"

Franklin P. Jones, Journalist

"Understand why casinos and racetracks stay in business - the gambler always loses over the long term"

Marilyn vos Savant, Author

"Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand"

Thomas Carlyle, Writer

"This is a fantastic time to be entering the business world, because business is going to change more in the next 10 years than it has in the last 50"

Bill Gates, Businessman

"Information technology and business are becoming inextricably interwoven. I don't think anybody can talk meaningfully about one without the talking about the other"

Bill Gates, Businessman

"In this business, by the time you realize you're in trouble, it's too late to save yourself. Unless you're running scared all the time, you're gone"

Bill Gates, Businessman

"I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death"

Thomas Paine, Writer

"Getting money is not all a man's business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life"

Samuel Johnson, Author

"What men have called friendship is only a social arrangement, a mutual adjustment of interests, an interchange of services given and received; it is, in sum, simply a business from which those involved propose to derive a steady profit for their own self-love"

Francois de La Rochefoucauld, Writer

"A person who is too nice an observer of the business of the crowd, like one who is too curious in observing the labor of bees, will often be stung for his curiosity"

Alexander Pope, Poet

"If a man's character is to be abused there's nobody like a relative to do the business"

Alexander Pope, Poet

"Most people have no idea how to politely answer a phone. The English do, and it's been their only major business advantage for the past two centuries"

Doug Coupland, Author

"The real killers in the business world aren't the ones who aim for the top, it's the ones who aim for two notches below the top"

Doug Coupland, Author

"In business, you have to be able to adapt and change your approach if something isn't working"

Øystein Stray Spetalen, Businessman

"You have to be able to handle the ups and downs in business, and be able to pick yourself up and keep moving forward"

Øystein Stray Spetalen, Businessman

"The art which we may call generally art of the wayside, as opposed to that which is the business of men's lives, is, in the best sense of the word, Grotesque"

John Ruskin, Writer

"The life of a man who deliberately runs through his fortune often becomes a business speculation; his friends, his pleasures, patrons, and acquaintances are his capital"

Honore de Balzac, Novelist