1. Wall Street is the only place people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from people who take the subway.
Warren Buffett (b.1930) U.S. entrepreneur and financier. Newsday (August 1991)

2. The field of consultancy and gurus and so on is very much like alchemy; no concepts, no rigorous definition, and just waffle and fiddling around.
Elliot Jacques (b.1917) Canadian psychologist and sociologist. Radio broadcast (August 1997)

3. Advice almost never functions as a social lubricant; eight or nine times out of ten it makes people lose face, crushes their well, and creates a grudge.
Yukio Mishima (1925-70) Japanese novelist. “Hagakure and its Author,” Mishima on Haghakure (1977)

4. Get the advice of everybody whose advice is worth having – they are very few- and then do what you think best yourself.
Charles Stewart Parnell (1846-91) Irish politician. Quoted in Parnell (Conor Cruise O’Brien; 1957)

5. What a difficult thing it is to ask someone’s advice on a matter without coloring his judgement by the way in which we present our problem.
Blaise Pascal (1623-62) French philosopher and mathematician. Pensees (1670)

6. You need to listen back. And you have to accept the fact that you will not always prevail. No matter how intelligent you think you are or how powerful your arguments are, you will lose. And you have to say, “I fought the fight, I gave my advice, and I was overruled.”
Laura D’Andrea Tyson (b.1947) U.S. economist, academic, and chair of the Council of Economic Advisors and National Economic Council (1993-96). Interview, conversations with History series, Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley. Referring to giving advice. “An Economist Goes to Washington” (January 14, 1998)

7. I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Irish writer and wit. Said by Lord Goring. An Ideal Husband (1895), Act 1