1. Freedom is the b-product of economic surplus.
Aneurin Bevan (1897-1960) British politician. Quoted in Aneurin Bevan (Michael Foot; 1962), vol. 1, ch. 3
2. I enjoy te fact that I am creating a climate of opinion.
Jan Brown, New Zealand public relations executive. Marketing (September 2000)
3. Laissez-faire, supply and demand-on begins to be weary of all that. Leave all to egoism, to ravenous greed of money, of pleasure of applause-it is the gospel of despair.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) British historian and essayist. Past and Present (1843)
4. Few people do business well who do nothing else.
Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, orator and letter writer. Letter (August 7, 1749)
5. One never repents of having spoken too little but often of having spoken too much.
Philippe De Commines (1445?-1511?) French historian and politician. Memoires (1524)
6. I would rather a thousand times be a free soul in jail than to be a sycophant and coward in the streets…If it had not been for the men and women who, in the past, we would still be in the jungles.
Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926) U.S. politician and labor union leader. Speech, Canton, Ohio (June 16, 1918)
7. Power and machinery, money and goods are useful only as they set us free to live.
Henry Ford (1863-1947) U.S. industrialist, automobile manufacturer and founder of Ford Motor Company. 1923. My Life and Work (co-written with Samuel Crowther; 1922)
8. After all, the three major sources of apartments are death, divorce, and transfer.
Cornelius Gallagher (b.1921) U.S. real estate executive. New York Times (1985)
9. Business is many things, the last of which is the balance sheet. It is a fluid, ever changing, living thing, sometimes building to great peaks, sometimes falling to crumbled lumps.
Harold S. Geneen (1910-97) U.S. telecommunications entrepreneur and C.E.O. of ITT. Managing (co-written with Alvin Moscow; 1984)
10. The soul of a business is a curious alchemy of needs, desires, greed and gratifications mixed together with selfishness, sacrifices and personal contributions far beyond material rewards.
Harold S. Geneen (1910-97) U.S. telecommunications entrepreneur and C.E.O. of ITT. Managing (co-written with Alvin Moscow; 1984)
11. It is not asset stripping…I prefer to think of it as unbundling…The businesses have been stifled under a bureaucracy and we would be liberating them.
James Goldsmith (1933-97) British entrepreneur, financier and politician. Defending himself against accusations of asset stripping. “Quotes of the Year,” Financial Times (London) (December 30, 1989)
12. Much as we talk about Internet companies today, in five years’ time there won’t be any Internet companies. All companies will be Internet companies or they will be dead.
Andrew S. Grove (b.1936) U.S. entrepreneur, author and chairman of Intel Corporation. Speech, Los Angeles Times 3rd Annual Investment Strategies Conference, los Angeles, California (May 22, 1999)
13. I didn’t go to high school, and I didn’t go to grade school either. Education, I think, is for refinement and is probable a liability.
- L. Hunt (1889-1974) U.S. entrepreneur, oil industry executive and founder of Hunt Oil. “60 Minutes,” CBS Television (April 1, 1969)
14. All men are created equal…they are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights…among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) U.S. president. Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776)
15. Leonardo da Vinci was a great artist and a great scientist. Michelangelo knew how to cut stone at the quarry. Edwin Land at Polaroid once said, “I want Polaroid to stand at the intersection of art and science,” and I’ve never forgotten that.
Steve Jobs (b.1955) U.S. entrepreneur, cofounder and C.E.O. of Apple Computer Company, and C.E.O. of Pixar. Referring to the relationship between technology and the arts. Quoted in “Steve’s Two Jobs,” Time (Michael Krantz; October 18, 1999)
16. Business is like sex. When it’s good, it’s very, very good; when it’s not so good, it’s still good.
George Katona (1901-81) U.S. academic and business analyst. Wall Street Journal (April 9, 1969)
17. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Martin Luther King (1929-68) U.S. pastor and civil rights leader. Attrib.
18. Confusion blast all mercantile transactions, all traffick, exchange of commodities…between nations, all the consequent civilization and wealth…and rot the very firs of the forest that look so romantic alive, and die into desks.
Charles Lamb (1775-1834) British essayist. 1815. Letter to William Wordsworth. Lamb worked as an East India Company clerk for 33 years (1792-1825). He was one of the first to document life as a “company man” through his essays and letters. Quoted in The Life of Charles Lamb (E.V. Lucas; 1921)
19. I like to stand on lint, buy my popcorn, and see a picture with the people. Sherry Lansing (b.1944) U.S. chairman of Paramount Motion Picture Group. Quoted in Arizona Republic (2000)
20. The rise of ownership by workers offers another glimmer of what economic life might look like based on the emerging understanding that most human beings…are capable of insight, common sense, and intrinsic motivation.
Frances Moore Lappe (b.1944) U.S. writer and activist on the global issues. Speech to Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility. “Reweaving Business into the Social Fabric” (December 11, 1997)
21. Love your neighbor is not merely sound Christianity; it is good business.
David Lloyd-George (1863-1945) British prime minister. “Sayings of the Week,” Observer (London) (February 20, 1921)
22. Holidays are often overrated disturbances of routine, costly and uncomfortable, and they usually need another holiday to correct their ravages.
- V. Lucas (1868-1938) British writer and editor. A “holiday” is a vacation. Attrib.
23. Perhaps the most revolting character that the United States ever produced was the Christian business man.
- L. Mencken (1880-1956) U.S. journalist, essayist and critic. Minority-H.L. Mencken’s Notebook (1956)
24. If electronic business rules could transcend particular entities, we would have open emarkets…first, we must work on developing a critical mass of businesses that are organically dependent on electronic markets.
William (Walid) Mougayar, U.S. consultant and management theorist. “Emarkets: Many Choices, No Excuses,” Business 2.0 (October 1998)
25. Perhaps the nirvana of the Net economy is one in which any business would have an equal chance of competing anywhere in the world by adhering to known electronic business rules of engagement.
William (Walid) Mougayar, U.S. consultant and management theorist. “Emarkets: Many Choices, No Excuses,” Business 2.0 (October 1998)
26. Monopoly is a terrible thing, till you have it.
Rupert Murdoch (b.1931) U.S. C.E.O. of News Corporation. The New Yorker (1979)
27. It’s not that I don’t have opinions, rather that I’m not paid to think aloud.
Yitzhak Navon (b.1921) Israeli former president. Quoted in Observer (London) (January 16, 1983)
28. We do not live to think, but, on the contrary, we think in order that we may succeed in surviving.
Jose Ortega Y Gasset (1883-1955) Spanish author and philosopher. Partisan Review (December 1949)
29. No advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer.
George Orwell (1903-50) British novelist, critic and essayist. Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), pt. 2, ch. 9
30. Given the natural differences between human beings, equality is an ethical aspiration that cannot be realized without recourse either to despotism or to an act of fraternity.
Octavio Paz (1914-98) Mexican writer. Attrib.
31. It’s a no win situation, like judging a beauty contest; whoever gets it thinks they deserve it and the others think you are an idiot.
Gerry Robinson (b.1948) Irish chairman of Granada Television and chairman of the Arts Council of England. Referring to the problems of awarding Arts Council grants. Management Today (April 1999)
32. The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) British philosopher and writer. Marriage and Morals (1929)
33. We’re a me-me-me generation. We’re borrowing the savings of every nation in the world. We’re…piling up a big tab. Now, I may think we’re too big to have a run on us. You may think that. But it’s possible that God does not.
Paul Samuelson (b.1915) U.S. economist and winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Economics. Interview, “The New Economy?” (Online NewsHour; January 13, 2000)
34. Comment is free but facts are sacred.
- P. Scott (1846-1932) British editor. Manchester Guardian (May 1922)
35. If I want to voice my opinion, I can give it to you now or later. But it’s just another opinion.
Ricardo Semler (b.1959) Brazilian business executive and president of Semco. “The Mavericks,” Fortune (June 1995)
36. Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-62) U.S. writer. Walden, or Life in the Woods (1854)
37. Prosperity or egalitarianism-you have to choose. I favor freedom-you never achieve real equality anyway: you simply sacrifice prosperity for an illusion.
Mario Vargas Llosa (b.1936) Peruvian novelist, playwright, and essayist. Independent on Sunday (London) (May 5, 1991)
38. All business sagacity reduces itself in the last analysis to a judicious use of sabotage.
Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929) U.S. economist and social scientist. An Inquiry into the Nature of Peace and the Terms of its Perpetuation (1917)
39. The more opinions you have, the less you see.
Wim Wenders (b.1945) German movie director and producer. Quoted in Evening Standard (London) (April 25, 1990)
