Business Quotes

In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: cash and experience. Take the experience first; the cash will come later. ~Harold Geneen


A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business. ~Henry Ford


Business is a combination of war and sport. ~André Maurois


The absolute fundamental aim is to make money out of satisfying customers. ~John Egan


Wise are those who learn that the bottom line doesn’t always have to be their top priority. ~William Arthur Ward


Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility. ~Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary


It is not the employer who pays the wages. He only handles the money. It is the product that pays the wages. ~Henry Ford, 1922, also sometimes quoted as "It is the customer that pays the wages"


Hire character. Train skill. ~Peter Schutz


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


The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency. ~Bill Gates


Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business, is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things. ~Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus puerisque, 1881


I don’t pay good wages because I have a lot of money; I have a lot of money because I pay good wages. ~Robert Bosch


Professionalism is a frame of mind, not a paycheck. ~Cecil Castle


In college, Yuppies major in business administration. If to meet certain requirements they have to take a liberal arts course, they take Business Poetry. ~Dave Barry


Competition brings out the best in products and the worst in man. ~Author Unknown


Our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions. ~Edward R. Murrow


Make the workmanship surpass the materials. ~Ovid


A criminal is a person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation. ~Howard Scott


The executive exists to make sensible exceptions to general rules. ~Elting E. Morison


There are so many men who can figure costs, and so few who can measure values. ~Author Unknown


For all of its faults, it gives most hardworking people a chance to improve themselves economically, even as the deck is stacked in favor of the privileged few. Here are the choices most of us face in such a system: Get bitter or get busy. ~Bill O’Reilly, about capitalism


Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. ~Bill Gates, Business @ the Speed of Thought


People that pay for things never complain. It’s the guy you give something to that you can’t please. ~Will Rogers


Our marketing strategy is driven by the customer experience, not by "growth hawking." We believe companies should be about fewer games, fewer hoops, and more value. We feel like open content speaks to that. ~Gregory Ciotti, "Why We’re Opting Out of Opt-in Resources" (Help Scout, www.helpscout.net)


To be successful, you have to have your heart in your business, and your business in your heart. ~Thomas Watson, Sr.


I have found no greater satisfaction than achieving success through honest dealing and strict adherence to the view that, for you to gain, those you deal with should gain as well. ~Alan Greenspan


Let’s be honest. There’s not a business anywhere that is without problems. Business is complicated and imperfect. Every business everywhere is staffed with imperfect human beings and exists by providing a product or service to other imperfect human beings. ~Bob Parsons


Successful enterprises are usually led by a proven chief executive who is a competent benevolent dictator. ~Richard Pratt


The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed. ~Henry Ford


The NBA is never just a business. It’s always business. It’s always personal. All good businesses are personal. The best businesses are very personal. ~Mark Cuban


It is an immutable law in business that words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises but only performance is reality. ~Harold Geneen


[A]nd now I saw, though too late, the folly of beginning a work before we count the cost, and before we judge rightly of our own strength to go through with it. ~Daniel Defoe, The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner, 1719


You can’t file a conversation. ~P.C. Woodhull, c.1940s


Customers overwhelmingly show appreciation for great service with their wallets. ~Help Scout (www.helpscout.net), "75 Customer Service Facts, Quotes & Statistics: How Your Business Can Deliver With the Best of the Best"


Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime. Teach a man to create an artificial shortage of fish and he will eat steak. ~Jay Leno


The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell. ~Confucius


It is unfortunate we can’t buy many business executives for what they are worth and sell them for what they think they are worth. ~Malcolm Forbes


Too many people think only of their own profit. But business opportunity seldom knocks on the door of self-centered people. No customer ever goes to a store merely to please the storekeeper. ~Kazuo Inamori


A man of business may talk of philosophy; a man who has none may practise it. ~Alexander Pope, Thoughts on Various Subjects, 1727


If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late. ~Reid Hoffman




Government in the U.S. today is a senior partner in every business in the country. ~Norman Cousins


Work as if you own the company and soon you just might. ~Mike Dolan, @HawaiianLife


To take something from a person and keep it for oneself: that is robbery. To take something from one person and then turn it over to another in exchange for as much money as you can get: that is business. Robbery is so much more stupid, since it is satisfied with a single, frequently dangerous profit; whereas in business it can be doubled without danger. ~Octave Mirbeau, Torture Garden


Dealing with people is probably the biggest problem you face, especially if you are in business. Yes, and that is also true if you are a housewife, architect or engineer. ~Dale Carnegie


Any business with customers is in the "people" business. ~Help Scout (www.helpscout.net), "75 Customer Service Facts, Quotes & Statistics: How Your Business Can Deliver With the Best of the Best"


A consultant is a man sent in after the battle to bayonet the wounded. ~Author Unknown


Pick out industries that don't have celebrities — then become the first one. Big ponds are overrated. ~Scott Ginsberg


Advice to big business: Don't buy the patent; hire the guy who got it. ~Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962)




The results of quality work last longer than the shock of high prices. ~Author Unknown


It doesn’t matter how many times you fail. It doesn’t matter how many times you almost get it right. No one is going to know or care about your failures, and neither should you. All you have to do is learn from them and those around you because... All that matters in business is that you get it right once. Then everyone can tell you how lucky you are. ~Mark Cuban


When developing and designing products that invite people to use them, just do it right from the start and put your heart into it. It’s harder and it takes longer, but everyone wins in the end. ~Michael D. Harris


A verbal agreement is not worth the paper it's written on. ~Bryan O'Loghlen  [Nabbed this one from the great QI. Thanks, Mr O'Toole. —tεᖇᖇ¡·g]


Commerce, n. A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money belonging to E. ~Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic’s World Book, 1906


You can fool all the people all the time if the advertising is right and the budget is big enough. ~Joseph E. Levine