quotations about business
Men make it such a point of honour to be fit for business that they forget to examine whether business is fit for a man.
GEORGE SAVILE
"Moral Thoughts and Reflections"
Loose ideas on the subject of business will not answer. It must be reduced to something of a science.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
All too often, a successful new business model becomes the business model for companies not creative enough to invent their own.
GARY HAMEL
Leading the Revolution
Formerly when great fortunes were only made in war, war was a business; but now, when great fortunes are only made by business, business is war.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Few people do business well who do nothing else.
EARL OF CHESTERFIELD
letter to his son, Aug. 7, 1749
Hurried business is bad business.
PATRICK DEWITT
The Sisters Brothers
The man who uses yesterday's methods in today's work won't be in business tomorrow.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
I have laid aside business, and gone a-fishing.
IZAAK WALTON
"Epistle to the Reader", The Compleat Angler
Ain't got no business doin' business today
My little woman wants to stay home and play
RAZZY BAILEY
"I Ain't Got No Business Doin' Business Today"
In business, sir, one has no friends, only correspondents.
ALEXANDRE DUMAS
The Count of Monte Christo
There is one and only one social responsibility of business--to use it resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.
MILTON FRIEDMAN
"The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits", The New York Times Magazine, September 13, 1970
Business has continued to be more interested in thinking, in general, than any other sector of society. The explanation for this is because there is a reality test. There is a bottom line. There are sales figures and profit figures. There are results.
EDWARD DE BONO
"Leadership and the need for creative thinking", Management-Issues, June 3, 2010
It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level--I mean the wages of decent living.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
Statement on the National Industrial Recovery Act, Jun. 16, 1933
Business before pleasure, I am ready to grant; but when there is none, il faut s'amuser.
LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON
Romance and Reality
Every great man of business has got somewhere a touch of the idealist in him.
WOODROW WILSON
The Papers of Woodrow Wilson
International business may conduct its operations with scraps of paper, but the ink it uses is human blood.
ERIC AMBLER
A Coffin for Dimitrios
It is probably true that business corrupts everything it touches. It corrupts politics, sports, literature, art, labor unions and so on. But business also corrupts and undermines monolithic totalitarianism. Capitalism is at its liberating best in a noncapitalist environment.
ERIC HOFFER
The New York Times Magazine, April 25, 1971
Most are engaged in business the greater part of their lives, because the soul abhors a vacuum and they have not discovered any continuous employment for man's nobler faculties.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
The Heart of Thoreau's Journals
And I'll be taking care of business (every day)
Taking care of business (every way)
I've been taking care of business (it's all mine)
Taking care of business and working overtime
BACHMAN-TURNER OVERDRIVE
"Takin' Care of Business"
Business is a game, played for fantastic stakes, and you're in competition with experts. If you want to win, you have to learn to be a master of the game.
SIDNEY SHELDON
Master of the Game