Top 165 Quotes & Sayings by Andrew Carnegie

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Scottish businessman Andrew Carnegie.

Last updated on December 23, 2024.

Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans in history. He became a leading philanthropist in the United States and in the British Empire. During the last 18 years of his life, he gave away around $350 million, almost 90 percent of his fortune, to charities, foundations and universities. His 1889 article proclaiming "The Gospel of Wealth" called on the rich to use their wealth to improve society, expressed support for progressive taxation and an estate tax, and stimulated a wave of philanthropy.

Scottish - Businessman | November 25, 1835 - August 11, 1919

Source: Wikipedia

There is little success where there is little laughter.

Andrew Carnegie

Concentration is my motto - first honesty, then industry, then concentration.

Andrew Carnegie

The first man gets the oyster, the second man gets the shell.

Andrew Carnegie

You cannot push any one up a ladder unless he be willing to climb a little himself.

Andrew Carnegie

I would as soon leave my son a curse as the almighty dollar.

Andrew Carnegie

Do your duty and a little more and the future will take care of itself.

Andrew Carnegie

You must capture and keep the heart of the original and supremely able man before his brain can do its best.

Andrew Carnegie

Immense power is acquired by assuring yourself in your secret reveries that you were born to control affairs.

Andrew Carnegie

No person will make a great business who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit.

Andrew Carnegie

Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community.

Andrew Carnegie

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit for doing it.

Andrew Carnegie

Whatever I engage in, I must push inordinately.

Andrew Carnegie

The average person puts only 25% of his energy and ability into his work. The world takes off its hat to those who put in more than 50% of their capacity, and stands on its head for those few and far between souls who devote 100%.

Andrew Carnegie

Concentrate your energies, your thoughts and your capital. The wise man puts all his eggs in one basket and watches the basket.

Andrew Carnegie

He that cannot reason is a fool. He that will not is a bigot. He that dare not is a slave.

Andrew Carnegie

Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!

Andrew Carnegie

The way to become rich is to put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.

Andrew Carnegie

Do not look for approval except for the consciousness of doing your best.

Andrew Carnegie

As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.

Andrew Carnegie

I shall argue that strong men, conversely, know when to compromise and that all principles can be compromised to serve a greater principle.

Andrew Carnegie

All honor's wounds are self-inflicted.

Andrew Carnegie

Every act you have ever performed since the day you were born was performed because you wanted something.

Andrew Carnegie

The men who have succeeded are men who have chosen one line and stuck to it.

Andrew Carnegie

People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.

Andrew Carnegie

Aim for the highest.

Andrew Carnegie

I resolved to stop accumulating and begin the infinitely more serious and difficult task of wise distribution.

Andrew Carnegie

The man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else to which he is justly entitled.

Andrew Carnegie

There is no class so pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else.

Andrew Carnegie

Mr. Morgan buys his partners; I grow my own.

Andrew Carnegie

The 'morality of compromise' sounds contradictory. Compromise is usually a sign of weakness, or an admission of defeat. Strong men don't compromise, it is said, and principles should never be compromised.

Andrew Carnegie

And while the law of competition may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it ensures the survival of the fittest in every department.

Andrew Carnegie

The best time to expand is when no one else dares to take risks

Andrew Carnegie

The man who dies rich, dies disgraced.

Andrew Carnegie

One great cause of failure of young men in business is lack of concentration.

Andrew Carnegie

The day is not far distant when the man who dies leaving behind him millions of available wealth, which was free for him to administer during life, will pass away unwept, unhonored, and unsung, no matter to what uses he leave the dross which he cannot take with him. Of such as these the public verdict will then be: The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced. Such, in my opinion, is the true gospel concerning wealth, obedience to which is destined some day to solve the problem of the rich and the poor.

Andrew Carnegie

No man becomes rich unless he enriches others.

Andrew Carnegie

Show me a man of average ability but extraordinary desire and I'll show you a winner every time.

Andrew Carnegie

The older I get the less I listen to what people say and the more I look at what they do.

Andrew Carnegie

There are two types of people who never achieve very much in their lifetimes. One is the person who won't do what he or she is told to do, and the other is the person who does no more than he or she is told to do.

Andrew Carnegie

Young man, make your name worth something.

Andrew Carnegie

Ninety percent of all millionaires become so through owning real estate. More money has been made in real estate than in all industrial investments combined. The wise young man or wage earner of today invests his money in real estate.

Andrew Carnegie

If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.

Andrew Carnegie

The sole purpose of being rich is to give away money.

Andrew Carnegie

Wealth is not to feed our egos but to feed the hungry and to help people help themselves.

Andrew Carnegie

A man's reading program should be as carefully planned as his daily diet, for that too is food, without which he cannot grow mentally.

Andrew Carnegie

I am no longer cursed by poverty because I took possession of my own mind, and that mind has yielded me every material thing I want, and much more than I need. But this power of mind is a universal one, available to the humblest person as it is to the greatest.

Andrew Carnegie

Be king in your dreams. Make your vow that you will reach that position, with untarnished reputation, and make no other vow to distract your attention.

Andrew Carnegie

Anything in life worth having is worth working for.

Andrew Carnegie

While the law [of competition] may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it insures the survival of the fittest in every department. We accept and welcome, therefore, as conditions to which we must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of environment, the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few, and the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but essential for the future progress of the race.

Andrew Carnegie

Every man gravitates to where he belongs in life, just as surely as water seeks and finds its level. His position is measured precisely by the quality and quantity of the service he renders, plus the mental attitude with which he relates himself to other people.

Andrew Carnegie

The greatest astonishment of my life was the discovery that the man who does the work is not the man who gets rich

Andrew Carnegie

There is a power under your control that is greater than poverty, greater than the lack of education, greater than all your fears and superstitions combined. It is the power to take possession of your own mind and direct it to whatever ends you may desire.

Andrew Carnegie

The first thing to do about an obstacle is simply to stand up to it and not complain about it or whine under it but forthrightly attack it. Stand up to your obstacles and do something about them. You will find that they haven't half the strength you think they have. Just stand up to it, that's all, and don't give way under it, and it will finally break. You will break it. Something has to break and it won't be you, it will be the obstacle.

Andrew Carnegie

The secret of happiness is renunciation.

Andrew Carnegie

The secret of success lies not in doing your own work, but in recognizing the right man to do it.

Andrew Carnegie

It is more difficult to give money away intelligently than to earn it in the first place.

Andrew Carnegie

Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.

Andrew Carnegie

You are what you think. So just think big, believe big, act big, work big, give big, forgive big, laugh big, love big and live big.

Andrew Carnegie

There is no use whatsoever in trying to help people who do not help themselves.

Andrew Carnegie

Take away my people, but leave my factories and soon grass will grow on the factory floors......Take away my factories, but leave my people and soon we will have a new and better factory.

Andrew Carnegie

Top 165 Quotes & Sayings by Andrew Carnegie

Related Authors