Top 165 Quotes & Sayings by Andrew Carnegie - Page 2

Don't be content with doing only your duty. Do more than your duty. It's the horse that finishes a neck ahead that wins the race.

Here is the prime condition of success: Concentrate your energy, thought and capital exclusively upon the business in which you are engaged. Having begun on one line, resolve to fight it out on that line, to lead in it, adopt every improvement, have the best machinery, and know the most about it.

My hopes were high, and I looked every day for some change to take place. What it was to be I knew not, but that it would come I felt certain if I kept on. One day the chance came.

Do not think a man has done his full duty when he has performed the work assigned him. A man will never rise if he does only this. Promotion comes from exceptional work.

Success is the power to acquire whatever one demands of life without violating the rights of others.

I wish to have as my epitaph: 'Here lies a man who was wise enough to bring into his service men who knew more than he.'

Give me a man with an average ability but a burning desire to succeed and I will give you a winner in exchange every time.

Strong men don't compromise, it is said, and principles should never be compromised.

A library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people. It is a never failing spring in the desert.

Put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.

Concentrate your energy, thought and capital exclusively upon the business in which you are engaged... 'Don't put all your eggs in one basket' is all wrong. I tell you 'put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket.'

The more difficult a problem becomes, the more interesting it is.

Any person can achieve greatness if they understand the philosophy of success and the steps required to achieve it.

If thou dost not sow, thou shalt not reap.

Instead of the question "What must I do for my employer?" substitute "What can I do"

You develop millionaires the way you mine gold. You expect to move tons of dirt to find an ounce of gold, but you don't go into the mine looking for the dirt-you go in looking for the gold.

I believe the true road to preeminent success in any line is to make yourself master in that line. I have no faith in the policy of scattering one's resources, and in my experience I have rarely if ever met a man who achieved preeminence in money making.. certainly never one in manufacturing.. who was interested in many concerns.

The man of wealth [should] consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer to produce the most beneficial results for the community - the man of wealth thus becoming the mere trustee and agent for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience and ability to administer, doing for them better than that they would or could do for themselves.

The rare individuals who unselfishly try to serve others have an enormous advantage-they have little competition.

Success can be attained in any branch of labor. There’s always room at the top in every pursuit.

It marks a big step in your development when you come to realize that other people can help you do a better job than you could do alone.

Touch his head, and he will bargain and argue with you to the last; Touch his heart, and he falls upon your breast.

I have had a long, long life full of troubles, but there is one curious fact about them-nine-tenths of them never happened.

There is no idol more debasing than the worship of money.

The man of business knows that only by years of patient, unremitting attention to affairs can he earn his reward, which is the result, not of chance, but of well-devised means for the attainment of ends.

Mutual ignorance breeds mutual distrust.

I spent the first half of my life making money and the second half of my life giving it away to do the most good and the least harm.

Watch the costs and the profits will take care of themselves.

When fate hands us a lemon, let's try to make lemonade.

It is not the rich man's son that the young struggler for advancement has to fear in the race for life, nor his nephew, nor his cousin. Let him look out for the dark horse in the boy who begins by sweeping out the office.

Teamwork appears most effective if each individual helps others to succeed, increasing the synergy of that team; ideally, every person will contribute different skills to increase the efficiency of the team and develop its unity.

Speculation is a parasite feeding upon values, creating none.

There is scarcely an instance of a man who has made a fortune by speculation and kept it

The surest foundation of a manufacturing concern is quality. After that, and a long way after, comes cost.

It is trying to be other than one's self that unmans one. Be your own natural self and go ahead.

Men who reach decisions promptly usually have the capacity to move with definiteness of purpose in other circumstances.

The battle of life is already half won by the young man who is brought in contact with high officials; and the great aim of every boy should be to do something beyond the sphere of his duties- something which attracts the attention of those over him.

Capitalism is about turning luxuries into necessities.

TEAMWORK: the fuel that allows common people attain uncommon results.

There is no way of making a business successful that can vie with the policy of promoting those who render exceptional service.

Any idea that is held in the mind, that is emphasized, that is either feared or revered, will begin at once to cloth itself in the most convenient and appropriate form available.

Why should men leave great fortunes to their children? If this is done from affection, is it not misguided affection? Observation teaches that, generally speaking, it is not well for the children that they should be so burdened.

Give me the life of the boy whose mother is nurse, seamstress, washerwoman, cook, teacher, angel, and saint, all in one, and whose father is guide, exemplar, and friend. No servants to come between. These are the boys who are born to the best fortune.

I believe that the road to pre-eminent success in any line of work is to make yourself master of that line of work.

The public only knows one side of [Mark Mark Twain] - the amusing part. Little does it suspect that he was a man of strong convictions upon political and social questions and a moralist of no mean order.

Surplus wealth is a sacred trust to be managed for the good of others.

In [my] life ... I did not understand steam machinery, but I tried to understand that much more complicated piece of mechanism - man.

Here lies one who knew how to get around him men who were cleverer than himself

What one does easily, one does well.

I give money for church organs in the hope the organ music will distract the congregation's attention from the rest of the service.

Do real and permanent good in this world.

Concentrate your energy, your thoughts and your capital.

I demand riches in definite terms; I have a definite plan for acquiring riches;I am engaged in carrying out my plan, and I am giving an equivalent,in useful service, of the value of those riches I demand.

No man can become rich without himself enriching others

And there is no use whatever, gentlemen, trying to help people who do not help themselves. You cannot push any one up a ladder unless he be willing to climb a little himself.

A sunny disposition is worth more than fortune.

Life is not so much a matter of position as of disposition.

Strength is derived from unity. The range of our collective vision is far greater when individual insights become one.

I have never known a concern to make a decided success that did not do good, honest work, and even in these days of fiercest competition, when everything would seem to be a matter of price, there lies still at the root of great business success the very much more important factor of quality. The effect of attention to quality, upon every man in the service, from the president of the concern down to the humblest laborer, cannot be overestimated.

A business is seldom if ever built up except on lines of strictest integrity.