Top 96 Quotes & Sayings by J. Paul Getty

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American businessman J. Paul Getty.

Last updated on December 23, 2024.

Jean Paul Getty Sr. was an American-born British petroleum industrialist who founded the Getty Oil Company in 1942 and was the patriarch of the Getty family. A native of Minneapolis, he was the son of pioneer oilman George Getty. In 1957, Fortune magazine named him the richest living American, while the 1966 Guinness Book of Records named him as the world's richest private citizen, worth an estimated $1.2 billion. At his death, he was worth more than $6 billion. A book published in 1996 ranked him as the 67th richest American who ever lived, based on his wealth as a percentage of the concurrent gross national product.

American - Businessman | December 15, 1892 - June 6, 1976

Source: Wikipedia

You cannot bring about prosperity without discouraging thrift.

J. Paul Getty

My love of fine art increased - the more of it I saw, the more of it I wanted to see.

J. Paul Getty

A marriage contract to me is as binding as any in business, and I have always believed in sticking to an agreement.

J. Paul Getty

Before marriage, many couples are very much like people rushing to catch an airplane; once aboard, they turn into passengers. They just sit there.

J. Paul Getty

A hatred of failure has always been part of my nature.

J. Paul Getty

Without the element of uncertainty, the bringing off of even, the greatest business triumph would be dull, routine, and eminently unsatisfying.

J. Paul Getty

Whether we like it or not, men and women are not the same in nature, temperament, emotions and emotional responses.

J. Paul Getty

Nostalgia often leads to idle speculation.

J. Paul Getty

I was brought up in an era when thrift was still considered a virtue.

J. Paul Getty

I have always enjoyed the company of women and have formed deep and long-lasting friendships with many of them.

J. Paul Getty

You cannot further the Brotherhood of Man by encouraging class hatred.

J. Paul Getty

In Japan, I was immensely impressed by the politeness, industrious nature and conscientiousness of the Japanese people.

J. Paul Getty

Governments, of course, can - and do - soak the rich.

J. Paul Getty

The overwhelming majority of my rated wealth consists of investments in companies that produce goods and services.

J. Paul Getty

No one can possibly achieve any real and lasting success or 'get rich' in business by being a conformist.

J. Paul Getty

There are one hundred men seeking security to one able man who is willing to risk his fortune.

J. Paul Getty

I vehemently deny that I was born a cynic and a pessimist.

J. Paul Getty

I have never been given to envy - save for the envy I feel toward those people who have the ability to make a marriage work and endure happily.

J. Paul Getty

Going to work for a large company is like getting on a train. Are you going sixty miles an hour or is the train going sixty miles an hour and you're just sitting still?

J. Paul Getty

There are at least 50 cities in the world that would have liked to obtain the Getty Collection.

J. Paul Getty

I have absolutely no intention of marrying Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

J. Paul Getty

If you can actually count your money, then you're not a rich man.

J. Paul Getty

If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars.

J. Paul Getty

In times of rapid change, experience could be your worst enemy.

J. Paul Getty

During the 1950s, Aristotle Onassis and I formed what grew to be a close friendship and association in several business ventures.

J. Paul Getty

The meek shall inherit the Earth, but not its mineral rights.

J. Paul Getty

Nationalized industries are notorious for their inability to operate at a profit.

J. Paul Getty

I am - and have always been - a Methodist.

J. Paul Getty

There are heads of royal families who control hereditary fortunes that defy comprehension.

J. Paul Getty

I was 37 when my father died-and I no longer had any freedom of choice over what I would do with the rest of my life.

J. Paul Getty

The rich are not born sceptical or cynical. They are made that way by events, circumstances.

J. Paul Getty

I take pride in the creation of my wealth, in its existence and in the uses to which it has been and is being put.

J. Paul Getty

Oil is like a wild animal. Whoever captures it has it.

J. Paul Getty

My formula for success is rise early, work late, and strike oil.

J. Paul Getty

I've never been one to bet on the weather.

J. Paul Getty

I am neither a homosexual nor a eunuch, nor have I ever taken any vows of chastity.

J. Paul Getty

Money is like manure. You have to spread it around or it smells.

J. Paul Getty

The beauty one can find in art is one of the pitifully few real and lasting products of human endeavor.

J. Paul Getty

Jack Dempsey and I became friends in the very early 1920s.

J. Paul Getty

I can afford to say what I wish.

J. Paul Getty

Books, like proverbs, receive their chief value from the stamp and esteem of the ages through which they have passed.

J. Paul Getty

The Roaring Twenties were the period of that Great American Prosperity which was built on shaky foundations.

J. Paul Getty

To succeed in business, to reach the top, an individual must know all it is possible to know about that business.

J. Paul Getty

Formula for success: rise early, work hard, strike oil.

J. Paul Getty

Control of a company does not carry with it the ability to control the price of its stock.

J. Paul Getty

What I learned at Oxford has been used to great advantage throughout my business career.

J. Paul Getty

My wealth is not a subject I relish discussing.

J. Paul Getty

The employer generally gets the employees he deserves.

J. Paul Getty

Rhetoric and dialectics can't change what I have learned from observation and experience.

J. Paul Getty

Five wives can't all be wrong.

J. Paul Getty

My yachts were, I suppose, outstanding status symbols.

J. Paul Getty

If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem.

J. Paul Getty

I buy when other people are selling.

J. Paul Getty

The man who comes up with a means for doing or producing almost anything better, faster or more economically has his future and his fortune at his fingertips.

J. Paul Getty

I hate to be a failure. I hate and regret the failure of my marriages. I would gladly give all my millions for just one lasting marital success.

J. Paul Getty

How does one measure the success of a museum?

J. Paul Getty

The #1 guideline to success is you must be in business for yourself. When you work for someone else, you sell your time at wholesale to your employer, who then re-sells it at retail to the customer.

J. Paul Getty

I'd rather have 1% of the effort of 100 men than 100% of my own effort.

J. Paul Getty

A man can fail, but he isn't a failure until he blames someone else.

J. Paul Getty

The key to wealth is to learn how to make money while you sleep

J. Paul Getty