Top 237 Quotes & Sayings by Malcolm Forbes - Page 4

An inadequate chief executive officer's time at the top is always too long no matter how short.

Will this massive outcry [about pollution] continue long enough to have effective results? Will federal and state laws be enacted with effective enforcement clauses? Will people be concerned long enough to pay the bill through higher prices? Will towns tole lost jobs when it proves too costly to clean obsolete plants?... I think so, but it sure won't be as easy as the present outcry and political oratory suggest. The answers to preserving a livable environment are not all simple, and some of the nuts now pushing simplistic cure-alls won't help bring about any lasting solutions.

I think the terror most people are concerned with is the IRS.

A Tax Loophole: A deduction that the other guy gets.

Economists' unanimity that bad business is ahead is the most reassuring news possible. It's very unlikely that this will be the one time they're right.

People who stare deserve the looks they get.

Why, just a couple of economic seasons ago, was idle cash considered an indication of bad management or lazy management? Because it meant that management didn't have this money out at work ... Now look. Presto! A new fashion! Cash is back in! Denigrating liquidity has dropped quicker than hemlines. A management is now saluted if it has some cash, some liquidity, doesn't have to go to the money market at huge interest rates to get the wherewithal to keep going and growing. Along with Ben Franklin, my father and your father would understand and applaud this new economic fashion.

Socialism will be here the day we share our profits to the degree we share our failures.

It's the less bright students who make teachers teach better.

As you get older there shouldn't be anything you won't try. The payoff is that you open up whole new avenues that are fun. It's a misinterpretation of life to live it only in preparation for the next one. To subordinate the one you've got to an indefinite next round is foolish. It's a waste of this life not to live this life. What's next is anybody's guess.

Speculator: One who bought stocks that went down.

Accepting blame when it's not really due sometimes makes the point better.

When a fissure off the California coast started pumping and dumping oil on the nearby towns and beaches, everybody started dumping on Union Oil. Matters weren't helped one iota by a manufactured quotation attributed to Union's president, Fred Hartley, alleging his amazement at the publicity for the loss of a few birds.... Fred Hartley never said what the press reported, as the transcript and the Senate committee members definitely established. But I don't suppose the truth will ever catch up with the more colorful falsehood.

The ultimate high: A man's abilities equaling his opinion of'em.

On New York's Palm restaurant: Their steaks are often good, but the lobsters-with claws the size of Arnold Schwarzenegger's forearms-are as glazed and tough as most of the customers.

After the fact, our hearts always go out to the fallen Goliaths. Yet we invariably root for their Davids. Until they're winners.

If you don't know, it's not always necessary to admit it.

Perhaps Harvard's greatest contribution to our nation is its requirement that its on-leave professors who want to keep their crimson seats must return from Washington after 24 months.

Listening to advice often accomplishes far more than heeding it.

He who hesitates is sometimes wise.

If you want understanding try giving some.

Hopeless cases: Executives who assert themselves by saying No when they should say Yes.

How to get taken: Spend most of your time making sure you're not.

Wars almost never end the way starters had in mind.

When one seeks assurance, there's none from those who respond, Now, don't you worry about a thing. If you weren't worried, you wouldn't have asked. If you are concerned, it's nice to know that those you query are, too. I'll take a worrier any day over a platitudinous reassurer.

Experts kill me. Economic experts, that is. Corporations, foundations, publications and governments pay them by the bucketful, and they fill buckets with forecasts that change more frequently than white-collar, workers do shirts. What Lies Ahead is the usual title. What Lies would often be more appropriate. If women's hemlines changed as rapidly as an economist's forecasts, the fashion people and the textile industry would be more profitable than any other. In fact, if all the country's economists were laid end to end, they still wouldn't reach a conclusion.

One often reads about the art of conversation-how it's dying or what's needed to make it flourish, or how rare good ones are. But wouldn't you agree that the infinitely more valuable rara avis [rare bird] is a good listener.

It doesn't take much of a rule to measure a mean man.

The Palm is a joint for sadists to entertain masochists.

Hoarding one's hurts hurts only the hoarder.

If I owned any of these Hot New Issues that have doubled, tripled, quintupled or umptupled within days and in some cases hours after they were issued, I most certainly would grab my fabulous windfall, thank my lucky stars and invest the money. It's utter nonsense to think any newly issued stock is really worth two, ten or 20 times the [offering] price.... A management so stupid as to sell shares [cheap], and an underwriter so obtuse as not to discern the real value, together would provide reason enough for a sensible man to get rid of his shares.

Clout is something some seem to have-until they try exercising it.

If you don't watch your figure, you'll have more figure to watch.

Personal & Confidential. Letters so marked should be. When the contents are only printed matter, though, the minifrauder succeeds in sowing illwill & ire.

Any marriage that survives a big wedding can probably survive.

A gun in the hand is worth any number being tested.

If you're looking for perfection, look in the mirror. If you find it there, expect it elsewhere.

What about the poor salesman who is calling into the office from the corner saloon instead of the home sickbed he claims he is in?

The last thing you do the best is what you have the most joy doing.

If you do not know what you're doing stacked on his desk, a dozen colleagues Initially sticks with a large number of papers and pass them. In case of doubt, the way in.

If you don't know what you want to do, it's harder to do it.

It's never too late to learn.

You have to come up in the world before it's worthwhile for those worth less to put you down.

How in heck are they handling their surplus population in Hell these days? Maybe by the time you and I are in the queue there won't be room for us.

When those with ability at their job get to thinking they can't be done without, they're already on their way out.

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.

The ultimate in futility is owning important jewelry. Insurers often insist on the wearing of paste replicas because necks with real rocks around 'em risk wringing.

Are you not justified in feeling inferior, when you seek to cover it up with arrogance and insolence?

When profit is unshared, it's less likely to grow greater.

A big cigar in a young face requires the best of both.

It is a damned sight easier to start wars than to end them. This truth has been stated for as long and as often as it has been ignored. High time and thank God, we are at least moving toward de-escalation in Vietnam. The road to extrication will be long, painful, bitter. But it must be trod. We are so bogged down in Vietnam that we cannot respond effectively anywhere else in the world to a military power play except through atomic bombardment.

For corporations to be bedfellows with the arts is good business for both. The architecture that houses a company is a more visible statement than the president's in the annual report. Ditto interiors, particularly of offices and sometimes, dramatically, in plants. For solvent businesses, support of community cultural undertakings in music, drama, dance creates great goodwill. Also, the existence of such activities is often important to the executives and their families that companies want to keep or attract to keep.

If you can read and don't, you're dumb.

Some people as a result of adversity are sadder, wiser, kinder, more human. Most of us are better, though, when things go better. Knowing when to keep your mouth shut is invariably more important than opening it at the right time. Always listen to a man when he describes the faults of others. Often times, most times, he's describing his own, revealing himself.

I don't waste too much time philosophizing about wealth, I just recommend it to everyone.

Those carried away by power are soon carried away.

A lot of money doesn't make anyone more often right. It just makes him harder to correct.