Top 188 Quotes & Sayings by B. C. Forbes

Many a man thinks he is patient when, in reality, he is indifferent.

The man who is intent on making the most of his opportunities is too busy to bother about luck.

The bargain that yields mutual satisfaction is the only one that is apt to be repeated.

There is more credit and satisfaction in being a first-rate truck driver than a tenth-rate executive.

If you don't drive your business, you will be driven out of business.

It is only the farmer who faithfully plants seeds in the Spring, who reaps a harvest in the Autumn.

He best keeps from anger who remembers that God is always looking upon him.

A business like an automobile, has to be driven, in order to get results.

Golf without bunkers and hazards would be tame and monotonous. So would life.

Difficulties should act as a tonic. They should spur us to greater exertion.

Turn resolutely to work, to recreation, or in any case to physical exercise till you are so tired you can't help going to sleep, and when you wake up you won't want to worry.

The man who has done his level best... is a success, even though the world may write him down a failure.

History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats.

Work is the meat of life, pleasure the dessert.

Better to be occasionally cheated than perpetually suspicious.

Christmas is a tonic for our souls. It moves us to think of others rather than of ourselves. It directs our thoughts to giving.

A shady business never yields a sunny life.

What you have outside you counts less than what you have inside you.

He who has faith has... an inward reservoir of courage, hope, confidence, calmness, and assuring trust that all will come out well - even though to the world it may appear to come out most badly.

Jealousy... is a mental cancer.

The man who has won millions at the cost of his conscience is a failure.

Real riches are the riches possessed inside.

To make headway, improve your head.

The truth doesn't hurt unless it ought to.

Books are like a mirror. If an ass looks in, you can't expect an angel to look out.

Don't forget until too late that the business of life is not business but living.

Kill time and you will kill your career.

A word of appreciation often can accomplish what nothing else could accomplish.

There are two brands of discontent: the brand that merely fosters greed and snarling and back-biting, and the brand that inspires greater and greater effort to reach the desired goal. Which is your brand?

Triumph often is nearest when defeat seems inescapable.

The Bible says, 'Where there is no vision, the people perish.' Have you a vision? And are you undeviatingly pressing and pushing toward its accomplishment? Dreaming alone will not get you there. Mix your dreams with determination and action.

Madame Curie didn't stumble upon radium by accident. She searched and experimented and sweated and suffered years before she found it. Success rarely is an accident.

It's so much easier to do good than to be good.

Timing is everything. Tell me how a young man spends his evenings and I will tell you how far he is likely to go in the world. The popular notion is that a youth's progress depends upon how he acts during his working hours. It doesn't. It depends far more upon how he utilizes his leisure...If he spends it in harmless idleness, he is likely to be kept on the payroll, but that will be about all. If he diligently utilizes his own time...to fit himself for more responsible duties, then the greater responsibilities - and greater rewards - are almost certain to come to him.

Plan your work - work your plan

Success is sweetest to one who has known failure.

Many of the most successful men I have known have never grown up. Youthfulness of spirit is the twin brother of optimism... Resist growing up!

Vitally important for a young man or woman is, first, to realize the value of education and then to cultivate earnestly, aggressively, ceaselessly, the habit of self-education.

Cheerfulness is among the most laudable virtues. It gains you the good will and friendship of others. It blesses those who practice it and those upon whom it is bestowed.

In the race for success, speed is less important than stamina.

Acting without thinking is like shooting without aiming.

If you do the best and the most you can today, don't worry about tomorrow.

Enthusiasm is the electric current that keeps the engine of life going at top speed. Enthusiasm is the very propeller of progress.

The most profitless things to manufacture are excuses.

The men who have done big things are those who were not afraid to attempt big things, who were not afraid to risk failure in order to gain success.

Use life to provide something that outlasts it.

No man can fight his way to the top and stay at the top without exercising the fullest measure of grit, courage, determination, resolution.

Money, or even power, can never yield happiness unless it be accompanied by the goodwill of others.

You have no idea how big the other fellow's troubles are.

Are your desires purely selfish? Do your tastes run to a grand home, automobiles, fine clothes, an abundance of amusements, and so forth? If so, look around you at people who have such things in superabundance. Are they any happier, do you think, than you are? Are they any better morally? Are they any stronger physically? Are they better liked by their friends than you are by your friends? ... Carnegie said, Millionaires rarely smile. This is substantially true.

Our future and our fate lie in our wills more than in our hands, for our hands are but the instruments of our wills.

The human being who lives only for himself finally reaps nothing but unhappiness. Selfishness corrodes. Unselfishness ennobles, satisfies.

Opportunity can benefit no man who has not fitted himself to seize it and use it. Opportunity woos the worthy, shuns the unworthy. Prepare yourself to grasp opportunity, and opportunity is likely to come your way. It is not so fickle, capricious and unreasoning as some complain.

Bragging often precedes begging.

How you start is important, but it is how you finish that counts. In the race for success, speed is less important than stamina. The sticker outlasts the sprinter.

First make sure that what you aspire to accomplish is worth accomplishing, and then throw your whole vitality into it. What's worth doing is worth doing well. And to do anything well, wheter it be typing a letter or drawing up an agreement involving millions, we must give not only our hands to the doing of it, but our brains, our enthusiasm, the best - all that is in us. The task to which you dedicate yourself can never become a drudgery.

Honesty is the cornerstone of character. The honest man or woman seeks not merely to avoid criminal or illegal acts, but to be scrupulously fair, upright, fearless in both action and expression. Honesty pays dividends both in dollars and in peace of mind.

Opportunity rarely knocks on your door. Knock rather on opportunity's door if you ardently wish to enter.

Think not of yourself as the architect of your career but as the sculptor. Expect to have to do a lot of hard hammering and chiselingand scraping and polishing.

Selfishness corrodes. Unselfishness ennobles, satisfies. Don't put off the joy derivable from doing helpful, kindly things for others.