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If you can provide a precise and verifiable source for any quote on this list please move it to Business.
  • Business without profit is not business any more than a pickle is a candy.
  • There's only so much room at the top. For someone to succeed, someone must fail.
  • Profitability is the sovereign criterion of the enterprise.
  • Promotion should not be more important than accomplishment, or avoiding instability more important than taking the right risk.
  • If a man goes into business with only the idea of making money, the chances are he won't.
  • A five-dollar bill loaned to someone who will not repay serves as a inexpensive reminder that one should deny them further credit in the future.
    • T.S. Hamilton, American financier, President, Eastern Oregon Banking Company.
  • Rare almost as great poets, rarer, perhaps, than veritable saints and martyrs, are consummate men of business. A man, to be excellent in this way, requires a great knowledge of character, with that exquisite tact which feels unerringly the right moment when to act. A discreet rapidity must pervade all the movements of his thought and action. He must be singularly free from vanity, and is generally found to be an enthusiast who has the art to conceal his enthusiasm.
  • The great secret both of health and successful industry is the absolute yielding up of one's consciousness to the business and diversion of the hour—never permitting the one to infringe in the least degree upon the other.
  • To men addicted to delights, business is an interruption; to such as are cold to delights, business is an entertainment. For which reason it was said to one who commended a dull man for his application, "No thanks to him; if he had no business, he would have nothing to do."
  • Not because of any extraordinary talents did he succeed, but because he had a capacity on a level for business and not above it.
  • To be a success in business, be daring, be first, be different.
  • Call on a business man at business times only, and on business, transact your business and go about your business, in order to give him time to finish his business.
  • No one fouls his hands in his own business.
    • Italian Proverb
  • Business makes a man as well as tries him.
    • English proverb
  • Business sweetens pleasure, and labour sweetens rest.
    • English proverb
  • Infatuation is like a business partnership. It is easy to form. Yet, it most likely has unlimited liabilities. Consequently, it can be easily dissolved.
    • Neil Edmund A. Allena

Quotes not primary on business

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  • The only managers that have simple problems have simple minds.
    • Russell Ackoff. Management f-laws: how organizations really work‎ (2007).
  • Nation of shopkeepers.
    • Attributed to Samuel Adams, oration, said to have been delivered at Philadelphia State House (Aug. 1, 1776). in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 85-87.
  • Nothing holds a company back – and the individuals working in it – more than a lack of interest in positive change. You cannot stand still: you either go backwards or forwards.
    • John Adair (b.1934), British author, writer on business leadership. 'Part Three: Managing for Innovation', Effective Innovation (2009), revised edition, p.131.
  • Corporation: an ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.
    • Ambrose Bierce, American satirist, "The Devil's Dictionary," 1911.
  • I think that people have the idea of an entrepreneur being the sort of stereotype person who treads all over everybody and bullies their way to the top. There certainly are people like that, and they have managed to get away with it, but they generally get their come-uppance in the end.
  • The soul's Rialto hath its merchandise,
    I barter curl for curl upon that mart.
  • When we speak of the commerce with our colonies, fiction lags after truth, invention is unfruitful, and imagination cold and barren.
    • Edmund Burke, Speech on the Conciliation of America. in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 85-87.
  • In matters of commerce the fault of the Dutch
    Is offering too little and asking too much.
    The French are with equal advantage content—
    So we clap on Dutch bottoms just 20 per cent.
    • George Canning's dispatch to Sir Charles Bagot, Jan. 31, 1826. See Notes and Queries (Oct. 4, 1902), p. 270. in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 85-87.
  • Watch the costs, and the profits will take care of themselves.
  • Keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee. Light gains make heavy purses. 'Tis good to be merry and wise.
    • George Chapman, Eastward Ho, Act I, scene 1. (Written by Chapman, Jonson and Marston). in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 85-87.
  • They (corporations) cannot commit treason, nor be outlawed, nor excommunicated, for they have no souls.
    • Edward Coke, Reports, Volume V. The Case of Sutton's Hospital, Campbell, Lives of the Lords Chancellors. in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 85-87.
  • Swear, fool, or starve; for the dilemma's even;
    A tradesman thou! and hope to go to heaven?
    • John Dryden, Persius, Sat. V, line 204. in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 85-87.
  • The greatest meliorator of the world is selfish, huckstering trade.
    • Ralph Waldo Emerson, Work and Days. in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 85-87.
  • In every age and clime we see,
    Two of a trade can ne'er agree.
    • John Gay, Fables (1727), Rat-Catcher and Cats, line 43.
  • What is the single most important thing for a company? ...Is it the building? Is it the stock? Is it the turnover? It’s the people, investment in people.
    • Ricky Dene Gervais, English comedian, actor. As spoken by his character, Brent, in the BBC series, The Office, Episode 2. The Office: The Scripts (Series 1), by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant (2002), p 62.
  • A manufacturing district * * * sends out, as it were, suckers into all its neighborhood.
    • Henry Hallam, View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages, Chapter IX. in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 85-87.
  • Lord Stafford mines for coal and salt,
    The Duke of Norfolk deals in malt,
    The Douglas in red herrings.
    • Fitz-Greene Halleck, Alnwick Castle. in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 85-87
  • They [corporations] feel neither shame, remorse, gratitude, nor goodwill.
    • William Hazlitt, Table Talks, Essay XXVII. in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 85-87.
  • The potter is at enmity with the potter.
    • Hesiod, Works and Days. in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 85-87.
  • Mr. Howel Walsh, in a corporation case tried at the Tralee assizes, observed that a corporation cannot blush. It was a body, it was true; had certainly a head—a new one every year—an annual acquisition of intelligence in every new lord mayor. Arms he supposed it had, and very long ones too, for it could reach at anything. Legs, of course, when it made such long strides. A throat to swallow the rights of the community, and a stomach to digest them. But who ever yet discovered, in the anatomy of any corporation, either bowels or a heart?
    • William Hone, In his Table-Book. in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 85-87.
  • Sed tamen amoto quæramus seria ludo.
    • Setting raillery aside, let us attend to serious matters.
    • Horace, Satires, I. 1. 27. in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 85-87.
  • Whose merchants are princes.
    • Isaiah, XXIII. 8. in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 85-87.
  • Trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay.
    • Samuel Johnson, line added to Goldsmith's Deserted Village. in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 85-87.
  • Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale."
  • The sign brings customers.
    • Jean de La Fontaine, Fables, The Fortune Tellers, Book VII. Fable 15. in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 85-87.
  • It is never the machines that are dead.
    It is only the mechanically-minded men that are dead.
  • Machinery is the subconscious mind of the world.
  • Consilia callida et audacia prima specie læta, tractatu dura, eventu tristia sunt.
    • Hasty and adventurous schemes are at first view flattering, in execution difficult, and in the issue disastrous.
    • Livy, Annales, XXXV. 32. in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 85-87.
  • As touching corporations, that they were invisible, immortal and that they had no soul, therefor no supœna lieth against them, because they have no conscience or soul.
    • Sir Roger Manwood, Chief Baron of the Exchequer (1592). See Dictionary of National Biography. in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 85-87.
  • A blind bargain.
    • Merrie Tales of the Madmen of Gottam (1630). No. 13. in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 85-87.
  • Non enim potest quæstus consistere, si eum sumptus superat.
    • There can be no profit, if the outlay exceeds it.
    • Plautus, Pœnulus, I. 2. 74. in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 85-87.
  • Nam mala emptio semper ingrata est, eo naxime, quod exprobrare stultitiam domino idetur.
    • For a dear bargain is always annoying, particularly on this account, that it is a reflection on the judgment of the buyer.
    • Pliny the Younger, Epistles, I. 24. in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 85-87.
  • The merchant, to secure his treasure,
    Conveys it in a borrow'd name.
    • Matthew Prior, Ode, The Merchant, to Secure his Treasure. in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 85-87.
  • Running a company on market research is like driving while looking in the rear view mirror.
    • Dame Anita Roddick, British entrepreneur and businesswoman. From the Independent (UK) newspaper, 22nd August 1997.
  • The merchant's function (or manufacturer's, for in the broad sense in which it is here used the word must be understood to include both) is to provide for the nation. It is no more his function to get profit for himself out of that provision than it is a clergyman's function to get his stipend.
    • John Ruskin (1819-1900), English writer, art critic and social thinker. 'The Roots of Honour,' Unto This Last (1862).
  • I'll give thrice so much land
    To any well-deserving friend;
    But in the way of bargain, mark ye me,
    I'll cavil on the ninth part of a hair.
  • Losses,
    That have of late so huddled on his back,
    Enow to press a royal merchant down
    And pluck commiseration of his state
    From brassy bosoms and rough hearts of flint.
  • There's two words to that bargain.
  • Omnia inconsulti impetus cœpta, initiis valida, spatio languescunt.
    • All inconsiderate enterprises are impetuous at first, but soon languish.
    • Tacitus, Annales (AD 117), III. 58.
  • Did you ever expect a corporation to have a conscience, when it has no soul to be damned, and no body to be kicked?
    • Lord Thurlow. See Alison, History of Europe, and Poynder, Literary Extracts, Corporations. Wilberforce, Life of Thurlow, Volume II, Appendix. in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 85-87.
  • Keep your shop, and your shop will keep you.
    • Sir William Turner, Steele in Spectator No. 509. in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 85-87.
  • A silly old man who did not understand even his silly old trade.
    • Lord Westbury, of a witness from the Heralds' College. in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 85-87.
  • The way to stop financial "joy-riding" is to arrest the chauffeur, not the automobile.
    • Woodrow Wilson, reported in Richard Linthicum, Wit and Wisdom of Woodrow Wilson. in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 85-87.
  • When the rate of change increases to the point that real time required to assimilate change exceeds the time in with change must be manifest, the enterprise is going to find itself in deep yohurt.
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