Quotes from Ron Chernow

the Puritans had produced a religion that validated worldly activity, with "the making of money by acquisition as the ultimate purpose" of life.

Life was a serious business to me when I was young.

Rockefeller's supreme insight was that he could solve the oil industry's problems by solving the railroads' problems at the same time, creating a double cartel in oil and rails.

If Senior tried to shut out his critics, Junior was hypersensitive to insinuations about his father.

Of course, Rockefeller's poker face concealed deep rage.

There is no limit to the development of medical work.

blustering contractor stormed into his office and launched into a snarling tirade against him while he sat hunched over his writing desk and didn't look up until the man had exhausted himself. Then, spinning about in his swivel chair, he looked up and coolly asked, "I didn't catch what you were saying. Would you mind repeating that?

the Rothschilds dismissed the French cause as hopeless.

His account books reflect a concern with fashion, as shown by periodic visits to a French tailor, and his sartorial elegance is confirmed in portraits. In one painting, he wears a double-breasted coat with brass buttons and gilt-edged lapels, his neck swathed delicately in a ruffled lace jabot.

As in the American south, an exaggerated sense of romantic honor may have been an unconscious way for slaveholders to flaunt their moral superiority, purge pent-up guilt, and cloak the brutish nature of their trade.

Doubtless embarrassed, he contested insinuations that he was motivated by greed instead of a humble desire to serve God or humanity.

The war's psychological impact was equally consequential as it afforded opportunities for commercial gain on a scale never seen before.

Significantly, Rockefeller surrounded himself in the early 1890s with brand-new men who could defend his past with total sincerity—and total ignorance

He offered to pay Corrigan $168 or $169 per share for his 2,500 shares of Standard Oil, which would yield enough to retire his $400,000 in debt.

It was from ignorance on how the great business was founded.

He preferred to portray his fortune as a pleasant accident, the unsought by-product of hard work.

Rockefeller refused to publicize such sensitive information.

Rockefeller never saw rebates as criminal or illegitimate or as favors secured only by bullying monopolies. He was correct in stating that listed rates were always a farce, a starting point for haggling.

For all these years no one has known and no one seems to have cared how it came into existence.

by Sherman, Johnston evacuated Jackson and fled east with his demoralized army, leaving

For Pierpont and Fanny, Sundays were devoted to religion.

Para atender à insistência do rapaz quanto a um progresso rápido, Cooper concedeu-lhe

I think it would do you good to get away from the office and get your mind off business for a while.

All along, he insisted, he knew it would fail and had gone along simply as a tactical maneuver.