Quotes from P. T. Barnum

Science is the pursuit of pure truth, and the systematizing of it.

Witchcraft is one of the most baseless, absurd, disgusting and silly of all the humbugs.

Without promotion, something terrible happens... nothing!

A lovely nook of forest scenery, or a grand rock, like a beautiful woman, depends for much of its attractiveness upon the attendance sense of freedom from whatever is low; upon a sense of purity and of romance.

Men, women, and children who cannot live on gravity alone need something to satisfy their gayer, lighter moods and hours, and he who ministers to this want is, in my opinion, in a business established by the Creator of our nature. If he worthily fulfills his mission and amuses without corrupting, he need never feel that he has lived in vain.

You can fool most of the people most of the time.

Whatever you do, do it with all your might. Work at it, early and late, in season and out of season, not leaving a stone unturned, and never deferring for a single hour that which can be done just as well now.

Money is in some respects life's fire: it is a very excellent servant, but a terrible master.

Clowns are the pegs on which the circus is hung.

The truth is, the more kind and liberal a man is, the more generous will be the patronage bestowed upon him.

Politeness and civility are the best capital ever invested in business. Large stores, gilt signs, flaming advertisements, will all prove unavailing if you or your employees treat your patrons abruptly. The truth is, the more kind and liberal a man is, the more generous will be the patronage bestowed upon him.

Every crowd has a silver lining.

He who is without a newspaper is cut off from his species.

Fortune always favors the brave, and never helps a man who does not help himself.

No man ever went broke overestimating the ignorance of the American public.

The common man, no matter how sharp and tough, actually enjoys having the wool pulled over his eyes, and makes it easier for the puller.

When a man is in the right path, he must persevere.

If I was not a remarkably modest man, I should probably brag a little, and say that I had done what no American ever before accomplished by visiting the queen at her palace twice within eight days.

Every man's occupation should be beneficial to his fellow-man as well as profitable to himself. All else is vanity and folly.

Advertising is like learning - a little is a dangerous thing. If a man has not the pluck to keep on advertising, all the money he has already spent is lost.

The plan of "counting the chickens before they are hatched" is an error of ancient date, but it does not seem to improve by age.

Every man should make his son or daughter learn some useful trade or profession, so that in these days of changing fortunes of being rich today and poor tomorrow they may have something tangible to fall back upon. This provision might save many persons from misery, who by some unexpected turn of fortune have lost all their means.

I never liked to work, I mean manual work.

There is no such thing in the world as luck. There never was a man who could go out in the morning and find a purse full of gold in the street to-day, and another to-morrow, and so on, day after day: He may do so once in his life; but so far as mere luck is concerned, he is as liable to lose it as to find it.