Quotes from Jon Huntsman, Sr.

Why should someone who has $5 billion only give away $2.5 billion? They can't take it with them.

I desire to leave this world as I entered it - barefoot and broke.

Always make your team around you feel like you are succeeding, even though you know, way down deep, it's a long shot. You have to be the fighter and the leader and the one who instills energy and hope in others.

We're in business to relieve human suffering, to help feed the poor, to provide education and culture - but above all else, we're concerned with the relief of human suffering.

People who put money in the church basket and people who go to church and pay the pastor: that isn't real philanthropy; that's just like you belong to a country club. You pay your dues to belong to that church, so you pay your tithing or whatever it is.

I have always given money away. I haven't always been wealthy - the opposite, in fact. But I have always felt that I wanted people to share it with me.

I've always thought that people who left a great deal of money in their will never enjoyed the great honor and privilege and heart-rendering feeling of giving to others during their lifetime, because they were too selfish to give to others while they were alive, so they made sure they were dead and couldn't use it anymore.

I've had cancer four times. But you know, God has blessed me, and I feel so honored and so privileged in the blessings of life.

We should never have any political or religious organization filter our news.

Being raised in Idaho, you think everyone is poor. Then you see the wider world.

In America today, unfortunately, the right wing has been totally commandeered by the Tea Party, and it's a bad thing for our party.

I think the history of the world suggests if one studies the Romans, and one studies the early Greeks, and one studies the history of the world, they all eventually falter if they don't come back to the basic aspect of integrity and honor and feelings of love one for another.

I'm the only one in America who belongs to the 'Cure Cancer' party, so if you give money to cancer, like Harry Reid and Max Baucus, some of these guys really helped us raise big money for cancer, I give them big money for their reelections.

I love to give money away. I don't know if it makes my children and grandchildren all that happy.

In my way of thinking, the world was my oyster, and there were thousands of products that could be developed.

Decide who you are and what your goals entail - then go for the roses. Life has little regard for those who waste time.

Never quit believing that you can develop in life. Never give up. Don't deny the inward spirit that provides the drive to accomplish great things in life.

I think our Founding Fathers, they would disagree, but they weren't disagreeable. They didn't hate each other; they didn't want to kill each other off.

Our Heavenly Father expects the best from each of us. We must believe in ourselves. Don't give in when the going gets rough. You are laying the foundation of a great work, and that great work is your life.

Self pity is the worst possible disease that can affect mankind. And if we do just the opposite, which is love, then we have God's feelings with us at all times.

I found that, academically, it really didn't matter whether I had received a certain grade in a class; it didn't matter too much what schools I wanted to attend... What matters is one's drive, one's intelligence.

I never have used computers or calculators. I've always been able to figure out in my head, far before my opposition has, in negotiating for acquisitions, where we need to be and where the numbers are and how we could get the best sight of the bargain, without having to resort to accountants or assistants or financial experts.

I had the good fortune to be raised in the 1940s and the 1950s. As I entered business in the late 1950s and 1960s, America was just coming into its own as a great industrial power. It allowed young entrepreneurs to start their engines, to start their businesses, to borrow a little money and to leverage what they had.

I would say to you, have faith in yourself - believe in what you are doing, and, most important, be a person of integrity. It is totally up to you, and no one else, how your life evolves.