Quotes from B. C. Forbes

Are you doing the kind of work you were built for, so that you can expect to be able to do very large amounts of that kind and thrive under it? Or are you doing a kind of which you can do comparatively little?

Judgment can be acquired only by acute observation, by actual experience in the school of life, by ceaseless alertness to learn from others, by study of the activities of men who have made notable marks, by striving to analyze the everyday play of causes and effects, by constant study of human nature.

Search and you will find that at the base and birth of every great business organization was an enthusiast, a man consumed with earnestness of purpose, with confidence in his powers, with faith in the worthwhileness of his endeavors.

How we love to blame others for our misfortunes! Almost every individual who has lost money in stock speculation has on the tip of his tongue an explanation which he trots out to show that it wasn't his own fault at all.... Hardly one loser has the manliness to say frankly, "I was wrong."

Many of the most successful men I have known have never grown up. They have retained bubbling-over boyishness. They have relished wit, they have indulged in humor. They have not allowed "dignity" to depress them into moroseness. Youthfulness of spirit is the twin brother of optimism, and optimism is the stuff of which American business success is fashioned. Resist growing up!

Call the roll in your memory of conspicuously successful business giants and ... you will be struck by the fact that almost every one of them encountered inordinate difficulties sufficient to crush all but the gamest of spirits. Edison went hungry many times before he became famous.

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

When it comes to betting on yourself ... you're a chicken-livered coward if you hesitate.

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.

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.

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

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!

Mediocre men wait for opportunity to come to them. Strong, able, alert men go after opportunity.

The man of fixed ingrained principles who has mapped out a straight course, and has the courage and self-control to adhere to it, does not find life complex. Complexities are all of our own making.

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

The truth doesn't hurt unless it ought to.

To make headway, improve your head.

Plan your work - work your plan

Work done with little effort is likely to yield little result.

I have never seen people who could do real work except under the stimulus of encouragement and enthusiasm and the approval of the people for whom they are working.

Temporary release from work, through vacations, becomes more welcome, more pleasurable, even more necessary, as we grow older.

There's no such thing as a self-made man. I've had much help and have found that if you are willing to work, many people are willing to help you.

Whimpering never kept a leaking vessel from foundering. Vigorously manning the pumps has. Get busy with your head and hands, not your chin.

The fellow who isn't fired with enthusiasm is apt to be fired.