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B. C. Forbes Biography

Bertie Charles Forbes (/fɔːrbz/; May 14, 1880 – May 6, 1954) was a Scottish-born American financial journalist and author who founded Forbes magazine.

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B. C. Forbes Quotes

Diamonds are only lumps of coal that stuck to their jobs.

Basketball, Diamonds, Inspirational, Jobs, Stuck

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

Confidence, Consumed, Man, Men, Organization

The human being who lives only for himself finally reaps nothing but unhappiness. Selfishness corrodes. Unselfishness ennobles, satisfies.

Army, Lives, Reaps, Selfishness, Unhappiness, Unselfishness

The more I move among workers and factories and other plants, the stronger I become convinced that it is advisable to have as [a company] president a practical man, preferably one who has risen from the very bottom of the ladder. Workmen, I find, have far more respect for such men than for collar-and-cuff executives knowing little or nothing about the different kinds of work which have to be done by the workers. Wherever circumstances call for placing a financier or lawyer or a papa's son at the head of a large organization, he should be made chairman or some other title, but not president.

Circumstances, Men, Moving, Son, Work, Workers

It is well for civilization that human beings constantly strive to gain greater and greater rewards, for it is this urge, this ambition, this aspiration that moves men and women to bestir themselves to rise to higher and higher achievement. Individual success is to be won in most instances by studying and diagnosing the kind of rewards human hearts seek today and are likely to seek tomorrow.

Ambition, Greater, Heart, Moves, Moving, Seek

We must learn that to enjoy happiness we must conscientiously and continuously seek to spread happiness. Selfishness is suicidal to happiness.

Conscientiously, Continuously, Enjoy, Happiness, Selfishness, Suicidal

Many men who do creditable things refuse to let it be known. This is a mistake. While we all admire modesty, nevertheless there is a great national need to do everything possible to bring home to the rank and file of the people that all employers and all wealthy men are not grinding, mercenary, selfish skinflints, but that many of them take delight in doing helpful things for others. . . Shortcomings of employers are constantly paraded. Why not let the public become acquainted with the better side which most present-day employers possess?

Acquainted, Home, Mistake, Public, Selfish, Skinflints

J. P. Morgan, then past 70, was asked by the son of an eminent father why he [Morgan] didn't retire. When did your father retire? asked Mr. Morgan, without looking up from his desk. In 1902. When did he die? Oh, at the end of 1904. Huh! snapped Mr. Morgan, If he had kept on working he would have been alive still. Work is God's best medicine. It is God's medicine for man.

1904, Father, Looking, Son, Work

Summer, with its dog days, its vacations, its distractions, is over. We have had our holidays, our rest, our recreation. The fall season, with its new opportunities for effort, enterprise and achievement, is upon us. Let us rip off our coats and get down to business. We may have allowed pessimism to grip us during the summer months. We may even have allowed laziness to enter our bones. Now it is up to us to throw off both lassitude and pessimism. The time has come for action, for aggressiveness.

Action, Dog, Let, Rip, Summer, Throw

Has your work become very easy? Do you find you can do it with little effort? Has it ceased to impose any strain or fatigue upon you? Do you no longer feel loss of vitality after a long spell of it? Can you now do it as easy as water rolls off a duck's back? If so, look out! Do some stock-taking. Examine your output. . . . Work done with little effort is likely to yield little result. Every job can be done excellently or indifferently. Excellence necessitates effort-hard, sustained, concentrated effort.

Ceased, Fatigue, Jobs, Loss, Rolls, Work

Inflationary trends are under way. Wage increases, through strikes or threatened strikes, are rampant. Government expenditures are ballooning ominously. Hoarding has contributed unconscionably to price-boosting. The Government should institute measures calculated to arrest inflation. America's commitments are already so mountainous, international and domestic, that the pruning knife should be applied. You and I, all American taxpayers, don't possess limitless resources-our pockets are not bottomless. Curb inflation at every turn!

Already, America, Commitment, Knives, Pockets, Turn

Next to the dog, the wastebasket is your best friend.

Dog, Friend, Next, Wastebasket, Your Best Friend

I have known not a few men who, after reaching the summits of business success, found themselves miserable on attaining retirement age. They were so exclusively engrossed in their day-to-day affairs that they had no time for friend-making. . . . They may flatter themselves that their unrelaxing concentration on business constitutes patriotism of the highest order. They may tell themselves that the existing emergency will pass, and that they can then adopt different, more sociable, more friendly habits. [But] such a day is little likely to come for such individuals.

Age, Business, Constitutes, Order, Retirement, Success

A word of appreciation often can accomplish what nothing else could accomplish.

Accomplish, Appreciation, Nothing, Often Can

A young financial writer once brought ridicule upon himself by stating that a certain company had nothing to commend it except excellent earnings. Well, there are companies whose earnings are excellent but whose stocks I would never recommend. In selecting investments, I attach prime importance to the men behind them. I'd rather buy brains and character than earnings. Earnings can be good one year and poor the next. But if you put your money into securities run by men combining conspicuous brains and unimpeachable character, the likelihood is that the financial results will prove satisfactory.

Character, Companies, Men, Running, Satisfactory

I resolve for 1920 to sit down all by myself and take a personal stock-taking once a month. To be no more charitable in viewing my own faults than I am an viewing the faults of others. To face the facts candidly and courageously. To address myself carefully, prayerfully, to remedying defects.

Addresses, Months, Faces, Faults, Down, Defects

A nation's economic salvation does not lie in the amount of money its rich inhabitants can squander recklessly. A nation's economic salvation lies in the amount of money its inhabitants can save and invest after providing themselves with all the necessaries and all the reasonable comforts of life.

Comfort, Comforts, Doe, Lying, Necessaries, Rich

Real riches are the riches possessed inside.

Business, Possessed, Real, Riches

Success is sweetest to one who has known failure.

Failure, Known, Success, Sweetest

The man without religion is as a ship without a rudder.

Man, Men, Religion, Ship, Ships

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