Everything starts with the customer.

Everything starts with the customer.

It is almost as difficult to keep a first class person in a fourth class job, as it is to read more

It is almost as difficult to keep a first class person in a fourth class job, as it is to keep a fourth class person in a first class job.

Based on first-hand evidence of your own senses - the improved health and later ages at which acquaintances die nowadays read more

Based on first-hand evidence of your own senses - the improved health and later ages at which acquaintances die nowadays as compared with the past; the material goods that we now possess; the speed at which information, entertainment, and we ourselves move freely throughout the world - it seems to me that a person must be literally deaf and blind not to perceive that humanity is in a much better state than ever before.

The rich adopt novelties and become accustomed to their use. This sets a fashion which others imitate. Once the richer read more

The rich adopt novelties and become accustomed to their use. This sets a fashion which others imitate. Once the richer classes have adopted a certain way of living, producers have an incentive to improve the methods of manufacture so that soon it is possible for the poorer classes to follow suit. Thus luxury furthers progress. Innovation "is the whim of an elite before it becomes a need of the public. The luxury today is the necessity of tomorrow." Luxury is the roadmaker of progress: it develops latent needs and makes people discontented. In so far as they think consistently, moralists who condemn luxury must recommend the comparatively desireless existence of the wild life roaming in the woods as the ultimate ideal of civilized life.

Wealth, howsoever got, in England makes lords of mechanics, gentlemen of rakes; Antiquity and birth are needless here; 'Tis impudence read more

Wealth, howsoever got, in England makes lords of mechanics, gentlemen of rakes; Antiquity and birth are needless here; 'Tis impudence and money makes a peer.

The politicians don't just want your money. They want your soul. They want you to be worn down by taxes read more

The politicians don't just want your money. They want your soul. They want you to be worn down by taxes until you are dependent and helpless. When you subsidize poverty and failure, you get more of both.

Many of the products which create a modern standard of living are only the physical incorporations of ideas- not only read more

Many of the products which create a modern standard of living are only the physical incorporations of ideas- not only the ideas of an Edison or a Ford but the ideas of innumerable anonymous people who figure out the design of supermarkets, the location of gasoline stations, and the million mundane things on which our material well-being depends. Societies which have more people carrying out physical acts and fewer people supplying ideas do not have higher standards of living. Quite the contrary.

Emotions are your worst enemy in the stock market.

Emotions are your worst enemy in the stock market.

Every era has a currency that buys souls. In some the currency is pride, in others it is hope, in read more

Every era has a currency that buys souls. In some the currency is pride, in others it is hope, in still others it is a holy cause. There are of course times when hard cash will buy souls, and the remarkable thing is that such times are marked by civility, tolerance, and the smooth working of everyday life.