68 Malcolm Forbes Quotes

Malcolm Forbes quotes

1. Ability will never catch up with the demand for it.

   Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

2. Being right half the time beats being half-right all the time.

3. By the time we've made it, we've had it.

4. Contrary to the cliche, genuinely nice guys most often finish first or very near it.

   Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

5. Diamonds are nothing more than chunks of coal that stuck to their jobs.

6. Diversity: the art of thinking independently together.

7. Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.

8. Elected leaders who forget how they got there won't the next time.

9. Everybody has to be somebody to somebody to be anybody.

10. Executives who get there and stay suggest solutions when they present the problems.

11. Failure is success if we learn from it.

12. Few businessmen are capable of being in politics, they don't understand the democratic process, they have neither the tolerance or the depth it takes. Democracy isn't a business.

13. How to succeed? Try hard enough.

14. If you don't know what to do with many of the papers piled on your desk, stick a dozen colleagues' initials on 'em, and pass them along. When in doubt, route.

15. If you expect nothing, you're apt to be surprised. You'll get it.

16. If you have a job without any aggravations, you don't have a job.

17. If you have no critics you'll likely have no success.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

18. If you never budge, don't expect a push.

19. It is all one to me if a man comes from Sing Sing Prison or Harvard. We hire a man, not his history.

20. It's more fun to arrive at a conclusion than to justify it.

21. It's so much easier to suggest solutions when you don't know too much about the problem.

22. It's always worthwhile to make others aware of their worth.

23. Keeping score of old scores and scars, getting even and one-upping, always makes you less than you are.

24. Let your children go if you want to keep them.

25. Men who never get carried away should be.

26. Never hire someone who knows less than you do about what he's hired to do.

27. One can pay back the loan of gold, but one lives forever in debt to those who are kind.

28. One worthwhile task carried to a successful conclusion is worth half-a-hundred half-finished tasks.

29. Pay your people the least possible and you'll get from them the same.

30. People who matter are most aware that everyone else does, too.

31. People who never get carried away should be'

32. Presence is more than just being there.

33. Retirement kills more people than hard work ever did.

34. Success follows doing what you want to do. There is no other way to be successful.

35. The best vision is insight.

36. The biggest mistake people make in life is not trying to make a living at doing what they most enjoy.

37. The more sympathy you give, the less you need.

38. There is never enough time, unless you're serving it.

39. There's no way to move without making waves.

40. Those who enjoy responsibility usually get it; those who merely like exercising authority usually lose it.

41. To measure the man, measure his heart.

42. Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are.

43. Victory is sweetest when you've known defeat.

44. What's an expert? I read somewhere, that the more a man knows, the more he knows, he doesn't know. So I suppose one definition of an expert would be someone who doesn't admit out loud that he knows enough about a subject to know he doesn't really know how much.

45. When things are bad, we take comfort in the thought that they could always get worse. And when they are, we find hope in the thought that things are so bad they have to get better.

46. When what we are is what we want to be, that's happiness.

47. When you cease to dream you cease to live.

48. You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

1. I don't think anybody can be a success who doesn't like what they do. [But it's] no job if it has no challenge; there's nothing to it if there are no problems. The essential thing is liking what you're doing.

2. Why, just a couple of economic seasons ago, was idle cash considered an indication of bad management or lazy management? Because it meant that management didn't have this money out at work ... Now look. Presto! A new fashion! Cash is back in! Denigrating liquidity has dropped quicker than hemlines. A management is now saluted if it has some cash, some liquidity, doesn't have to go to the money market at huge interest rates to get the wherewithal to keep going and growing. Along with Ben Franklin, my father and your father would understand and applaud this new economic fashion.

3. Real writers-that is, capital W Writers-rarely make much money. Their biggest reward is the occasional reader's response… Commentators-in-print voicing big fat opinions-you might call us small w writers-get considerably more feedback than Writers. The letters I personally find most flattering are not the very rare ones that speak well of my editorials, but the occasional reader who wants to know who writes them. I always happily assume the letter-writers is implying that the editorials are so good that I couldn't have written them myself.

4. Some people as a result of adversity are sadder, wiser, kinder, more human. Most of us are better, though, when things go better. Knowing when to keep your mouth shut is invariably more important than opening it at the right time. Always listen to a man when he describes the faults of others. Often times, most times, he's describing his own, revealing himself.

5. When you don't understand, it's sometimes easier to look like you do.

6. Security isn't securities. It's knowing that someone cares whether you are or cease to be.

7. It is unfortunate we can't buy many business executives for what they are worth and sell them for what they think they are worth.

8. Compliment others on the virtues they have; and they're not half as pleased as being complimented for the ones they don't have.

9. . . . the most difficult thing asked by our young is not our earnings but our ears.

10. Any marriage that survives a big wedding can probably survive.

11. When those with ability at their job get to thinking they can't be done without, they're already on their way out.

12. I think the terror most people are concerned with is the IRS.

13. Isn't it fortunate how selective our recollections usually are.

14. Things there are no solution to: Inflation, bureaucracy & dandruff.

15. When young, you're shocked by the number of people who turn out to have feet of clay. Older, you're surprised by the number of people who don't.

16. At the heart of any good business is a chief executive officer with one.

17. The day nothing turns you on - you're dead. No matter how many more years you go on breathing.

18. The dumbest people I know are those who know it all.

19. When the joy of the job's gone, when it's no fun trying anymore, quit before you're fired.

20. Hoarding one's hurts hurts only the hoarder.