John D. Rockefeller was one of the most successful businessmen in history. He was known for his firm and confident tone, and his quotes reflect this. Here are some of John D. Rockefeller Quotes quotes on business and success.
John D. Rockefeller was born in 1839 in Richford, New York. He was the second of six children. Rockefeller’s father was a traveling salesman and his mother was a homemaker. When Rockefeller was a teenager, his family moved to Cleveland, Ohio. There, Rockefeller started working for a commission merchant. He soon started his own business, which became very successful.
In 1885, Rockefeller founded Standard Oil. Standard Oil became the largest oil company in the world. Rockefeller was also a major philanthropist. He donated millions of dollars to various causes, including education and medical research. Rockefeller died in 1937. He was the richest man in American history.
55 John D. Rockefeller Quotes
- “I do not think there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.”
2. “The secret to success is to do the common things uncommonly well.”
3. “Good management consists in showing average people how to do the work of superior people.”
4. “I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.”
5. “Our cup will truly run over only after we have sealed the character cracks.”
6. “I always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity.”
7. “It is wrong to assume that men of immense wealth are always happy.”
8. “Who is the poorest man in the world? I tell you, the poorest man I know of is the man who has nothing but money.”
9. “Charity is injurious unless it helps the recipient to become independent of it.”
10. “Do not many of us who fail to achieve big things. . .fail because we lack concentration–the art of concentrating the mind on the thing to be done at the proper time and to the exclusion of everything else?”
Inspirational John D. Rockefeller Quotes
11. “I can think of nothing less pleasurable than a life devoted to pleasure.”
12. “A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship”
13. “The common denominator for success is work.”
14. “We are never too old to study the Bible. Each time the lessons are studied comes some new meaning, some new thought which will make us better.”
15. “The most important thing for a young man is to establish a credit, a reputation, character.”
16. “I don’t want a nation of thinkers, I want a nation of workers”
17. “It is very important to remember what other people tell you, not so much what you yourself already know.”
18. “The way to make money is to buy when blood is running in the streets.”
19. “If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.”
20. “There is no feeling in this world to be compared with self-reliance–do not sacrifice that to anything else.”
John D. Rockefeller Quotes On Success
21. “I would rather earn 1% off a 100 people’s efforts than 100% of my own efforts.”
22. “Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.”
23. “I have ways of making money that you know nothing of.”
24. “I would rather hire a man with enthusiasm, than a man who knows everything.”
25. “Long ago I lost the joy in living. The only joy I have is in my giving.”
26. “A man has no right to occupy another man’s time unnecessarily”
27. “I believe in the supreme worth of the individual and in his right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
28. “The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee. And I will pay more for that ability.”
29. “I believe it is a religious duty to get all the money you can, fairly and honestly; to keep all you can, and to give away all you can.”
30. “I have made many millions but they have brought me no happiness.”
John D. Rockefeller Quotes To Live By
31. “Nobody does anything if he can get anybody else to do it”
32. “A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds.”
33. “Singleness of purpose is one of the chief essentials for success in life, no matter what may be one’s aim.”
34. “The man who starts out simply with the idea of getting rich won’t succeed, you must have a larger ambition.”
35. “Competition is a sin.”
36. “I know of nothing more despicable and pathetic than a man who devotes all the hours of the waking day to the making of money for money’s sake.”
37. “Never lose interest in life and the world. Never allow yourself to become annoyed.”
38. “Next to doing the right thing, the most important thing is to let people know you are doing the right thing.”
39. “I had no ambition to make a fortune. Mere money-making has never been my goal, I had the ambition to build.”
40. “A man’s wealth must be determined by the relation of his desires and expenditures to his income. If he feels rich on ten dollars, and has everything else he desires, he really is rich.”
Motivational John D. Rockefeller Quotes
41. “Capital and labor are both wild forces which require intelligent legislation to hold them in restriction.”
42. “If your only goal is to become rich, you will never achieve it.”
43. “Singleness of purpose is one of the chief essentials for success in life, no matter what may be one’s aim.”
44. “The only question with wealth is, what do you do with it?”
45. “When work goes out of style we may expect to see civilization totter and fall.”
44. “Success comes from keeping the ears open and the mouth closed”
45. “It has always been my rule in business to make everything count.”
46. “Be sure that you are not deceiving yourself at any time about actual conditions.”
47. “The man will be most successful who confers the greatest service on the world.”
48. “The best philanthropy is constantly in search of the finalities-a search for a cause, an attempt to cure evils at their source.”
49. “The success of each is dependent upon the success of the other.”
50. “Giving should be entered into in just the same way as investing. Giving is investing.”
51. “Own nothing, control everything.”
52. “I have no use for men who fail. The cause of their failure is no business of mine, but I want successful men as my associates.”
53. “I believe in the dignity of labor, whether with head or hand; that the world owes no man a living but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living.”
54. “The person with big talk and big dreams is more powerful than one with all the facts. I believe that the law was made for man and not man for the law; that government is the servant of the people and not their master.”
55. “I cheat my boys every chance I get. I trade with the boys and skin ‘em and I just beat ‘em every time I can. I want to make ‘em sharp.”