John D. Rockefeller on Making Money: Advice and Words of Wisdom on Building and Sharing Wealth

I would rather earn one percent off one hundred people’s efforts than one hundred percent of my own efforts. (View Highlight)

Good management consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people. (View Highlight)

The growth of a large business is merely a survival of the fittest … The American Beauty rose can be produced in the splendor and fragrance which bring cheer to its beholder only by sacrificing the early buds which grow up around it. This is not an evil tendency in business. It is merely the working-out of a law of nature and a law of God (View Highlight)

I admit I tried to attract only the able men; and I have always had as little as possible to do with dull business men. (View Highlight)

It is not always the easiest of tasks to induce strong, forceful men to agree (View Highlight)

The men who have been very successful are correspondingly conservative, since they have much to lose in case of disaster (View Highlight)

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. (View Highlight)

It is interesting to follow the mental processes that some excellent souls go through to cloud their consciences when they consider what their duty actually is. For instance, one man says: “I do not believe in giving money to street beggars.” I agree with him, I do not believe in the practice either; but that is not a reason why one should be exempt from doing something to help the situation represented by the street beggar. Because one does not yield to the importunities of such people is exactly the reason one should join and uphold the charity organization societies of one’s own locality, which deal justly and humanely with this class, separating the worthy from the unworthy. (View Highlight)

Giving should be entered into in just the same way as investing. Giving is investing. (View Highlight)

I want to know surely in giving that I am putting money where it will do most good. (View Highlight)

The best philanthropy is constantly in search of the finalities—a search for cause, an attempt to cure evils at their source. (View Highlight)

You must put in, if you would take out. (View Highlight)

The most important thing for a young man is to establish a credit—a reputation, character. (View Highlight)

Try to turn every disaster into an opportunity. (View Highlight)

Oftentimes the most difficult competition comes, not from the strong, the intelligent, the conservative competitor, but from the man who is holding on by the eyelids and is ignorant of his costs, and anyway he’s got to keep running or bust! (View Highlight)

If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success. (View Highlight)

Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great. (View Highlight)

I would rather hire a man with enthusiasm than a man who knows everything. (View Highlight)

A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship. (View Highlight)

I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature. (View Highlight)

I believe the only way to succeed is to keep getting ahead all the time (View Highlight)

The person who starts out simply with the idea of getting rich won’t succeed; you must have a larger ambition (View Highlight)