Harry Gordon Selfridge: Commerce

Harry Gordon Selfridge was America born English businessman. Explore interesting quotes on commerce.
Harry Gordon Selfridge: 46 quotes0 likes

“This ability... to organize, to breathe into others that fire of enthusiasm, that quality of judgment, that spirit of progress, has long been considered by thinking men of commerce as the final and greatest of all qualities, the test of supreme commercial genius.”

Harry Gordon Selfridge

The Romance of Commerce (1918), A Representative Business of the Twentieth Century

“Men of genius and wonderful nerve and determination, who in the Dark Ages would have been conquering princes, have... thrown their ability into Commerce and have conquered, not territory and slaves, but trade and its child, money, from any and every part of the world where trade was to be found.”

Harry Gordon Selfridge

The Romance of Commerce (1918), A Representative Business of the Twentieth Century

“Where one Jacob Fugger, Cosimo de Medici, de la Pole or Gresham strove for success we have now literally thousands of keen, clever men as fearless, as progressive and as determined as they. Money not only for the few but for the many is the prize which is sought, and for this prize is the race now perhaps swifter, the battle keener, the game bigger than has been any race, battle, or game since the world began; and commerce in its broader sense is the medium through which this prize is won.”

Harry Gordon Selfridge

The Romance of Commerce (1918), A Representative Business of the Twentieth Century

“One of the chief differences between the commerce of the sixteenth century and of the twentieth lies in the wonderful and complicated organizations of the present day. Their magnitude makes even the largest of those of which we have been reading seem insignificant.”

Harry Gordon Selfridge

The Romance of Commerce (1918), A Representative Business of the Twentieth Century

“Commerce is the mother of the arts, the sciences, the professions, and in this twentieth century has itself become an art, a science, a profession.”

Harry Gordon Selfridge

The Romance of Commerce (1918), Concerning Commerce

“A thousand departments of mental and physical activity foster and in turn are fostered by its achievement. People must be governed, and there must be those who govern. Laws must be made, and there must be those who study, and those who execute these laws. People must be taught, and there must be teachers. All these and the Church, the newspaper, the theatre, the fine arts are essential to the completeness of the State, to the happiness and safety of its people; but Commerce is the main stem, or trunk, where they are all branches, supplied with the sap of its far-reaching wealth. It is as necessary to the existence of any nation as blood to the physical man. That country in which trade flourishes is accounted happy, while that in which Commerce droops provokes shaking of heads and prophecies of downfall.”

Harry Gordon Selfridge

The Romance of Commerce (1918), Concerning Commerce

“If Commerce is necessary to wealth, no Commerce means no wealth, and our statesman soon finds himself out of employment. Where wealth again is greatest, everything else being fairly equal, arts thrive the most.”

Harry Gordon Selfridge

The Romance of Commerce (1918), Concerning Commerce

“Commerce creates wealth, and it is the foundation of the great state. Armies are raised and paid for to win, or to protect the countries' trade, or commerce. Ships are constructed, colonies established, inventions encouraged, governments built up, or pulled down, for Commerce. Commerce cuts the way, and all professions, all arts follow.”

Harry Gordon Selfridge

The Romance of Commerce (1918), Concerning Commerce

“[W]ithout Commerce there is no wealth.”

Harry Gordon Selfridge

The Romance of Commerce (1918), Concerning Commerce