Quotes about business
page 27

“Some folks can look so busy doin' nothin' that they seem indispensable.”

Kin Hubbard (1868–1930) cartoonist

As quoted in Saturday Review‎ (18 March 1944), p. 19
Variant: Some folks can look so busy doing nothing that they seem indispensable.

“We seek the freedom to compete without the undue burden of high taxes and bureaucratic regulations, which make us less competitive. We seek opportunities to build better communities, better businesses, and better lives for ourselves, our children, and our children's children. And most of all, we cherish both the freedom and opportunity to decide our future. And today, we celebrate that freedom and opportunity. What I envision for Maryland is not just an economic and fiscal recovery, but a rebirth of our spirit, and a renewed commitment to our common purpose. … One hundred years from now, I want Marylanders to say, "This was when Maryland's renaissance began."”

Larry Hogan (1956) American politician

… Let us appeal to the better angels of our nature so that we can achieve the great and shining promise of Maryland. " Inaugural Address http://governor.maryland.gov/2015/01/21/inaugural-address-governor-larry-hogan/" (21 January 2015)

Children, Angels, Communication, Nature

“The Predatory State is an economic system where entire sectors have been built up to feast upon public systems built originally for public purposes and largely serving the middle class. The corporate republic simply administers the spoils system. On a day-to-day basis, the business of its leadership is to deliver favors to their clients. These range from coal companies to sweatshop operators to military contractors.”

James K. Galbraith (1952) economist

Source: The Predatory State, 2008, p. 146-7

“The supreme principle [in Industrial Organization] has been the belief that business efficiency and the welfare of the employees are but different sides of the same problem. Character is an economic asset; and business efficiency depends not merely on the physical condition of employees, but on their general attitude and feeling towards the employer.”

Edward Cadbury (1873–1948) British businessman

Introduction, p. vii; Partly cited in: Felix Behling et al., The Changing Worlds and Workplaces of Capitalism. 2015, p. 194
Experiments in industrial organization (1912)

Feeling, Problem, Dependency

“Some years ago, the planning group at Shell surveyed 30 companies that had been in business for more than 75 years. What impressed us most was their ability to live in harmony with the business environment, to switch from a survival mode when times were turbulent to a self-development mode when the pace of change was slow. And this pattern rang a familiar bell because Shell’s history is similarly replete with switches from expansion to self-preservation and back again to growth.”

Arie de Geus (1930) Dutch businessman

Arie P. de Geus, " Planning as learning https://hbr.org/1988/03/planning-as-learning/ar/1." Harvard Business Review, March/April 1988: 70-74.

History, Change, Time

“No man knows where his business ends and his neighbor's begins.”

E. W. Howe (1853–1937) Novelist, magazine and newspaper editor

Country Town Sayings (1911), p55.

“Politeness and civility are the best capital ever invested in business.”

P.T. Barnum (1810–1891) American showman and businessman

Ch. 17: "Be polite and kind to your customers" http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/barnum/moneygetting/moneygetting_chap18.html Art of Money Getting (1880)

“Next, we must help parents protect their children from the gravest health threat that they face -- an epidemic of teen smoking, spread by multimillion dollar marketing campaigns. I challenge Congress -- let's pass bipartisan, comprehensive legislation that will improve public health, protect our tobacco farmers and change the way tobacco companies do business forever. Let's do what it takes to bring teen smoking down. Let's raise the price of cigarettes by up to $1.50 a pack over the next 10 years with penalties on the tobacco industry if it keeps marketing to our children.”

Bill Clinton (1946) 42nd President of the United States

1998 State of the Union Address (January 27, 1998)
1990s

Children, Health, Penalty, Way

“I want to build this business as long as the customers will keep eating my sandwiches.”

Jimmy John Liautaud (1964) Jimmy John's Owner, Founder, & Chairman

Interview with The News-Gazette http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2017-10-07/jimmy-johns-founder-ready-head-great-white-north.html

“I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. I read and think. So I do more reading and thinking, and make less impulse decisions than most people in business. I do it because I like this kind of life.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/239763 "10 Brilliant Quotes From Warren Buffett, America's Second-Richest Person " entrepreneur.com (13 November 2014)
Quotes from the press

Life, People, Thinking, Decision

“Now look, I'm not saying God is, you know, causing earthquakes. Well—I'm not saying that he—I'm not not saying that either. God — what God does is God's business, I have no idea. But I'll tell you this: whether you call it Gaia or whether you call it Jesus — there's a message being sent. And that is, "Hey, you know that stuff we're doing? Not really working out real well. Maybe we should stop doing some of it."”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

I'm just sayin'.
The Glenn Beck Program
Premiere Radio Networks
2011-03-14
Ben
Dimiero
Beck: "I'm Not Not Saying" God Is Causing Earthquakes
Media Matters for America
2011-03-14
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201103140010
2011-03-19
2010s, 2011

God, Idea

“Rothbard is surely right in thinking that what we now call free-market libertarianism was originally a left-wing position. The great liberal economist Frédéric Bastiat sat on the left side of the French national assembly, with the anarcho-socialist Proudhon. Many of the causes we now think of as paradigmatically left-wing—feminism, antiracism, antimilitarism, the defense of laborers and consumers against big business—were traditionally embraced and promoted specifically by free-market radicals. … I like calling the free market a left-wing idea—in fact, I like calling libertarianism the proletarian revolution.”

Roderick Long (1964) American philosopher

"Rothbard's 'Left and Right': Forty Years Later," http://bastiat.mises.org/library/rothbards-left-and-right-forty-years-later Rothbard Memorial Lecture, Austrian Scholars Conference (2006).

Idea, Thinking

“In the early 1960s, having just come over from the GDR, I naturally declined to summon up any sympathy for the aims and methods of the Red Army Faction [RAF]. I was impressed by the terrorists' energy, their uncompromising determination and their absolute bravery; but I could not find it in my heart to condemn the State for its harsh response. That is what States are like; and I had known other, more ruthless ones. The deaths of the terrorists, and the related events both before and after, stand for a horror that distressed me and has haunted me as unfinished business ever since, despite all my efforts to suppress it.”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

Notes for a press conference, November-December 1988 (held at Museum Haus Esters, Krefeld, Feb. 1989)
1980's

Death, Nature, Effort, Heart

“Consider that as a principle of love is the main principle in the heart of a real Christian, so the labor of love, is the main business of the Christian life.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 396.

Love, Life, Heart

“She made a great deal of money in her time and she spent it lavishly. Speaking of herself and her colleagues at the Metropolitan she said: "We were a race of giants." Quite true, and in case you don't know it, being a giant is a very expensive business. The cost of food and drink, not merely for oneself but for one's fellow-giants and one's scores of attendant gnomes, is a very considerable item. And the cost of jewels for a female giant is really fabulous.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

"Emma Calvé" (1942).

Money, Food, Drink, Time

“Drill in exact translation is an excellent way of disposing the mind against that looseness and exaggeration with which the sensationalists have corrupted our world. If schools of journalism knew their business, they would graduate no one who could not render the Greek poets.”

Richard M. Weaver (1910–1963) American scholar

“The Power of the Word,” p. 53.
Language is Sermonic (1970)

World, School, Way

“In the yearly days those nouvo riches were too busy. As they finally got their moneys grabbed, they started to look round and discovered emptiness, vacuum inside… It so happened that the whole new generation grew up with this feeling of emptiness. When, say, falling in love, such a person simply doesn’t know - how to experience an emotion. And then this question of Life’s reason arises. People don’t think about it until one day something happens. Then all of a sudden they find that their life is not particularly interesting. First they get bored, then get frightened. Because its frightening for one, after having got everything - houses, cars, stocks and funds, - to discover they haven’t a ground to stand on.”

Nina Shatskaya (1966) Russian singer

Ogonyok interview. Нина Шацкая, Огонек, 2011-01-01 http://www.ogoniok.com/4977/25/,

Love, Life, Money, People

“It would be as wise to set up an accomplished lawyer to saw wood as a business as to condemn an educated and sensible woman to spend all her time boiling potatoes and patching old garments. Yet this is the lot of many a one who incessantly stitches and boils and bakes, compelled to thrust back out of sight the aspirations which fill her soul.”

Sarah Grimké (1792–1873) American abolitionist

Written in 1852, as quoted in ch. 87.
The Female Experience (1977)

Education, Soul, Time

“You have to see where the market is going. I always believe there is no sunset business. It’s all in the mindset because if you give up, then you die.”

Sukanto Tanoto (1949) Indonesian businessman

On film and Eastman Kodak, Globe Asia Interview, Sep, 2015. http://www.inside-rge.com/Sukanto-Tanoto-Resource-King-GlobeAsia 2015

“Dad joined the US Army by this point [1964], and initially he was stationed in Texas and then South Carolina. But the Vietnam war brought our normal life to an end. Once again, Dad was gone. Communications were very basic back then: Dad couldn't just pick up a cellphone and let us know he was okay. Months would go by without a letter or anything. Eventually he bought two tape recorders -- one he kept with him and one for our house. Dad used to talk into the recorder and send the tapes home. Then we would gather round our machine and tell Dad stories. And I would sing. I still have all the tapes, but I can't listen to them. It hurts too much. After Dad came back from Nam, he wasn't well. He'd been poisoned by Agent Orange and needed quite a lot of looking after. Mum was busy trying to get her Cuban qualifications revalidated by a US university, so I had to take care of Dad and my little sister [Becky]. It was tough. Toward the end, Dad was too far gone and he didn't really know what was hapening around him. I joined Miami Sound Machine in 1975 and we were getting quite successful, but Dad didn't even know who I was. He had to be moved to the hospital. On my wedding day in 1978 [September 2] I went to visit him, still wearing my wedding dress. That was the last time that he said my name. Dad died in 1980, but he touches my life every day. On my last album [Unwrapped] I did a lot of writing while I was looking at a picture of him in his younger days -- so happy and in the prime of his life. I'm not sure if he sees me, but I can feel him all around me. I hope he knows that I am so very proud of him.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

The [London] Sunday Times (November 17, 2006)
2007, 2008

Life, War, Happiness, Hope

“The last business of Christ's life was the saving of a poor penitent thief.”

Dwight L. Moody (1837–1899) American evangelist and publisher

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 73.

Life, Christ

“Most of us are far too busy for our own spiritual good.”

Bill Hybels (1951) American writer

Too Busy Not to Pray (2008, InterVarsity Press)

“The key to success for Sony, and to everything in Business, Science, and Technology for that matter, is never to follow the others. We bet the company on that basic technology (the Trinitron TV), and in 23 years nobody has been able to match it.”

Masaru Ibuka (1908–1997) Japanese businessman

Masaru Ibuka in: B. Schlender. "China Really is on the Move," Fortune, February 24, 1992. p. 23.

Science, Success

“That graft and corruption are found in governmental enterprises is a fact, but that they are more prevalent there than in business cannot be demonstrated.”

Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman

Property (1935)

“Ah well—the boss didn’t have to know how to run the business. He only needed to know how to run the people who knew.”

David Gerrold book When HARLIE Was One

Section 18 (p. 103)
When HARLIE Was One (1972)

People

“My favorite programming languages are Lisp and C. However, since around 1992 I have worked mainly on free software activism, which means I am too busy to do much programming. Around 2008 I stopped doing programming projects.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

How I do my computing (2006) http://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html 2000s

“Business underlies everything in our national life, including our spiritual life. Witness the fact that in the Lord's Prayer, the first petition is for daily bread. No one can worship God or love his neighbor on an empty stomach.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

Speech in New York (23 May 1912)
1910s

Love, Life, God

“The possible truths, hazily perceived in the world of abstraction, like those inferred from observation and experiment in the world of matter, are forced upon the profane multitudes, too busy to think for themselves, under the form of Divine revelation and scientific authority. But the same question stands open from the days of Socrates and Pilate down to our own age of wholesale negation: is there such a thing as absolute truth in the hands of any one party or man? Reason answers, "there cannot be." There is no room for absolute truth upon any subject whatsoever, in a world as finite and conditioned as man is himself. But there are relative truths, and we have to make the best we can of them.”

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831–1891) occult writer

Lucifer http://www.katinkahesselink.net/squote/l37.html (February 1888)

Truth, Age, World, Question

“The world's a rollercoaster,
And I am not strapped in.
Maybe I should hold with care,
But my hands are busy in the air!”

Brandon Boyd (1976) American rock singer, writer and visual artist

Lyrics, Morning View (2001)

World

“You can eat beef on a weekly basis and become a genius intuitive if your energy is in present time. You can consume only organic food while running thirty-five miles a day and "om-ing" until dawn, but if your spirit is raging about your history and is saturated in regrets and unfinished business, you won't be able to intuit your left hand from your right…”

Caroline Myss (1952) author from the United States

Distractions, Distractions, by Caroline Myss, August 19, 2010 http://www.healyourlife.com/author-caroline-myss/2010/08/lifeshelp/success-and-abundance/distractions-distractions&utm_id=HYLFB

Food, History, Rage, Time

““The Industrial Age was characterised by the aggregation of economics and governance. This was the era of massification and standardisation -- big industrial corporations, big government departments and big interest groups. The Information Age is turning these principles on their head. It is an era of disaggregation and demassification, hence the stunning growth of small businesses and niche markets.””

Mark Latham (1961) Australian politician

Unsourced

Age

“Liberalism means an intelligent effort to keep the political and economic development of our nation abreast of the responsibilities that come from an atomic age. It means an extension of the use of our resources for the common good, the solving of the problem of maintaining democratic principles and free competitive enterprise in a day of Big Business, Big Unions, and Big Government.”

Estes Kefauver (1903–1963) American politician

New Republic (June 22, 1946)

Age, Intelligence, Problem, Effort

“[The Falklanders] are all British because the British have never allowed Argentinians to buy land, start businesses, get employment, or simply live there. If I were to go to Rome with enough money to get an apartment, a business, or just settle there, the Italian authorities would let me. The British however have kept these islands as a personal fiefdom and have prohibited Argentinians from settling there.”

Leopoldo Galtieri (1926–2003) Argentine military dictator

Reportaje de Oriana Fallaci a Leopoldo F. Galtieri http://archivohistorico.educ.ar/content/reportaje-de-oriana-fallaci-leopoldo-f-galtieri#sthash.ZQrMQt2O.dpuf, Revista El porteño, August 1982

Money, Personality

“Senator Menendez seems to think that tax increases create jobs and investment. I believe that private businesses create jobs, and that investment will flow to states with good economic climates and good governance, especially in a globalized economy.”

Tom Kean, Jr. (1968) Member of the New Jersey General Assembly and State Senate

On Taxes (May 12, 2006); "Congress Agrees on Tax Relief Extension", Tom's Blog" (May 12, 2006) http://tomkean.com/today/index.cfm?e=user.about.blog&messageID=137.

Thinking

“As I well: I wish they had told me so before, since the expecting of a release put a stop to some business; thou mayst tell my father, who I know will ask thee, these words: that my prison shall be my grave before I will budge a jot; for I owe my conscience to no mortal man; I have no need to fear, God will make amends for all; they are mistaken in me; I value not their threats and resolutions, for they shall know I can weary out their malice and peevishness, and in me shall they all behold a resolution above fear; […]”

William Penn (1644–1718) English real estate entrepreneur, philosopher, early Quaker and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania

Refusing to recant his ideas, after being imprisoned in the Tower of London for expressing his ideas on religious freedoms (1668 or 1669), as quoted in William Penn, America's First Great Champion for Liberty and Peace http://www.quaker.org/wmpenn.html by Jim Powell.

God, Fear

“I would like to hear more of the consummate melodic master, but I feel that big business and his record company have had a corrupting influence on his material. The rock and pop thing certainly draws a wider audience. It happens more and more these days, that unqualified people with executive positions try to tell musicians what is good and what is bad music. It’s tempting for the musician to prejudice his own views when recording opportunities are so infrequent but I for one am determined to resist the temptation.”

Miles Davis (1926–1991) American jazz musician

Bill Evans, on about Miles Davis's change of style to jazz fusion.
http://jazztimes.com/articles/20128-miles-davis-and-bill-evans-miles-and-bill-in-black-white.
Quotes by others

People, Music, Feeling, Change

“It has been suggested that an army of monkeys might be trained to pound typewriters at random in the hope that ultimately great works of literature would be produced. Using a coin for the same purpose may save feeding and training expenses and free the monkeys for other monkey business.”

William Feller (1906–1970) Croatian-American mathematician

Source: An Introduction To Probability Theory And Its Applications (Third Edition), Chapter VIII, Unlimited Sequences Of Bernoulli Trials, p. 202.

Hope, Literature, Training

“It is not fit the public trusts should be lodged in the hands of any, till they are first proved and found fit for the business they are to be entrusted with.”

Matthew Henry (1662–1714) Theologician from Wales

Timothy 3.
Commentaries

“Democracy cannot wield authority, because it cannot enforce its decisions. A party cannot move against itself, against its members who engage in scandalous malfeasance, who rob and steal, because it is afraid of losing its members. Nor can it move against its adversaries, because in so doing it would risk exposure of its own wrongdoings and shady business.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) Romanian politician

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Politics

Democracy, Decision

“Science and religion, then, are competitors in the business of finding out what is true about our universe. In this goal religion has failed miserably, for its tools for discerning “truth” are useless. These areas are incompatible in precisely the same way, and in the same sense, that rationality is incompatible with irrationality.”

Jerry Coyne book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. xvi

Truth, Religion, Way, Sense

“Private courier companies are fine to handle the lucrative parts of the [postal] business. But they have little interest in servicing remote communities, so these areas get poor or non-existent service. Similarly, leaving health care and education to the private marketplace will result in fine services for the affluent but leave many others without access to decent services (or in some cases any services at all). While this kind of deficiency is bad enough when it comes to postal delivery, it becomes downright serious in areas like health care and education.”

Linda McQuaig (1951) journalist and author

All You Can Eat: Greed, Lust and the New Capitalism (2001)

Health, Education, Communication, Parting

“Oh, so you're one of those sodomites. You should only get AIDS and die, you pig; how's that? Why don't you see if you can sue me, you pig? You got nothing better to do than to put me down, you piece of garbage? You got nothing to do today? Go eat a sausage, and choke on it. Get trichinosis. Now do we have another nice caller here who's busy because he didn't have a nice night in the bathhouse who's angry at me today? Put another, put another sodomite on… No more calls? …I don't care about these bums; they mean nothing to me. They're all sausages.”

Michael Savage book The Savage Nation

The Savage Nation The Savage Nation (1995- ), 2003-07-07 Radio (Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMtrpHjD2is) 2003

Night

“You English are never as thorough, never as decided, never as dead-set in your views as your cousins over the Channel. You are a people of compromises, of opportunism, of amiable and business-like settlements; you can even strike a bargain with your own conscience and live ever happy afterwards. … This is no doubt a great virtue, because it has preserved you from great follies, and it is no doubt a great vice, because it has sadly refrigerated your enthusiasm and your “feu sacré.””

Oscar Levy (1867–1946) German physician and writer

Preface, pp. viii-ix.
The Revival of Aristocracy (1906)

Happiness, People, Dead

“I wanted to photograph this subject because the signs’ shrieking blatancy literally cried out for a visual record. To my mind the faded, yellowing paper and the red paint were not particularly paint, able. In black and white the signs shouted, clamored for attention, in visual anarchy. At the same time, the shrewd business sense which plastered them solid over the entire window area produced, as it were by chance, an esthetic by-product: the whole has homogeneity and variety of texture, simultaneously, which give the picture interest.”

Berenice Abbott (1898–1991) American photographer

New Guide to Better Photography, 1953.

Sense, Chance, Time, Painting

“The third reason why I am working at business management is because I believe in control, and so do our most progressive business men. I believe in the individual not trusting to fate or chance or inheritance or environment, but learning how to control his own life. And nowhere do I see such a complete acceptance of this as in business thinking, the thinking of more progressive business men. They are taking the mysticism out of business. They do not believe that there is anything fatalistic about the business cycle that is wholly beyond the comprehension of men; they believe that it can be studied and to some extent controlled.”

Mary Parker Follett (1868–1933) American academic

Source: Dynamic administration, 1942, p. xx-xxi

Life, Men, Fate, Thinking

“Women are but the toys which amuse our lighter hours-ambition is the serious business of life.”

Walter Scott book Ivanhoe

Source: Ivanhoe (1819), Ch. 36, Malvoisin speaking to De Bois-Guilbert.

Life, Women

“Too often, failing government agencies get bigger budgets, while successful agencies have their budgets cut – because government caters to those screaming the loudest, regardless of what they’re screaming about. In business, it’s exactly the opposite! You invest more in the most successful departments, and less in those that aren’t performing.”

Michael Bloomberg (1942) American businessman and politician, former mayor of New York City

http://mikebloomberg.com/en/issues/public_health/mayor_bloomberg_delivers_opening_address_at_ceasefire_bridging_the_political_divide_conference
Running a Business vs. Running a City

Success

“There is an emerging alternative to the big government-big business-big labor kind of "rebuilding" of America. Its basic strategy is to get investment capital out of the hands of the big banks … and into the hands of the communities. Its greatest champions are neither politicians nor oppositional political groups, but – remarkably – bankers; or, more specifically, those few bankers who describe themselves as "community development bankers."”

Mark Satin (1946) American political theorist, author, and newsletter publisher

Source: New Options for America (1991), Chapter 8, "Rebuilding America – the Old-Fashioned Way," p. 57.

Communication

“Repealing drug laws would remove the risks involved with producing and distributing drugs, bringing 'street prices' crashing down (it's estimated that a 'spoon' of heroin would cost about a quarter in the free market), thereby eradicating any incentive that criminals might have to compete with legitimate businesses, and greatly reducing — if not eliminating altogether — any economic reason to 'push' drugs on children.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"Some Random Thoughts About the War On Drugs".

Children, Law

“I would say that, whenever religion has rule over law, that madness will reign, with automatic violations of human rights, but maybe I'm being alarmist. What do they say? How can we know what sort of society they envision?.. We know that they are nearly all republicans, and that that party has been virtually assimilated by them, and we know they will speak more freely when they feel the safety of numbers. So let's look at the Republican Party platform of one of the red states, a very red state… Of course, they want to make pornography illegal (no surprises there), they also want to be able to filibuster the US senate again… Regarding the environment, they strongly support the immediate repeal and abolishment of the Endangered Species Act. Remember that these people don't believe in evolution, so they don't understand the importance of biodiversity and they don't care about the rights of animals either. They want to dominate and subdue the earth, just like their abominable doctrine demands, so they strongly oppose all efforts of environmental groups that stymie business interests, especially those of the oil and gas industry… Texas republicans not only want marriage to be restricted to one man and one woman (despite what the Bible says), but they insist it must be a natural man and a natural woman… So transgender people would be completely ostracized under the law should they get their way. There's no civil union options for gay couples either, because the platform also opposes the creation, recognition or benefits of partnerships outside marriage that are provided by some political subdivisions. As if that weren't enough, they also want to define the word "family" such that it excludes homosexual couples. They say they deplore sensitivity training (think about that for a moment), and they state very clearly that they want homosexuality condemned as unacceptable. They mean that very strongly too, so strongly in fact that they oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality as a reaction of religious faith. In fact, they go so far as to urge the immediate repeal of the hate crimes law specifically where that relates to sexual orientation… If you're uncertain whether that includes acts of violence, there at least two members of the current State Board of Education who implied that it should, and we know of a few Tea Partiers who insist that homosexuals should be executed, murdered by the state. I am alarmed at how popular this abominable sentiment is… Under the heading "supporting motherhood", they strongly support women who "choose" to devote their lives to their families and raising their children, but they implicitly object to women choosing other options such as college, careers, or not having children at all. A woman's ambition beyond the confines of the kitchen and obeisance to her husband is decried by conservatives as a deplorable assault on the family which, of course, they blame on liberals. Regarding the right to life, they say that all innocent human life must be respected and safeguarded from fertilization to natural death. Notice a few subtle caveats here: the qualifier of protecting only innocent life is how Texas republicans justify having executed more prisoners than any other state in the union, nearly five times as many as the next deadliest state in fact. Says something about Christian forgiveness, doesn't it!”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Youtube, Other, Republican Theocracy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSjNg7nQvB0 (November 4, 2012)

Life, Death, Women, Hate

“I was very focussed on building various competencies in Reliance and we were not ready to do two things at the same time. It was a big risk for us to get into IT, especially because it was hugely effort-intensive. In my language, I said we have too much soap on our body and we need to take a bath in the chemicals business.”

Mukesh Ambani (1957) Indian business magnate

Mukesh Ambani on how Reliance was built

Effort, Time

“Being busy is a form of laziness - lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.”

Timothy Ferriss book The 4-Hour Workweek

The 4-Hour Workweek (2007)

Thinking

“Seventy thousand years ago, homo sapiens was still an insignificant animal minding its own business in a corner of Africa. In the following millennia it transformed itself into the master of the entire planet and the terror of the ecosystem. Today it stands on the verge of becoming a god, poised to acquire not only eternal youth, but also the divine abilities of creation and destruction.”

Yuval Noah Harari book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

God, Youth, Animals

“Had ten minutes conversation with Henry Morgenthau about Jewish ship in Palistine. Told him I would talk to Gen[eral] Marshall about it. He'd no business, whatever to call me. The Jews have no sense of proportion nor do they have any judgement on world affairs. Henry brought a thousand Jews to New York on a supposedly temporary basis and they stayed. When the country went backward — and Republican in the election of 1946, this incident loomed large on the DP [Displaced Person] program. The Jews, I find are very, very selfish. They care not how many Estonians, Latvians, Finns, Poles, Yugoslavs or Greeks get murdered or mistreated as DP as long as the Jews get special treatment. Yet when they have power, physical, financial or political neither Hitler nor Stalin has anything on them for cruelty or mistreatment to the under dog. Put an underdog on top and it makes no difference whether his name is Russian, Jewish, Negro, Management, Labor, Mormon, Baptist he goes haywire. I've found very, very few who remember their past condition when prosperity comes. Look at the Congress[ional] attitude on DP — and they all come from DPs.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

Personal diary 6:00 P. M. Monday (21 July 1947) https://www.trumanlibrary.org/diary/page21.htm

World, Dogs, Sense, Past

“It may be true that one can reach more microcomputer users with advertising. If this is really so, a business which advertises the service of copying and mailing GNU for a fee ought to be successful enough to pay for its advertising and more. This way, only the users who benefit from the advertising pay for it.
On the other hand, if many people get GNU from their friends, and such companies don't succeed, this will show that advertising was not really necessary to spread GNU. Why is it that free market advocates don't want to let the free market decide this?”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

1980s, GNU Manifesto (1985)

People, Way, Success

“Is marketing management an art or a science? Some marketing observers maintain that good marketing is more of an art and does not lend itself to rigorous analysis and deliberation. Others strongly disagree and contend that marketing management is a highly disciplined enterprise that has much in common with other business disciplines.”

Kevin Lane Keller (1956) American business theorist

Philip Kotler, Kevin Lane Keller, Mairead Brady, Malcolm Goodman & Torben Hansen. (2009). Marketing Management. p. 819

Art, Science

“Nowadays every business in America says how warm it is and how much it cares — loan companies, supermarkets, hamburger chains.”

Martin Amis (1949) Welsh novelist

"Hugh Hefner" (1985)
The Moronic Inferno and Other Visits to America (1986)

“I don't think about anything," he says, "No thoughts at all! I think about not getting killed… that keeps me busy… One more day is one more day-That's what I think!”

Louis-ferdinand Céline book Journey to the End of the Night

Source: Journey to the End of the Night (1932), Chapter 4

Thinking

“The good Lord didn't see fit to put oil and gas only where there are democratically elected regimes friendly to the United States. Occasionally we have to operate in places where, all things considered, one would not normally choose to go. But, we go where the business is.”

Dick Cheney (1941) American politician and businessman

Speech delivered at the Cato Institute http://www.cato.org/speeches/sp-dc062398.htm, (June 23, 1998) 1990s

“The mulatto sons of white traders and the sons of African rulers were the ones who made the greatest effort to learn the white man’s ways. This helped them to conduct business more efficiently. One Sierra Leone ruler in the eighteenth century explained that he wished “to learn book to be rogue as good as white man”; and there were many others who saw the practical advantages of literacy. However, the educational process also meant imbibing values which led to further African subjugation. One West African educated in this early period wrote a Ph. D. thesis in Latin justifying slavery. That was not surprising. The Reverend Thomas Thompson was the first European educator on the Gold Coast, and he wrote in 1778 a pamphlet entitled, The African Trade for Negro Slaves Shown to be Consistent with the Principles of Humanity and the Laws of Revealed Religion.”

Walter Rodney book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

Source: How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972), p. 223.

Books, Education, Religion, Law

“I can't say that I love it with a fierce passion — indeed as a profession it's rather disappointing since it is not a profession at all, but rather a business service station and repair shop.”

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN

On being a lawyer, as quoted by Claire Birge in The Stevensons : A Biography of an American Family (1997) by Jean H. Baker, p. 262

Love, Disappointment, Passion

“The life of a man who deliberately runs through his fortune often becomes a business speculation; his friends, his pleasures, patrons, and acquaintances are his capital.”

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) French writer

La vie d'un homme occupé à manger sa fortune devient souvent une spéculation; il place ses capitaux en amis, en plaisirs, en protecteurs, en connaissances.
The Wild Ass’s Skin (1831), Part II: A Woman Without a Heart

Life, Pleasure

“It is the business of the production engineer to know every single item that constitutes his finished product, and every step involved in the handling of every piece. He must know what is the most advantageous manufacturing quantity of every single item so as to secure uniformity of flow as well as economy of manufacture. He must know how long each step ought to take under the best attainable working conditions. He must be able to tell at any time the exact condition as regards quantity and state of finishedness of every part involved in his manufacturing process.”

Hugo Diemer (1870–1937) American mechanical engineer

Source: "Industrial Engineering," 1905, p. 67

Time, Parting

“Politics is as much a regular business as the grocery or the dry-goods or the drug business. You've got to be trained up to it or you're sure to fail. p. 19”

George Washington Plunkitt (1842–1924) New York State Senator

Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, Chapter 4, Reformers Only Mornin’ Glories

Training

“I always treated modeling as a business and I've always been very organized. From the very start, I would keep clippings of my magazine spreads and ask my agency to find out where my photo shoots were being published. I also think I had an advantage in that I was more centered and wasn't into partying and living the high life. I had fun, but I was reasonable about it!”

Heidi Klum (1973) German model, television host, businesswoman, fashion designer, television producer, and actress

Quoted by New Weekly, ninemsn Australia, 19 April 2009

Life, Photo, Thinking

“I don’t need to know most of what’s fed to us by newspapers and the TV. It’s largely useless information and daily moaning. There are only a few things in business that I really want to know about. Tell me about manufacturing productivity, employment, the balance of payments and borrowing levels. With these things you can decide on how to run a business, a constituency or even a country.”

Ivor Tiefenbrun (1946) Scottish businessman

INTERVIEW: Ivor Tiefenbrun – Of High Fidelity & Integrity http://www.hnwmagazine.co.uk/interview-ivor-tiefenbrun-high-fidelity-high-integrity/, HNW Magazine, 2 December 2012. 2012

Country

“The Panama Papers opened yet another window on the global system of financial corruption, showing how political leaders and businesses use shell companies in secrecy havens like the British Virgin Islands and many US states to evade taxes and hide corruption and other crimes. Yet the system of corruption depends on another factor beyond secrecy, one that is perhaps even more important: impunity. Impunity means that the rich and powerful escape from punishment even when their malfeasance is in full view.”

Jeffrey D. Sachs (1954) American economist

"The age of impunity," The Boston Globe, May 13, 2016 http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/05/12/the-age-impunity/LHBxamqFENCs3W6lvWnCIJ/story.html

Dependency

“The business world is littered with the fossils of companies that failed to evolve. Disrupt or be disrupted. There is no middle ground.”

Jay Samit (1961) American businessman

Source: Disrupt You! (2015), p. 82

World

“It's funny – if you told me five years ago that Netflix was producing quality content and they have actors and filmmakers all over Hollywood super excited to be in business with them, I would've been like, what?”

Jason Biggs (1978) American actor

On debut in show Orange Is the New Black, interviewed in: — [December 4, 2014, http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/q-a-jason-biggs-changes-stripes-in-orange-is-the-new-black-20130710, Rolling Stone, Q&A: Jason Biggs Changes Stripes in 'Orange Is the New Black', July 10, 2013, James Sullivan]

“From a historical point of view, the injustice against blacks was perpetrated mostly by governments. Private business does not go in for race-based policies, because it means excluding paying customers.
And this is precisely why racialists, nationalists, and hard-core bigots have always opposed liberal capitalism: it includes and excludes based on the cash nexus and without regard to features that collectivists of all sorts regard as important. In the imagined utopias of the national socialists, the champions of commerce are hanged from lampposts as race traitors and enemies of the nation.”

Lew Rockwell (1944) American libertarian author and editor

As quoted in "The Freedom of Association" http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/freedom-of-association145.html (1 June 2010). 2010s

Imagination

“A famous writer who wants to continue writing has to be constantly defending himself against fame. I don't really like to say this because it never sounds sincere, but I would really have liked for my books to have been published after my death, so I wouldn't have to go through all this business of fame and being a great writer. In my case, the only advantage to fame is that I have been able to give it a political use. Otherwise, it is quite uncomfortable. The problem is that you're famous for twenty-four hours a day, and you can't say, "Okay, I won't be famous until tomorrow," or press a button and say, "I won't be famous here or now."”

Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) Colombian writer

Source: The Paris Review interview (1981), p. 337

Death, Books, Problem, Sincerity

“It is not a snobbish rich-man's college, devoted to leisurely nonsense. It is the property of the people of the state, and what they want—or what they are told they want—is a mill to turn out men and women who will lead moral lives, play bridge, drive good cars, be enterprising in business, and occasionally mention books, though they are not expected to have time to read them. It is a Ford Motor Factory, and if its products rattle a little, they are beautifully standardized, with perfectly interchangeable parts.”

Sinclair Lewis book Arrowsmith

Arrowsmith (1925), Ch 2

Women, Men, People, Books

“Alexander Gardner who later became the Colonel of Artillery in the service of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, had travelled extensively in Central Asia from 1819 to 1823 C. E. He saw a lot of slave-catching in Kafiristan, a province of Afghanistan, which was largely inhabited by infields at that time. He found that the area had been reduced to “the lowest state of poverty and wretchedness” as a result of raids by the Muslim king of Kunduz for securing slaves and supplying them to the slave markets in Balkh and Bukhara. He writes:
“All this misery was caused by the oppression of the Kunduz chief, who not content with plundering his wretched subjects, made an annual raid into the country south of Oxus, and by chappaos (night attacks) carried off all the inhabitants on whom his troops could lay their hands. These, after the best had been selected by the chief and his courtiers, were publicly sold in the bazaars of Turkestan. The principal providers of this species of merchandise were the Khan of Khiva, the king of Bokhara (the great hero of the Mohammedan faith), and the robber beg of Kunduz.
“In the regular slave markets, or in transactions between dealers, it is the custom to pay for slaves in money; the usual medium being either Bokharan gold tillahs (in value about 5 or 51/2 Company rupees each), or in gold bars or gold grain. In Yarkand, or on the Chinese frontier, the medium is the silver khurup with the Chinese stamp, the value of which varies from 150 to 200 rupees each. The price of a male slave varies according to circumstances from 5 to 500 rupees. The price of the females also necessarily varies much, 2 tillahs to 10,000 rupees. Even the double the latter sum has been known to have been given.
“However, a vast deal of business is also done by barter, of which we had proof at the holy shrine of Pir-i-Nimcha, where we exchanged two slaves for a few lambs’ skins! Sanctity and slave dealing may be considered somewhat akin in the Turkestan region, and the more holy the person the more extensive are generally his transactions in flesh and blood.””

Alexander Gardner (soldier)

Alexander Gardner subsequently found a Muslim fruit merchant at Multan “who was proved by his own ledger to have exchanged a female slave girl for three ponies and seven long-haired, red-eyed cats, all of which he disposed of, no doubt to advantage, to the English gentlemen at this station.”
Memoirs of Alexander Gardner, edited by Major Hugh Pearce, first published in 1898, reprint published from Patiala in 1970, quoted from Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 1

Money, Faith, Travel, Girl

“If deceiving the eye were the only business of the art, there is no doubt, indeed, but the minute painter would be more apt to succeed; but it is not the eye, it is the mind, which the painter of genius desires to address; nor will he waste a moment upon those smaller objects, which only serve to catch the sense, to divide the attention, and to counteract his great design of speaking to the heart.”

Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792) English painter, specialising in portraits

Discourse no. 3; vol. 1, pp. 70-71.
Discourses on Art

Art, Sense, Heart

“I see an entrepreneur as the chief designer of a business that works better than any other.”

Michael E. Gerber (1936) American business writer

‘A Conversation with Michael Gerber’, from an interview posted on Businessweek.com website, 24 March 2008

“People who instinctively establish a strong network of relationships have always created great businesses.”

Keith Ferrazzi (1966) American businessman and writer

Never Eat Alone

People, Strong

“I was writing for businesses. I think my mother was a little skeptical in the beginning, but fortunately, as a free-lance writer I was successful almost immediately. And so she was very proud, because she measured success in terms of money, which is what I started to do as well. My goal then, became to increase the amount of money that I made each month. Not simply each year, but each month — I mean, talk about pressure — to have more billable hours each month. So that by the end of my third year of being a free-lance writer, I was billing 90 hours a week. I had no time to sleep. I had no life. People said I was crazy, that I was a workaholic. And I couldn't understand how it was that I had these wonderful clients, and I was making all this money, and I wasn't happy and I didn't feel successful. That's when I started to write fiction.”

Amy Tan (1952) American novelist

American Acheivement interview (1996)

Life, Money, Happiness, People

“Our jobs are fleeing the country. They're going to Mexico. They're going to many other countries. You look at what China is doing to our country in terms of making our product. They're devaluing their currency, and there's nobody in our government to fight them. And we have a very good fight. And we have a winning fight. Because they're using our country as a piggy bank to rebuild China, and many other countries are doing the same thing. … We have to stop our jobs from being stolen from us. We have to stop our companies from leaving the United States and, with it, firing all of their people. … We cannot let it happen. Under my plan, I'll be reducing taxes tremendously, from 35 percent to 15 percent for companies, small and big businesses. That's going to be a job creator like we haven't seen since Ronald Reagan. It's going to be a beautiful thing to watch. Companies will come. They will build. They will expand. New companies will start. And I look very, very much forward to doing it. We have to renegotiate our trade deals, and we have to stop these countries from stealing our companies and our jobs.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, September, First presidential debate (September 26, 2016)

People, Beauty, Fight, Country

“The inability of business and political leadership to rise to new heights [required by the] unprecedented situation, [familiar to us now as the Great Depression.. urged for] bold policies…bold anything is needed at this time.”

Wallace Brett Donham (1877–1954) American academic

As cited by Drew Gilpin Faust, " Harvard Business School Centennial http://www.harvard.edu/president/speech/2008/harvard-business-school-centennial," at harvard.edu, October 14, 2008. "The Failure of Business Leadership and the Responsibility of the Universities", 1933

Time

“Economic life should be definancialised. We should learn not to use markets as storehouses of value: they do not harbour the certainties that normal citizens require. Citizens should experience anxiety about their own businesses (which they control), not their investments”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (1960) Lebanese-American essayist, scholar, statistician, former trader and risk analyst

which they do not control Ten principles for a Black Swan-proof world http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5d5aa24e-23a4-11de-996a-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1, Financial Times, 2009-04-07. Ten principles for a Black Swan-proof world (2009)

Life, Learning

“Gentle spook, if it is a warning you bring, state it true. If action you require, ask outright. If music you must make, play on- but by the wine-stained balls of Bacchus, speak your bloody business quick and clear and then be gone, before Time's iron tongue licks away my mercy bonk with second thoughts!”

Christopher Moore book Fool

Pocket (Black Fool)
Fool (2009)

Music, Wine, Time

“Herbert Casson was a highly prolific writer on management, with a career as a management guru spanning some four decades. A skilled writer who was also a successful entrepreneur, he used his own experiences and acute observations of the world around him to develop a philosophy of management based on the concept of ‘efficiency’. He published more than seventy books, which by the time of his death had sold more than half a million copies around the world. Something of a maverick, he was never really accepted by the business academic community in either Britain or America. His books were popular and populist, highly entertaining and full of penetrating insight.”

Herbert N. Casson (1869–1951) Canadian journalist and writer

Morgen Witzel (2003), Fifty Key Figures in Management. p. 42

Death, Books, World, Communication

“In Atlantic City, 60 miles from here, you'll find contractors and small businesses who lost everything because Donald Trump refused to pay his bills. Now remember what the President said last night -- don't boo, vote. People who did the work and needed the money, and didn't get it – not because he couldn't pay them, but because he wouldn't pay them. He just stiffed them. That sales pitch he's making to be your president? Put your faith in him – and you'll win big? That's the same sales pitch he made to all those small businesses. Then Trump walked away, and left working people holding the bag.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), 2016 Democratic National Convention (July 28, 2016)

Money, People, Faith, Night

“I’m executive producing Suicideboys. I’m executive producing their new album. I’m doing a lot of that. Me and A$AP Rocky got a lot of great records we got coming out. I just stay busy, man. I just adapt with times. That’s just who I am. I move forward. Even working in the studio, the equipment changes. The mixing boards -- people used to make their beats on MPCs and W30s and SP100s. Now, people are making beats on computers.”

Juicy J (1975) American rapper and record producer from Tennessee; co-founder of Three 6 Mafia

Juicy J Interview Rubba band Business Wiz Khalifa Juicy J https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/8070920/juicy-j-interview-rubba-band-business-wiz-khalifa

People, Change, Time

“A boor cannot be sin-fearing, an ignoramus cannot be pious, a bashful one cannot learn, a short-tempered person cannot teach, nor does anyone who does much business grow wise.”

Hillel the Younger

2:5
Pirkei Avot

Fear, Learning, Personality

“In televisionland we are all sophisticated enough now to realize that every statistic has an equal and opposite statistic somewhere in the universe. It is not a candidate's favorite statistic per se that engages us, but the assurance with which he can use it.
We are testing the candidates for self-confidence, for "Presidentiality" in statistical bombardment. It doesn't really matter if their statistics be homemade. What settles the business is the cool with which they are dropped.
And so, as the second half hour treads the decimaled path toward the third hour, we become aware of being locked in a tacit conspiracy with the candidates. We know their statistics go to nothing of importance, and they know we know, and we know they know we know.
There is total but unspoken agreement that the "debate," the arguments which are being mustered here, are of only the slightest importance.
As in some primitive ritual, we all agree — candidates and onlookers — to pretend we are involved in a debate, although the real exercise is a test of style and manners. Which of the competitors can better execute the intricate maneuvers prescribed by a largely irrelevant ritual?
This accounts for the curious lack of passion in both performers. Even when Ford accuses Carter of inconsistency, it is done in a flat, emotionless, game-playing style. The delivery has the tuneless ring of an old press release from the Republican National Committee. Just so, when Carter has an opportunity to set pulses pounding by denouncing the Nixon pardon, he dances delicately around the invitation like a maiden skirting a bog.
We judge that both men judge us to be drained of desire for passion in public life, to be looking for Presidents who are cool and noninflammable. They present themselves as passionless technocrats using an English singularly devoid of poetry, metaphor and even coherent forthright declaration.
Caught up in the conspiracy, we watch their coolness with fine technical understanding and, in the final half hour, begin asking each other for technical judgments. How well is Carter exploiting the event to improve our image of him? Is Ford's television manner sufficiently self-confident to make us sense him as "Presidential"?
It is quite extraordinary. Here we are, fully aware that we are being manipulated by image projectionists, yet happily asking ourselves how obligingly we are submitting to the manipulation. It is as though a rat running a maze were more interested in the psychologist's charts on his behavior than in getting the cheese at the goal line.”

Russell Baker (1925–2019) writer and satirst from the United States

"And All of Us So Cool" (p.340)
There's a Country in My Cellar (1990)

Life, Men, Behavior, Exercises

“Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business, is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things.”

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer

An Apology for Idlers.
Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (1881)

“I argue that it's appropriate for people to pursue their profit motive in business. If you want to change that, you're going against human nature. But when it comes to setting the rules or creating the institutions, then you should have the general interest at heart, even if it conflicts with your personal interest.”

George Soros (1930) Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

Interview with Mark Shapiro (2000)

People, Motivation, Nature, Change

““It happened that Mahmud had long been planning an expedition into Bhardana, and Gujarat, to destroy the idol temple of Somnat, a place of great sanctity to all Hindus. So as soon as he had returned to Ghazni from his Khurasan business, he issued a farman to the General of the army, ordering him to leave a confidential officer in charge of the fort of Kabuliz, and himself to join the court with his son Salar Mas‘ud…
“It is related in the Tarikh-i Mahmudi that the Sultan shortly after reached Ghazni, and laid down the image of Somnat at the threshold of the Mosque of Ghazni, so that the Musulmans might tread upon the breast of the idol on their way to and from their devotions. As soon as the unbelievers heard of this, they sent an embassy to Khwaja Hasan Maimandi, stating that the idol was of stone and useless to the Musulmans, and offered to give twice its weight in gold as a ransom, if it might be returned to them. Khwaja Hasan Maimandi represented to the Sultan that the unbelievers had offered twice the weight of the idol in gold, and had agreed to be subject to him. He added, that the best policy would be to take the gold and restore the image, thereby attaching die people to his Government. The Sultan yielded to the advice of the Khwaja, and the unbelievers paid the gold into the treasury.
“One day, when the Sultan was seated on his throne, the ambassadors of the unbelievers came, and humbly petitioned thus: ‘Oh, Lord of the world! we have paid the gold to your Government in ransom, but have not yet received our purchase, the idol Somnat.’ The Sultan was wroth at their words, and, falling into reflection, broke up the assembly and retired, with his dear Salar Mas‘ud, into his private apartments. He then asked his opinion as to whether the image ought to be restored, or not? Salar Mas‘ud, who was perfect in goodness, said quickly, ‘In the day of the resurrection, when the Almighty shall call for Ãzar, the idol-destroyer, and Mahmud, the idol-seller, Sire! what will you say?’ This speech deeply affected the Sultan, he was full of grief, and answered, ‘I have given my word; it will be a breach of promise.’ Salar Mas‘ud begged him to make over the idol to him, and tell the unbelievers to get it from him. The Sultan agreed; and Salar Mas‘ud took it to his house, and, breaking off its nose and ears, ground them to powder.
“When Khwaja Hasan introduced the unbelievers, and asked the Sultan to give orders to restore the image to them, his majesty replied that Salar Mas‘ud had carried it off to his house, and that he might send them to get it from him. Khwaja Hasan, bowing his head, repeated these words in Arabic, ‘No easy matter is it to recover anything which has fallen into the hands of a lion.’ He then told the unbelievers that the idol was with Salar Mas‘ud, and that they were at liberty to go and fetch it. So they went to Mas‘ud’s door and demanded their god.
“That prince commanded Malik Nekbakht to treat them courteously, and make them be seated; then to mix the dust of the nose and ears of the idol with sandal and the lime eaten with betel-nut, and present it to them. The unbelievers were delighted, and smeared themselves with sandal, and ate the betel-leaf. After a while they asked for the idol, when Salar Mas‘ud said he had given it to them. They inquired, with astonishment, what he meant by saying that they had received the idol? And Malik Nekbakht explained that it was mixed with the sandal and betel-lime. Some began to vomit, while others went weeping and lamenting to Khwaja Hasan Maimandi and told him what had occurred…”
“Afterwards the image of Somnat was divided into four parts, as is described in the Tawarikh-i-Mahmudi. Mahmud’s first exploit is said to have been conquering the Hindu rebels, destroying the forts and the idol temples of the Rai Ajipal (Jaipal), and subduing the country of India. His second, the expedition into Harradawa and Guzerat, the carrying off the idol of Somnat, and dividing it into four pieces, one of which he is reported to have placed on the threshold of the Imperial Palace, while he sent two others to Mecca and Medina respectively. Both these exploits were performed at the suggestion, and by the advice, of the General and Salar Mas‘ud; but India was conquered by the efforts of Salar Mas‘ud alone, and the idol of Somnat was broken in pieces by his sold advice, as has been related. Salar Sahu was Sultan of the army and General of the forces in Iran…”

Ghazi Saiyyad Salar Masud (1014) semi-legendary Muslim figure from India

Somnath (Gujarat), Mir‘at-i-Mas‘udi Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own historians, Vol. II. p. 524-547

God, People, World, Way

“For 40 years, everyone running for president has released their tax returns. You can go and see nearly, I think, 39, 40 years of our tax returns, but everyone has done it. We know the IRS has made clear there is no prohibition on releasing it when you're under audit. So you've got to ask yourself, why won't he release his tax returns? And I think there may be a couple of reasons. First, maybe he's not as rich as he says he is. Second, maybe he's not as charitable as he claims to be. Third, we don't know all of his business dealings, but we have been told through investigative reporting that he owes about $650 million to Wall Street and foreign banks. Or maybe he doesn't want the American people, all of you watching tonight, to know that he's paid nothing in federal taxes, because the only years that anybody's ever seen were a couple of years when he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license, and they showed he didn't pay any federal income tax. So if he's paid zero, that means zero for troops, zero for vets, zero for schools or health. And I think probably he's not all that enthusiastic about having the rest of our country see what the real reasons are, because it must be something really important, even terrible, that he's trying to hide. And the financial disclosure statements, they don't give you the tax rate. They don't give you all the details that tax returns would. And it just seems to me that this is something that the American people deserve to see. And I have no reason to believe that he's ever going to release his tax returns, because there's something he's hiding.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), First presidential debate (September 26, 2016)

People, Health, School, Thinking

“A reader who quarrels with postulates, who dislikes Hamlet because he does not believe that there are ghosts or that people speak in pentameters, clearly has no business in literature.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

Source: "Quotes", Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (1957), p. 70

People, Literature

“This is my chance to help this lady put some money in her pocket. Let me explain how the economy works. When you spend money to buy food it helps this lady's business. It makes it more likely somebody is going to find work. So instead of asking questions, answer mine: are you going to buy some food?”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Remarks by the President to the Press Pool, Nothin' Fancy Cafe, Roswell, New Mexico — Whitehouse Transcript http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2004/01/20040122-5.html, Office of the Press Secretary, January 22, 2004. 2000s, 2004

Money, Food, Question, Chance

“I never had a misunderstanding of what [acting] was about. Unfortunately, overall, movies are a conglomerate. People buy and sell people in this business, which can get really ugly unless you have the right set of values and understand why you’re doing it. Luckily, I was raised by people who’d already gotten to that point, and seen all the yuck stuff—which is probably why they originally didn’t want me to act. I also understood the difference between getting a part at a Hollywood party and really getting a job. I knew you had to go in and audition and maybe then they’d hire you, and that’s where you start. I also had a good understating about press: that it’s the actor’s responsibility to publicize his or her films, that the press can be fun, that it’s not about hyping yourself into stardom or trying to sell yourself as a hot ticket.”

Laura Dern (1967) American actress, director, producer

On understanding the theatrical film business in Hollywood
Interview Magazines interview (September 1990)

People, Understanding, Parting

“The time has come for a wholly new approach to economic policy in Britain. The overriding need is for a long-term stabilisation programme to defeat inflation, recreate business confidence and provide a favourable climate for economic growth. At the head of such a programme must lie a firm commitment to a steady and gradual reduction in the rate of growth of the money supply, until it is consistent with our best guess at a potentially sustainable rate of economic growth. Only in this way can inflation be wrung out of the system. But this alone is not enough…An equally important part of a long term stabilisation plan has to be a reduction in the present Budget deficit…Indeed, something akin…to the old balanced Budget discipline needs to be restored: the secret of practical economic success, as overseas experience confirms, is the acceptance of known rules. Rules rule: OK?”

Nigel Lawson (1932) British Conservative politician and journalist

The Times (14 September 1978), p. 16.

Money, Lie, Secret, Way

“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a Muslim country. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is not a slave of colonial forces like you and others. … Do not indulge yourself in things you have no business with! The lie is before you and the grave is in front of you!”

Abdullah of Saudi Arabia (1924–2015) former King of Saudi Arabia

In reply to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi at the Arab League Summit in Egypt, 2 March 2003 when Abdullah was Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. هنيئاً لك أيها الوطن بهذه القيادة, جريدة الرياض, 2011/02/25, 2013-02-16 http://www.alriyadh.com/2011/02/25/article607898.html,

Lie, Country

“The girls always think we're going to throw them over a table or toss them in the air. Their muscles tense up right away. So Fred and I go and sit in a corner and pretend we're talking business.”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

Gene Kelly on the subject of social dancing, in Lawrenson, Helen. "It's Better to Remember Fred." Esquire, August 1976, pp92-96, 106, 109-110. (M).

Girl, Thinking

“During the reign of Sultan Sikandar, Mir Sayyid Muhammad, son of Mir Sayyid Hamadani came here, and removed the rust of ignorance and infidelity and the evils, by his preaching and guidance. He wrote an epistle for Sultan Sikandar on tasawwuf Sultan Sikandar became his follower. He prohibited all types of frugal games. Nobody dared commit acts which were prohibited by the Shariat The Sultan was constantly busy in annihilating the infidels and destroyed most of the temples.”

Sikandar Butshikan

Tarikh-Kashmir, edited and translated into English by Razia Bano, Delhi, 1991, p. 55.

Game, Evil

“We shall not busy ourselves with what men ought to have admired, what they ought to have written, what they ought to have thought, but with what they did think, write, admire.”

George Saintsbury (1845–1933) British literary critic

Vol. 1, pp. 4–5
A History of Criticism and Literary Taste in Europe from the Earliest Texts to the Present Day

Men, Thinking

“My guess is that well over eighty per cent of the human race goes through life without ever having a single original thought. That is to say, they never think anything that has not been thought before, and by thousands.
A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable. The pressure of ideas would simply drive it frantic. The normal human society is very little troubled by them. Whenever a new one appears the average man displays signs of dismay and resentment. The only way he can take in such a new idea is by translating it crudely into terms of more familiar ideas. That translation is one of the chief functions of politicians, not to mention journalists. They devote themselves largely to debasing the ideas launched by their betters. This debasement is intellectually reprehensible, but probably necessary to carry on the business of the world.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

13
1940s–present, Minority Report : H.L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956)

Life, World, Way, Idea

“Men make it such a point of honour to be fit for business that they forget to examine whether business is fit for a man.”

George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax (1633–1695) English politician

Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Reflections (1750), Moral Thoughts and Reflections

Men, Forgetting

Quotes about business page 27

Quotes about business
page 27