Charles M. Schwab

“I mention the need of cooperation and confidence among the men who work, no matter what may be their relative ranks, because it is the vital factor underlying everything. Only as we are willing to work today, work as we never have worked before, will civilization survive.”

“Lead the life that will make you kindly and friendly to everyone about you, and you will be surprised what a happy life you will lead.”

“In the long run, no nation can prosper unless the world prospers.”

“The Bethlehem profit-sharing system is based on my belief that every man should get exactly what he makes himself worth. This is the only plan I know of which is equally fair to the employers and every class of employee. Someday, I hope, all labor troubles will be solved by such a system.”

“What little success I may have won in life I attribute to the loyalty I had for a dear old friend who was my first steel master, whom you perhaps have never heard of: Captain Bill Jones.”

“The real test of business greatness is in giving opportunity to others. Many business men fail in this because they are thinking only of personal glory.”

“The first essential in a boy's career is to find out what he's fitted for, what he's most capable of doing and doing with a relish.”

“The man who has done his best has done everything.”

“Here I am, a not over-good business man, a second-rate engineer. I can make poor mechanical drawings. I play the piano after a fashion. In fact, I am one of those proverbial Jack-of-all-trades who are usually failures. Why I am not, I can't tell you.”

“In my own house, I rigged up a laboratory and studied chemistry in the evenings, determined that there should be nothing in the manufacture of steel that I would not know.”

“The supreme need of the world is peace and good will among men. It must be peace founded upon justice and fairness, the righting of past wrong, and the securing of the future as far as possible against the evils of the past.”

“When a man has put a limit on what he will do, he has put a limit on what he can do.”

“Did you ever stop to think that a great man in life who has won great acclaim and great reputation is the very man who is willing to share and give the honor to others in the doing of things that made him great?”

“A man to carry on a successful business must have imagination. He must see things as in a vision, a dream of the whole thing.”

“Concentrate and think upon the problem in mind until a satisfactory conclusion is reached, and then finally go ahead. If you have made a mistake, all right. Never find fault with a man because he has made a mistake. It is only a fool that makes the same mistake the second time.”

“My own idea is that if the men hold any meetings or attempt to form any organization, we should be prepared to be fully informed of all that goes on and unhesitatingly discharge any men connected with this movement. In this way, our peace will be secure for a long time, and it will be easily done if taken at the start.”

“I consider my ability to arouse enthusiasm among men the greatest asset I possess. The way to develop the best that is in a man is by appreciation and encouragement.”

“Most talk about 'super-geniuses' is nonsense. I have found that when 'stars' drop out, successors are usually at hand to fill their places, and the successors are merely men who have learned by application and self-discipline to get full production from an average, normal brain.”

“To my mind, the best investment a young man starting out in business can possibly make is to give all his time, all his energies, to work - just plain, hard work.”

“Any man who goes into anything in life and does it better than the average will have a successful life. If he does it worse than the average, his life will not be successful. And no business can exist in which success cannot be won on that basis.”