A biography for P. T. Barnumhasn’t been written yet.
“There is no such thing in the world as luck. There never was a man who could go out in the morning and find a purse full of gold in the street to-day, and another to-morrow, and so on, day after day: He may do so once in his life; but so far as mere luck is concerned, he is as liable to lose it as to find it.”
“Every crowd has a silver lining.”
“To me there is no picture so beautiful as smiling, bright-eyed, happy children; no music so sweet as their clear and ringing laughter.”
“There is scarcely anything that drags a person down like debt.”
“Whatever you do, do it with all your might. Work at it, early and late, in season and out of season, not leaving a stone unturned, and never deferring for a single hour that which can be done just as well now.”
“השאיפה לעושר היא כמעט אוניברסלית, ולא ניתן לומר כי היא רעה כל עוד העשירים מכירים באחריות שלהם ומשתמשים בעושר שלהם לטובת בני האדם.”
“כסף מבחינות מסוימות הוא כמו אש: יכול לשרתך נאמנה, אך הוא נורא כשהוא שולט בך.”
“האמנות הנאצלה ביותר היא זו הגורמת לאנשים להיות מאושרים.”
“לספור את התרנגולות לפני שהן יבקעו היא טעות ארוכת ימים.”
“נימוס ודרך ארץ הן ההשקעות הטובות ביותר בעסקים.”
“יש לנו משהו לכל אחד.”
“Medicine is the means by which we poor feeble creatures try to keep from dying or aching.”
“Unless a man enters upon the vocation intended for him by nature, and best suited to his peculiar genius, he cannot succeed. I am glad to believe that the majority of persons do find their right vocation.”
“As a general thing, I have not 'duped the world' nor attempted to do so... I have generally given people the worth of their money twice told.”
“Science is the pursuit of pure truth, and the systematizing of it.”
“No man has a right to expect to succeed in life unless he understands his business, and nobody can understand his business thoroughly unless he learns it by personal application and experience.”
“In the United States, where we have more land than people, it is not at all difficult for persons in good health to make money.”
“A lovely nook of forest scenery, or a grand rock, like a beautiful woman, depends for much of its attractiveness upon the attendance sense of freedom from whatever is low; upon a sense of purity and of romance.”
“Fortune always favors the brave, and never helps a man who does not help himself.”
“The show business has all phases and grades of dignity, from the exhibition of a monkey to the exposition of that highest art in music or the drama which secures for the gifted artists a world-wide fame princes well might envy.”