Business Adventures Quotes
"The stock market—the daytime adventure serial of the well-to-do—would not be the stock market if it did not have its ups and downs."
"The first stock exchange was, inadvertently, a laboratory in which new human reactions were revealed."
"Their development has created a whole pattern of social behavior, complete with customs, language, and predictable responses to given events."
The behavior of the pioneering Dutch stock traders is ably documented in a book entitled "Confusion of Confusions".
"The crisis ran its course in three days, but, needless to say, the post-mortems took longer."
One of de la Vega’s observations about the Amsterdam traders was that they were "very clever in inventing reasons" for a sudden rise or fall in stock prices.
"The expectation of an event creates a much deeper impression than the event itself."
"In the stock market, as de la Vega points out, "the news [as such] is often of little value; in the short run, the mood of the investors is what counts."
"This mood became manifest within a matter of minutes after the Stock Exchange opened."
"Evidence that people are selling stocks at a time when they ought to be eating lunch is always regarded as a serious matter."
"As a man whose literary sensibilities had up to then survived the well-known crassness of economic life, Rolo was perhaps a good witness on other aspects of the downtown mood at dusk on May 28th."
"No one, as far as I knew, had the slightest idea where the bottom would be."
"We knew that our customers—by no means all of them rich—had suffered large losses as a result of our actions."
"Say what you will, it’s extremely disagreeable to lose other people’s money."
"It is foolish to think that you can withdraw from the Exchange after you have tasted the sweetness of the honey."
"In the calendar of American economic life, 1955 was the Year of the Automobile."
"The Edsel, this people argued, was designed, named, advertised, and promoted with a slavish adherence to the results of public-opinion polls and of their younger cousin, motivational research."
"If there was a villain, it appeared to have been the relatively rich investor not connected with the securities business."
"But the facts of the case may live to become a myth of a symbolic sort—a modern American antisuccess story."
"As a man directly responsible for the Edsel and its fortunes, enjoying its brief glory and attending it in its mortal agonies, he had a rendezvous with destiny."
"Nevertheless, there’s something—there’s got to be something—in the makeup of a certain number of people that gives them a yen for a Cadillac, in spite of its high price, or maybe because of it."
"Our goal was to create a vehicle which would be unique in the sense that it would be readily recognizable in styling theme from the nineteen other makes of cars on the road at that time."
"We have chosen a name.… It fails somewhat of the resonance, gaiety, and zest we were seeking. But it has a personal dignity and meaning to many of us here. Our name, dear Miss Moore, is—Edsel."
"We hope that no one will ever ask, ‘Say, did you see that Edsel ad?’ in any newspaper or magazine or on television, but, instead, that hundreds of thousands of people will say, and say again, ‘Man, did you read about that Edsel?’ or ‘Did you see that car?’ This is the difference between advertising and selling."
"A customer who gets poor service on an established brand blames the dealer. On an Edsel, he will blame the car."
"It was more fun than I’ve ever had before or since."
"The imposition of the tax will corrupt the people."
"You need not take your eyes off the road for an instant."
"The Edsel has no important basic advantages over other brands."
"The income tax! A tax so odious that no administration ever dared to impose it except in time of war."
"It was almost too easy to get publicity for the Edsel."
"This small-car thing won’t last forever."
"We took all the same precautions we take for our A.E.C. films."
"Let’s face it, Clitus, we live in a tax era."
"I can’t see American drivers being satisfied for long with manual gear-shifting and limited performance."
"The primary function of government is to make laws, the statement implies that every nation has the laws it deserves."
"If we put in a simpler code, it would probably be complex again in a few years."
"The law itself, however, has certain characteristics that are more closely related to a particular time and place, and if de Maistre was right, these should reflect national characteristics."
"The Code, a document longer than 'War and Peace,' is phrased—inevitably, perhaps—in the sort of jargon that stuns the mind and disheartens the spirit."
"It cuts through every field of law. One day you may be working with a Hollywood producer, the next day with a big real-estate man, the next with a corporation executive."
"The travel-and-entertainment problem—or the T & E problem, as it is customarily called—has been around a long time, and has stubbornly resisted various attempts to solve it."
"The fact that about half of all the revenue derived from individual returns for 1960 came from adjusted gross incomes of $9,000 or less is not attributable entirely to provisions of the Code."
"Taxes are a changing product of the earnest effort to have others pay them."
"The income tax, that is, should be to some extent a national mirror."
"The low cost of high-income people’s charitable contributions, whether in the form of works of art or simply in the form of money and other property, is one of the oddest fruits of the Code."
"I face the problems of growth. Future growth on a large scale simply isn’t possible in xerography, there isn’t room enough left."
"It’s an everlasting battle, which we may or may not win."
"It was exciting. It was wonderful. It was also terrible."
"No one could stay away—you’d sneak in on a Sunday, when the assembly line was shut down, and there would be somebody adjusting something or just puttering around and admiring our work."
"The company was fortunate in being modestly in the black, but not far enough."
"It’s a matter of balance. You can’t just be bland, or you throw away your influence."
"You want to hear about the old days, eh? Well, it was exciting. It was wonderful. It was also terrible."
"The corporation cannot refuse to take a stand on public issues of major concern."
"We may have to stand on the firing line yet."
"I’d hope that we would have the courage to stand up for a point of view that was unpopular if we thought it was appropriate to do so."
"We’re trying to indoctrinate new people, but twenty thousand employees around the Western Hemisphere isn’t like a thousand in Rochester."
"We’ve tried, without much fanfare, to equip some Negro youths to take jobs beyond sweeping the floor and so on."
"In the great number of these defendants’ cases, they were torn between conscience and approved corporate policy, with the rewarding objectives of promotion, comfortable security, and large salaries." - Judge J. Cullen Ganey
"One’s idea of public responsibility is evolutionary." - Ralph J. Cordiner
"The situation was very simple... Warehouse receipts are accepted in the commodities business as practically as good as currency, and now the possibility had been raised that millions of dollars of Haupt’s assets consisted of counterfeit money." - Richard M. Crooks
"Although I’m an optimist by temperament, my experience tells me that these things always turn out to be much worse than they look at first." - Richard M. Crooks
"One would be most naïve indeed to believe that these violations... were facts unknown to those responsible for the conduct of the corporation." - Judge J. Cullen Ganey
"I think Mr. Smith is a sincere man. I am sure Mr. Smith... thought he was telling me that he was going to one of these meetings. This meant nothing to me." - Arthur F. Vinson
"Everything would be all right, first, if they could get through to each other within their own organizations, and, second, if they, or their organizations, could get through to everybody else." - On the problem of communication in business
"A complete philosophy, a complete understanding, a complete breakdown of barriers between people, if we are going to get some understanding and really live and manage these companies within the philosophies that they should be managed in." - William S. Ginn
"If you gentlemen are bridge players, you know that there is a code of signals that is exchanged between partners as the game progresses. It is a stylized form of playing... They wouldn’t be on the same wavelength. They wouldn’t have the same meanings." - Robert Paxton
"I am not going to be responsive and say that General Electric had corporate disgrace. I am going to say that we are deeply grieved and concerned... I am not proud of it." - Ralph J. Cordiner
"Philosophy seems to have reached a high point at G.E., and communication a low one."
"Actually, the breakdown is between the person and himself. If you’re not able to communicate successfully between yourself and yourself, how are you supposed to make it with the strangers outside?" - Jules Feiffer
"Messages the sender does not even realize he is sending sometimes turn out to have got across only too effectively."
"He who sells what isn’t his’n must buy it back or go to prison."
"The customer in a Piggly Wiggly Store rambles down aisle after aisle, on both sides of which are shelves. The customer collects his purchases and pays as he goes out."
"Shall the gambler rule?... His helmet is deceit, his spurs clink with treachery, and the hoofbeats of his horse thunder destruction."
"It is unbelievable to me that the august and all-powerful New York Stock Exchange is a welcher."
"They have the body of Piggly Wiggly, but they cannot have the soul."
"In Wall Street you don’t just win your independence at one stroke. You have to win your independence over again every day."
"The way I feel is—But this is going to sound stuffy."
"Loyalty and ethics have their price, and International Latex has paid it."
"In the law of torts there is the maxim: Every dog has one free bite."
"The plaintiff has the right to keep the work which it has done, or paid for doing, to itself."
"He had very pale-blue eyes that reflected the insides of him. You could tell by looking at him that he wouldn’t trade independence for security."
"I never intended to be especially combative, in Washington or in the Tennessee Valley. It was just that people kept disagreeing with me."
"It was just that people kept disagreeing with me. But, all right, I wouldn’t have put myself in controversial situations so much if I hadn’t wanted to."
"The American economy has become so big that it is beyond the imagination to comprehend."
"As for the power within those corporations, it clearly rests, for all practical purposes, with their directors and their professional managers."
"I’ve learned a lot about it since then. It was the heart of the Old Testament Elamite kingdom and later of the Persian Empire."
"Our experience in the villagers’ huts on Wednesday threw me into a deep pit. I hovered between despair—which is an emotion I consider a sin—and anger, which doesn’t do much good, I suppose."
"Does your case mean that I’m married to my job?" - Scientist's inquiry after a court case.
"Precisely what the Goodrich secrets are is not spelled out in the order, and therefore I have acted as if all the things they alleged to be secrets actually are secrets." - Wohlgemuth's approach to undisclosed trade secrets.
"If I were to get a better offer from some other company now, I’m sure I would evaluate the question very carefully—which is what I didn’t do the last time." - Reflections on career choices post-trial.
"A bank that considers profits incidental is scarcely the norm in Wall Street." - Observations on the Federal Reserve Bank's unique position in finance.
"Seven per cent will drag money from the moon." - Comment on the impact of high bank interest rates.
"It was not the gnomes of Zurich who were beating down the pound." - A statement addressing misconceptions about currency speculation.
"The pound is not looking as firm as might be hoped." - Commentary during a financial crisis.
"If anyone at home or abroad doubts the firmness of our resolve, let them be prepared to pay the price for their lack of faith in Britain." - A leader's warning to speculators during a financial crisis.
"Devaluation not a moral issue?" - A reader's response to a suggestion in a financial debate.
"In retrospect, I guess I wish I hadn’t." - Reflection on a decision during a critical banking moment.
"Hayes tends to think of himself as an indifferent scholar and intellectual but an effective man of action."
"He seems to take money for granted as a terrier takes rats."
"His close friends speak of a rare capacity for enjoyment and an inner serenity."