Quote

Mediocre men wait for opportunity to come to them. Strong, able, alert men go after opportunity.

B. C. Forbes

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

B. C. Forbes
Age: 73 †
Born: 1880
Born: May 14
Died: 1954
Died: May 6
Editor
Entrepreneur
Journalist
Publisher
Writer
B. C. Forbes
Come
Men
Alert
Mediocre
Wait
Waiting
Opportunity
Strong
Able

More quotes by B. C. Forbes

Image
Call the roll in your memory of conspicuously successful [business] giants and, if you know anything about their careers, you will be struck by the fact that almost every one of them encountered inordinate difficulties sufficient to crush all but the gamest of spirits. Edison went hungry many times before he became famous.
B. C. Forbes
Image
If the United States is to produce a nation of investors-as we must if we are to gain financial world-leadership-it is imperative that boards of directors be so constituted as to adequately represent the interests and inspire the complete confidence of investors of moderate substance.
B. C. Forbes
Image
He best keeps from anger who remembers that God is always looking upon him.
B. C. Forbes
Image
The victors of the battles of tomorrow will be those who can best harness thought to action. From office boy to statesman, the prizes will be for those who most effectively exert their brains, who take deep, earnest and studious counsel of their minds, who stamp themselves as thinkers.
B. C. Forbes
Image
Better to be occasionally cheated than perpetually suspicious.
B. C. Forbes
Image
The man who has done his level best... is a success, even though the world may write him down a failure.
B. C. Forbes
Image
There's no such thing as a self-made man. I've had much help and have found that if you are willing to work, many people are willing to help you.
B. C. Forbes
Image
Our future and our fate lie in our wills more than in our hands, for our hands are but the instruments of our wills.
B. C. Forbes
Image
The men who have done big things are those who were not afraid to attempt big things, who were not afraid to risk failure in order to gain success.
B. C. Forbes
Image
Temporary release from work, through vacations, becomes more welcome, more pleasurable, even more necessary, as we grow older.
B. C. Forbes
Image
A willing, cheerful worker, with his heart in his job, will turn out more work and more satisfactory work in 44 hours than an unwilling worker, dissatisfied with his conditions, will turn out in 54 hours. It is good business, therefore, for every employer to go as far as he possibly can in reaching a schedule agreeable to his people.
B. C. Forbes
Image
Golf without bunkers and hazards would be tame and monotonous. So would life.
B. C. Forbes
Image
Next to the dog, the wastebasket is your best friend.
B. C. Forbes
Image
An idea, like a machine, must have power applied to it before it can accomplish anything.
B. C. Forbes
Image
There are two brands of discontent: the brand that merely fosters greed and snarling and back-biting, and the brand that inspires greater and greater effort to reach the desired goal. Which is your brand?
B. C. Forbes
Image
Any business arrangement that is not profitable to the other fellow will in the end prove unprofitable for you. The bargain that yields mutual satisfaction is the only one that is apt to be repeated.
B. C. Forbes
Image
The man without religion is as a ship without a rudder.
B. C. Forbes
Image
How many men I know who are earning dollars aplenty, but who are really earning little of what counts. They are so overwhelmingly engrossed in business that they get nothing from their dollars. The Juggernaut of dollar-making has crushed out of them every capacity for genuine enjoyment, every grace, every unselfish sentiment and instinct.
B. C. Forbes
Image
A nation's economic salvation does not lie in the amount of money its rich inhabitants can squander recklessly. A nation's economic salvation lies in the amount of money its inhabitants can save and invest after providing themselves with all the necessaries and all the reasonable comforts of life.
B. C. Forbes
Image
Are you doing the kind of work you were built for, so that you can expect to be able to do very large amounts of that kind and thrive under it? Or are you doing a kind of which you can do comparatively little.
B. C. Forbes