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My parents worked really hard at communicating other values they felt were important, such as integrity, courage, humility, treating others with dignity and respect, and having a thirst for knowledge.

Charles Koch

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Charles Koch
Age: 89
Born: 1935
Born: November 1
Businessman
Businessperson
Wichita
Kansas
Charles G. Koch
Charles de Ganahl Koch
Knowledge
Integrity
Values
Humility
Felt
Dignity
Others
Worked
Hard
Courage
Communicating
Important
Parents
Treating
Really
Respect
Thirst
Parent
Communicate

More quotes by Charles Koch

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I get a lot of death threats. But the way I look at it, I feel I have a moral obligation to do the best I can to make the country better for everybody, and that threatens certain people because they're going to have much less power. I want the power to go back to people making decisions over their own lives rather than some experts making it.
Charles Koch
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Best part of my job is fulfillment. When I see that, that we're creating value, that we're helping improve people's lives, and we benefit from it, so it's a system of mutual benefit. Our philosophy's working. That's what turns me on. That's what keeps me going.
Charles Koch
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You've got to learn to work with others. One of my main values is, you learn this system of mutual benefit. That is, if you shirk and you try to make the other guy do more, he's going to do that to you.
Charles Koch
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Just keep trying things, without really understanding the underlying fibers of well-being, or peace or civility, then you're just going to stumble from one disaster to another.
Charles Koch
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In America, the first thing we have to get rid of is entitlements for the wealthy, and at the same time, open up the economy to the disadvantaged.
Charles Koch
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First word [of my father] when I arrived [as a CEO] is, 'Son, i hope your first deal is a loser, otherwise, you'll think you're a lot smarter than you are.' But he had tremendous values, tremendous integrity, humility, work ethic and terrific thirst for knowledge.
Charles Koch
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If somebody is doing more and more to make other people's lives better, have them make all they can, if that's what drives them, because that's what we want.
Charles Koch
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To be happy you have to fulfill your nature. That's what Aristotle taught so many centuries ago, that the road to happiness isn't to go drink more or consume more. The road to happiness is to fully develop your abilities, and then apply them to do good.
Charles Koch
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Innovation doesn't come from one big thing, it comes from a piece at a time, from combining existing technology. We have in a sense a stagnation, in all those areas where we have cronyism and political correctness and the precautionary principle. Get all of those together, then yeah, you have stagnation, and that's what we're seeing.
Charles Koch
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In America, I think we just keep adding, and that's our problem. We almost never subtract. We keep adding these boondoggles, and these violations of the basic principles of equal rights - certain people have more rights than others - it's like Animal Farm. The pig says that we all have equal rights, but some have more rights than others.
Charles Koch
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The reason we tend to support Republicans is they're taking us toward the cliff at only 70 miles per hour miles an hour and the Democrats are taking us 100 miles an hour.
Charles Koch
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Everything I give, pretty much, is public. Not every donor wants to - or is willing to get the kind of abuse and attacks that we do, or death threats, so they're not willing to have their names out. I think the other side is pushing for that because they want to intimidate people so they won't oppose it.
Charles Koch
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But it [crony capitalism] erodes our overall standard of living and stifles entrepreneurs by rewarding the politically favored rather than those who provide what consumers want.
Charles Koch
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Innovation comes from recombining existing technology and different perspectives in innovative ways.
Charles Koch
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I have been a libertarian in my past but now I consider myself a classical liberal.
Charles Koch
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Years later, when I asked my father, I said 'Pop, why were you so much harder on me than my younger brothers?' he said, son, you plum wore me out.
Charles Koch
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Why I've never been that fond of politics and only got into it recently kicking and screaming, because I don't think politicians are going to reverse the trajectory of this country. I think it's going to depend on the American people understanding what is fair and what makes their lives better.
Charles Koch
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The problem is, to have prices fall would work fine if we didn't have all these built in rigidities on downward prices, because then things don't adjust, and that's how we have recessions and depressions, is prices and costs don't adjust together and they get out of whack, and we end up with dislocations.
Charles Koch
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Far too many businesses have been all too eager to lobby for maintaining and increasing subsidies and mandates paid by taxpayers and consumers.
Charles Koch
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My father would always say learn everything you can and whenever you can, because you never know when it'll come in handy.
Charles Koch