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The great thing about my parents is they didn't preach anything they didn't practice.

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
Didn
Anything
Great
Thing
Preach
Parents
Parent
Practice

More quotes by Charles Koch

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I think our biggest problem in society is we're headed more and more toward a two-tiered society. That is, creating welfare for the wealthy and destroying opportunities for the disadvantaged.
Charles Koch
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They say your genetics are going to set your direction regardless of what happens, but I think there's more to it than that.
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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The old idea that some genius pulls all of this stuff out of the air is ridiculous. As Ridley pointed out, the only way Edison could invent the lightbulb is because all the elements had been developed before. That's obvious it wasn't just his genius - 20 others developed it at the same time. And that's true for almost every invention and discovery.
Charles Koch
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A market system is not a profit system, it's a profit-and-loss system.
Charles Koch
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We try to reward people according to the value they create, value they create in society and for the company.
Charles Koch
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Do you want to have your feelings hurt a little bit because you have some negative feedback, or do you want to continue down the disastrous track you're on and have a huge disaster? Talk about a bruised ego. It may ruin your career.
Charles Koch
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Many businesses with unpopular products or inefficient production find it much easier to curry the favor of a few influential politicians or a government agency than to compete in the open market.
Charles Koch
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The role of business is to provide products and services that make peoples lives better - while using fewer resources - and to act lawfully and with integrity.
Charles Koch
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For business to survive over a long period, it needs to be contributing to society and people's well-being. Otherwise, who's going to want it? Otherwise you end up like Enron or some of these other companies.
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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I'd like to see a rebirth of America - go back where there's equal rights for everybody and that people succeed to the extent that they help other people improve their lives. To lead toward a society that maximizes peace, civility, and well-being for everyone.
Charles Koch
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Success is one of the worst enemies of success, because success tends to breed complacency and lack of humility.
Charles Koch
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A lot of the Republican rhetoric better than the Democrats'. But when they're in office, it's pretty much the same thing. It's serving their supporters, it's corporate welfare, it's cronyism which is so destructive, particularly to the disadvantaged.
Charles Koch
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I think this is so important - what's not done well at education at every level - is helping kids find, as I discovered for myself, what I was good at. I was very lucky to find out that at an early age, which set my direction in life.
Charles Koch
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Both my parents were a tremendous influence on me. My father's influence came from - he decided well, probably before we were born that as he put it, 'I'm not going to have any kids who are country club bums.'
Charles Koch
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Corporate welfare, I think, is a disaster for this country. It's crippling our economy. It is contributing to a permanent underclass and corrupting the business community.
Charles Koch
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Our vision controls the way we think and, therefore, the way we act the vision we have of our jobs determines what we do and the opportunities we see or don't see.
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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Just Donald Trump's tenor and insulting of people is just beyond the pale.
Charles Koch