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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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Charles Koch
Age: 89
Born: 1935
Born: November 1
Businessman
Businessperson
Wichita
Kansas
Charles G. Koch
Charles de Ganahl Koch
Important
Education
Every
Age
Good
Helping
Discovered
Think
Kids
Direction
Thinking
Find
Early
Life
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More quotes by 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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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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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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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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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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I don't have all the answers. I have a lot of questions. And I have some basic principles.
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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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
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You can pay certain people more money and stuff but that's just going to be a transfer from one group to another. The only way people's wages are going to rise overall, or average median income is going to rise, is if you increase productivity.
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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That's the first rule for anybody who controls - do no harm.
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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All the corporate welfare, yeah, it goes from cash payments to debt, to regulations on the competitors, to restrictions on trade, to mandates. You name it, anything so that business doesn't have to do a better job of creating value for others - they can just get the system in their favor.
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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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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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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Most power is power to coerce somebody. We don't have the power to coerce anybody.
Charles Koch
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We try to evaluate how much value an employee is creating here and reward them accordingly.
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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No centralized government, no matter how big, how smart or how powerful, can effectively and efficiently control much of society in a beneficial way. On the contrary, big governments are inherently inefficient and harmful.
Charles Koch