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Greenmail, in case you're wondering, is when a company pays a raider a premium for his holdings-if he'll go away. What I think it really is is blackmail in a pin-striped suit.

Lee Iacocca

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Lee Iacocca
Age: 94 †
Born: 1924
Born: October 15
Died: 2019
Died: July 2
Autobiographer
Businessman
Businessperson
Diarist
Allentown
Pennsylvania
Lido Anthony Iacocca
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Pays
Raider
Really
Suit
Holdings
Think
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More quotes by Lee Iacocca

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There is no substitute for accurate knowledge. Know yourself, know your business, know your men.
Lee Iacocca
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I was good friends with Frank Sinatra, I heard Steve Kaufman painting his portrait, so I asked Steve to paint my portrait.
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If your product is great, you yourself do not have to be a great seller.
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There's a billboard in a little farm town in the Midwest that says: IF YOU COMPLAIN ABOUT FARMERS, DON'T TALK WITH YOUR MOUTH FULL.
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In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something else.
Lee Iacocca
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The thing that lies at the foundation of positive change, the way I see it, is service to a fellow human being.
Lee Iacocca
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Over the years, many executives have said to me with pride: 'Boy, I worked so hard last year that I didn't take any vacation.' I always feel like responding, You dummy. You mean to tell me you can take responsibility for an eighty-million-dollar project and you can't plan two weeks out of the year to have some fun?
Lee Iacocca
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I was fortunate to get a scholarship when I went to Lehigh University and Princeton. They were both wonderful schools. Somebody was kind enough to spend their money to educate people that they would never get to know. That's what I think philanthropy is about.
Lee Iacocca
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The most successful businessman is the man who holds onto the old just as long as it is good, and grabs the new just as soon as it is better.
Lee Iacocca
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I'm still not sure what is meant by good fortune and success. I know fame and power are for the birds. But then life suddenly comes into focus for me. And, ah, there stand my kids.
Lee Iacocca
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They've got about as many lawyers as we have sumo-wrestlers.
Lee Iacocca
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They're on you day and night. Their oversight is just too extreme [. . .] That's why our 10-year loan, we paid it back in three years. We couldn't stand the government. The bureaucracy kills you.
Lee Iacocca
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In a corporation, there can only be one guy in the end: the CEO.
Lee Iacocca
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The great issues facing us today are not Republican issues or Democratic issues. The political parties can debate the means, but both parties must embrace the end objective, which is to make America great again.
Lee Iacocca
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Be creative. Use unconventional thinking. And have the guts to carry it out.
Lee Iacocca
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Every business and every product has risks. You can't get around it.
Lee Iacocca
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The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen.
Lee Iacocca
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Listening can make the difference between a mediocre organization and a great one.
Lee Iacocca
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Most people are looking for security, a nice, safe, prosperous future. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's called the American Dream.
Lee Iacocca
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Apply yourself. Get all the education you can, but then, by God, do something. Don't just stand there, make it happen.
Lee Iacocca