Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son by John Graham
30 Favorite Quotes from this old classic
Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son by John Graham is an old book published in 1903. It is a classic that many businessmen have read over the years. It is a short, highly readable book that has too many insights in it.
Below are 30 Favorite Quotes of mine from this book.
The only sure way that a man can get rich quick is to have it given to him or to inherit it.
There is plenty of room at the top here, but there is no elevator in the building.
It’s good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it’s good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure you haven’t lost the things that money can’t buy.
Putting off an easy thing makes it hard, and putting off a hard one makes it impossible.
Remember, too, that it’s easier to look wise than to talk wisdom. Say less than the other fellow and listen more than you talk; for when a man’s listening he isn’t telling on himself and he’s flattering the fellow who is.
There’s no easier way to cure foolishness than to give a man leave to be foolish. And the only way to show a fellow that he’s chosen the wrong business is to let him try it. If it really is the wrong thing you won’t have to argue with him to quit, and if it isn’t you haven’t any right to.
Business is like oil — it won’t mix with anything but business.
With most people happiness is something that is always just a day off. But I have made it a rule never to put off being happy till to-morrow. Don’t accept notes for happiness, because you’ll find that when they’re due they’re never paid, but just renewed for another thirty days.
Keep your eyes to the front all the time, and you won’t be so apt to shy at the little things by the side of the track.
Put a pretty high value on loyalty. It is the one commodity that hasn’t any market value, and it’s the one that you can’t pay too much for. You can trust any number of men with your money, but mighty few with your reputation.
Poverty never spoils a good man, but prosperity often does.
Some salesmen think that selling is like eating — to satisfy an existing appetite; but a good salesman is like a good cook — he can create an appetite when the buyer isn’t hungry.
No man can ask more than he gives. A fellow who can’t take orders can’t give them.
In handling men, your own feelings are the only ones that are of no importance. I don’t mean by this that you want to sacrifice your self-respect, but you must keep in mind that the bigger the position the broader the man must be to fill it. And a diet of courtesy and consideration gives girth to a boss.
There are two things you never want to pay any attention to — abuse and flattery. The first can’t harm you and the second can’t help you.
You’ll find that education’s about the only thing lying around loose in this world and that it’s about the only thing a fellow can have as much of as he’s willing to haul away.
Some men learn the value of money by not having any and starting out to pry a few dollars loose from the odd millions that are lying around, and some learn it by having fifty thousand or so left to them and starting out to spend it as if it were fifty thousand a year. Some men learn the value of truth by having to do business with liars, and some by going to Sunday School. Some men learn the cussedness of whiskey by having a drunken father, and some by having a good mother. Some men get an education from other men and newspapers and public libraries, and some get it from professors and parchments — it doesn’t make any special difference how you get a half-nelson on the right thing just so you get it and freeze on to it.
The first thing that any education ought to give a man is character and the second thing is education.
There are two parts of a college education — the part that you get in the schoolroom from the professors, and the part that you get outside of it from the boys. That’s the really important part. For the first can only make you a scholar, while the second can make you a man.
Anything that trains a boy to think and to think quick pays; anything that teaches a boy to get the answer before the other fellow gets through biting the pencil, pays.
It isn’t so much knowing a whole lot, as knowing a little and how to use it that counts.
As long as you can’t please both sides in this world, there’s nothing like pleasing your own side.
A man who does big things is too busy to talk about them.
A man’s as good as he makes himself, but no man’s any good because his grandfather was.
The fellow who can’t read human nature can’t manage it.
Money ought never to be the consideration in marriage, but it always ought to be a consideration. When a boy and a girl don’t think enough about money before the ceremony, they’re going to have to think altogether too much about it after;
A good wife doubles a man’s expenses and doubles his happiness, and that’s a pretty good investment if a fellow’s got the money to invest.