Charles M. Schwab Quotes

I am not a believer in large salaries. I hold that every man should be paid for personal production. Our big men at Bethlehem seldom get salaries of over one hundred dollars a week; but all of them receive bonuses computed entirely on the efficiencies and the economies registered in their departments.

When you go into your customary barber shop, you will wait for the man who gives you a little better shave, a little trimmer hair-cut. Business leaders are looking for the same things in their offices that you look for in the barber shop.

Work hard. Hard work is the best investment a man can make.

It may be in seemingly unimportant things that a man expresses his passion for perfection, yet they will count heavily in the long run.

I was once asked if a big business man ever reached his objective. I replied that if a man ever reached his objective he was not a big business man.

Set out with some definite purpose in life and accomplish that purpose. There is little that the human mind can conceive that is not possible of accomplishment. The thing to do is to make up your mind what you are going to drive for, and let nothing stand in the way of its ultimate accomplishment.

We make our own labor unions. We organize our labor into units of 300, and then the representatives of these 300 meet together every week. Then every fortnight they meet with the head men.

A man will succeed in anything about which he has real enthusiasm, in which he is genuinely interested, provided that he will take more thought about his job than the men working with him. The fellow who sits still and does what he is told will never be told to do big things.

The man who has done his best has done everything.

A man to carry on a successful business must have imagination. He must see things as in a vision, a dream of the whole thing.

Nothing is more fatal to success than taking one's job as a matter of course.

I thought and dreamed of nothing else but the steel works.

There's no limit possible to the expansion of each one of us.

I am sure that few successful men are so-called 'natural geniuses.'

Young men may enjoy dropping their work at five or six o'clock and slipping into a dress suit for an evening of pleasure; but the habit has certain drawbacks.

Be friends with everybody. When you have friends, you will know there is somebody who will stand by you.

In my own house, I rigged up a laboratory and studied chemistry in the evenings, determined that there should be nothing in the manufacture of steel that I would not know.

In our works at Bethlehem and San Francisco, and all over the United States, I adopted this system: I pay the managers practically no salary. I make them partners in the business, only I don't let them share in the efforts of any other man.

Don't be reluctant about putting on overalls!

If you are going into any manufacturing establishment, don't go there by reason of any influence you may have. Start upon your own merits, and start in some lowly position, no matter what it is. Be a laborer, if you will. I don't know but that is the best way to start.

Fundamentally, the basis of all modern progress is the efficiency of labor. And the only sure road to restored prosperity is through the thrift and hard work of our people as a whole.

The man who attracts attention is the man who is thinking all the time, and expressing himself in little ways. It is not the man who tries to dazzle his employer by doing the theatrical, the spectacular.

One of the most successful men I have known never carried a watch until he began to earn ten thousand dollars a year.

The captains of industry are not hunting money. America is heavy with it. They are seeking brains - specialized brains - and faithful, loyal service. Brains are needed to carry out the plans of those who furnish the capital.

I will not be in the position of having management dictated to by labor.

The men who miss success have two general alibis: 'I'm not a genius' is one; the other, 'There aren't the opportunities today there used to be.' Neither excuse holds. The first is beside the point; the second is altogether wrong.

When a man has put a limit on what he will do, he has put a limit on what he can do.

Concentrate and think upon the problem in mind until a satisfactory conclusion is reached, and then finally go ahead. If you have made a mistake, all right. Never find fault with a man because he has made a mistake. It is only a fool that makes the same mistake the second time.

Personality is to a man what perfume is to a flower.

We have reached in this country an amazing degree of general prosperity, with American business on the whole no longer facing an uphill climb.

Any man who goes into anything in life and does it better than the average will have a successful life. If he does it worse than the average, his life will not be successful. And no business can exist in which success cannot be won on that basis.

Most talk about 'super-geniuses' is nonsense. I have found that when 'stars' drop out, successors are usually at hand to fill their places, and the successors are merely men who have learned by application and self-discipline to get full production from an average, normal brain.

I mention the need of cooperation and confidence among the men who work, no matter what may be their relative ranks, because it is the vital factor underlying everything. Only as we are willing to work today, work as we never have worked before, will civilization survive.

I became interested, through reading the works of some novelist, in Egyptology and made a study of the pyramids. It was just a hobby, but I had a desire to know all I could about everything I could.

Bare hands grip success better than kid gloves. Be thorough in all things, no matter how small or distasteful! The man who counts his hours and kicks about his salary is a self-elected failure.

Did you ever stop to think that a great man in life who has won great acclaim and great reputation is the very man who is willing to share and give the honor to others in the doing of things that made him great?

Men make opportunity. Every great industrial achievement has been the result of individual effort - the practical development of a dream in the mind of an individual.

When I first went to work ... I had over me an impetuous, hustling man. It was necessary for me to be up to the top notch to give satisfaction. I worked faster than I otherwise would have done, and to him I attribute the impetus that I acquired.

Looking to the future I see in the further acceleration of science continuous jobs for our workers. Science will cure unemployment.

Here I am, a not over-good business man, a second-rate engineer. I can make poor mechanical drawings. I play the piano after a fashion. In fact, I am one of those proverbial Jack-of-all-trades who are usually failures. Why I am not, I can't tell you.

You can never really get away - - you can only take yourself somewhere else.

The truth is that we have hitherto made no genuine effort to produce forged steel working parts of automobiles of the highest quality. That is one of the reasons why our automobiles have not ranked with those of foreign make.

You can make up your mind to do one of two things: You can have a good time in life, or you can have a successful life, but you can't have both. You have got to make up your mind at the start which of the two you are going to have.

The Homestead plant, taken as a whole, is complete and finished in every department. There is nothing of any consequence to be desired. It is the first time I have ever been connected with any works that I could say it is finished and complete and to my entire satisfaction.

In the long run, no nation can prosper unless the world prospers.

The real test of business greatness is in giving opportunity to others. Many business men fail in this because they are thinking only of personal glory.

The hardest struggle of all is to be something different from what the average man is. I don't believe in 'super-men,' for the world is full of capable men, but it's the fellow with determination that wins out.

If more persons would get so enthused over their day's work that some one would have to remind them to go out to lunch there would be more happiness in the world and less indigestion.

Make your employer feel truthfully that you are sincere with him; that you are going to promote his interest; that you are going to stand for the things which he represents; that you are proud of being a member of his staff, and there is nothing that will reap you a richer reward. Loyalty above all!

If I were asked to say the most important things that lead to a successful life, I should say that, first of all, was integrity - unimpeachable integrity.

I didn't take up shorthand with any idea of becoming a professional at it. It merely appeared to me to be a good thing to know - something that might come in handy.

When you start in life, if you find you are wrongly placed, don't hesitate to change, but don't change because troubles come up and difficulties arise. You must meet and overcome and conquer them. And in meeting and overcoming and conquering them, you will make yourself stronger for the future.

Labor should be recognized as entitled to consult with management in the mutual interest. Labor cannot be driven, and business cannot be successful unless the men employed in it are enthusiastic and loyal. That loyalty cannot be obtained with a big stick; it must be based upon fair dealing and sympathy.

My own idea is that if the men hold any meetings or attempt to form any organization, we should be prepared to be fully informed of all that goes on and unhesitatingly discharge any men connected with this movement. In this way, our peace will be secure for a long time, and it will be easily done if taken at the start.

There is no royal road to a successful life, as there is no royal road to learning. It has got to be hard knocks, morning, noon, and night, and fixity of purpose.

The man who fails to give fair service during the hours for which he is paid is dishonest. The man who is not willing to give more than this is foolish.

I find my greatest happiness in thinking of those days in Homestead when I labored to bring a thing to perfection entirely by myself. In the evenings, I would go into the hills and look down on my work, and I knew that it was good, and my heart was elated.

We hear much of Bolshevism, much of labor unrest; at times, we hear the word 'revolution.' But these are but contagious diseases in the body of civilization, and I believe that the antitoxins of good cheer, mutual confidence, fairness and justice will ultimately cure these ills and make the world healthy and strong again.

I have always believed that the aristocracy of any country should be the men who have succeeded - the men who have aided in upbuilding their country - the men who have contributed to the efficiency and happiness of their fellow men.

There is not a man in power at our Bethlehem steel works today who did not begin at the bottom and work his way up.