Malcolm Forbes Quotes

To seduce most anyone, ask for and listen to his opinion.

Venture nothing, and life is less than it should be.

He who says he never needs help, most does.

It's the less bright students who make teachers teach better.

It is never too late to learn.

If you have a job without any aggravations, you don't have a job.

How would you know what happy is if you've never been otherwise.

Meanness demeans the demeaner far more than the demeaned.

I don't think anybody can be a success who doesn't like what they do. [But it's] no job if it has no challenge; there's nothing to it if there are no problems. The essential thing is liking what you're doing.

If you say what you think don't expect to hear only what you like.

What about the poor salesman who is calling into the office from the corner saloon instead of the home sickbed he claims he is in?

If you don't know what to do with many of the papers piled on your desk, stick a dozen colleagues initials on them and pass them along. When in doubt, route.

One often reads about the art of conversation-how it's dying or what's needed to make it flourish, or how rare good ones are. But wouldn't you agree that the infinitely more valuable rara avis [rare bird] is a good listener.

In all the thrashing about that results from our dwindling gold reserves, it's about time that this country and other countries get some perspective on the situation. The day this country is out of the stuff, that day gold becomes what it's worth as a metal and no longer will have much significance as a monetary measurement. It isn't the gold we have that makes this nation rich. It's what we make, our knowhow, our productivity. So long as this country produces more and better, the world will continue to want what we make.

There's no way to move without making waves.

It doesn't take much of a rule to measure a mean man.

When you catch what you're after, it's gone.

Hoarding one's hurts hurts only the hoarder.

The most difficult thing asked by our young is not our earnings but our ears.

Will this massive outcry [about pollution] continue long enough to have effective results? Will federal and state laws be enacted with effective enforcement clauses? Will people be concerned long enough to pay the bill through higher prices? Will towns tole lost jobs when it proves too costly to clean obsolete plants? ... I think so, but it sure won't be as easy as the present outcry and political oratory suggest. The answers to preserving a livable environment are not all simple, and some of the nuts now pushing simplistic cure-alls won't help bring about any lasting solutions.

There are more fakers in business than in jail.

One of the ceaseless wonders of the world: The power of a smile.

It's great to arrive, but the trip's most always most of the fun.

Hopeless cases: Executives who assert themselves by saying No when they should say Yes.

Isn't it fortunate how selective our recollections usually are.

There's one post-Christmas chore I love-writing thank-you letters ... Lots of companies for many reasonable reasons, I guess, have a policy against sending even Christmas cards, never mind things, at Christmastime. But our clan gets a big kick out of opening the Warner-Lambert box containing an assortment of their wares; we argue over which of the boys is to get the Union Oil Co. necktie [and] all the holiday long we play the marvelous Christmas music sent by Goodyear ... None of these things means that Forbes or Forbeses have been had. But all of us like being thought of.

It's much more profitable to sell investing advice than to follow it.

SM is an abbreviation of both stock market and sadomasochism
and there are those who think they are one and the same.

Perhaps Harvard's greatest contribution to our nation is its requirement that its on-leave professors who want to keep their crimson seats must return from Washington after 24 months.

When those with ability at their job get to thinking they can't be done without, they're already on their way out.

Elected leaders who forget how they got there won't the next time.

If you can read and don't, you're dumb.

A little reciprocity goes a long way.

What advertising dum-dum signed up Ilie Nastase to sell a resort?! Who'd want to go where he's at?

Authority's for sharing only when the sharer is sure of his (or hers).

You have to come up in the world before it's worthwhile for those worth less to put you down.

It's a very short trip. While alive, live.

Never hire someone who knows less than you do about what he's hired to do.

If you have a job without aggravations, you don't have a job.

Putting pen to paper lights more fire than matches ever will

More often than not, things and people are as they appear.

Things there are no solution to: Inflation, bureaucracy & dandruff.

The art of conversation lies in listening

People who matter are most aware that everyone else does too.

Looking the part helps get the chance to fill it. But if you fill the part, it matters not if you look it.

Compliment others on the virtues they have; and they're not half as pleased as being complimented for the ones they don't have.

Economists' unanimity that bad business is ahead is the most reassuring news possible. It's very unlikely that this will be the one time they're right.

A lot of money doesn't make anyone more often right. It just makes him harder to correct.

When one seeks assurance, there's none from those who respond, Now, don't you worry about a thing. If you weren't worried, you wouldn't have asked. If you are concerned, it's nice to know that those you query are, too. I'll take a worrier any day over a platitudinous reassurer.

It's never too late to learn.

You're fortunate when you can afford to be virtuous.

One's real worth is never a quantifiable thing.

Personal & Confidential. Letters so marked should be. When the contents are only printed matter, though, the minifrauder succeeds in sowing illwill & ire.

To live long and achieve happiness, cultivate the art of radiating happiness.

I was loaded with sheer ability, spelled i-n-h-e-r-i-t-a-n-c-e.

It is unfortunate we can't buy many business executives for what they are worth and sell them for what they think they are worth.

A hug's a happy thing while a shrug's so often destructive.

Are you not justified in feeling inferior, when you seek to cover it up with arrogance and insolence?

I think the terror most people are concerned with is the IRS.

If you never budge, don't expect a push.

Once in a while there's wisdom in recognizing that the Boss is.

There is never enough time, unless you're serving it.

One thing that previous practice doesn't always make perfect: Marriage.

For some of us it seems like yesterday when Ike was in the White House, the U.S. Senate censured Joe McCarthy, and the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that racial segregation in public school was unconstitutional.

Few businessmen are capable of being in politics, they don't understand the democratic process, they have neither the tolerance or the depth it takes. Democracy isn't a business.

If you don't watch your figure, you'll have more figure to watch.

I hope a start at getting some oil out of the enormous Alaska field isn't indefinitely mired in a bureaucratic morass as a result of our national concern for the ecology. This concern must not be so misguided, misdirected, misused that it serves to stop economic growth, to bankrupt companies, to stifle new development, new jobs, new horizons. In fighting new pollution and stemming present pollution, exciting, sometimes costly means and methods exist and others will evolve. But blanket legislative naysaying to expanding power and energy sources is stupid, self-defeating.

Being right half the time beats being half-right all the time.

The ultimate in futility is owning important jewelry. Insurers often insist on the wearing of paste replicas because necks with real rocks around 'em risk wringing.

I make more money selling advice than following it

Food may be essential as fuel for the body, but good food is fuel for the soul.

None of my other investments give me the joy that autographs do because they make me feel that I am holding a piece of history in my hands.

Can you understand why the Congress, most states and most cities refuse to pass legislation requiring the registration and licensing of any and all guns? For the life of me, I can't. We must register our cars and be licensed to drive. In many places we must get licenses for dogs and even bicycles. Being required to register firearms and show the competence and capacity to handle them hardly seems unreasonable, hardly seems an infringement of freedom. What is it that blocks such legislation? Why do they block it? How are they able to block it?

When you don't want something enough to make the effort, making an effort is a waste.

At today's prices for medicines, doctors and hospitals-if the latter are available at any price-only millionaires can afford to be hurt or sick and pay for it. Very few people want socialized medicine in the U.S. But pressure for it is going to appear with the same hurricane force as the demand for pollution control if the medicine men and hospital operators don't take soon some Draconian measures ... At the present rate of doctor fees and hospital costs under Medicare and Medicaid plans [taxpayers] are shovelling in billions with nothing but escalation in sight.

I haven't a clue about the biology or the psychology involved when a person dissolves into tears, but it is quite fascinating to note what turns them on. There are wives who can cascade over a late husband or a burned dinner, and equally pour tears of joy over a new bonnet or a renovated bathroom ... A while ago I took a ship back from Europe. Amid the tumbling confetti ... I found myself misty-eyed watching a young lady waving a tearful farewell to her boyfriend on the dock. I couldn't figure out if I was crying at her plight, or in delight that he wasn't coming along with us.

It ticks me no end when people get ticked off at those of us who comment audibly and in print on events and problems. That's what we're paid for. Why clutter up your mind with a bunch of facts that might inhibit the solve-ability of us who must express an opinion? After all, all the world cries out for a solution to its problems, and we supply them right and left. Come to think of it, it's we who should be giving our deplorers and detractors the blast; because 99% of the time they don't do as we say.

A winner must first know what losing's like.

When it's your own fault, things hurt worse than when someone else is to blame.

Give naught, get same. Give much, get same.

To measure the man, measure his heart.

It's more fun to arrive a conclusion than to justify it.

People who say that money isn't the most important thing in the world are usually broke.

Those who talk loudly are rarely listened to.

The best buy by way of management is brains-at any price.

No one ever dies wishing they'd spent more time at the office.

The key to success is not through achievement, but through enthusiasm.

Daydreams are doable. The turn-on is not in scale, spectacle, or cost. It's in the doing. Anything you haven't done is an adventure. Wanting to is the principal requirement. If you can do and want to, don't not. In short, while alive, live.

All work and no play makes jack. With enough jack, Jack needn't be a dull boy.

Too few accomplish twice as much as too many.

Diamonds are nothing more than chunks of coal that stuck to their jobs.

Most of us are better when things go better.

Crime in the city streets is more than a political issue. It's a too rampant fact ... In Indianapolis they have come up with a most sensible, affordable approach to the problem. Policemen are assigned their police patrol cars for personal use after hours. They are encouraged to use the police car while taking the family shopping, to the movies, and everywhere one takes one's family. As a result, says the Police Chief's assistant, we may have as many as 400 cars on the street instead of 100 or so per shift. [And] the presence of the police car obviously indicates the proximity of policemen.

Occasionally indulging in a do-nothing day is more than worth the price.

Speculator: One who bought stocks that went down.

Itʹs always worthwhile to make others aware of their worth.

Accepting blame when it's not really due sometimes makes the point better.

Men who never get carried away should be.

A little while ago I visited Omaha Beach for the second time in my life. In the intervening 26 years, nearly 20,000 tides had come and gone and little remains visible of the greatest military landing in man's history of endless warring. What's to be seen is mostly in a superb museum and a panoramic cemetery. The cemetery memorializes with dignity and grandeur the event and the dead, and moves one deeply. Before they die less precipitously and/or in lesser purpose, Americans who can should visit World War II's Normandy Beach. Such seeing and remembering helps a man's perspective.

When things are bad, we take comfort in the thought that they could always get worse. And when they are, we find hope in the thought that things are so bad they have to get better.