Andrew Carnegie Quotes

46 Sourced Quotes

Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community.

Andrew Carnegie
The man who dies leaving behind him millions of available wealth, which was his to administer during his life, will pass away unwept, unhonoured and insung no matter to what uses he leaves the dross which he cannot take with him.

Andrew Carnegie
Upon the sacredness of property civilization itself depends—the right of the laborer to his hundred dollars in the savings bank, and equally the legal right of the millionaire to his millions.

Andrew Carnegie
Thus is the problem of Rich and Poor to be solved. The laws of accumulation will be left free; the laws of distribution free. Individualism will continue, but the millionaire will be but a trustee of the poor; intrusted for a season with a great part of the increased wealth of the community, but administering it for the community far better than it could or would have done for itself.

Andrew Carnegie
A word, a look, an accent, may affect the destiny not only of individuals, but of nations. He is a bold man who calls anything a trifle.

Andrew Carnegie
My hopes were high, and I looked every day for some change to take place. What it was to be I knew not, but that it would come I felt certain if I kept on. One day the chance came.

Andrew Carnegie
No, Your Majesty, I do not like kings, but I do like a man be­hind a king when I find him.

Andrew Carnegie
While the law [of competition] may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it insures the survival of the fittest in every department. We accept and welcome, therefore, as conditions to which we must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of environment, the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of the few, and the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but essential for the future progress of the race.

Andrew Carnegie
Neither the individual nor the race is improved by almsgiving. The best means of benefiting the community is to place within its reach the ladders upon which the aspiring can rise.

Andrew Carnegie
There is no way of making a business successful that can vie with the policy of promoting those who render exceptional service.

Andrew Carnegie
Instead of the question "What must I do for my employer?" substitute "What can I do"

Andrew Carnegie
I began to learn what poverty meant. It was burnt in my heart then that my father had to beg for work and there came the resolve that I would cure that when I got to be a man.

Andrew Carnegie
There is no use whatever trying to help people who do not help themselves. You cannot push anyone up a ladder unless he is willing to climb himself.

Andrew Carnegie
Be king in your dreams. Make your vow that you will reach that position, with untarnished reputation, and make no other vow to distract your attention.

Andrew Carnegie
That 95 per cent. fail of those who start in business upon their own account seems incredible, and yet such are said to be the statistics upon the subject.

Andrew Carnegie
The battle of life is already half won by the young man who is brought in contact with high officials; and the great aim of every boy should be to do something beyond the sphere of his duties- something which attracts the attention of those over him.

Andrew Carnegie
Speculation is a parasite feeding upon values, creating none.

Andrew Carnegie
I have never known a concern to make a decided success that did not do good, honest work, and even in these days of fiercest competition, when everything would seem to be a matter of price, there lies still at the root of great business success the very much more important factor of quality. The effect of attention to quality, upon every man in the service, from the president of the concern down to the humblest laborer, cannot be overestimated.

Andrew Carnegie
The surest foundation of a manufacturing concern is quality. After that, and a long way after, comes cost.

Andrew Carnegie
It is trying to be other than one's self that unmans one. Be your own natural self and go ahead.

Andrew Carnegie
Private Property, the Law of Accumulation of Wealth, and the Law of Competition... these are the highest results of human experience, the soil in which society so far has produced the best fruit.

Andrew Carnegie
Touch his head, and he will bargain and argue with you to the last; Touch his heart, and he falls upon your breast.

Andrew Carnegie
There is scarcely an instance of a man who has made a fortune by speculation and kept it

Andrew Carnegie
Salary, (I said, quite offended) what do I care for salary? I do not want the salary; I want the position. It is glory enough to go back to the Pittsburgh Division in your former place. You can make my salary just what you please and you need not give me any more than what I am getting now... Oh, please don't speak to me of money!

Andrew Carnegie
He that cannot reason is a fool. He that will not is a bigot. He that dare not is a slave.

Andrew Carnegie
I resolved to stop accumulating and begin the infinitely more serious and difficult task of wise distribution.

Andrew Carnegie
The Republic may not give wealth or happiness, she has not promised these. It is the freedom to pursue these, not their realization, we can claim.

Andrew Carnegie
The price which society pays for the law of competition, like the price it pays for cheap comforts and luxuries, is great; but the advantages of this law are also greater still than its cost- for it is to this law that we owe our wonderful material development, which brings improved conditions in its train.

Andrew Carnegie
I believe the true road to preeminent success in any line is to make yourself master in that line. I have no faith in the policy of scattering one's resources, and in my experience I have rarely if ever met a man who achieved preeminence in money making.. certainly never one in manufacturing.. who was interested in many concerns.

Andrew Carnegie
The men who have succeeded are men who have chosen one line and stuck to it.

Andrew Carnegie