British Businessman Quotes

Richard Branson

Cecil Rhodes

Joseph Chamberlain

Walter Bagehot

George Goschen, 1st Viscount Goschen

Denis Thatcher

Joseph Prestwich

When I started Virgin from a basement in west London, there was no great plan or strategy. I didn't set out to build a business empire... For me, building a business is all about doing something to be proud of, bringing talented people together and creating something that's going to make a real difference to other people's lives

Richard Branson

Not only does a bureaucracy tend to under-government in point of quality; it tends to over-government in point of quantity.

The key to success is to risk thinking unconventional thoughts. Convention is the enemy of progress. As long as you've got slightly more perception that the average wrapped loaf, you could invent something.

The heart bow'd down by weight of woe, To weakest hope will cling, To thought and impulse while they flow, That can no comfort bring, That can, that can no comfort bring, With those exciting scenes will blend, O'er pleasure's pathway thrown; But mem'ry is the only friend That grief can call its own.

You can not have omelettes without breaking eggs; you can not destroy the practises of barbarism, of slavery, of superstition, which for centuries have desolated the interior of Africa, without the use of force; but if you will fairly contrast the gain to humanity with the price which we are bound to pay for it, I think you may well rejoice in the result of such expeditions as those which have recently been conducted with such signal success in Nyassaland, Ashanti, Benin, and Nupé—expeditions which may have, and indeed have, cost valuable lives, but as to which we may rest assured that for one life lost a hundred will be gained, and the cause of civilization and the prosperity of the people will in the long run be eminently advanced.

Joseph Chamberlain

The first rule of luck in business is that you should persevere in doing the right thing. Opportunities will come your way if you do.

Intellectual property is the oil of the 21 century. Look at the richest men a hundred years ago; they all made their money extracting natural resources or moving them around. All today's richest men have made their money out of intellectual property.

There's no one who wants this [Deepwater Horizon oil spill] over more than I do. I'd like my life back.

Equal rights for all civilized men south of the Zambesi.

Corporate governance is concerned with holding the balance between economic and social goals and between individual and communal goals. The governance framework is there to encourage the efficient use of resources and equally to require accountability for the stewardship of those resources. The aim is to align as nearly as possible the interests of individuals, corporations and society.

Dominic Cadbury

Once you're head of a public company you are expected to perform; you're like an unpaid greyhound on a racetrack called the stock market. They'd take bets on us, but not add anything at all.

In rich economies, stability matters a lot; small further increases in allocative efficiency matter less. Thus, policy should be heavily focused on ensuring macroeconomic and financial stability and very wary of financial innovation if it carries with it any risk of increased instability.

Adair Turner, Baron Turner of Ecchinswell

I would just like to challenge the idea that it is necessary to have a lot of women, or a particular number, on a board. Business is very, very competitive and you should take the performance of women in another competitive area, which is sport where [men] have no strength advantage. Chess, bridge, poker - women come absolutely nowhere. I think that just has to be borne in mind.

No man ought to be compelled to live where a rose cannot grow.

I have the courage of my opinions, but I have not the temerity to give a political blank cheque to Lord Salisbury.

George Goschen, 1st Viscount Goschen

We even sell a pair of earrings for under £1, which is cheaper than a prawn sandwich from Marks & Spencers. But I have to say the earrings probably won't last as long.

At last, by singing and repeating enthusiastic amorous hymns, and ignorantly applying particular texts of scripture, I got my imagination to the proper pitch, and thus was I born again in an instant.

James Lackington

Margaret Thatcher: This food is absolutely delicious.
Denis Thatcher: So it should be. They're charging like the Light Brigade.

Eating in Harry's Bar

Oh, he's football crazy, he's football mad
And the football it has robbed him o' the wee bit sense he had.
And it would take a dozen skivvies, his clothes to wash and scrub,
Since our Jock became a member of that terrible football club.

The House of Commons is the greatest closed shop of all…For the purposes of government, a country of 55 million people is forced to depend on a talent pool which could not sustain a single multinational company.

If Florence Nightingale were carrying her lamp through the corridors of the NHS today she would almost certainly be searching for the people in charge.

Artists need a lot of collectors, all kinds of collectors, buying their art.

Charles Saatchi

The Ramblers are just a bunch of the dirty mac brigade. The great unwashed. Would you have a lot of Herberts in your garden?

Nicholas van Hoogstraten

There is no doubt that the efficiency of the Works at Bournville is assisted by the Suggestion Scheme, and it has been found that the good accomplished, is not only in the pecuniary value to the Firm or to the suggestor, but also in the development of the mental and creative power, which makes both men and girls more efficient and valuable workers, and fosters an intelligent independence.

Industry shares a need common to every social enterprise from church to guild, municipality to empire, war to university.