James Cash Penney

I do not believe in excuses. I believe in hard work as the prime solvent of life’s problems.

Every man must decide for himself whether he shall master his world or be mastered by it.

Do not primarily train men to work. Train them to serve willingly and intelligently.

Change is vital, improvement the logical form of change.

I believe a man is better anchored who has a belief in the Supreme Being.

Exchange ideas frequently.

The opportunity for an entrepreneur to start a company from scratch today is abysmal.

Men are not great or small because of their material possessions. They are great or small because of what they are.

I just think people have a lot of fiction. But, you know, I mean, the real story of Facebook is just that we’ve worked so hard for all this time. I mean, the real story is actually probably pretty boring, right? I mean, we just sat at our computers for six years and coded.

The secret of long life is double careers. One to about age sixty, then another for the next thirty years.

I may be kindly, I am ordinarily gentle, but in my line of business I am obliged to will terribly what I will at all.

I think everybody thought I was crazy that I quit my job and started a management company in which I was managing one client – Laura Nyro.

My mother taught me to love my work. I learned everything about business from her.

From the start I had my own ideas about how the business should run. I wanted it to benefit everybody who contributed to its success-stockholders, labor and the American public.

No business can succeed in any great degree without being properly organized.

I suspect that many corporations have begun to understand that they have an important role to play in the lives of their communities, and that allocating funds to support local groups helps them discharge that function and also burnish their image.

A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself.

The tooth fairy teaches children that they can sell body parts for money.

If you are not taking care of your customer, your competitor will.

Depressions aren’t acts of God; like wars, they are the work of a small group of men who profit by them.

The thought in my mind was that I must be a good merchant. If I were a good merchant, the rest would probably take care of itself.