James Cash Penney

Too many would-be executives are slaves of routine.

Courteous treatment will make a customer a walking advertisement.

Luck is always the last refuge of laziness and incompetence.

No serious-minded man should have time for the mediocre in any phase of his living.

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

Clock watchers never seem to be having a good time.

The liar’s punishment is, not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.

There was the cell where Fr. Eulalio, a thriving lunatic of eighty-six who was castigating himself for unchristian pride at having all the vowels in his name, and greatly revered for his continuous weeping, went blind in an ecstasy of such howling proportions that his canonization was assured.

We are born believing. A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples.

What fugitive from his country can also escape from himself.

Nothing does reason more right, than the coolness of those that offer it: For Truth often suffers more by the heat of its defenders, than from the arguments of its opposers.

Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future.

The eloquent man is he who is no eloquent speaker, but who is inwardly drunk with a certain belief.

I’m just preparing my impromptu remarks.

Want is a growing giant whom the coat of Have was never large enough to cover.

Sympathy is a supporting atmosphere, and in it we unfold easily and well.

Wine makes a man better pleased with himself. I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others… This is one of the disadvantages of wine, it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

If you aren’t fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm.

Here’s the thing: the world is not going to issue you an engraved invitation to this life.

True irreverence is disrespect for another man’s god.

A country-bred man can always learn to get on with city people, but a town-bred fellah never gets the real hang of the country. You can put city polish on a man, but by golly, it seems you can’t ever rub it off him.