Henry David Thoreau

We feel at first as if some opportunities of kindness and sympathy were lost, but learn afterward that any pure grief is ample recompense for all. That is, if we are faithful; for a spent grief is but sympathy with the soul that disposes events, and is as natural as the resin of Arabian trees. Only nature has a right to grieve perpetually, for she only is innocent. Soon the ice will melt, and the blackbirds sing along the river which he frequented, as pleasantly as ever. The same everlasting serenity will appear in this face of God, and we will not be sorrowful, if he is not.

It takes two to speak truth – one to speak, and another to hear.

I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.

A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure.

Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.

What is virtue but the Trade Unionism of the married?

A store’s best advertisement is the service its goods render, for upon such service rest the future, the good-will, of an organization.

The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time.

Every business is a monarchy with, not a man, but an idea as king.

My mother was an entrepreneur… She found being on relief humiliating. She built this business from scratch… In 1951 my mother opened this store…

Prune – prune businesses, products, activities, people. Do it annually.

Sales are contingent upon the attitude of the salesman, not the attitude of the prospect.

There has never been a time when a career in the Penney Company was not a challenge that brought out the best in a man.

The art of effective listening is essential to clear communication, and clear communication is necessary to management success.

If you can run one business well, you can run any business well.

The relationship between a manufacturer and his advertising agency is almost as intimate as the relationship between a patient and his doctor. Make sure that you can life happily with your prospective client before you accept his account.

I’ve been making deals all my life.

We, we – as I say, we go in and shake up other industries and I think, you know, we do it differently and I think that industries are not quite the same as a result of Virgin attacking the market.

What you say in advertising is more important than how you say it.

There are very few men of genius in advertising agencies. But we need all we can find. Almost without exception they are disagreeable. Don’t destroy them. They lay golden eggs.