James Cash Penney

The five separate fingers are five independent units. Close them and the fist multiplies strength. This is organization.

Determine to do some thinking for yourself. Don’t live entirely upon the thoughts of others. Don’t be an automaton.

As a rule, we find what we look for; we achieve what we get ready for.

Honor bespeaks worth. Confidence begets trust. Service brings satisfaction. Cooperation proves the quality of leadership.

It is always the start that requires the greatest effort.

Luck is always the last refuge of laziness and incompetence.

I myself never make any notes. Usually, if I write something down, I can’t read it afterwards.

You can’t do this! We have an arrangement! We have a contract!

This is serious business. But it doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun along the way.

Should I give up my career at this point in my life… and put all my marbles in Laura’s [Nyro] basket?

It strikes me as bad manners for a magazine to accept one of my advertisements and then attack it editorially – like inviting a man to dinner then spitting in his eye.

I wanted to be an editor or a journalist, I wasn’t really interested in being an entrepreneur, but I soon found I had to become an entrepreneur in order to keep my magazine going.

My friends are people who like building cool stuff. We always have this joke about people who want to just start companies without making something valuable. There’s a lot of that in Silicon Valley.

A nation that knows how to work will never suffer.

I notice increasing reluctance on the part of marketing executives to use judgment; they are coming to rely too much on research, and they use it as a drunkard uses a lamp post for support, rather than for illumination.

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.

I have a theory that the best advertisements come from personal experience. Some of the good ones I have done have really come out of the real experience of my life, and somehow this has come over as true and valid and persuasive.

If you go through some big corporate change, it’s just not going to be the same. If we sold to Yahoo, they would have done something different; if you want to continue your vision of the company, then don’t sell because there’s inevitably going to be some change.

We started learning ourselves, understanding ourselves, reading, researching, going around the world and looking at what was defined as the very best.

Did I have a problem with lying to get the job? None whatsoever.

I’m not looking to be a personal manager.