James Cash Penney

The keystone of successful business is cooperation. Friction retards progress.

It is always the start that requires the greatest effort.

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

There’s no better friend to any merchant than a fair competitor.

It was always my practice to train salespeople under my direct supervision, and to treat children with the utmost consideration.

The best of merchandise will go back to the shelf unless handled by a conscientious, tactful salesman.

I’ve been making deals all my life.

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

Machines were devised not to do a man out of a job, but to take the heavy labor from man’s back and place it on the broad back of the machine.

First, make yourself a reputation for being a creative genius. Second, surround yourself with partners who are better than you are. Third, leave them to go get on with it.

On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.

The quality of an organization can never exceed the quality of the minds that make it up.

Theory is splendid but until put into practice, it is valueless.

No one loses anything by raising wages as soon as he is able. It has always paid us. Low wages are the most costly any employer can pay. It is like using low-grade material–the waste makes it very expensive in the end. There is no economy in cheap labor or cheap material. The hardest thing I ever had to do was to reduce wages. I think we were the last big company to come to it. Now I am mighty glad that wages are climbing again.

A nation that knows how to work will never suffer.

One client didn’t want to go out so had us build him a nightclub in his house.

No one should buy on reputation alone. They should come and see it and inspect it, feel it and touch it.

Listen more than you talk. Nobody learned anything by hearing themselves speak.

I don’t know the rules of grammar. If you’re trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language they use every day, the language in which they think. We try to write in the vernacular.

I must have had a dozen jobs and I got fired from all of them.

There is no need for advertisements to look like advertisements. If you make them look like editorial pages, you will attract about 50 per cent more readers.