James Cash Penney

We can serve our customers well only if our buying jobs are right. You cannot sell if you haven’t ordered wanted goods into your store.

The greatest teacher I know is the job itself.

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 problem with the bronco is to get on and stay on. This is the problem with the Golden Rule-to understand and apply.

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

Salesmanship, too, is an art; the perfection of its technique requires study and practice.

When bankers get into business they usually destroy it.

Investors are visionaries in some respects – they look beyond the present.

Your business, and your brand, must first let people know what you care about, and that you care about them.

It’s true we’ve got some fantastic clients. We’re very fortunate to be connected with the movers and shakers of all the global cities of the world. You can usually tell when we’ve got a client in here because their bodyguards are all over the place: two outside the front door, two in the lobby, one in the lift…

Although Mr. Edison was called ‘The Wizard’ of the electrical world and everyone thought that electricity was the coming thing, he actually encouraged me to go with my second car.

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.

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

We have had just one main purpose during these years, and that is to give the people transportation of the most dependable quality at the lowest possible cost. Our car was called the Universal Car thirty years ago, because it fulfilled so many needs; it is The Universal Car today for the same reason.

In New York and Los Angeles, you can throw your car keys to the valet and he parks it. Same in Hong Kong and Singapore, the service is off the scale. In London it’s sub-standard to abysmal.

London has got better as it’s become more international – you only have to look at the quality of the restaurants to see how improved it’s become.

The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.

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

Competition whose motive is merely to compete, to drive some other fellow out, never carries very far.

Your business, and your brand must first let people know what you care about and that you care about them.

When two men in business always agree, one of them is unnecessary.

We have a very open culture at the company, where we foster a lot of interaction between not just me and people but between everyone else. It’s an open floor plan. People have these desks where no one really has an office. I mean, I have a room where I meet with people. But it has all glass, so everyone can see into it and see what’s going on.