James Cash Penney

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

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

Change is vital, improvement the logical form of change.

A merchant who approaches business with the idea of serving the public well has nothing to fear from the competition.

The well-satisfied customer will bring the repeat sale that counts.

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

Exchange ideas frequently.

A touch of the jitters sharpens the mind, gets the adrenaline flowing and helps you to focus.

The epiphany for me at William Morris was realizing, ‘They bullshit on the phone! I can bullshit on the phone too!’

I feel that the best companies are started not because the founder wanted a company but because the founder wanted to change the world… If you decide you want to found a company, you maybe start to develop your first idea. And hire lots of workers.

A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.

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

I believe in trusting men, not only once but twice – in giving a failure another chance.

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

No unemployment insurance can be compared to an alliance between a man and a plot of land. With one foot in the land, human society is firmly balanced against most economic uncertainties. With a job to supply him with cash, and a plot of land to guarantee him support, the individual is doubly secure. Stocks may fail, but seedtime and harvest do not fail.

The headline is the ‘ticket on the meat.’ Use it to flag down readers who are prospects for the kind of product you are advertising.

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

It’s a new endeavour for me. I’ve never run a territory. I’ve never talked publicly to people. I’ve got to try it just to see whether I like it.

Every man must decide for himself whether he shall master his world or be mastered by it.

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

I think a simple rule of business is, if you do the things that are easier first, then you can actually make a lot of progress.