James Cash Penney

It is the service we are not obliged to give that people value most.

No company can afford not to move forward. It may be at the top of the heap today but at the bottom of the heap tomorrow, if it doesn’t.

The Golden Rule finds no limit of application in business.

The thought in my mind was that I must be a good merchant. If I were a good merchant, the rest would probably take care of itself.

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

Do not primarily train men to work. Train them to serve willingly and intelligently.

He hates chess. He says it is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something clever when they are only wasting their time.

Kings in this should imitate God, their mercy should be above their works.

Any man or institution that tries to rob me of my dignity will lose.

If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find we have lost the future.

Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife; he is always proud of himself as the source of it.

I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.

Be the change you want to see in the world.

Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.

I am very fond of truth, but not at all of martyrdom.

Nothing makes a man so selfish as work.

A man’s growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends.

Every one is a genius, more or less. No one is so physically sound that no part of him will be even a little unsound, and no one is so diseased but that some part of him will be healthy — so no man is so mentally and morally sound, but that he will be in part both mad and wicked; and no man is so mad and wicked but he will be sensible and honourable in part. In like manner there is no genius who is not also a fool, and no fool who is not also a genius.

All promise outruns performance.

It isn’t safe to sit in judgment upon another person’s illusion when you are not on the inside. While you are thinking it is a dream, he may be knowing it is a planet.

It is a common enough case, that of a man being suddenly captivated by a woman nearly the opposite of his ideal.