John Gotti

I would be a billionaire if I was looking to be a selfish boss. That’s not me.

Don’t carry a gun. It’s nice to have them close by, but don’t carry them. You might get arrested.

Always be nice to bankers. Always be nice to pension fund managers. Always be nice to the media. In that order.

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.

Always be smarter than the people who hire you.

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

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

The other people I don’t take too seriously are the critics-except when they stand in the way of my projects. In my opinion, they mostly write to impress each other, and they’re just as swayed by fashions as anyone else. One week it’s spare glass towers they are praising to the skies. The next week, they’ve rediscovered old, and they’re celebrating detail and ornamentation.

An imitation may be quite successful in its own way, but imitation can never be Success. Success is a first-hand creation.

If you ever have the good fortune to create a great advertising campaign, you will soon see another agency steal it. This is irritating, but don’t let it worry you; nobody has ever built a brand by imitating somebody else’s advertising.

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.

Leverage: don’t make deals without it!

The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time.

As betting at the race ring adds neither strength nor speed to the horse, so the exchange of shares in the stock market adds no capital to business, no increase in the production and no purchasing power to the market.

The most important word in the vocabulary of advertising is TEST. If you pretest your product with consumers, and pretest your advertising, you will do well in the marketplace.

The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be.

Money will ruin the life of any man who treats it like anything but a tool with which to work.

The relationship between a manufacturer and his advertising agency is almost as intimate as the relationship between a patient and his doctor. Make sure that you can life happily with your prospective client before you accept his account.