Nick Candy

When you are in real estate, you are going to make some mistakes.

Possessions are always secondary, loved ones are all that matters.

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…

I have had the top people in the world into One Hyde Park, and they have seen everything and they say there is nothing quite like this.

Chris and I came from nothing. We’re selfmade. We started with nothing, so we have nothing to lose. And we have everything to gain.

Our clients pay for value. London is the top city in the world, the best tax haven in the world for some and the top residential site in the city is One Hyde Park at the top end of Sloane Street.

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.

Nobody’s ever called me Sir Richard. Occasionally in America, I hear people saying Sir Richard and think there’s some Shakespearean play taking place. But nowhere else anyway.

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.

Investors have very short memories.

Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon.

No matter what his position or experience in life, there is in everyone more latent than developed ability; far more unused than used power.

It was impossible to operate in the aluminium business without krysha – very real physical protection.

[on Steve jobs] Our relationship was based almost always on him calling up and asking, ‘Is this a good deal?’ I’m not in his business, and I wasn’t trying to be. I was just a guy who admired him a lot and was flattered he wanted my advice.

Good publicity is preferable to bad, but from a bottom-line perspective, bad publicity is sometimes better than no publicity at all. Controversy, in short, sells.

If your dreams don’t scare you they are too small.

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

Ninety-nine percent of advertising doesn’t sell much of anything.

The more predictable the business, the more valuable it is.

Fairs and public displays are the best means we have yet found of showing large numbers of people the real methods of industry.

The final key to the way I promote is bravado. I play to people’s fantasies. People may not always think big themselves. but they can get very excited by those who do. That is why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest, the greatest and the most spectacular.