Books, like proverbs, receive their chief value from the stamp and esteem of the ages through which they have passed.
Formula for success: rise early, work hard, strike oil.
Going to work for a large company is like getting on a train. Are you going sixty miles an hour or is the train going sixty miles an hour and you're just sitting still?
I buy when other people are selling.
I hate to be a failure. I hate and regret the failure of my marriages. I would gladly give all my millions for just one lasting marital success.
If you can actually count your money, then you are not really a rich man.
If you can actually count your money, then you're not a rich man.
If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars.
If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem.
In times of rapid change, experience could be your worst enemy.
Money is like manure. You have to spread it around or it smells.
My father said: "You must never try to make all the money that's in a deal. Let the other fellow make some money too, because if you have a reputation for always making all the money, you won't have many deals."
No one can possibly achieve any real and lasting success or "get rich" in business by being a conformist.
Oil is like a wild animal. Whoever captures it has it.
The employer generally gets the employees he deserves.
The man who comes up with a means for doing or producing almost anything better, faster or more economically has his future and his fortune at his fingertips.
The meek shall inherit the Earth, but not its mineral rights.
There are always opportunities through which businessmen can profit handsomely if they will only recognize and seize them.
There are one hundred men seeking security to one able man who is willing to risk his fortune.
To succeed in business, to reach the top, an individual must know all it is possible to know about that business.
Without the element of uncertainty, the bringing off of even, the greatest business triumph would be dull, routine, and eminently unsatisfying.
A great man like Franklin Roosevelt or, on the other hand, a mediocrity like Lyndon Johnson will become President.
A hatred of failure has always been part of my nature.
A marriage contract to me is as binding as any in business, and I have always believed in sticking to an agreement.
Any attempt to deny that my own suit in life was reserved for me would be ridiculous.
As unmarried women became older, they tended to become more peevish and fractious than younger ones.
Before marriage, many couples are very much like people rushing to catch an airplane; once aboard, they turn into passengers. They just sit there.
Control of a company does not carry with it the ability to control the price of its stock.
During the 1950s, Aristotle Onassis and I formed what grew to be a close friendship and association in several business ventures.
Experience has made me cautious, wary.
Far too many people make crazed efforts to make monkeys out of anyone they believe to be rich.
Five wives can't all be wrong.
For lunch and dinner I eat meat, fowl, vegetables, and just about everything else. I eat heartily.
For some years, I lived in a beach house I built near Santa Monica, California.
Governments, of course, can - and do - soak the rich.
How does one measure the success of a museum?
I am - and have always been - a Methodist.
I am neither a homosexual nor a eunuch, nor have I ever taken any vows of chastity.
I am not of French extraction. Nor are my origins German. My father's forbears came from Northern Ireland, and my mother's family was Scottish.
I am not overly optimistic about the future.
I began my active collecting at an auspicious time.
I believe in God and in Christian principles.
I can afford the best medical care available. I have frequent medical examinations. I am 83 years old.
I can afford to say what I wish.
I certainly needed all the help I could get in the Tide Water campaign.
I have absolutely no intention of marrying Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
I have always enjoyed the company of women and have formed deep and long-lasting friendships with many of them.
I have for many, many years believed that wheat germ is a healthy food supplement.
I have never been given to envy - save for the envy I feel toward those people who have the ability to make a marriage work and endure happily.
I have no prejudices against denominations other than my own, be they Christian or otherwise.
I love giving for children from the Working Orphange around Christmas time.
I made my first million dollars quickly.
I take pride in the creation of my wealth, in its existence and in the uses to which it has been and is being put.
I vehemently deny that I was born a cynic and a pessimist.
I was 37 when my father died-and I no longer had any freedom of choice over what I would do with the rest of my life.
I was almost 22 before I took any particular interest in business.
I was brought up in an era when thrift was still considered a virtue.
I was the most genial and jovial of babies, a child with a consistently sanguine outlook.
I would not like to be in business in Italy today.
I'm hesitant to let my guard down unless I know the people I'm with and feel at home with them.
I've never been one to bet on the weather.
If I can claim personal credit for having made the best of my advantages, it is by likening myself to a tennis player.
In 1923, my net worth had increased to about $3 million.
In Japan, I was immensely impressed by the politeness, industrious nature and conscientiousness of the Japanese people.
It is doubtful I would have chosen a business career had I not been an only child and only son.
Jack Dempsey and I became friends in the very early 1920s.
My formula for success is rise early, work late, and strike oil.
My love of fine art increased - the more of it I saw, the more of it I wanted to see.
My mother had handsome features. Her carriage was almost regal.
My parents were an ideally balanced couple and devoted to each other.
My state of health is yet another subject that appears to arouse much conjecture and comment.
My wealth is not a subject I relish discussing.
My yachts were, I suppose, outstanding status symbols.
Nationalized industries are notorious for their inability to operate at a profit.
Nostalgia often leads to idle speculation.
Notwithstanding my age, I intend to continue as I've done, looking ahead to whatever years are left to me.
Rhetoric and dialectics can't change what I have learned from observation and experience.
The beauty one can find in art is one of the pitifully few real and lasting products of human endeavor.
The overwhelming majority of my rated wealth consists of investments in companies that produce goods and services.
The rich are not born sceptical or cynical. They are made that way by events, circumstances.
The Roaring Twenties were the period of that Great American Prosperity which was built on shaky foundations.
There are at least 50 cities in the world that would have liked to obtain the Getty Collection.
There are heads of royal families who control hereditary fortunes that defy comprehension.
Today, I have two Cadillacs. Both look like new and run perfectly. What advantage would I gain by trading in either of them?
What I learned at Oxford has been used to great advantage throughout my business career.
Whether we like it or not, men and women are not the same in nature, temperament, emotions and emotional responses.
Why should I feel any sense of guilt, especially when the accumulated wealth is deployed and employed constructively and productively?
You cannot bring about prosperity without discouraging thrift.
You cannot further the Brotherhood of Man by encouraging class hatred.
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