Andrew Carnegie famous quotes

The older I get the less I listen to what people say and the more I look at what they do.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Leadership #People #Looks

There is little success where there is little laughter.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Motivational #Success #Encouragement

If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Happiness #Military #Successful

To kill a man will be considered as disgusting [in the twentieth century] as we in this day consider it disgusting to eat one.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Peace #Men #Century

Do your duty and a little more and the future will take care of itself.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Care #Littles #Personal Development

Young man, make your name worth something.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Men #Names #Young

As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Inspirational #Inspiring #Character

Humanities education is the worst thing for an industrialist.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Humanity #Worst #Capitalism

Concentrate your energies, your thoughts and your capital. The wise man puts all his eggs in one basket and watches the basket.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Wise #Wisdom #Money

The secret of success lies not in doing your own work, but in recognizing the right man to do it.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Success #Lying #Men

Concentrate your energy, thought and capital exclusively upon the business in which you are engaged... 'Don't put all your eggs in one basket' is all wrong. I tell you 'put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket.'
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Eggs #Energy #Watches

Pioneering don't pay.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Pay #Exploration

You are what you think. So just think big, believe big, act big, work big, give big, forgive big, laugh big, love big and live big.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Believe #Thinking #Laughing

The best time to expand is when no one else dares to take risks
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Risk #Dare

I choose free libraries as the best agencies for improving the masses of the people, because they give nothing for nothing. They only help those who help themselves.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Agency #People #Giving

I believe that the road to pre-eminent success in any line of work is to make yourself master of that line of work.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Inspirational #Success #Believe

And while the law of competition may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it ensures the survival of the fittest in every department.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Business #Insperational #Race

You cannot push any one up a ladder unless he be willing to climb a little himself.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Ladders #Littles #Willing

Success can be attained in any branch of labor. There’s always room at the top in every pursuit.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Branches #Rooms #Pursuit

Concentration is my motto - first honesty, then industry, then concentration.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Honesty #Firsts #Motto

There is no use whatsoever in trying to help people who do not help themselves.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#People #Trying #Use

Take away my people, but leave my factories and soon grass will grow on the factory floors......Take away my factories, but leave my people and soon we will have a new and better factory.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Leadership #People #Grass

Golf is an indispensable adjunct to high civilisation.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Golf #Indispensable #Civilisation

The rare individuals who unselfishly try to serve others have an enormous advantage-they have little competition.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Helping Others #Competition #Trying

Watch the costs and the profits will take care of themselves.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Watches #Cost #Care

Immense power is acquired by assuring yourself in your secret reveries that you were born to control affairs.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Attitude #Power #Secret Love

A library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people. It is a never failing spring in the desert.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Spring #People #Community

There are two types of people who never achieve very much in their lifetimes. One is the person who won't do what he or she is told to do, and the other is the person who does no more than he or she is told to do.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Two #People #Doe

Strong men don't compromise, it is said, and principles should never be compromised.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Strong #Men #Principles

One great cause of failure of young men in business is the lack of concentration.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Men #Causes #Young

No man can become rich without himself enriching others
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Inspiration #Men #Rich

A man's reading program should be as carefully planned as his daily diet, for that too is food, without which he cannot grow mentally.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Reading #Men #Program

No man becomes rich unless he enriches others.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Men #Rich #Become Rich

Be king in your dreams. Make your vow that you will reach that position, with untarnished reputation, and make no other vow to distract your attention.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Dream #Kings #Attention

Anything in life worth having is worth working for.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Work

Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Inspirational #Leadership #Teamwork

There is a power under your control that is greater than poverty, greater than the lack of education, greater than all your fears and superstitions combined. It is the power to take possession of your own mind and direct it to whatever ends you may desire.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Mind #Desire #Superstitions

Any person can achieve greatness if they understand the philosophy of success and the steps required to achieve it.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Philosophy #Greatness #Steps

The way to become rich is to put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Eggs #Vaccines #Self Improvement

It marks a big step in your development when you come to realize that other people can help you do a better job than you could do alone.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Jobs #People #Team Building

Ninety percent of all millionaires become so through owning real estate.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Real #Ninety #Estates

I believe the true road to preeminent success in any line is to make yourself master in that line. I have no faith in the policy of scattering one's resources, and in my experience I have rarely if ever met a man who achieved preeminence in money making.. certainly never one in manufacturing.. who was interested in many concerns.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Believe #Commitment #Lines

Surplus wealth is a sacred trust to be managed for the good of others.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Sacred #Wealth #Surplus

If it is right that schools should be maintained by the whole community for the well-being of the whole, it is right also that libraries should be so maintained.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#School #Community #Library

The problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth, so that the ties of brotherhood may still bind together the rich and poor in harmonious relationship.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Ties #Brotherhood #Age

Do not look for approval except for the consciousness of doing your best.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Inspirational #Life #Motivation

It is more difficult to give money away intelligently than to earn it in the first place.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Giving #Charity #Firsts

Every act you have ever performed since the day you were born was performed because you wanted something.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Born #Wanted

Here is the prime condition of success: Concentrate your energy, thought and capital exclusively upon the business in which you are engaged. Having begun on one line, resolve to fight it out on that line, to lead in it, adopt every improvement, have the best machinery, and know the most about it.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Fighting #Focus #Energy

I have had a long, long life full of troubles, but there is one curious fact about them-nine-tenths of them never happened.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Long #Nine #Facts

Pittsburgh entered the core of my heart when I was a boy and cannot be torn out.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Heart #Boys #Pittsburgh

I shall argue that strong men, conversely, know when to compromise and that all principles can be compromised to serve a greater principle.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Life #Change #Being Strong

Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Teamwork #Vision #Working Together

The man of business knows that only by years of patient, unremitting attention to affairs can he earn his reward, which is the result, not of chance, but of well-devised means for the attainment of ends.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Inspirational #Business #Mean

Whatever I engage in, I must push inordinately.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Perserverance

Wealth is not to feed our egos but to feed the hungry and to help people help themselves.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#People #Ego #Charity

The men who have succeeded are men who have chosen one line and stuck to it.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Business #Commitment #Weight Loss

You must capture and keep the heart of the original and supremely able man before his brain can do its best.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Loyalty #Heart #Men

I wish to have as my epitaph: 'Here lies a man who was wise enough to bring into his service men who knew more than he.'
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Wise #Lying #Men

I give money for church organs in the hope the organ music will distract the congregation's attention from the rest of the service.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Giving #Religion #Atheism

I resolved to stop accumulating and begin the infinitely more serious and difficult task of wise distribution.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Inspiring #Wise #Responsibility

Do not think a man has done his full duty when he has performed the work assigned him. A man will never rise if he does only this. Promotion comes from exceptional work.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Business #Men #Thinking

It was from my own early experience that I decided there was no use to which money could be applied so productive of good to girls and boys who have good within them and ability and ambition to develop it as the founding of a public library.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Girl #Ambition #Boys

Don't be content with doing only your duty. Do more than your duty. It's the horse that finishes a neck ahead that wins the race.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Inspirational #Horse #Winning

Give me the life of the boy whose mother is nurse, seamstress, washerwoman, cook, teacher, angel, and saint, all in one, and whose father is guide, exemplar, and friend. No servants to come between. These are the boys who are born to the best fortune.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Mother #Teacher #Dad

The average person puts only 25% of his energy and ability into his work.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Average #Work Ethic #Energy

People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Motivational #Success #Attitude

I don't believe in God. My God is patriotism. Teach a man to be a good citizen and you have solved the problem of life.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Atheist #Believe #Men

The greatest astonishment of my life was the discovery that the man who does the work is not the man who gets rich
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Men #Discovery #Doe

I am no longer cursed by poverty because I took possession of my own mind, and that mind has yielded me every material thing I want, and much more than I need. But this power of mind is a universal one, available to the humblest person as it is to the greatest.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Mind #Needs #Want

Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Time #Community #Sacred

There is no use whatever trying to help people who do not help themselves. You cannot push anyone up a ladder unless he is willing to climb himself.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Helping Others #People #Trying

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit for doing it.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Inspirational #Leadership #Confidence

The man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else to which he is justly entitled.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Confidence #Men #Mind

There is no class so pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Money #Life And Love #Business

There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Office #Democracy #Library

The man who dies rich, dies disgraced.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Inspirational #Motivational #Men

He that cannot reason is a fool. He that will not is a bigot. He that dare not is a slave.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Funny #Wisdom #Intelligence

Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Inspirational #Positive #Success

The first man gets the oyster, the second man gets the shell.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Inspirational #Success #Leadership

Success is the power to acquire whatever one demands of life without violating the rights of others.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Rights #Preparation #Demand

What one does easily, one does well.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Doe #Wells

Strength is derived from unity. The range of our collective vision is far greater when individual insights become one.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Unity #Vision #Collaboration

A sunny disposition is worth more than fortune.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Happiness #Sunny #Fortune

The price which society pays for the law of competition, like the price it pays for cheap comforts and luxuries, is great; but the advantages of this law are also greater still than its cost- for it is to this law that we owe our wonderful material development, which brings improved conditions in its train.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Work #Law #Luxury

The secret of happiness is renunciation.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Happiness #Secret #Renunciation

A word, a look, an accent, may affect the destiny not only of individuals, but of nations. He is a bold man who calls anything a trifle.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Destiny #Men #Looks

...the law which is never to be broken is never required.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Law #Broken

It is not the rich man's son that the young struggler for advancement has to fear in the race for life, nor his nephew, nor his cousin. Let him look out for the dark horse in the boy who begins by sweeping out the office.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Horse #Cousin #Dark

The day is not far distant when the man who dies leaving behind him millions of available wealth, which was free for him to administer during life, will pass away unwept, unhonored, and unsung, no matter to what uses he leave the dross which he cannot take with him. Of such as these the public verdict will then be: The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced. Such, in my opinion, is the true gospel concerning wealth, obedience to which is destined some day to solve the problem of the rich and the poor.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Men #Leaving #Passing Away

The Republic may not give wealth or happiness, she has not promised these. It is the freedom to pursue these, not their realization, we can claim.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Giving #Democracy #Realization

A business is seldom if ever built up except on lines of strictest integrity.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Integrity #Lines #Ethics

All honor's wounds are self-inflicted.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Self #Honor #Wounds

The only irreplaceable capital an organization possesses is the knowledge and ability of its people. The productivity of that capital depends on how effectively people share their competence with those who can use it.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Communication #Organization #People

While the law [of competition] may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it insures the survival of the fittest in every department. We accept and welcome, therefore, as conditions to which we must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of environment, the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few, and the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but essential for the future progress of the race.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Race #Hands #Law

Why should men leave great fortunes to their children? If this is done from affection, is it not misguided affection? Observation teaches that, generally speaking, it is not well for the children that they should be so burdened.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Children #Men #Done

All is well since all grows better
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Wells #Grows

In [my] life ... I did not understand steam machinery, but I tried to understand that much more complicated piece of mechanism - man.
-- Andrew Carnegie

#Men #Pieces #Complicated