Business

"Free enterprise cannot be justified as being good for business. It can be justified only as being good for society."

"The basic definition of the business and of its purpose and mission have to be translated into objectives."

"Business has only two basic functions: marketing and innovation."

"Business? It's quite simple: it's other people's money."

"Business was his aversion; pleasure was his business."

"Do not craze yourself with thinking, but go about your business anywhere."

"We believe that there is one economic lesson which our twentieth century experience has demonstrated conclusively—that America can no more survive and grow without big business than it can survive and grow without small business…. the two are interdependent. You cannot strengthen one by weakening the other, and you cannot add to the stature of a dwarf by cutting off the legs of a giant."

"The technical and commercial functions of a business are clearly defined, but the same cannot be said of the administrative function. Not many people are familiar with its constitution and powers; our senses cannot follow its workings - we do not see it build or forge, sell or buy - and yet we all know that, if it does not work properly, the undertaking is in danger of failure."

"According to the dictionary, to administer is to govern, or to manage a public or private business. It means, therefore, to seek to make the best possible use of the resources available in achieving the goal of the enterprise. Administration includes, therefore, all the operations of the enterprise. But as a result of the usual way of organizing things to facilitate the running of the business, a certain number of activities constitute the special departments; the technical department, the commercial department, the financial department, etc., and the scope of the administrative department is found to be reduced accordingly. (p.911)"

"There is no one doctrine of administration for business and another for affairs of state; administrative doctrine is universal. Principles and general rules which hold good for business hold good for the state too, and the reverse applies."

"Do not become involved in the business world. Do not become entangled in the world's initiatives and the corruption you have fled through knowledge of the Savior."

"You can hardly have too much harmony in business. But you can go too far in picking men because they harmonize."

"Some day the ethics of business will be universally recognized, and in that day business will be seen to be the oldest and most useful of all the professions."

"Somewhere in the past. organizations were quite simple, and 'doing business' consisted of buying raw material from suppliers, converting into products, and selling it to customers... For the most part owner-entrepreneurs founded such simple business and worked along with members of their families. The family-dominated business still accounts for a large portion of the business start today."

"There is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use it resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud."

"Business is other people's money."

"I think any man in business would be foolish to fool around with his secretary. If it's somebody else's secretary, fine!"

"The necessity -from a technical point of view - for control and, consequently, for domination, can be overcome without too much difficulty in small and medium-sized enterprises; it cannot be overcome in large enterprises except by effecting changes which are all the more difficult to implement since they affect both the enterprise's hierarchical structure and its technical (and spatial) organization. [...] The 'partnership' of labour and capital is thus destroyed at one fell swoop; the workers realize their co-operation with the management has been a swindle; and antagonistic class relations are re-established."

"All businesses operate below their true potential. That is unavoidable, given the fallibility of human beings."

"The more truth you can get into any business, the better. Let the other side know the defects of yours, let them know how you are to be satisfied, let there be as little to be found as possible (I should say nothing), and if your business be an honest one, it will be best tended in this way."

"Those that are above business."

"It is only the densest ethical ignorance that talks about a "Christian business" life; for business is now intrinsically evil."

"Whoever wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure, soul instead of gold, creative work instead of business, passion instead of foolery, finds no home in this trivial world of ours."

"A boor cannot be sin-fearing, an ignoramus cannot be pious, a bashful one cannot learn, a short-tempered person cannot teach, nor does anyone who does much business grow wise."

"It is probably true that business corrupts everything it touches. It corrupts politics, sports, literature, art, labor unions and so on. But business also corrupts and undermines monolithic totalitarianism. Capitalism is at its liberating best in a noncapitalist environment."

"Quod medicorum est Promittunt medici, tractant fabrilia fabri."

"Aliena negotia curo, Excussus propriis."

"The Businessman is one who supplies something great and good to the world, and collects from the world for the goods."

"We now say that the Science of Economics, or Business, is the chief concern of humanity. Business is intelligent, useful activity. The word "busy-ness" was coined during the time of Chaucer by certain soldier-aristocrats, men of the leisure class, who prided themselves upon the fact that they did no useful thing. Men of power proved their prowess by holding slaves, and these slaves did all the work. To be idle showed that one was not a slave. But this word "business," first flung in contempt, like Puritan, Methodist and Quaker, has now become a thing of which to be proud. Idleness is the disgrace, not busy-ness."

"The duty of government is to leave commerce to its own capital and credit as well as all other branches of business, protecting all in their legal pursuits, granting exclusive privileges to none."

"Don't even bring me cost savings. Cost savings are nice, but they're not what I'm really interested in ... Bring me revenue growth and you've got my ear. Bring me new value, new products, new customers, new markets: then you've got my attention, then you've got my support. Don't bring me a good idea. Not interested."

"Jesus ... combines all duties (1) in one universal rule (which includes within itself both the inner and the outer moral relations of men), namely: Perform your duty for no motive other than unconditioned esteem for duty itself, i.e., love God (the Legislator of all duties) above all else; and (2) in a particular rule, that, namely, which concerns man’s external relation to other men as universal duty: Love every one as yourself, i.e., further his welfare from good-will that is immediate and not derived from motives of self-advantage. These commands are not mere laws of virtue but precepts of holiness which we ought to pursue, and the very pursuit of them is called virtue."

"In business the 80/20 principle is behind any innovation, any extra value. It is an entrepreneurial principle, a formula for value creation utilized not only by entrepreneurs, but by most managers and organizations."

"One should never let pleasure interfere with business."

"Business before pleasure. Context: I see that his Britannic Majesty will not marry Hortense — I see that Hortense will marry Meilleraye. Business before pleasure, I am ready to grant; but when there is none, il faut s'amuser."

"A man's success in business today turns upon his power of getting people to believe he has something that they want."

"Business today consists in persuading crowds."

"These are mere business relations, miss; there is no friendship in them, no particular interest, nothing like sentiment. I have passed from one to another, in the course of my business life, just as I pass from one of our customers to another in the course of my business day; in short, I have no feelings; I am a mere machine. To go on."

"A matter of business. Regard it as a matter of business — business that must be done."

"There is no better ballast for keeping the mind steady on its keel, and saving it from all risk of crankiness, than business."

"In business everyone is out to grab, to fight, to win. Either you are the under or the over dog. It is up to you to be on top."

"Everybody's business is nobody's business."

"An artisan busies himself with his work for three hours each day and spends nine hours in study."

"You silly old fool, you don't even know the alphabet of your own silly old business."

"Most American men of affairs have learned well the rhetoric of public relations, in some cases even to the point of using it when they are alone, and thus coming to believe it."

"We all learn by imitating, as children, as students, as novices in the world of business. And then we grow up and learn to blend our innate abilities with the rules or principles we have learned."

"From all business, my favorite case on incentives is Federal Express. The heart and soul of their system — which creates the integrity of the product — is having all their airplanes come to one place in the middle of the night and shift all the packages from plane to plane. If there are delays, the whole operation can't deliver a product full of integrity to Federal Express customers. And it was always screwed up. They could never get it done on time. They tried everything — moral suasion, threats, you name it. And nothing worked. Finally, somebody got the idea to pay all these people not so much an hour, but so much a shift — and when it's all done, they can all go home. Well, their problems cleared up overnight."

"I don't think that corporations are these big bogeymen that a lot of people paint them to be. … A corporation is a group of people, and if you want to come together for profit or nonprofit, that's your business—whatever you want to do."

"Business is business. There is no special business for man or for woman."

"Curse on the man who business first designed, And by't enthralled a freeborn lover's mind!"