Best 58 quotes of J. Paul Getty on MyQuotes

Age doesn't matter, unless you are cheese.

A man can fail, but he isn't a failure until he blames someone else.

...Americans...automatically equate dissension with disloyalty. They view any criticism of our existing social, economic, and political forms, as sedition and subversion. ...(" The growing reluctance of Americans to criticize, and their increasing tendency to condemn those who, in ever dwindling numbers, will still voice dissent") is disturbing, deplorable, and truly dangerous.

A sense of thrift is essential to success in business. The businessman must discipline himself to practice economy whenever possible, in his personal life as well as his business affairs.

Books, like proverbs, receive their chief value from the stamp and esteem of the ages through which they have passed.

Build wealth as a by product of your business success. If wealth is your only objective in business, you will probably fail.

Buy when everyone else is selling and hold until everyone else is buying. That's not just a catchy slogan. It's the very essence of successful investing.

Each [of my wives] was jealous and resentful of my preoccupation with business. Yet none showed any visible aversion to sharing in the proceeds.

Formula for success: rise early, work hard, strike oil.

Getting results through people is a skill that cannot be learned in the classroom.

I buy when other people are selling.

I'd rather have 1% of the effort of 100 men than 100% of my own effort.

I find all this money a considerable burden.

If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars.

If you can actually count your money, then you're not a rich man.

If you get up early, work late, and pay your taxes, you will get ahead -- if you strike oil.

If you look after the pennies, the dollars will look after themselves.

If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem.

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.

I have no complex about wealth. I have worked very hard for my money; producing things people need.

In business, as in politics, it is never easy to go against the beliefs and attitudes held by the majority. The businessman who moves counter to the tide of prevailing opinion must expect to be obstructed, derided and damned.

In my opinion, an individual without any love of the arts cannot be considered completely civilized.

In times of rapid change, experience could be your worst enemy.

Money is like manure, you don't have to spread it around, you can just sell it to Potash Corp as fertilizer.

Money is like manure. You have to spread it around or it smells.

Money isn't everything but it sure keeps you in touch with your children.

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.

Once you have made it, you will understand that any business is limited in the challenges it offers. You will want and need other games to play, so you will look for other ventures to hold your interest.

Patience; this is the greatest business asset. Wait for the right time to make your moves.

....remember, a billion dollars isn't worth what it used to be.

Some of our newspapers and magazines are more concerned with the welfare of their advertisers than they are with the dissemination of news and the discussion of matters of lasting importance. ...Radio, television, motion pictures, popular books - all contribute...to...the stifling of dissent on all but the most banal levels. ...a renunciation of the most basic and precious of democratic principles.

The #1 guideline to success is you must be in business for yourself. When you work for someone else, you sell your time at wholesale to your employer, who then re-sells it at retail to the customer.

The employer generally gets the employees he deserves.

The individual who wants to reach the top in business must appreciate the might and force of habit. He must be quick to break those habits that can break him-and hasten to adopt those practices that will become the habits that help him achieve the success he desires.

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 no safeguards that can protect the emotional investor from himself.

There are one hundred men seeking security to one able man who is willing to risk his fortune.

There is only one way to make a great deal of money; and that is in a business of your own.

There may be some substitute for hard facts, but if there is, I have no idea what it can be.

To build wealth today, you must be in your own business.

Today's dissenters mainly focus their attention and expend their energies on the most inconsequential of trivia. ...Allegedly serious intellectuals quibble endlessly over such ridiculous trivialities...In the meantime, the public is lulled into a perilous somnolence, spoon-fed pap, and palpable untruths, many of which are turned out by special-interest and pressure groups and well organized propaganda machines.

To succeed in business, to reach the top, an individual must know all it is possible to know about that business.

Wealth is only a benefit of the game of money. If you win, the money will be there.

You must not only learn to live with tension, you must seek it out. You must learn to thrive on stress.

You must take risks, both with your own money or with borrowed money. Risk taking is essential to business growth.

In my own opinion, the average American's cultural shortcomings can be likened to those of the educated barbarians of ancient Rome. These were barbarians who learned to speak--and often to read and write--Latin. They acquired Roman habits of dress and deportment. Many of them handily mastered Roman commercial, engineering and military techniques--but they remained barbarians nonetheless. They failed to develop any understanding, appreciation or love for the art and culture of the great civilization around them.