Best 52 quotes of Sam Walton on MyQuotes

A computer can tell you down to the dime what you've sold, but it can never tell you how much you could have sold.

After a lifetime of swimming upstream, I am convinced that one of the real secrets to Wal-mart's phenomenal success has been that very tendency.

All that hullabaloo about somebody's net worth is just stupid, and it's made my life a lot more complex and difficult.

Appreciate everything your associates do for the business.

Capital isn't hard to find; intuition, yes.

Capital isn't scarce; vision is.

Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage.

Curiosity doesn't kill the cat; it kills the competition.

Don't get so stuck in your ways that you can't change.

Each Wal-Mart store should reflect the values of its customers and support the vision they hold for their community.

High expectations is the key to everything.

High expectations are the key to everything.

I'd hate to see any descendants of mine fall into the category of what I'd call 'idle rich' - a group I've never had much use for.

I'd still say that visiting the stores and listening to our folks was one of the most valuable uses of my time as an executive. But really, our best ideas usually do come from the folks in the stores. Period.

Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction.

I guess in all my years, what I heard more than anything else was: a mere town cannot support a discount store for very long.

I had confidence that as long as we did our work well and were good to our customers, there would be no limit to us.

I had to pick myself up and get on with it, do it all over again, only even better this time.

I have always been driven to buck the system, to innovate, to take things beyond where they've been.

I learned a lesson which has stuck with me all through the years: you can learn from everybody. I didn't just learn from reading every retail publication I could get my hands on, I probably learned the most from studying what John Dunham was doing across the street

I learned early on that one of the secrets to campus leadership was the simplest thing of all: speak to people coming down the sidewalk before they speak to you. I did that in college. I did it when I carried my papers. I would always look ahead and speak to the person coming toward me. If I knew them, I would call them by name, but even if I didn't I would still speak to them. Before long, I probably knew more students than anybody in the university, and they recognized me and considered me their friend.

I loved retail from the beginning, and I still love it today.

Information is power, and the gain you get from empowering your associates more than offsets the risk of informing your competitor.

I not only knew I wanted to go into retailing, I also knew I wanted to go into business for myself.

I pay low wages. I can take advantage of that. We're going to be successful, but the basis is a very low-wage, low-benefit model of employment.

I probably have traveled and walked into more variety stores than anybody in America. I am just trying to get ideas, any kind of ideas that will help our company. Most of us don't invent ideas. We take the best ideas from someone else.

I think I overcame every single one of my personal shortcomings by the sheer passion I brought to my work. I don't know if you're born with this kind of passion, or if you can learn it. But I do know you need it.

I think my constant fiddling and meddling with the status quo may have been one of my biggest contributions to the later success of Wal-Mart.

It's just paper - all I own is a pickup truck and a little Wal-Mart stock.

It was almost as if I had a right to win. Thinking like that often seems to turn into sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I've always been driven to buck the system.

I was asked what I thought about the recession. I thought about it and decided not to take part.

Job security lasts only as long as the customer is satisfied. Nobody owes anybody else a living.

Keep everybody guessing as to what your next trick is going to be. Don't become too predictable.

Lose your smile and lose your customers.

Money and ownership alone aren't enough. Set high goals, encourage competition, and then keep score.

Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They're absolutely free and worth a fortune

One thing my and mother and dad shared completely was their approach to money - they just didn't spend it.

Our best ideas come from clerks and stockboys.

Share your profits with all your associates, and treat them as partners. In turn, they will treat you as a partner, and together you will all perform beyond your wildest expectations.

"Somehow over the years people have gotten the impression that Wal-Mart was...just this great idea that turned into an overnight success. But...it was an outgrowth of everything we'd been doing since [1945]...And like most overnight successes, it was about twenty years in the making.

Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom.

The job of senior management is to cultivate an environment where store managers can learn from the market and from each other.

There are only four things in life that matter. The first is happiness and I'll sell you the other three for a dollar.

There is only one boss. The customer.

There’s a lot more business out there in small town America than I ever dreamed of.

The secret of successful retailing is to give your customers what they want

The two most important words I ever wrote were on that first Wal-Mart sign, ‘Satisfaction Guaranteed’. They're still up there, and they have made all the difference.

We let folks know we're interested in them and that they're vital to us. cause they are.

We're all working together; that's the secret. And we'll lower the cost of living for everyone, not just in America, but we'll give the world an opportunity to see what it's like to save and have a better lifestyle, a better life for all. We're proud of what we've accomplished ; we've just begun.