It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.

Perhaps without that adversity I might not have been able to preserve later on when my financial burdens were redoubled. I learned then how to keep problems from crushing me. I refused to worry about more than one thing at a time, and I would not let useless fretting about a problem, no matter how important, keep me from sleeping.

[On the art of entrepreneurship] You're not going to get it free, and you have to take risks. I don't mean to be a daredevil, that's crazy. But you have to take risks, and in some cases you must go for broke.

I've always said that the better off you are, the more responsibility you have for helping others. Just as I think it's important to run companies well, with a close eye to the bottom line, I think you have to use your entrepreneurial experience to make corporate philanthropy effective.

A 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.

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.