“It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.”

Anybody can do anything that he imagines.

Businesses that grow by development and improvement do not die.

Businessmen go down with their businesses because they like the old way so well they cannot change.

You don’t have to hold a position in order to be a leader.

A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.

There are three things that grow more precious with age; old wood to burn, old books to read, and old friends to enjoy.

Don’t expect people to respect you for what you are “planning” to do.

Don’t find fault, find a remedy.

Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.

The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.

You can do anything if you have enthusiasm.

It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages.

If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability.

Whatever you resist will persist.

Mediocrity is the worst enemy of prosperity.

The two most important things in any company do not appear in its balance sheet: its reputation and its people.

One can state, without exaggeration, that the observation of and the search for similarities and differences are the basis of all human knowledge.

I’ve spent more time than many will believe [making microscopic observations], but I’ve done them with joy, and I’ve taken no notice those who have said why take so much trouble and what good is it?

The art of drawing conclusions from experiments and observations consists in evaluating probabilities and in estimating whether they are sufficiently great or numerous enough to constitute proofs. This kind of calculation is more complicated and more difficult than it is commonly thought to be.

I have observed dreams and visions very carefully, and am now certain that the imagination has some way of lighting on the truth that the reason has not, and that its commandments, delivered when the body is still and the reason silent, are the most binding we can ever know.

I observe the physician with the same diligence as the disease.

I don’t pretend to be wise, but I am observing, and I see a great deal more than you’d imagine. I’m interested in other people’s experiences and inconsistencies, and, though I can’t explain, I remember and use them for my own benefit.

I wanted to see what no one had yet observed, even if I had to pay for this curiosity with my life.

I was a keen observer and listener. I picked up on clues. I figured things out logically, and I enjoyed puzzles. I loved the clear, focused feeling that came when I concentrated on solving a problem and everything else faded out.