“The secret of long life is double careers. One to about age sixty, then another for the next thirty years.”

The pursuit of excellence is less profitable than the pursuit of bigness, but it can be more satisfying.

First, make yourself a reputation for being a creative genius. Second, surround yourself with partners who are better than you are. Third, leave them to go get on with it.

Hire people who are better than you are, then leave them to get on with it. Look for people who will aim for the remarkable, who will not settle for the routine.

Our business is infested with idiots who try to impress by using pretentious jargon.

The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be.

What you say in advertising is more important than how you say it.

Leaders grasp nettles.

The headline is the ‘ticket on the meat.’ Use it to flag down readers who are prospects for the kind of product you are advertising.

Don’t bunt. Aim out of the ball park. Aim for the company of immortals.

Advertising is only evil when it advertises evil things.

Political advertising ought to be stopped. It’s the only really dishonest kind of advertising that’s left. It’s totally dishonest.

It is flagrantly dishonest for an advertising agent to urge consumers to buy a product which he would not allow his own wife to buy.

A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself.

If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.

There are very few men of genius in advertising agencies. But we need all we can find. Almost without exception they are disagreeable. Don’t destroy them. They lay golden eggs.

The most important word in the vocabulary of advertising is TEST. If you pretest your product with consumers, and pretest your advertising, you will do well in the marketplace.