He can choose the fair and open path, the path which sound ethics, sound democracy, and the common law prescribe, or choose the secret way by which he can get the better of his fellow man.
IDA TARBELLI decided to write the book to open the eyes of the people of how corrupt John D. Rockefeller company was and the unfair ways he used to be successful.
More Ida Tarbell Quotes
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It’s always a revolution, you know, when things occur of which you have never happened to hear!
IDA TARBELL -
Were it alone in these methods, public scorn would long ago have made short work of the Standard Oil Company. But it is simply the most conspicuous type of what can be done by these practices.
IDA TARBELL -
[On dishonest business methods:] … frequently the defender of the practice falls back on the Christian doctrine of charity, and points out that we are erring mortals and must allow for each other’s weaknesses!.
IDA TARBELL -
They fought their way to control by rebate and drawback, bribe and blackmail, espionage and price cutting, by ruthless efficiency of organization.
IDA TARBELL -
A mind truly cultivated never feels that the intellectual process is complete until it can reproduce in some media the thing which it has absorbed.
IDA TARBELL -
Sacredness of human life! The world has never believed it! It has been with life that we settled our quarrels, won wives, gold and land, defended ideas, imposed religions.
IDA TARBELL -
we were raising our standard of living at the expense of our standard of character.
IDA TARBELL -
Life is but a collection of habits.
IDA TARBELL -
Many men ridicule the idea that it can be scientifically handled. They tell us the unemployed have always been with us, and always must be. It is the oldest reason in the world for tolerating injustice and misery.
IDA TARBELL -
My whole theory for the improvement of society is based on a belief in the discipline and the education of the individual to self-control and right doing, for the sake of right doing.
IDA TARBELL -
To denumb the creative impulse above all else essential to the vitality and growth of democratic ideals.
IDA TARBELL -
There is no more effective medicine to apply to feverish public sentiments than figures.
IDA TARBELL -
The methods it employs with such acumen, persistency, and secrecy are employed by all sorts of business men, from corner grocers up to bankers. If exposed, they are excused on the ground that this is business.
IDA TARBELL -
Perhaps our national ambition to standardize ourselves has behind it the notion that democracy means standardization. But standardization is the surest way to destroy the initiative.
IDA TARBELL -
[John D. Rockefeller] didn’t care about anyone he did anything just to be rich and be the only company standing without any competition. He destroyed anyone else.
IDA TARBELL