[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 TARBELLOne of the most depressing features of the ethical side of the matter is that instead of such methods arousing contempt they are more or less openly admired. And this is logical.
More Ida Tarbell Quotes
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[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 -
A more immediate wrong is the way the movement for a fuller, freer life for all human beings is hampered.
IDA TARBELL -
I wanted the people to know the truth about the Standard Oil Company.
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 -
Canonise ‘business success,’ and men who made a success like that of the Standard Oil Trust become national heroes!
IDA TARBELL -
There is no gaming table in the world where loaded dice are tolerated, no athletic field where men must not start fair.
IDA TARBELL -
A popular disturbance never remains long in the full control of those who start it.
IDA TARBELL -
A mind which really lays hold of a subject is not easily detached from it.
IDA TARBELL -
The quest of the truth had been born in me – the most tragic and incomplete, as well as the most essential, of man’s quests.
IDA TARBELL -
There is no more effective medicine to apply to feverish public sentiments than figures.
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 -
Rockefeller and his associates did not build the Standard Oil Co. in the board rooms of Wall Street banks.
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 -
My final comment is that I still believe this man [John D. Rockefeller] is corrupt and he used unfair ways to become wealthy, all he cared about was his money and wasn’t considered.
IDA TARBELL -
Life is but a collection of habits.
IDA TARBELL