“When work goes out of style we may expect to see civilization totter and fall.”

If my name were John D Smith IV I wouldn’t have been elected to anything.

Never lose interest in life and the world. Never allow yourself to become annoyed.

How much money does it take to make a man happy? Just one more dollar.

The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee and I will pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun.

After it is all over, the religion of man is his most important possession.

I can think of nothing less pleasurable than a life devoted to pleasure.

If my name were John D Smith IV I wouldn’t have been elected to anything.

The best business in the world is a well run oil company. The second best business in the world is a badly run oil company.

I never would have been able to tithe the first million dollars I ever made if I had not tithed my first salary, which was $1.50 per week.

The day of combination is here to stay. Individualism has gone, never to return.

Don’t blame the marketing department. The buck stops with the chief executive.

I believe it is a religious duty to get all the money you can, fairly and honestly; to keep all you can, and to give away all you can.

And we are never too old to study the Bible. Each time the lessons are studied comes some new meaning, some new thought which will make us better.

If your only goal is to become rich, you will never achieve it.

I wanted the best for my company, I had to do what I did to succeed. Everyone was lowering their prices to beat there competition so I did the same I eventually beat my competition.

My mother was given to a typical question: “We have always done this. Why should we do anything else?” But my wife’s typical question was “We have always done this. Why don’t we do it another way or, better still, why not do something else?”

All civilizations become either spacefaring or extinct.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

When space travel becomes as common as air travel, the future of civilization will be assured.

In the twenty-first century, the robot will take the place which slave labor occupied in ancient civilization.

Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilisation.

The galling harness of civilization drops off, and wounds heal ere we are aware.

It is insane that two men, sitting on opposite sides of the world, should be able to decide to bring an end to civilization.

The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.