117 B.C. Forbes Quotes To Be Successful

This is the definitive collection of B.C. Forbes quotes for those who want to learn, grow and become successful.

In case you didn’t know already, B.C. Forbes (Bertie Charles Forbes) was a Scottish-born American financial journalist and author who founded Forbes magazine.

He founded Forbes magazine in 1917 and remained editor-in-chief until his death in New York City in 1954. He also authored several books on finance and business.

It’s fair to say that he had a wealth on wisdom and experience on what takes to become successful in business and in life and these quotes by B.C. Forbes will inspire, empower and guide you on doing so.

117 B.C. Forbes Quotes

1. “What you have outside you counts less than what you have inside you.” – B.C. Forbes

2. “History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats.” – B.C. Forbes

3. “Real riches are the riches possessed inside.” – B.C. Forbes

4. “Difficulties should act as a tonic. They should spur us to greater exertion.” – B.C. Forbes

5. “Work is the meat of life, pleasure the dessert.” – B.C. Forbes

6. “Christmas is a tonic for our souls. It moves us to think of others rather than of ourselves. It directs our thoughts to giving.” – B.C. Forbes

7. “The man who is intent on making the most of his opportunities is too busy to bother about luck.” – B.C. Forbes

8. “If you don’t drive your business, you will be driven out of business.” – B.C. Forbes

9. “Golf without bunkers and hazards would be tame and monotonous. So would life.” – B.C. Forbes

10. “Many a man thinks he is patient when, in reality, he is indifferent.” – B.C. Forbes

11. “Books are like a mirror. If an ass looks in, you can’t expect an angel to look out.” – B.C. Forbes

12. “A business like an automobile, has to be driven, in order to get results.” – B.C. Forbes

13. “A shady business never yields a sunny life.” – B.C. Forbes

14. “The man who has done his level best… is a success, even though the world may write him down a failure.” – B.C. Forbes

15. “To make headway, improve your head.” – B.C. Forbes

16. “The man who has won millions at the cost of his conscience is a failure.” – B.C. Forbes

17. “The truth doesn’t hurt unless it ought to.” – B.C. Forbes

18. “He who has faith has… an inward reservoir of courage, hope, confidence, calmness, and assuring trust that all will come out well – even though to the world it may appear to come out most badly.” – B.C. Forbes

19. “Turn resolutely to work, to recreation, or in any case to physical exercise till you are so tired you can’t help going to sleep, and when you wake up you won’t want to worry.” – B.C. Forbes

20. “There is more credit and satisfaction in being a first-rate truck driver than a tenth-rate executive.” – B.C. Forbes

21. “He best keeps from anger who remembers that God is always looking upon him.” – B.C. Forbes

22. “Call the roll in your memory of conspicuously successful [business] giants and, if you know anything about their careers, you will be struck by the fact that almost every one of them encountered inordinate difficulties sufficient to crush all but the gamest of spirits. Edison went hungry many times before he became famous.” – B.C. Forbes

23. “The man who works 52 weeks in the year does not do his best in any one week of the year, Daniel Guggenheim, onetime head of the greatest smelting and mining family in America, impressed upon me. Real recreation quickens aspiration. The true purpose of recreation is not merely to amuse, not merely to afford pleasure, not merely to kill time, but to increase our fitness, enhance our usefulness, spur achievement.” – B.C. Forbes

24. “The young man who addresses himself in stern earnest to organizing his life-his habits, his associations, his reading, his study, his work-stands far more chance of rising to a position affording him opportunity to exercise his organizing abilities than the fellow who dawdles along without chart or compass, without plan or purpose, without self-improvement and self-discipline.” – B.C. Forbes

25. “The victors of the battles of tomorrow will be those who can best harness thought to action. From office boy to statesman, the prizes will be for those who most effectively exert their brains, who take deep, earnest and studious counsel of their minds, who stamp themselves as thinkers.” – B.C. Forbes

26. “Many concerns now make part or the whole of their dividends from by-products that formerly went to waste. How do we, as individuals, utilize our principal by-product? Our principal by-product is, of course, our leisure time. Many years of observation forces the conclusion that a man’s success or failure in life is determined as much by how he acts during his leisure as by how he acts during his work hours. Tell me how a young man spends his evenings and I will tell you how he is likely to spend the latter part of his life.” – B.C. Forbes

27. “He is a wise man who seeks by every legitimate means to make all the money he can honestly, for money can do so many worthwhile things in this world, not merely for one’s self but for others. But he is an unmitigated fool who imagines for a moment that it is more important to make the money than to make it honestly. One of the advantages of possessing money is that it facilitates one’s independence and mental attitude. The man head over heels in debt is more slave than independent.” – B.C. Forbes

28. “The way to make a true friend is to be one Friendship implies loyalty, esteem, cordiality, sympathy, affection, readiness to aid, to help, to stick, to fight for, if need be. The real friend is he or she who can share all our sorrows and double our joys. Radiate friendship and it will return seven-fold.” – B.C. Forbes

29. “Genius is often a short way of spelling hard work. Poverty, obscurity, struggle and ambition formed the foundation for many careers of transcendent achievement. Few marks are made in the world’s history by eight-hour-day men…. Sir Joshua Reynolds had but one maxim for success: Work, work, work. Is not rigid and continuous training necessary for the making of strong athletes? Hard work is not fatal to real success. Vouloir c’est pouvoir.” – B.C. Forbes

30. “Believe in yourself, your neighbors, your work, your ultimate attainment of more complete happiness. It is only the farmer who faithfully plants seeds in the Spring, who reaps a harvest in the Autumn.” – B.C. Forbes

31. “Honesty is the cornerstone of character. The honest man or woman seeks not merely to avoid criminal or illegal acts, but to be scrupulously fair, upright, fearless in both action and expression. Honesty pays dividends both in dollars and in peace of mind.” – B.C. Forbes

32. “How you start is important, but it is how you finish that counts.” – B.C. Forbes

33. “History shows that the most famous winners usually had faced enormous difficulties. But they won because they refused to be defeated.” – B.C. Forbes

34. “The human being who lives only for himself finally reaps nothing but unhappiness. Selfishness corrodes. Unselfishness ennobles, satisfies. Don’t put off the joy derivable from doing helpful, kindly things for others.” – B.C. Forbes

35. “Without self-respect, there can be no genuine success. Success won at the cost of self-respect is not success, what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his won self-respect.” – B.C. Forbes

36. “Success is sweetest to one who has known failure.” – B.C. Forbes

37. “The man who is too busy to read is never likely to lead.” – B.C. Forbes

38. “Educations purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.” – B.C. Forbes

39. “Spend your life on something that will outlast you.” – B.C. Forbes

40. “Success comes if you love what you do. There is no other way to success.” – B.C. Forbes

41. “Success consists of being and doing, not simply accumulating.” – B.C. Forbes

42. “The real friend is he or she who can share all our sorrow and double our joys.” – B.C. Forbes

43. “Plan your work – work your plan.” – B.C. Forbes

44. “You should remember that we need to consciously and constantly look for opportunities to increase the human happiness. Selfishness kills happiness.” – B.C. Forbes

45. “One worthwhile task carried to a successful conclusion is better than 50 half-finished tasks.” – B.C. Forbes

46. “Honesty and integrity are by far the most important assets of an entrepreneur.” – B.C. Forbes

47. “Bragging often precedes begging.” – B.C. Forbes

48. “Wealth is spiritual, not material.” – B.C. Forbes

49. “True wealth is the wealth of the soul.” – B.C. Forbes

50. “The be-all and end-all of life should not be to get rich, but to enrich the world.” – B.C. Forbes

51. “The man of fixed ingrained principles who has mapped out a straight course, and has the courage and self-control to adhere to it, does not find life complex. Complexities are all of our own making.” – B.C. Forbes

52. “Money, or even power, can never yield happiness unless it be accompanied by the goodwill of others.” – B.C. Forbes

53. “Opportunity rarely knocks on your door. Knock rather on opportunity’s door if you ardently wish to enter.” – B.C. Forbes

54. “Thomas Edison reads not for entertainment but to increase his store of knowledge. He sucks in information as eagerly as the bee sucks honey from flowers. The whole world, so to speak, pours its wisdom into his mind. He regards it as a criminal waste of time to go through the slow and painful ordeal of ascertaining things for one’s self if these same things have already been ascertained and made available by others. In Edison’s mind knowledge is power.” – B.C. Forbes

55. “J.P. Morgan, then past 70, was asked by the son of an eminent father why he (Morgan) didn’t retire. “When did your father retire?” asked Mr. Morgan, without looking up from his desk. “In 1902.” “When did he die? Oh, at the end of 1904.” “Huh!” snapped Mr. Morgan, “If he had kept on working he would have been alive still. Work is God’s best medicine. It is God’s medicine for man.”” – B.C. Forbes

56. “You have no idea how big the other fellow’s troubles are.” – B.C. Forbes

57. “Opportunity can benefit no man who has not fitted himself to seize it and use it. Opportunity woos the worthy, shuns the unworthy. Prepare yourself to grasp opportunity and opportunity is likely to come your way. It is not so fickle, capricious and unreasoning as some complain.” – B.C. Forbes

58. “There is more genuine joy in climbing the hill of success, even though sweat may be spent and toes may be stubbed, than in aimlessly sliding down the path to failure. If a straight, honorable path has been chosen, the gaining of the summit yields lasting satisfaction. The morass of failure, if reached through laziness, indifference or other avoidable fault, yields nothing but ignominy and sorrow for self and family and friends.” – B.C. Forbes

59. “Life is just an endless chain of judgements…. The more imperfect our judgement, the less perfect our success.” – B.C. Forbes

60. “Lady Luck generally woos those who earnestly, enthusiastically, unremittingly woo her.” – B.C. Forbes

61. “The man without religion is as a ship without a rudder.” – B.C. Forbes

62. “Our future and our fate lie in our wills more than in our hands, for our hands are but the instruments of our wills.” – B.C. Forbes

63. “Diamonds are only lumps of coal that stuck to their jobs.” – B.C. Forbes

64. “A price has to be paid for success. Almost invariably those who have reached the summits worked harder and longer, studied and planned more assiduously, practiced more self-denial, overcame more difficulties than those of us who have not risen so far.” – B.C. Forbes

65. “Mediocre men wait for opportunity to come to them. Strong, able, alert men go after opportunity.” – B.C. Forbes

66. “Ambition means longing and striving to attain some purpose. Therefore, there are as many brands of ambition as there are human aspirations.” – B.C. Forbes

67. “Madame Curie didn’t stumble upon radium by accident. She searched and experimented and sweated and suffered years before she found it. Success rarely is an accident.” – B.C. Forbes

68. “Cheerfulness is among the most laudable virtues. It gains you the good will and friendship of others. It blesses those who practice it and those upon whom it is bestowed.” – B.C. Forbes

69. “The Bible says, ‘Where there is no vision, the people perish.’ Have you a vision? And are you undeviatingly pressing and pushing toward its accomplishment? Dreaming alone will not get you there. Mix your dreams with determination and action.” – B.C. Forbes

70. “The most profitless things to manufacture are excuses.” – B.C. Forbes

71. “Acting without thinking is like shooting without aiming.” – B.C. Forbes

72. “Kill time and you will kill your career.” – B.C. Forbes

73. “Timing is everything. Tell me how a young man spends his evenings and I will tell you how far he is likely to go in the world. The popular notion is that a youth’s progress depends upon how he acts during his working hours. It doesn’t. It depends far more upon how he utilizes his leisure…If he spends it in harmless idleness, he is likely to be kept on the payroll, but that will be about all. If he diligently utilizes his own time…to fit himself for more responsible duties, then the greater responsibilities – and greater rewards – are almost certain to come to him.” – B.C. Forbes

74. “Are your desires purely selfish? Do your tastes run to a grand home, automobiles, fine clothes, an abundance of amusements, and so forth? If so, look around you at people who have such things in superabundance. Are they any happier, do you think, than you are? Are they any better morally? Are they any stronger physically? Are they better liked by their friends than you are by your friends? … Carnegie said, Millionaires rarely smile. This is substantially true.” – B.C. Forbes

75. “Enthusiasm is the electric current that keeps the engine of life going at top speed. Enthusiasm is the very propeller of progress.” – B.C. Forbes

76. “Happiness is normally the prime search of every rational human being. One way to derive increasing happiness during the year we have just entered is to strive diligently to promote the happiness of others, to think of them first, yourself second. Happiness is the greatest tonic, the greatest elixir, of all. Worry is among the worst poisons. One sensible New Year resolution: I will do my utmost to have consideration for others, to exercise usefulness, to radiate happiness, to conquer worrying over things I cannot possibly remedy.” – B.C. Forbes

77. “No man can fight his way to the top and stay at the top without exercising the fullest measure of grit, courage, determination, resolution.” – B.C. Forbes

78. “Don’t forget until too late that the business of life is not business but living.” – B.C. Forbes

79. “Think not of yourself as the architect of your career but as the sculptor. Expect to have to do a lot of hard hammering and chiselling and scraping and polishing.” – B.C. Forbes

80. “The men who have done big things are those who were not afraid to attempt big things, who were not afraid to risk failure in order to gain success.” – B.C. Forbes

81. “First make sure that what you aspire to accomplish is worth accomplishing, and then throw your whole vitality into it. What’s worth doing is worth doing well. And to do anything well, whether it be typing a letter or drawing up an agreement involving millions, we must give not only our hands to the doing of it, but our brains, our enthusiasm, the best – all that is in us. The task to which you dedicate yourself can never become a drudgery.” – B.C. Forbes

82. “Triumph often is nearest when defeat seems inescapable.” – B.C. Forbes

83. “Jealousy is an inner consciousness of one’s own inferiority. It is a mental cancer.” – B.C. Forbes

84. “It’s so much easier to do good than to be good.” – B.C. Forbes

85. “How you start is important, but it is how you finish that counts. In the race for success, speed is less important than stamina. The sticker outlasts the sprinter.” – B.C. Forbes

86. “A word of appreciation often can accomplish what nothing else could accomplish.” – B.C. Forbes

87. “Honesty is the cornerstone of character.” – B.C. Forbes

88. “If you do the best and the most you can today, don’t worry about tomorrow.” – B.C. Forbes

89. “To get the most out of the world one must conscientiously strive to put the most into it. Life without worthy ideals becomes wholly unsatisfying, sour. If our supreme objective is to serve, no blow fate may administer can daunt us.” – B.C. Forbes

90. “There are two brands of discontent: the brand that merely fosters greed and snarling and back-biting, and the brand that inspires greater and greater effort to reach the desired goal. Which is your brand?” – B.C. Forbes

91. “Frank W. Woolworth once told me that the turning-point in his career did not come until he was thrown flat on his back by illness. He was sure that his business would go to pieces during his long, enforced absence. Instead, he discovered that he had in his employ men who could overcome difficulties when given power to exercise initiative. After that Woolworth left many problems and difficulties to be solved by subordinates and turned his attention to big things.” – B.C. Forbes

92. “A willing, cheerful worker, with his heart in his job, will turn out more work and more satisfactory work in 44 hours than an unwilling worker, dissatisfied with his conditions, will turn out in 54 hours. It is good business, therefore, for every employer to go as far as he possibly can in reaching a schedule agreeable to his people.” – B.C. Forbes

93. “It is when things go hardest, when life becomes most trying, that there is the greatest need for having a fixed goal, for having an air castle that the outside world cannot wreck. When few comforts come from without, it is all the more necessary to have a fount to draw from within. And the man or woman who has a star toward which to press cannot be thrown off the course, no matter how the world may try, no matter how far things seem to be wrong.” – B.C. Forbes

94. “Any business arrangement that is not profitable to the other fellow will in the end prove unprofitable for you. The bargain that yields mutual satisfaction is the only one that is apt to be repeated.” – B.C. Forbes

95. “Are you doing the kind of work you were built for, so that you can expect to be able to do very large amounts of that kind and thrive under it? Or are you doing a kind of which you can do comparatively little.” – B.C. Forbes

96. “Honesty pays dividends both in dollars and in peace of mind.” – B.C. Forbes

97. “If the deal isn’t good for the other party, it isn’t good for you.” – B.C. Forbes

98. “Many of the most successful men I have known have never grown up. Youthfulness of spirit is the twin brother of optimism… Resist growing up!” – B.C. Forbes

99. “There is no fun equal to the satisfaction of doing one’s best. The things that are most worthwhile in life are really those within the reach of almost every normal human being who cares to seek them out.” – B.C. Forbes

100. “Judgement can be acquired only by acute observation, by actual experience in the school of life, by ceaseless alertness to learn from others, by study of the activities of men who have made notable marks, by striving to analyze the everyday play of causes and effects, by constant study of human nature.” – B.C. Forbes

101. “When it comes to betting on yourself… you’re a chicken-livered coward if you hesitate.” – B.C. Forbes

102. “Vitally important for a young man or woman is, first, to realize the value of education and then to cultivate earnestly, aggressively, ceaselessly, the habit of self-education.” – B.C. Forbes

103. “Enthusiasm is the parent of enterprise. Search and you will find that at the base and birth of every great business organization was an enthusiast, someone consumed with earnestness of purpose, with confidence in their powers, with faith in the worthwhileness of their endeavors.” – B.C. Forbes

104. “The fellow who isn’t fired with enthusiasm is apt to be fired.” – B.C. Forbes

105. “I have never seen people who could do real work except under the stimulus of encouragement and enthusiasm and the approval of the people for whom they are working.” – B.C. Forbes

106. “No man can fight his way to the top and stay at the top without exercising the fullest measure of grit, courage, determination, resolution. Every man who gets anywhere does so because he has first firmly resolved to progress in the world and then has enough stick-to-it-tiveness to transform his resolution into reality. Without resolution, no man can win any worthwhile place among his fellow men.” – B.C. Forbes

107. “There’s no such thing as a self-made man. I’ve had much help and have found that if you are willing to work, many people are willing to help you.” – B.C. Forbes

108. “Work done with little effort is likely to yield little result.” – B.C. Forbes

109. “Backboneless employees are too ready to attribute the success of others to luck. Luck is usually the fruit of intelligent application. The man who is intent on making the most of his opportunities is too busy to bother about luck.” – B.C. Forbes

110. “Temporary release from work, through vacations, becomes more welcome, more pleasurable, even more necessary, as we grow older.” – B.C. Forbes

111. “The things that are most worthwhile in life are really those within the reach of almost every normal human being who cares to seek them out.” – B.C. Forbes

112. “Time mends all, ends all things earthly.” – B.C. Forbes

113. “Now, ideas are the raw material of progress. Everything first takes shape in the form of an idea. But an idea itself is worth nothing. An idea, like a machine, must have power applied to it before it can accomplish anything. The men who have won fame and fortune through having an idea are those who devoted every ounce of their strength and every dollar they could muster to putting it into operation. Ford had a big idea, but he had to sweat and suffer and sacrifice to make it work.” – B.C. Forbes

114. “Many of the most successful men I have known have never grown up. They have retained bubbling-over boyishness. They have relished wit, they have indulged in humor. They have not allowed ‘dignity’ to depress them into moroseness. Youthfulness of spirit is the twin brother of optimism, and optimism is the stuff of which American business success is fashioned. Resist growing up!” – B.C. Forbes

115. “Finally, there is more genuine joy in climbing the hill of success, even though sweat may be spent and toes may be stubbed, than in aimlessly sliding down the path to failure. If a straight, honorable path has been chosen, the gaining of the summit yields lasting satisfaction. The morass of failure, if through laziness, indifference or other avoidable fault, yields nothing but ignominy and sorrow for self and family and friends.” – B.C. Forbes

116. “The fittest, not the richest, make the most enviable mark. Pampered sons of plutocrats may shine for a time in society, but not in the world of affairs and of service unless they rip off their coats and get to work early and stay late. To be born with a golden spoon in the mouth is more of a handicap than a help in attaining worthwhile success in this age.” – B.C. Forbes

117. “To succeed, we must have the will to succeed, we must have stamina, determination, backbone, perseverance, self-reliance, and faith.” – B.C. Forbes

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