Estée Lauder was the co-founder of The Estée Lauder Companies inc. and one of the most successful self-made businesswomen in history.
Like most of her eight siblings she got her first taste of business, entrepreneurship, and what it takes to be a successful retailer working at the family hardware store.
Estée always admired her mothers beauty and as she grew older she would become passionate about beauty products after helping her uncle, Dr. John Schotz, with his business. Schotz was a chemist, and his company, New Way Laboratories, sold beauty products such as creams, lotions, rouge, and fragrances.
She was fascinated watching her uncle create his products and started selling them to her friends.
It wasn’t long before she started creating her own formulas and manufacturing beauty products in her own kitchen.
In 1946, she co-founded Estée Lauder Inc. with her husband Joseph Lauder. Today it is one of the leading cosmetic companies in the world.
As you’ll see from the Estée Lauder quotes below her life serves as a valuable lesson to all of us: If you have a vision and see it through, you’re destined for success.
Estée Lauder Quotes On Beauty, Business & Success
1. “I didn’t get there by wishing for it or hoping for it, but by working for it.” – Estée Lauder
2. “Act tough: what other call tough, I call persistent.” – Estée Lauder
3. “Our life isn’t how much we can take out, but how much we can put in.” – Estée Lauder
4. “Trust your instincts: my first reaction is almost invariably the right one.” – Estée Lauder
5. “Most good ideas sparkle in simplicity, so much so that everyone wonders why no one ever did that before.” – Estée Lauder
6. “Write things down: your mother probably told you this. She’s right.” – Estée Lauder
7. “First comes the shy wish. Then you must have the heart to have the dream. Then, you work, and work.” – Estée Lauder
8. “Give credit where credit is due: simply said, if you want loyalty and best effort, you must be thoughtful.” – Estée Lauder
9. “When I thought I couldn’t go on, I forced myself to keep going. My success is based on persistence, not luck.” – Estée Lauder
10. “Be strong. Be confident. Be the star of your own life.” – Estée Lauder
11. “Beauty is an attitude, there’s no secret.” – Estée Lauder
12. “Whether you are the chairperson of the board or want to charm him, you need beauty and femininity as well as wisdom and strength.” – Estée Lauder
13. “I believe that potential is unlimited – success depends on daring to act on dreams.” – Estée Lauder
14. “It’s one thing becoming successful, but it’s hard to stay that way. Who helped me? I helped myself. I have done every job in the company.” – Estée Lauder
15. “All great things begin with a vision….a dream.” – Estée Lauder
16. “If you don’t sell, it’s not the product that’s wrong, it’s you.” – Estée Lauder
17. “The most beautiful face in the world? It’s yours.” – Estée Lauder
18. “Touch your customer, and you’re halfway there.” – Estée Lauder
19. “Whatever you give comes back to you.” – Estée Lauder
20. “I was unstoppable, so great was my faith in what I sold.” – Estée Lauder
21. “What makes a successful businesswoman? Is it talent? Well, perhaps, although I’ve known many enormously successful people who were not gifted in any outstanding way, not blessed with particular talent. Is it, then, intelligence? Certainly intelligence helps, but it’s not necessarily education or the kind of intellectual reasoning needed to graduate from the Wharton School of Business that are essential. What, then, is the mystical ingredient? It’s persistence. It’s that certain little spirit that compels you to continue just when you’re at your most tired. It’s that quality that forces you to persevere, find the route around the stone wall. It’s the immovable stubbornness that will not allow you to cave in when everyone says give up.” – Estée Lauder
22. “I worked every day from nine, when I arrived to polish my jars, to six in the evening. I never lunched.” – Estée Lauder
23. “I learned early that being a perfectionist and providing quality was the only way to do business.” – Estée Lauder
24. “My ambition was to make every woman beautiful, not to make money.” – Estée Lauder
25. “I am a visceral person by nature. I act on instinct, quickly, without pondering possible disaster and without indulging in deep introspection.” – Estée Lauder
26. “I’ve always believed that if you stick to a thought and carefully avoid distraction along the way, you can fulfill a dream. My whole life has been about fulfilling dreams. I kept my eye on the target, whatever that target was. Whether your target is big or small, grand or simple, ambitious or personal, I’ve always believed that success comes from not letting your eyes stray from that target. Anyone who wants to achieve a dream must stay strong, focused and steady.” – Estée Lauder
27. “People do make their luck by daring to follow their instincts, taking risks, and embracing every possibility.” – Estée Lauder
28. “Make the most of what you have. I operated, full time, on that precept. If you can’t have everything you think you deserve at that moment, you would do well to surround yourself with symbols of your ideals. In that small office, I surrounded myself with touches of the good life, the lovely and intricately tapestried life of my imagination, an imagination that has always been, I’m proud to say, large enough to admit any possibility.” – Estée Lauder
29. “Risk taking is the cornerstone of empires.” – Estée Lauder
30. “Each businessperson must find a style, that voice that grows clearer and louder with each success and failure. Observing your own and your competitors’ successes and failures makes your inner business voice more sure and vivid.” – Estée Lauder
31.”I have never worked a day in my life without selling. If I believe in something, I sell it, and I sell it hard.” – Estée Lauder
32. “If you have a goal, if you want to be successful, if you really want to do it and become another Estée Lauder, you’ve got to work hard, you’ve got to stick to it and you’ve got to believe in what you’re doing.” – Estée Lauder
33. “If you push yourself beyond the furthest place you think you can go, you’ll be able to achieve your heart’s dream.” – Estée Lauder
34. “If you put the product into the customer’s hands, it will speak for itself if it’s something of quality.” – Estée Lauder
35. “Learn to say no…executives must learn to say no to inferior products and ideas; no to those who seem to be making a mistake.” – Estée Lauder
36. “If in your mind’s eye you see a successful venture, a deal made, a profit accomplished, it has a superb chance of actually happening. Projecting your mind into a successful situation is the most powerful means to achieve goals. If you spent time with pictures of failure in your mind, you will orchestrate failure.” – Estée Lauder
37. “Accountants and lawyers make great accountants and lawyers. We need them, but we make the business decisions.” – Estée Lauder
38. “There are no homely women, just lazy ones.” – Estée Lauder
39. “From where you sit, you can probably reach out with comparative ease and touch a life of serenity and peace. You can wait for things to happen and not get too sad when they don’t. That’s fine for some but not for me. Serenity is pleasant, but it lacks the ecstasy of achievement.” – Estée Lauder
40. “Keep an eye on the competition… but this doesn’t mean copying them.” – Estée Lauder
41. “There is not such thing as bad times, I kept telling myself. There is not such thing as bad business. Business is there if you go after it.” – Estée Lauder
42. “When a person with experience meets a person with money, pretty soon, the person with the experience will have the money and the person with the money will have the experience.” – Estée Lauder
43. “Confidence breeds beauty.” – Estée Lauder
44. “I believed in my product. I loved my product. I loved to touch the creams, smell them, look at them, carry them with me. A person has to love her harvest if she’s to expect others to love it. And beauty was such a bountiful harvest.” – Estée Lauder
45. “One simply cannot start from zero. If you want to start your own business, save some money or know someone who can lend you some. You may not need a huge amount, but those first bills must be covered – and then some. When I began, business practice was based on CBD – Cash Before Delivery – not COD [Cash On Delivery]. The same holds true in many cases today.” – Estée Lauder
46. “In every life there is a moment – an event or a realization – that changes that life irrevocably. If the change is to be a happy one, one must be able to recognize the moment and seize it without delay.” – Estée Lauder
47. “When you’re angry, never put it in writing. It’s like carving anger in stone. That makes implacable enemies.” – Estée Lauder
48. “My mother always said any woman is beautiful as long as she thinks she is – and she was very beautiful.” – Estée Lauder
49. “I’ve tried not to sacrifice things for success. I never did anything that could hurt my children. I was always there for breakfast and dinner with them, and when I could I made it myself – and I didn’t believe in any of that frozen food stuff. I was home when they got back from school, and when my husband got in I was always waiting.” – Estée Lauder
Did you find these Estée Lauder Quotes inspiring?
Which Estée Lauder quote is your favourite? Let me know in the comments and please share this post to help and inspire others.
Cynthia Martinez
Jan 29, 2021 at 5:23 pm
#40