Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist, philanthropist, and one of the wealthiest individuals of his time. He played a significant role in the development of the American steel industry and was a notable figure in the history of American business.
Born in Dunfermline, Scotland, Carnegie immigrated with his family to the United States in 1848, settling in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. He began working at the age of 13 as a bobbin boy in a cotton factory before transitioning to the telegraph industry. In 1859, he became a telegraph operator for the Pennsylvania Railroad, where he worked his way up the ranks to become the superintendent of the Western Division by the age of 24.
Carnegie’s success in the railroad industry allowed him to invest in other ventures, including iron and steel production. He founded the Carnegie Steel Company in 1892, which became one of the largest and most successful steel companies in the world.
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In addition to his business pursuits, Carnegie was a renowned philanthropist. He believed in the concept of the “Gospel of Wealth,” the idea that the wealthy have a moral obligation to use their wealth for the greater good. He donated a significant portion of his wealth to various causes, including education and the arts. He established the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the Carnegie Mellon University, among others.
Carnegie also played a role in American politics, advocating for peace and diplomacy in international relations. He supported the establishment of the Hague Tribunal for the resolution of international disputes and was a vocal opponent of war.
Andrew Carnegie passed away in Lenox, Massachusetts in 1919. His legacy as a businessman and philanthropist remains influential, with his charitable foundations continuing to make a significant impact in areas such as education, scientific research, and international relations.
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1. “A library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people. It is a never failing spring in the desert.”
2. “As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.”
3. “People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.”
4. “If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.”
5. “A man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else to which he is justly entitled.”
6. “No man becomes rich unless he enriches others.”
7. “Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.”
8. “The man who dies rich, dies disgraced.”
9. “There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration.”
10. “All human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes.”
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11. “It marks a big step in your development when you come to realize that other people can help you do a better job than you could do alone.”
12. “Put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.”
13. “He that cannot reason is a fool. He that will not is a bigot. He that dare not is a slave.”
14. “When fate hands us a lemon, let’s try to make lemonade.”
15. “Perhaps the most tragic thing about mankind is that we are all dreaming about some magical garden over the horizon, instead of enjoying the roses that are right outside today.”
16. “You cannot push anyone up a ladder unless he is willing to climb a little.”
17. “Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.”
18. “Do your duty and a little more and the future will take care of itself.”
19. “TEAMWORK: the fuel that allows common people attain uncommon results.”
20. “Do real and permanent good in this world.”
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21.“You are what you think. So just think big, believe big, act big, work big, give big, forgive big, laugh big, love big and live big.”
22. “Here lies one who knew how to get around him men who were cleverer than himself”
23. “Pittsburgh entered the core of my heart when I was a boy and cannot be torn out.”
24. “No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or to get all the credit for doing it”
25. “As I grow older, I pay less attention to what people say. I just watch what they do.”
26. “Libraries are reservoirs of strength, grace and wit, reminders of order, calm and continuity, lakes of mental energy, neither warm nor cold, light nor dark…. In any library in the world, I am at home, unselfconscious, still and absorbed. ~Germaine Greer”
27. “I don’t believe in God. My God is patriotism. Teach a man to be a good citizen and you have solved the problem of life.”
28. “Man does not live by bread alone. I have known millionaires starving for lack of the nutriment which alone can sustain all that is human in man, and I know workmen, and many so-called poor men, who revel in luxuries beyond the power of those millionaires to reach. It is the mind that makes the body rich. There is no class so pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else. Money can only be the useful drudge of things immeasurably higher than itself. Exalted beyond this, as it sometimes is, it remains Caliban still and still plays the beast. My aspirations take a higher flight. Mine be it to have contributed to the enlightenment and the joys of the mind, to the things of the spirit, to all that tends to bring into the lives of the toilers of Pittsburgh sweetness and light. I hold this the noblest possible use of wealth”
29. “There is little success where there is little laughter.”
30. “And while the law of competition may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race because it ensures the survival of the fittest in every department. ”
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31.“Wealth is not to feed our egos but to feed the hungry and to help people help themselves.”
32. “The greatest astonishment of my life was the discovery that the man who does the work is not the man who gets rich.”
33. “No man becomes rich unless he enriches others.”
34. “There is a power under your control that is greater than poverty, greater than the lack of education, greater than all your fears and superstitions combined. It is the power to take possession of your own mind and direct it to whatever ends you may desire.”
35. “One great cause of failure of young men in business is lack of concentration.”
36. “The best time to expand is when no one else dares to take risks”
37. “The Republic may not give wealth or happiness, she has not promised these. It is the freedom to pursue these, not their realization, we can claim.”
38. “There is no use whatsoever in trying to help people who do not help themselves.”
39. “The older I get the less I listen to what people say and the more I look at what they do.”
40. “The first thing to do about an obstacle is simply to stand up to it and not complain about it or whine under it but forthrightly attack it. Stand up to your obstacles and do something about them. You will find that they haven’t half the strength you think they have. Just stand up to it, that’s all, and don’t give way under it, and it will finally break. You will break it. Something has to break and it won’t be you, it will be the obstacle.”
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41. “Show me a man of average ability but extraordinary desire and I’ll show you a winner every time.”
42. “The secret of success lies not in doing your own work, but in recognizing the right man to do it.
43. “Don’t be content with doing only your duty. Do more than your duty. It’s the horse that finishes a neck ahead that wins the race.”
44. “The sole purpose of being rich is to give away money.
45. “Give me a man with an average ability but a burning desire to succeed and I will give you a winner in exchange ever time.”
46. “The secret of happiness is renunciation.”
47. “Anything in life worth having is worth working for.”
48. “It is more difficult to give money away intelligently than to earn it in the first place.”
49.“The average person puts only 25% of his energy and ability into his work. The world takes off its hat to those who put in more than 50% of their capacity, and stands on its head for those few and far between souls who devote 100%.”
50. “Ninety percent of all millionaires become so through owning real estate. More money has been made in real estate than in all industrial investments combined. The wise young man or wage earner of today invests his money in real estate.”
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51. “A library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people. It is a never-failing spring in the desert.”
51. “If it is right that schools should be maintained by the whole community for the well-being of the whole, it is right also that libraries should be so maintained.”
52. “There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration.”
53. “I choose free libraries as the best agencies for improving the masses of the people because they give nothing for nothing. They only help those who help themselves.”
54. “No person will make a great business who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit.”
55. “Strength is derived from unity. The range of our collective vision is far greater when individual insights become one.”
56.“Success can be attained in any branch of human labor. There is always room at the top in every pursuit. Concentrate all your thought and energy upon the performance of your duties.”
57. “Teamwork appears most effective if each individual helps others to succeed.”
58. “And the law of competition may be sometimes hard for the individual but it’s best for the race because it ensures the survival of the fittest in every department.”
59.“I would as soon leave my son a curse as the almighty dollar.”
60. “Whatever I engage in, I must push inordinately.”
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61. “Do not look for approval except for the consciousness of doing your best.”
62. “The ‘good old times’ were not good old times. Neither master nor servant was as well situated then as to-day.”
63. “He that cannot reason is a fool, He that will not a bigot, He that dare not a slave.”
64. “If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.”
65. “The first man gets the oyster, the second man gets the shell.”
66. “All honor’s wounds are self-inflicted.”
67. “Speculation is a parasite feeding upon values, creating none.”
68. “I wish to have as my epitaph: Here lies a man who was wise enough to bring into his service men who knew more.”
69. “Young man, make your name worth something.”
70. “There is no class as pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else.”
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71. “The ‘morality of compromise’ sounds contradictory. Compromise is usually a sign of weakness, or an admission of defeat. Strong men don’t compromise, it is said, and principles should never be compromised.”
72. “You must capture and keep the heart of the original and supremely able man before his brain can do its best.”
73. “Air castles are often within our grasp late in life, but then they charm not.”
74. “No man can become rich without himself enriching others.”
75. “Of every thousand dollars spent in so called charity to-day, it is probable that $950 is unwisely spent; so spent, indeed as to produce the very evils which it proposes to mitigate or cure.”
76. “The experienced in affairs always rate the MAN whose services can be obtained as a partner as not only the first consideration but such as to render the question of his capital scarcely worth considering, for such men soon create capital; while, without the special talent required, capital soon takes wings.”
77. “No, your Majesty, I do not like kings, but I do like a man behind a king when I find him.”
78. “There are instances of millionaires’ sons unspoiled by wealth, who, being rich, still perform great services in the community. Such are the very salt of the earth, as valuable as, unfortunately, they are rare.”
79. “Every act you have ever performed since the day you were born was because you wanted something. Aim for the highest and when it’s a question of God’s almighty spirit. Never say I can’t.”
80. “Concentrate your energies, your thoughts, and your capital. The wise man puts all his eggs in one basket and watches the basket.”
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81. “Immense power is acquired by assuring yourself in your secret reveries that you were born to control affairs.”
82.“Concentrate your energy, your thoughts, and your capital.”
83. “Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community.”
84. “I believe that the true road to preeminent success in any line is to make yourself master of that line.”
85. “The men who have succeeded are men who have chosen one line and stuck to it.”
86. “The way to become rich is to put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.”
87. “Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!”
88. “My heart is in the work.”
89. “You cannot push anyone up a ladder unless he is willing to climb a little himself.”
90. “I did not understand steam machinery but I tried to understand much more complicated mechanism; – man.”
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91. “I began to learn what poverty meant. It was burnt in my heart then that my father had to beg for work and there came the resolve that I would cure that when I got to be a man.”
92. “I shall argue that strong men conversely know when to compromise and that all principles can be compromised to serve a greater purpose.”
93. “My motto is concentration. First honesty; then industry and then concentration.”
94. “True it is, we only hate those whom we do not know.”
95. “The secret of success lies not in doing your own work but in recognizing the best person to do it.”
96. “Watch the costs and the profits will take care of themselves.”
97. “I believe that the true road to per-eminent success in any line is to make yourself master of that line.”
98. “I would as soon leave my son a curse as the almighty dollar.”
99. “No amount of ability is of the slightest avail without honor.”
100. “Success can be attained in any branch of labor. There’s always room at the top in every pursuit.”