William Feather Quotes:

Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn't stop to enjoy it.

Topics: Life, Happiness, Happy, Just Be Happy, You Make Me Happy

If you're naturally kind, you attract a lot of people you don't like.

Topics: People, Kind, People In Your Life, Attractiveness, Mean People

If we do not discipline ourselves the world will do it for us.

Topics: Discipline, World, Daily Discipline, Discipline And Self Control

Here is the secret of inspiration: Tell yourself that thousands and tens of thousands of people, not very intelligent and certainly no more intelligent than the rest of us, have mastered problems as difficult as those that now baffle you.

source: - William Feather (1949). “The Business of Life”

Topics: Positive, Inspiration, Intelligent

Almost any idea is good if a man has ability and is willing to work hard. The best idea is worthless if the creator is a loafer and ineffective.

Topics: Hard Work, Men, Ideas, Loafers

Improvement of one's economic position is helped more by cool persistence than by hot enthusiasm.

Topics: Persistence, Enthusiasm, Hot

Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.

Topics: Inspirational, Positive, Success, Best Success, Perserverance

Some of us might find happiness if we quit struggling so desperately for it.

Topics: Happiness, Struggle, Inner Peace

One way to get the most out of life is to look upon it as an adventure.

Topics: Life, Happiness, Adventure, Live Life To Its Fullest, Live To The Fullest

Once you have sold a customer, make sure he is satisfied with your goods. Stay with him until the goods are used up or worn out. Your product may be of such long life that you will never sell him again, but he will sell you and your product to his friends.

Topics: Life, Long, May, Worn Out

No man is a failure who is enjoying life.

Topics: Positive, Fun, Inspirational Life, Failure In Life, Overcoming Failure

A good man likes a hard boss. I don't mean a nagging boss or a grouchy boss. I mean a boss who insists on things being done right and on time; a boss who is watching things closely enough so that he knows a good job from a poor one. Nothing is more discouraging to a good man than a boss who is not on the job, and who does not know whether things are going well or badly.

Topics: Leadership, Jobs, Mean, Grouchy

A man must not deny his manifest abilities, for that is to evade his obligations.

Topics: Men, Deny, Ability

When ordering lunch, the big executives are just as indecisive as the rest of us.

Topics: Lunch, Indecisive, Culinary

A budget tells us what we can't afford, but it doesn't keep us from buying it.

Topics: Money, Business, Buying, Budgeting, Financial Success

Early morning cheerfulness can be extremely obnoxious.

Topics: Good Morning, Sarcastic, Sarcasm, Funny Good Morning, Morning And Night

Conditions are never just right. People who delay action until all factors are favourable do nothing.

source: - William Feather (1949). “The Business of Life”

Topics: Self Confidence, People, Delay

BUSINESS and LIFE are like a bank account-you can't take out more than you put in.

Topics: Bank Accounts, Accounts

One of the funny things about the stock market is that every time one person buys, another sells, and both think they are astute.

Topics: Funny, Thinking, Finance, Astute

Concentrate on your job and you will forget your other troubles.

Topics: Jobs, Work, Forget

Wealth flows from energy and ideas.

Topics: Money, Ideas, Flow, Abundance And Prosperity

Finishing a good book is like leaving a good friend.

Topics: Book, Good Friend, Leaving, Finishing A Book, Reading Good Books

Most of us regard good luck as our right, and bad luck as a betrayal of that right.

Topics: Betrayal, Good Luck, Luck

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages is preserved into perpetuity by a nation's proverbs, fables, folk sayings and quotations.

Topics: Wise, Age, Fables

Make a better friend of every man with whom you come in contact

Topics: Inspiration, Men, Contact

If you do the best you can, you will find, nine times out of ten, that you have done as well as or better than anyone else.

Topics: Gymnastics, Nine, Done

The happiest people are those who are too busy to notice whether they are or not.

Topics: People, Busy, Too Busy

The petty economies of the rich are just as amazing as the silly extravagances of the poor.

Topics: Silly, Extravagance, Wealth

Brains aren't everything, but they're important.

Topics: Intelligence, Brain, Important

Business demands faith, compels earnestness, requires courage, is honestly selfish, is penalized for mistakes, and is the essence of life.

Topics: Mistake, Selfish, Essence, Essence Of Life

One right and honest definition of business is mutual helpfulness.

Topics: Teamwork, Definitions, Honest

The right man can make a good job out of any job.

Topics: Jobs, Work, Men

Getting along with others is the essence of getting ahead, success being linked with cooperation.

Topics: Essence, Cooperation, Getting Along, Linked

Blow your own horn loud. If you succeed, people will forgive your noise; if you fail, they'll forget it.

Topics: Blow, People, Forgiving

Experience and enthusiasm are two fine business attributes seldom found in one individual.

Topics: Two, Enthusiasm, Individual

We all find time to do what we really want to do.

Topics: Wisdom, Want

A peculiarity of capital is that it cannot be employed productively without benefiting the community in which it is used.

Topics: Money, Community, Used

Deliver me from all evildoers that talk nothing but sickness and failure. Grant me the companionship of men who think success and men who work for it. Loan me associates who cheerfully face the problems of a day and try hard to overcome them. Relieve me of all cynics and critics. Give me good health and the strength to be of real service to the world, and I'll get all that's good for me, and will what's left to those who want it.

Topics: Real, Men, Thinking

Few of us get anything without working for it.

Work is the best method devised for killing time.

Topics: Work, Killing, Time To Kill

Business is always interfering with pleasure - but it makes other pleasures possible.

Topics: Pleasure, Interfere

A determination to succeed is the only way to succeed that I know anything about.

Topics: Perseverance, Determination, Way, Determination To Succeed

Know and believe in yourself and what others think won't disturb you.

Topics: Believe, Thinking, Believe In Yourself

Politeness is an inexpensive way to make friends.

Topics: Friendship, Way, Inexpensive

The reward of energy, enterprise and thrift is taxes.

Topics: Money, Rewards, Energy

That they may have a little peace, even the best dogs are compelled to snarl occasionally.

Topics: Dog, Littles, May

The best sermon is preached by the minister who has a sermon to preach and not by the man who has to preach a sermon.

Topics: Men, Ministers, Sermons

Temporary success can be achieved in spite of lack of other fundamental qualities, but no advancements can be maintained without hard work.

Topics: Hard Work, Quality, Fundamentals

The philosophy behind much advertising is based on the old observation that every man is really two men - the man he is and the man he wants to be.

Topics: Wise, Witty, Philosophy, Advertisement Negative, Advertising And Marketing

The big things that come our way are ... the fruit of seeds planted in the daily routine of our work.

Topics: Time, Routine, Way, Daily Routines

In education it isn't how much you have committed to memory or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't. It's knowing where to go to find out what you need to know and it's knowing how to use the information you get.

Topics: Memories, Learning, Knowing

Some people are making such thorough preparation for rainy days that they aren't enjoying today's sunshine.

Topics: Positive, Rain, Learning, Enjoy Today, Raining Day

Setting a good example for your children takes all the fun out of middle age.

Topics: Mom, Mother, Children, Inspirational Motherhood, Inspirational Mothers

An invitation to a wedding invokes more trouble than a summons to a police court.

Topics: Wedding, Police, Trouble

Beware of the person who can't be bothered by details.

Topics: Details, Bothered, Persons

Something that has always puzzled me all my life is why, when I am in special need of help, the good deed is usually done by somebody on whom I have no claim.

Topics: Life, Thank You, Appreciation, Special Needs, Thank You For Helping Me

Don't let ambition get so far ahead that it loses sight of the job at hand.

Topics: Jobs, Ambition, Hands, My Ambition

No task is so humble that it does not offer an outlet for individuality.

Topics: Humble, Individuality, Doe

Books open your mind, broaden your mind, and strengthen you as nothing else can.

Topics: Book, Healing, Mind, Old Books, Opening Your Mind

We all know that the nation can't divide more than the people produce, but as individuals we try to get more than our share and that's how we get ahead.

Topics: People, Trying, Individual

Education is knowing where to go to find out what you need to know; and its knowing how to use the information you get.

Topics: Teaching, Learning, Knowing

Always remember that there is a law of compensation which operates just as infallibly as gravitation, and that victory goes at last where it ought to, and that this is just as true of individuals as of nations.

Topics: Law, Victory, Wages, Gravitation

The wise man seeks little joys, knowing that life is long and that his quota of great joys is distinctly limited.

Topics: Wise, Men, Knowing

Mistakes occur when a man is over-worked or over-confident.

Topics: Mistake, Men, Over Confident

Problems always appear big when incompetent men are working on them.

Topics: Men, Problem, Bigs, Incompetent

If you don't take it for granted that the other man will do his job, you're not an executive.

Topics: Jobs, Men, Granted

Command of English, spoken or written, ranks at the top in business. Our main product is words, so a knowledge of their meaning and spelling and pronunciation is imperative. If a man knows the language well, he can find out about all else.

Topics: Men, Language, Spelling, Pronunciation

In business, as in baseball, the prizes go most often to the organizations that pursue their objective hard and relentlessly every day of the year.

Topics: Baseball, Years, Organization, Days Of The Year

None of us can buy goodwill; we must earn it.

Topics: Goodwill

Only the man who can impose discipline on himself is fit to discipline others or can impose discipline on others.

Topics: Men, Discipline, Fit

Management is the art of getting three men to do three men's work

Topics: Art, Men, Three

When a woman wears a low-cut gown, what does she expect you to do: look or not look?

Topics: Cutting, Looks, Doe

Everybody knows how to utter a complaint, but few can express a graceful compliment.

Topics: Compliment, Complaints

Pure and simple, any person who is enjoying life is a success,

Topics: Simple, Enjoy Life, Life Is

The only thrill worthwhile is the one that comes from making something out of yourself.

Topics: Thrill, Worthwhile

Successful salesmen, authors, executives and workmen of every sort need patience. The great liability of youth is not inexperience but impatience.

Topics: Successful, Needs, Inexperience, Liability

In many lines of wok, it isn't how much you do that counts, but how much you do well and how often you decide right.

Topics: Lines, Wells

The primary asset of any business is its organization.

Topics: Organization, Assets

Before it can be solved, a problem must be clearly defined.

Topics: Problem

The hardest job of all is trying to look busy when you're not.

Topics: Jobs, Work, Trying, Hardest Job

I have won every argument I ever had with myself.

Topics: Argument

A hotel isn't like a home, but it's better than being a house guest.

Topics: Home, House, Guests, House Guests

Few women are dumb enough to listen to reason.

Topics: Dumb, Enough, Reason

Change, not habit, is what gets most of us down; habit is the stabilizer of human society, change accounts for its progress.

Topics: Change, Progress, Habit

Avoid letting temper block progress-keep cool.

Topics: Block, Progress, Temper

Whether it's marriage of business, patience is the first rule of success.

Topics: Patience, Firsts

It's not the increasing competition; it's going back to real work that most of us complain about.

Topics: Real, Work, Competition, Real Work

Too many of us vote for our prejudices instead of our desires.

Topics: Desire, Prejudice, Vote

It is better to rely on yourself than on your friends.

Topics: Self, Rely On Yourself, Rely

The sweaty players in the game of life always have more fun than the supercilious spectators.

Topics: Motivational, Fun, Player, Supercilious

All the vitamins needed seem to be found in plebian dishes.

Topics: Vitamins, Culinary, Dishes

The rule for every worthwhile man is that no serious job ever shall receive less than his best thought and effort.

Topics: Jobs, Work, Men

Men do their hardest work at the bottom of the ladder, not at the top.

Topics: Work, Men, Ladders

Most persons who indulge in second thought don't do much thinking when the subject is presented for first thought.

Topics: Thinking, Firsts, Second Thoughts

Nothing will ruin an interesting intelligent argument more quickly than the arrival of a pretty girl.

Topics: Girl, Sex, Intelligent

Let us resolve to do the best we can with what we've got.

Topics: Deeds, Resolve, Good Success, Personal Success, Formula For Success

Indifference and inaction must always pay a penalty.

Topics: Pay, Indifference, Penalties, Inactivity

I get quiet joy from the observation of anyone who does his job well.

Topics: Jobs, Joy, Doe

A baseball game is twice as much fun if you're seeing it on the company's time.

Topics: Baseball, Fun, Games, Fun Work

A woman seldom comes out of a sullen spell until she's sure her husband has suffered as much as she thinks he should.

Topics: Marriage, Husband, Thinking, Sullen

Success is seldom achieved by people who contemplate the possibility of failure

Topics: People, Possibility, Contemplating

He isn't a real boss until he has trained subordinates to shoulder most of his responsibilities.

Topics: Real, Responsibility, Boss, Real Boss, Subordinates

Of all the young men in America only a few hundred can get into major league baseball, and of these only a handful in a decade can get into the Hall of Fame. So it goes in all human activity. .. Some become multimillionaires and chairmen of the board, and some of us must be content to play baseball at company picnics or manage a credit union without pay.

Topics: Baseball, Acceptance, Men, Major League Baseball, Credit Unions

Loneliness is something you can't walk away from.

Topics: Loneliness, Walks

It must be terrible to have to live among people and not like human nature.

Topics: People, Human Nature, Terrible

Control from without flourishes when discipline from within grows weak.

Topics: Discipline, Weak, Grows

If people really liked to work, we'd still be plowing the land with sticks and transporting goods on our backs.

Topics: Work, Land, People, Plowing

Women lie about their age; men lie about their income.

source: - William Feather (1949). “The Business of Life”

Topics: Women, Lying, Age, Women Lie

The prizes go to those who meet emergencies successfully. And the way to meet emergencies is to do each daily task the best we can; to act as though the eye of opportunity were always upon us. In the hundred-yard race the winner doesn't cross the tape line a dozen strides ahead of the field. He wins by inches. So we find it in ordinary business life. The big things that come our way are seldom the result of long thought or careful planning, but rather they are the fruit of seed planted in the daily routine of our work.

Topics: Life, Eye, Winning, Business Life, Big Things

We always admire the other person more after we've tried to do his job.

Topics: Appreciation, Jobs, History

Back of ninety-nine out of one-hundred assertions that a thing cannot be done is nothing, but the unwillingness to do it.

Topics: Risk, Done, Nine

The determination of life insurance salesmen to succeed has made life pretty soft for widows.

Topics: Determination, Widows, Succeed

Experience seems to be the only thing of any value that's widely distributed.

Topics: Experience, Values

Any man who makes a speech more than six times a year is bound to repeat himself, not because he has little to say, but because he wants applause and the old stuff gets it.

Topics: Men, Years, Speech, Old Stuff

The tragedy is that so many have ambition and so few have ability

Topics: Ambition, Tragedy, Ability

When lying, be emphatic and indignant, thus behaving like your children.

Topics: Children, Lying, Moral, Indignant

The prizes go to those who meet emergencies successfully. And the way to meet emergencies is to do each daily task the best we can.

Topics: Way, Emergencies, Tasks

A man of fifty looks as old as Santa Claus to a girl of twenty.

Topics: Girl, Men, Looks

Do each daily task the best we can; act as though the eye of opportunity were always upon us.

Topics: Eye, Opportunity, Tasks

Not a tenth of us who are in business are doing as well as we could if we merely followed the principles that were known to our grandfathers.

Topics: Grandparent, Grandfather, Principles

Success in business hinges mostly on the ability to get the important things done.

Topics: Business Success, Important, Done

Everybody loves to find fault, it gives a feeling of superiority.

Topics: Giving, Feelings, Faults

Laziness is the one common deficiency in mankind that blocks the establishment of a perfect world in which everyone leads a happy life.

Topics: Block, Happy Life, Perfect

Many of our prayers were not answered, and for this we are now grateful.

Topics: Prayer, Grateful, Our Prayers, Prayers Not Being Answered, Answers To Prayer

Giving advice isn't as risky as people say. Few ever take it anyway.

Topics: Giving, People, Advice, Giving Advice

We don't need men with new ideas as much as we need men who will put energy behind the old ideas.

Topics: Men, Ideas, Energy, Old Ideas

Most of us expect too much from others and not enough from ourselves.

Topics: Too Much, Enough

Nothing happens to you that has not happened to someone else.

Topics: Happened, Happens, Things Happen

An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't. It's knowing where to go to find out what you need to know, and it's knowing how to use the information once you get it.

source: - "Telephony", Volume 150, 1956.

Topics: Education, Memories, Teaching, Inspirational Educational, What Is Education

The way to get ahead is to start now.

source: - William Feather (1949). “The Business of Life”

Topics: Motivational, Way, Get Ahead

The superiority of the American system is eloquently proved by the pressure of people who want to crash our borders.

Topics: People, Borders, Want

If at first you don't succeed, try hard work.

Topics: Success, Perseverance, Hard Work, Try Again, Spanish And English

One of the indictments of civilizations is that happiness and intelligence are so rarely found in the same person.

Topics: Happiness, Civilization, Inner Peace, Intelligence Community, Self Happiness

After saying our prayers, we ought to do something to make them come true.

Topics: Christian, Prayer, Religion

Next to doing a good job yourself, the greatest joy is having someone else do a first class job under your direction.

source: - William Feather (1949). “The Business of Life”

Topics: Leadership, Jobs, Class

One compensation of old age is that it excuses you from picnics.

Topics: Birthday, Excuse You, Age, Funny Old Birthday

An idea isn't worth much until a man is found who has the energy and ability to make it work.

source: - William Feather (1949). “The Business of Life”

Topics: Men, Ideas, Energy

Unnecessary hustle is one of the American follies. We hustle at both work and play, and consequently enjoy neither to the utmost.

Topics: Play, Hustle, Action, Work And Play

Every social injustice is not only cruel, but it is economic waste.

Topics: Mean People, Waste, Injustice, Social Injustice

If we conducted ourselves as sensibly in good times as we do in hard times, we could all acquire a competence.

Topics: Hard Times, Discipline, Good Times

Success makes us intolerant of failure and failure makes us intolerant of success.

source: - William Feather (1949). “The Business of Life”

In ability choice education finance majorities people understanding voting A lot of voters always cast their ballot for the candidate who seems to them to be one of the people. That means he must have the same superstitions, the same unbalanced prejudices, and the same lack of understanding of public finances that are characteristic of the majority. A better choice would be a candidate who has a closer understanding and a better education than the majority. Too much voting is based on affability rather than on ability.

Topics: Education, Mean, People, Candidates

If a man can make typewriters better than anyone else, let us, in the name of common sense, keep him on the job of making typewriters.

Topics: Jobs, Men, Typewriters

To make yourself understood you have to think plain and write plain.

Topics: Writing, Thinking, Simplicity

An uncontrolled sense of humor is often costly in business.

Topics: Humor, Sense Of Humor

Flattery must be pretty thick before anybody objects to it.

source: - William Feather (1949). “The Business of Life”

Topics: Flattery, Objects, Thick

Achievement is by all accounts to a great extent a matter of clinging after others have given up.

Topics: Achievement, Matter, Given

Some men never master anything other than the details of a job. Others master the main idea back of the job.

Topics: Jobs, Men, Ideas

[on education] It's knowing where to go to find out what you need to know, and it's knowing how to use the information once you get it.

source: - "Telephony", Volume 150, 1956.

Topics: Education, Teaching, Learning, Inspirational Education, Inspirational Educational

He that succeeds makes an important thing of the immediate task.

Topics: Success, Important, Tasks

Next to a sincere compliment, I think I like a well-deserved and honest rebuke.

Topics: Thinking, Next, Honest, Rebuke