Just doing some rudimentary poking around past thoughts on business.
Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.
- Andy Warhol (1928–1987), U.S. pop artist. From A to B and Back Again, ch. 6 (1975).
This whole business of Trade gives me to pause and think, as it constitutes false relations between men; inasmuch as I am prone to count myself relieved of any responsibility to behave well and nobly to that person who I pay with money, whereas if I had not that commodity, I should be put on my good behavior in all companies, and man would be a benefactor to man, as being himself his only certificate that he had a right to those aids and services which each asked of the other.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher. Lecture, March 3, 1884, in Amory Hall, Boston, Massachusetts. “New England Reformers,” Essays, Second Series (1844).
Half the business is done, when one has gained the heart and the affections of those with whom one is to transact it.
- Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773), British statesman, man of letters. Letter, July 21, 1752
Perhaps nothing in all my business has helped me more than faith in my fellow man. From the very first I felt confident that I could trust the great, friendly public. So I told it quite simply what I thought, what I felt, what I was trying to do. And the response was quick, sure, and immediate.
- Alice Foote MacDougall (1867–1945), U.S. businesswoman. The Autobiography of a Business Woman, ch. 7 (1928).
In leaving the people's business in their hands, we can not be wrong.
- Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), U.S. president. Speech in the United States House of Representatives on the presidential question, July 27, 1848.