Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to his Son (Illustrated)

by George Horace Lorimer

You’ll find that education’s about the only thing lying around loose in this world, and that it’s about the only thing a fellow can have as much of as he’s willing to haul away. Everything else is screwed down tight and the screw-driver lost.

The first thing that any education ought to give a man is character, and the second thing is education.

When a boy’s had a good mother he’s got a good conscience, and when he’s got a good conscience he don’t need to have right and wrong labeled for him.

You bet it pays. Anything that trains a boy to think and to think quick pays; anything that teaches a boy to get the answer before the other fellow gets through biting the pencil, pays.

it isn’t so much knowing a whole lot, as knowing a little and how to use it that counts.

The sooner you adjust your spending to what your earning capacity will be, the easier they will find it to live together.

Some men learn all they know from books; others from life; both kinds are narrow. The first are all theory; the second are all practice. It’s the fellow who knows enough about practice to test his theories for blow-holes that gives the world a shove ahead, and finds a fair margin of profit in shoving it.

There’s no easier way to cure foolishness than to give a man leave to be foolish.

I want to say right here that the easiest way in the world to make enemies is to hire friends.

marrying the wrong girl is the one mistake that you’ve got to live with all your life.

There’s nothing in the world sicker-looking than the grin of the man who’s trying to join in heartily when the laugh’s on him, and to pretend that he likes it.

A real salesman is one-part talk and nine-parts judgment; and he uses the nine-parts of judgment to tell when to use the one-part of talk.

Poverty never spoils a good man, but prosperity often does. It’s easy to stand hard times, because that’s the only thing you can do, but in good times the fool-killer has to do night work.

Easy-come money never draws interest; easy-borrowed dollars pay usury.

enthusiasm is the best shortening for any job; it makes heavy work light.

setting a good example is just a small part of a manager’s duties. It’s not enough to settle yourself firm on the box seat—you must have every man under you hitched up right and well in hand. You can’t work individuals by general rules. Every man is a special case and needs a special pill.

Consider carefully before you say a hard word to a man, but never let a chance to say a good one go by. Praise judiciously bestowed is money invested.

in keeping track of others and their faults it’s very, very important that you shouldn’t lose sight of your own.

The way to think of a thing in business is to think of it first, and the way to get a share of the trade is to go for all of it.

A manager needs an assistant to take trouble from him, not to bring it to him.

A man’s as good as he makes himself, but no man’s any good because his grandfather was.