Business

 

 

When the Master (Confucius) was unoccupied with business, his manner was easy, and he looked pleased.

‘If men do not keep on speaking terms with children, they cease to be men, and become merely machines for eating and for earning money.’
John Updike  

‘A person’s treatment of money is the most decisive test of his character, how they make it and how they spend it.’
James Moffat

‘Don’t forget until too late that the business of life is not business, but living.’ 
B C Forbes

‘The worst disease which can afflict executives in their work is not, as popularly supposed, alcoholism; it’s egotism.’
Harold S Geneen

‘We treat our people like royalty. If you honor and serve the people who work for you, they will honor and serve you.’
Mary Kay Ash

‘There seem to be but three ways for a nation to acquire wealth. The first is by war, as the Romans did, in plundering their conquered neighbours. This is robbery. The second by commerce, which is generally cheating. The third by agriculture, the only honest way, wherein man receives a real increase of the seed thrown into the ground, in a kind of continual miracle, wrought by the hand of God in his favour, as a reward for his innocent life and his virtuous industry.’
Benjamin Franklin

HOMELESS

“He used to be an advocate.”

“Escaped the rate race,”

They say.

On the snow covered sidewalk,

Sitting cross legged

On a piece of cardboard,

With a kindly smile

On his stubbly face.

Homeless Old Joe

Swathed

In a tattered brown blanket,

Striped woollen hat pulled low

Onto grey shaggy eyebrows.

Alert Intelligent blue eyes

Watch the street.

Policeman’s ally,

Photographic mind

Recording the beat of the world.

“Spare us something to eat, If you please, mister,”

His voice unbeaten.

The loaf broken into three,

Shared with his dog,

And the beggar across the street.

A deserted ally,

Concrete mattress

A brazier at night,

Not a care in the world

Until tomorrow,

Old Joe – He became a nice man. 

Graham Vivian Lancaster

“Ha, Ha” Said the Clown
Jumped up out of their depth
From somewhere poorly comfortable

Money powered judgemental masters,
Mastered by greed and arrogance
Of inferior superiority
Anticipating endless salad days,
Mortally wounded by their own
Poison arrows boomeranged
On changing winds;
With defeated refugee eyes
Early aged worry beaten faces,
How the mighty have fallen,
Misplaced poor cousins
Amongst auspicious occasion
Respectful suits and finery,
In an embarrassment
Of autumn season clothes
Barely with the cow shit
Washed from between their toes.
Graham Vivian Lancaster 

‘Profitability doesn’t happen when you’re walking on bullshit.’
Jerry Martin

‘If you steal something small you are a petty thief, but if you steal millions you are a gentleman of society.’
Greek Proverb

‘Confidence on the outside begins by living with integrity on the inside.’
Brian Tracy

‘Corporations cannot commit treason, or be outlawed or excommunicated, for they have no souls.’
Sir Edward Coke

‘The selfish spirit of commerce knows no country and feels no passion or principle but that of gain.’
Thomas Jefferson

 The worst disease which can afflict executives in their work is not, as popularly supposed, alcoholism; it’s egotism.’
Harold S Geneen

‘While authorities and businesses are investigating various methods of sustainability, they’d do well to ponder on the un-sustainability of corruption.’
Linda Smith

‘If you want to be incrementally better: Be competitive. If you want to be exponentially better: Be cooperative.’
Unknown

‘What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?’
Bible.Mark 8:36-37

‘The person who does not know how to live while they are making a living is a poorer person after their wealth is won than when they started.’
Josiah Gilbert Holland

‘Goodwill is the one and only asset that competition cannot undersell or destroy.’
Marshall Field

‘It seems as if the golden rule has changed to ‘do unto others what it takes to get their gold.’
Alan Christoffersen’s diary

‘If you love your customer to death, you can’t go wrong.’
Graham Day

‘The man who does not work for the love of work but only for money is not likely to make money nor find much fun in life.’
Charles M. Schwab

‘Caring is a powerful business advantage.’
Scott Johnson

‘Wealth is not in making money, but in making the man while he is making money.’
John Wicker

‘Integrity is the essence of everything successful.’
R Buckminster-Fuller

‘There is no investment you can make which will pay you so well as the effort to scatter sunshine and good cheer through your establishment.’ Marden Orison Swett

‘Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business, is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things.’
Stevenson, Robert Louis

‘Corporation – ‘An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.’
Ambrose Bierce

‘The reality is if we are going to continue running things where there is a positive return to investors but a negative return to the whole, then there are no solutions. However, if we are going to make our decisions based on what has the highest total economic return to the whole, then suddenly we are going to see wealth creation at a level that those of my generation cannot even begin to fathom.’
Catherine Austin Fitts – whistle blower
Former Assistant Secretary of Housing under George H.W. Bush

I once worked for a man with angry curling lips,
who to the mammon gods his soul he sold.
With greedy itchy palms and unrestrainable tongue,
business at any price was his demand.
Volcanic in temperament he shouted the odds,
to drown the exposing voice of truth.
In his quest of insatiable greed,
he cared not who he compromised.
From the comfort of his pig trough he grunted and snorted,
and wallowed in the mess that he created.
His staff, like hyenas ripping at a carcass, he did like to see,
each frantic for a chunk of bloodied spoils.
Growling at one another they lost their possibility,
to be the best they could be.
Linda Smith

‘The fame of great men ought to be judged always by the means they used to acquire it.’
Francois De La Rochefoucauld

‘To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle.’
Henry David Thoreau

‘Slaves lose everything in their chains, even the desire of escaping from them.’
Jean Jacques Rousseau

‘A man without a smiling face must not open a shop.’
Chinese Proverb

‘Exercise caution in your business affairs for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.’
Desiderata. (Desiderata – desired things) Max Ehrmann

‘Your profession is not what brings home your pay cheque. Your profession is what you were put on Earth to do with such passion and such intensity that it becomes spiritual in calling.’
Vincent Van Gogh

‘Don’t associate with people you can’t trust.
Don’t cheat. Don’t lie. Don’t pretend.
Don’t dictate because you are smarter.
Don’t demand because you are stronger.’
The Purpose Driven Life. Nick Warren.

‘The problem with the rat race is that, even if you win, you’re still a rat.’
Lily Tomlin

‘A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider on our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favour by serving him. He is doing us a favour by giving us an opportunity to do so.’
Mahatma Gandhi

‘Not the sweet smell of flowers, not even the fragrance of jasmine, blows against the wind. But the fragrance of virtuous people pervades all directions through the fragrance of their virtue.’
Buddha

‘The best, like water,
Benefit all and do not compete. …
They find themselves in the foremost place …
In their words, they love truth.
In their world, they love peace.
In personal affairs, they love what is right. …
It is because they do not compete with others
That they are beyond the reproach of the world.’
The Best. Lao Tzu

‘Example is not the main thing in influencing others, it is the only thing.’
Albert Schweitzer

‘When soul has no value, business has no soul.’
D.H. Lawrence

‘I venture to say no war can be long carried on against the will of the people’. 
Edmund Burke

‘For what are your possessions, but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?
And tomorrow, what shall tomorrow bring to the over-prudent dog burying bones in the trackless sand.’
The Prophet. Kahlil Gibran

‘We are poor in spirit, because, especially recently, mankind has concentrated too much on the materialistic side of life.’
Zulu Shaman. Dr Credo Mutwa

‘Do not allow Earthly wealth to take away your humanity. Do not allow riches to corrupt you.’ Dr Credo Mutwa

‘But the life that the rich man spends in heaping up gold is in truth the life of the worms in the ground. It is a sign of fear.’
The Voice of the Master. Kahlil Gibran

‘The rich man has cast off his Divinity, and has clung to his gold.’
Voice of the Master. Kahlil Gibran

In 1854, the ‘Great White Chief’ in Washington made an offer for a large area of Indian land, and in return promised a ‘reservation’ for the Suqamish Indian tribe.
‘How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us.
If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?
Every part of the Earth is sacred to our people… holy in the memory and experience of my people…
We know the white man does not understand our ways… for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The Earth is not his brother, but his enemy and when he has conquered it he moves on.
…He kidnaps the Earth from his children, and he does not care.
…His appetite will devour the Earth and leave behind only a desert. …If the beasts are gone, man would die from a great loneliness of the spirit. For whatever befalls the Earth, befalls the children of the Earth.’
Chief Seattle

The rich industrialist from the North was horrified to find the southern fisherman lying beside his boat and strumming a guitar. “Why aren’t you out fishing?” asked the industrialist. “Because I have caught enough fish for the day” replied the fisherman. “Why don’t you catch some more fish?” pursued the northerner. “What would I do with them?” asked the fisherman. “You could earn more” was the industrialist’s reply. “With that you could have a motor fixed to your boat, and go into deeper waters and catch more fish. Then you would make enough to buy nylon nets. These would bring you more fish and more money. Soon you would have enough to own two boats … maybe even a fleet of boats. Then you would be a rich man like me.” “What would I do then?” enquired the fisherman. “Then you could really enjoy life” asserted the industrialist. Retorted the fisherman: “What do you think I am doing right now?”

Warning to the rich
Now listen you rich people, weep and wail because for the miseries that are coming upon you.
Your wealth has rotted and your garments are moth eaten.
Your gold and silver are corroded and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire.
You have hoarded wealth in your last days.
Look the wages of the labourers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Almighty.
You have lived on the Earth in pleasure and luxury and self-indulgence.
You have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter.
Your have condemned and murdered innocent men, who were not opposing you.
The Bible. James 5