Charles M. Schwab Quotes

The difference between getting somewhere and nowhere is the courage to make an early start. The fellow who sits still and does just what he is told will never be told to do big things.

When a man has put a limit on what he will do, he has put a limit on what he can do.

A man who trims himself to suit everybody will soon whittle himself away.

Good morning! Remember: A person can succeed at almost anything for which they have unlimited enthusiasm.

When you go into your customary barber shop, you will wait for the man who gives you a little better shave, a little trimmer hair-cut. Business leaders are looking for the same things in their offices that you look for in the barber shop.

A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband, while a man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.

Lead the life that will make you kindly and friendly to everyone about you, and you will be surprised what a happy life you will lead.

A man to carry on a successful business must have imagination. He must see things in a vision, a dream of the whole thing.

In my wide association in life, meeting with many and great men in various parts of the world, I have yet to find the man, however great or exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than he would ever do under a spirit of criticism.

Don't be reluctant about putting on overalls!

Personality is to a man what perfume is to a flower.

Don't be afraid of imperilling your health by giving a few extra hours to the company that pays your salary!

All successful employers are stalking men who will do the unusual, men who think, men who attract attention by performing more than is expected of them.

In my own house I rigged up a laboratory and studied chemistry in the evenings, determined that there should be nothing in the manufacture of steel that I would not know. Although I had received no technical education I made myself master of chemistry and of the laboratory, which proved of lasting value.

Work hard. Hard work is the best investment a man can make.

I disagreed with Carnegie's ideas on how best to distribute his wealth. I spent mine!

You can tell a workingman you like him, but he knows whether you are sincere or not. You can't make him believe you are interested in his welfare unless you are.

Young men may enjoy dropping their work at five or six o'clock and slipping into a dress suit for an evening of pleasure; but the habit has certain drawbacks.

Be friends with everybody. When you have friends you will know there is somebody who will stand by you. You know the old saying, that if you have a single enemy you will find him everywhere. It doesn't pay to make enemies. Lead the life that will make you kindly and friendly to every one about you, and you will be surprised what a happy life you will live.

If more persons would get so enthused over their day's work that some one would have to remind them to go out to lunch there would be more happiness in the world and less indigestion.

American industry is spilling over with men who started life even with the leaders, with brains just as big, with hands quite as capable. And yet one man emerges from the mass, rises sheer about his fellows; and the rest remain.

You can never really get away - - you can only take yourself somewhere else.

The men who miss success have two general alibis: 'I'm not a genius' is one; and the other, 'There aren't the opportunities today there used to be'.

There's no limit possible to the expansion of each one of us.

The first essential in a boy's career is to find out what he's fitted for, what he's most capable of doing and doing with a relish.

Looking to the future I see in the further acceleration of science continuous jobs for our workers. Science will cure unemployment.

What we must seek is a plan by which the men will receive high wages when the employers are receiving high prices for the product.

I have probably purchased fifty 'hot tips' in my career, maybe even more. When I put them all together, I know I am a net loser.

Every one's got it in him, if he'll only make up his mind and stick at it. None of us is born with a stop-valve on his powers or with a set limit to his capacities, There's no limit possible to the expansion of each one of us.

Many of us think of salespeople as people travelling around with sample kits. Instead, we are all salesman, every day of our lives.

A factory can be closed down, its chimneys smokeless, waiting for the worker to come back to his job, and all will be peaceful. But the moment workers are imported, and the striker sees his own place usurped, there is bound to be trouble.

The captains of industry are not hunting money. America is heavy with it. They are seeking brains - specialized brains - and faithful, loyal service. Brains are needed to carry out the plans of those who furnish the capital.

I am not a believer in large salaries. I hold that every man should be paid for personal production. Our big men at Bethlehem seldom get salaries of over one hundred dollars a week; but all of them receive bonuses computed entirely on the efficiencies and the economies registered in their departments.

The man who counts his hours and kicks about his salary is a self-elected failure.

The man who attracts attention is the man who is thinking all the time, and expressing himself in little ways. It is not the man who tries to dazzle his employer by doing the theatrical, the spectacular.

If you must be a glutton, be a glutton for work.

I thought and dreamed of nothing else but the steel works.

One of the most successful men I have known never carried a watch until he began to earn ten thousand dollars a year.

Nothing is more fatal to success than taking one's job as a matter of course.

I have yet to hear an instance where misfortune hit a man because he worked overtime. I know lots of instances where it hit men who did not.

Keeping a little ahead of conditions is one of the secrets of business; the trailer seldom goes far.

It may be in seemingly unimportant things that a man expresses his passion for perfection, yet they will count heavily in the long run.

For my own part I am more interested in my work than its mere money value.

Most talk about 'super-geniuses' is nonsense. I have found that when 'stars' drop out, successors are usually at hand to fill their places, and the successors are merely men who have learned by application and self-discipline to get full production from an average, normal brain.

The real test of business greatness is in giving opportunity to others.

I have always felt that the surest way to qualify for the job just ahead is to work a little harder than any one else on the job one is holding down.

The man who has done his best has done everything. The man who has done less than his best has done nothing.

The man who fails to give fair service during the hours for which he is paid is dishonest. The man who is not willing to give more than this is foolish.

I am sure that few successful men are so-called 'natural geniuses.'

I didn't take up shorthand with any idea of becoming a professional at it. It merely appeared to me to be a good thing to know - something that might come in handy.