Looking for inspirational John D. Rockefeller quotes?
Born John Davison Rockefeller on July 8, 1839 in Richford, New York, John. D. Rockefeller was an American industrialist, entrepreneur, and CEO. When he was 14, his family moved from New York to Cleveland, Ohio, and as a teenager, he began several small-business ventures.
He landed his first real job at 16, where he was an assistant bookkeeper at Hewitt & Tuttle. By the time he was 20, he left the job to venture out on his own with a business partner. He worked as a commission merchant in hay, grains, meat, and other goods. By the end of his first year in business, Rockefeller’s company had grossed $450,000.
By the 1860s, the careful Rockefeller sensed opportunity in the oil business and decided to establish an oil refinery near Cleveland, which opened in 1863. Two years later, his Cleveland refinery was the largest in the area, and it was then he chose to turn his full attention to the oil business. Standard Oil was extremely successful – so much so that it controlled the majority of Cleveland area refineries.
Rockefeller used the size of the refinery to make favorable deals to gain control over almost every aspect of the business. In just over a decade since Standard Oil was incorporated, it had a near total oil business monopoly, with Rockefeller being the overseer of everything.
However, antitrust issues came along and in 1911 Standard Oil was forced to completely dissolve. Rockefeller retired at age 56 and spent his time with charitable endeavors before his death on May 23, 1937. His son, John Jr., would continue his philanthropy.
John D. Rockefeller is inspirational because he never stopped working hard for what he wanted, but he also used the wealth he accrued to help others who needed it more than he did.
John D. Rockefeller Quotes on Wealth and Education
1. Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great. – John D. Rockefeller
2. If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success. – John D. Rockefeller
3. I believe that thrift is essential to well-ordered living. – John D. Rockefeller
4. Don’t blame the marketing department. The buck stops with the chief executive. – John D. Rockefeller
5. The impression was gaining ground with me that it was a good thing to let the money be my slave and not make myself a slave to money. – John D. Rockefeller
John D Rockefeller Quotes on Wealth
6. I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature. – John D. Rockefeller
7. It is wrong to assume that men of immense wealth are always happy. – John D. Rockefeller
8. I know of nothing more despicable and pathetic than a man who devotes all the hours of the waking day to the making of money for money’s sake. – John D. Rockefeller
9. I believe in the supreme worth of the individual and in his right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. – John D. Rockefeller
10. I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty. – John D. Rockefeller
11. Singleness of purpose is one of the chief essentials for success in life, no matter what may be one’s aim – John D. Rockefeller
John D Rockefeller Quotes on Education
12. Charity is injurious unless it helps the recipient to become independent of it. – John D. Rockefeller
13. I always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity. – John D. Rockefeller
14. I had no ambition to make a fortune. Mere money-making has never been my goal, I had an ambition to build. – John D. Rockefeller
15. The person who starts out simply with the idea of getting rich won’t succeed; you must have a larger ambition. There is no mystery in business success. If you do each day’s task successfully, and stay faithfully within these natural operations of commercial laws which I talk so much about, and keep your head clear, you will come out all right. – John D. Rockefeller
16. Every right implies a responsibility; Every opportunity, an obligation, Every possession, a duty. – John D. Rockefeller
17. I would rather earn 1% off a 100 people’s efforts than 100% of my own efforts. – John D. Rockefeller
18. If your only goal is to become rich, you will never achieve it. – John D. Rockefeller
19. A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds. – John D. Rockefeller
20. A man’s wealth must be determined by the relation of his desires and expenditures to his income. If he feels rich on ten dollars, and has everything else he desires, he really is rich. – John D. Rockefeller
21. Do not many of us who fail to achieve big things … fail because we lack concentration — the art of concentrating the mind on the thing to be done at the proper time and to the exclusion of everything else? – John D. Rockefeller
John D. Rockefeller Quotes on Money
22. Do you know what would hurt grandfather a great deal? To know that any of you boys should become wasteful, extravagant, careless with his money. – John D. Rockefeller
23. God gave me my money. – John D. Rockefeller
24. I can think of nothing less pleasurable than a life devoted to pleasure. – John D. Rockefeller
25. Good management consists in showing average people how to do the work of superior people. – John D. Rockefeller
26. A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship. – John D. Rockefeller
27. Competition is a sin. – John D. Rockefeller
28. I can think of nothing less pleasurable than a life devoted to pleasure – John D. Rockefeller
29. The most important thing for a young man is to establish credit – a reputation and character.” – John D. Rockefeller
30. The way to make money is to buy when blood is running in the streets – John D. Rockefeller
31. The only question with wealth is, what do you do with it?” – John D. Rockefeller
32. The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee and I will pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun. – John D. Rockefeller
33. I believe that the power to make money is a gift from God. – John D. Rockefeller
John D. Rockefeller Quotes to broaden your thoughts
34. Next to doing the right thing, the most important thing is to let people know you are doing the right thing. – John D. Rockefeller
35. When work goes out of style we may expect to see civilization totter and fall. – John D. Rockefeller
36. We are never too old to study the bible. Each time the lessons are studied comes some new meaning, some new thought which will make us better. – John D. Rockefeller
37. There is nothing in this world that can compare with the Christian fellowship; Nothing that can satisfy but Christ. – John D. Rockefeller
38. I have ways of making money that you know nothing of. – John D. Rockefeller
39. After it is all over, the religion of man is his most important possession. – John D. Rockefeller
40. The success of each is dependent upon the success of the other. – John D. Rockefeller
41. Think of giving not as a duty but as a privilege. – John D. Rockefeller
42. I believe that love is the greatest thing in the world; that it alone can and will triumph over might – John D. Rockefeller
43. I believe in the sacredness of a promise, that a man’s word should be as good as his bond; that character — not wealth or power or position — is of supreme worth.” – John D. Rockefeller
44. The American Beauty Rose can be produced in the splendor and fragrance which bring cheer to its beholder only by sacrificing the early buds which grow up around it. This is not an evil tendency in business. It is merely the working-out of a law of nature and a law of God. – John D. Rockefeller
45. If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success. – John D. Rockefeller
John D. Rockefeller Quotes about success and life
46. “Success comes from keeping the ears open and the mouth closed” – John D. Rockefeller
47. “The secret to success is to do the common things uncommonly well.”― John D. Rockefeller
48. “Go as far as you can see; when you get there, you’ll be able to see farther.”― John D. Rockefeller
49. “It is very important to remember what other people tell you, not so much what you yourself already know.”― John D. Rockefeller
50. “A man has no right to occupy another man’s time unnecessarily”― John D. Rockefeller
51. “Own nothing, control everything.” – John D. Rockefeller
52. “The road to happiness lies in two simple principles; find what it is that interests you and that you can do well, and when you find it put your whole soul into it every bit of energy and ambition and natural ability you have.” – John D. Rockefeller
53. “I believe in the dignity of labor, whether with head or hand; that the world owes no man a living, but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living.” – John D. Rockefeller
54. “Good leadership consists of showing average people how to do work of superior people.” – John D. Rockefeller
55. “Our cup will truly run over only after we have sealed the character cracks.” – John D. Rockefeller
John D Rockefeller Quotes to inspire and teach
56. “It is one thing to stand on the comfortable ground of placid inaction and put forth words of cynical wisdom, and another to plunge into the work itself and through strenuous experience earn the right to express strong conclusions.”― John D. Rockefeller
57. “I do not think there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.”― John D. Rockefeller
58. “The major fortunes in America have been made in land.” – John D. Rockefeller
59. “Nobody does anything if he can get anybody else to do it.”― John D. Rockefeller
60. “How much money does it take to make a man happy? Just one more dollar.” – John D. Rockefeller
61. “The only thing which is of lasting benefit to a man is that which he does for himself. Money which comes to him without effort on his part is seldom a benefit and often a curse.” – John D. Rockefeller
62. “The common denominator for success is work.” – John D. Rockefeller
63. “I believe that it is my duty to make money and use it for the benefit of my neighbors. This is what my conscience tells me.” – John D. Rockefeller
64. “I would rather hire a man with enthusiasm, than a man who knows everything.”― John D. Rockefeller
65. “He who works all day has no time to make money.” – John D. Rockefeller
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