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.
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.
My own idea is that if the men hold any meetings or attempt to form any organization, we should be prepared to be fully informed of all that goes on and unhesitatingly discharge any men connected with this movement. In this way, our peace will be secure for a long time, and it will be easily done if taken at the start.
There is nothing a worker resents more than to see some man taking his job. 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.
When I first went to work... I had over me an impetuous, hustling man. It was necessary for me to be up to the top notch to give satisfaction. I worked faster than I otherwise would have done, and to him I attribute the impetus that I acquired.
I became interested, through reading the works of some novelist, in Egyptology and made a study of the pyramids. It was just a hobby, but I had a desire to know all I could about everything I could.
Here I am, a not over-good business man, a second-rate engineer. I can make poor mechanical drawings. I play the piano after a fashion. In fact, I am one of those proverbial Jack-of-all-trades who are usually failures. Why I am not, I can't tell you.
I disagreed with Carnegie's ideas on how to best to distribute his wealth. I spent mine! Spending creates more wealth for everybody.
Bare hands grip success better than kid gloves. Be thorough in all things, no matter how small or distasteful! The man who counts his hours and kicks about his salary is a self-elected failure.
Many men fail because they do not see the importance of being kind and courteous to the men under them. Kindness to everybody always pays for itself. And, besides, it is a pleasure to be kind.
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.
I was once asked if a big business man ever reached his objective. I replied that if a man ever reached his objective he was not a big business man.
There's no limit possible to the expansion of each one of us.
The Bethlehem profit-sharing system is based on my belief that every man should get exactly what he makes himself worth. This is the only plan I know of which is equally fair to the employers and every class of employee. Someday, I hope, all labor troubles will be solved by such a system.
A man will succeed in anything about which he has real enthusiasm, in which he is genuinely interested, provided that he will take more thought about his job than the men working with him. The fellow who sits still and does what he is told will never be told to do big things.
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.
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.
I will not be in the position of having management dictated to by labor.
To my mind, the best investment a young man starting out in business can possibly make is to give all his time, all his energies, to work - just plain, hard work.
As the train rounded the curve, the great smoking stacks of the Edgar Thomson works, the flaming converters belching forth, made such a vivid impression upon my youthful mind that it will never fade. I thought I had seen the very acme of what might be accomplished in an industrial way.
