Anita Roddick Business Quotations

Nobody talks of entrepreneurship as survival, but that's exactly what it is and what nurtures creative thinking.

If I had learned more about business ahead of time, I would have been shaped into believing that it was only about finances and quality management.

Business is not financial science, it's about trading.. buying and selling. It's about creating a product or service so good that people will pay for it.

I run my company according to feminine principles, principles of caring, making intuitive decisions, not getting hung up on hierarchy or all those dreadfully boring business-school management ideas; having a sense of work as being part of your life, not separate from it; putting your labor where your love is; being responsible to the world in how you use your profits; recognizing the bottom line should stay at the bottom.

A great advantage I had when I started The Body Shop was that I had never been to business school.

What we are trying to do is to create a new business paradigm, simply showing that business can have a human face and a social conscience.

I think it is completely immoral for a shop to trade in the middle of a community, to take money and make profits from that community and then ignore the existence of that community, its needs and problems.

Why should how I act in my workplace be any different from how I interact with my family at home? It's making sure the company runs on feminine principles where the major ethic is care.

I don't think I'm a risk-taker. I don't think any entrepreneur is. I think that's one of those myths of commerce. The new entrepreneur is more values-led: you do what looks risky to other people because that's what your convictions tell you to do. Other companies would say I'm taking risks, but that's my path - it doesn't feel like risk to me.

I don't want our success to be measured only by financial yardsticks, or by our distribution or number of shops. What I want to be celebrated for - and it's going to be tough in a business environment - is how good we are to our employees and how we benefit our community. It's a different bottom line.

if companies are in business solely to make money, no consumer can fully trust what they do or say.

If you pretend that business is beyond morality, that's the kind of morality you get.

If civilization is going to survive, business and policy-makers must move on, to find within themselves more developed emotions than fear or greed.

My argument is: keep the bloody bottom line at the bottom. That's where it should be.

If there is excitement in their lives, it is contained in the figures on the profit and loss sheet. What an indictment.

business itself is now the most powerful force for change in the world today, richer and faster by far than most governments. And what is it doing with this power? It is using free trade, the most powerful weapon at its disposal, to tighten its grip on the globe.

If trade undermines life, narrows it or impoverishes it, then it can destroy the world. If it enhances life, then it can better the world.

I am aware that success is more than a good idea. It is timing too.

A vision is something you see and others don't. Some people would say that's a pocket definition of lunacy. But it also defines entrepreneurial spirit.

Running a company on market research is like driving while looking in the rear-view mirror.

For me, campaigning and good business is also about putting forward solutions, not just opposing destructive practices or human rights abuses.

Be daring. Be first. Be different.