Bernard Baruch Quotations

Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why.

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.

We did not all come over on the same ship, but we are all in the same boat.

Old books that have ceased to be of service should no more be abandoned than should old friends who have ceased to give pleasure.

There is something about inside information which seems to paralyse a man's reasoning powers.

Don't try to buy at the bottom and sell at the top. It can't be done except by liars.

Most of the successful people I've known are the ones who do more listening than talking.

Only as you do know yourself can your brain serve you as a sharp and efficient tool. Know your own failings, passions, and prejudices so you can separate them from what you see.

To me - old age is always ten years older than I am.

One of the secrets of a long and fruitful life is to forgive everybody everything everynight before you go to bed.

Vote for the man who promises least; he'll be the least disappointing.

Two things are bad for the heart - running up stairs and running down people.

The main purpose of the stock market is to make fools of as many men as possible.

If the history of the past fifty years teaches us anything, it is that peace does not follow disarmament - disarmament follows peace.

Do not blame anybody for your mistakes and failures.

Let us not deceive ourselves; we must elect world peace or world destruction.

Let us not be deceived we are today in the midst of a cold war.

Every man has a right to his opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.

I made my money by selling too soon.

Age is only a number, a cipher for the records. A man can't retire his experience. He must use it. Experience achieves more with less energy and time.

During my eighty-seven years I have witnessed a whole succession of technological revolutions. But none of them has done away with the need for character in the individual or the ability to think.

We can't cross that bridge until we come to it, but I always like to lay down a pontoon ahead of time.

To me, old age is always fifteen years older than I am.

The art of living lies not in eliminating but in growing with troubles.

If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

There are no such things as incurable, there are only things for which man has not found a cure.

We grow neither better or worse as we get old, but more like ourselves.

A speculator is a man who observes the future, and acts before it occurs.

When good news about the market hits the front page of the New York Times, sell.

Whatever failures I have known, whatever errors I have committed, whatever follies I have witnessed in private and public life have been the consequence of action without thought.

The greatest blessing of our democracy is freedom. But in the last analysis, our only freedom is the freedom to discipline ourselves.

Never pay the slightest attention to what a company president ever says about his stock.

No man should think himself a zero, and think he can do nothing about the state of the world.

The ability to express an idea is well nigh as important as the idea itself.

Unless each man produces more than he receives, increases his output, there will be less for him than all the others.

You can overcome anything if you don't bellyache.

If a speculator is correct half of the time, he is hitting a good average. Even being right 3 or 4 times out of 10 should yield a person a fortune if he has the sense to cut his losses quickly on the ventures where he is wrong.

If you get all the facts, your judgment can be right; if you don't get all the facts, it can't be right.

Always do one thing less than you think you can do.

I never lost money by turning a profit.

In the last analysis, our only freedom is the freedom to discipline ourselves.

You can talk about capitalism and communism and all that sort of thing, but the important thing is the struggle everybody is engaged in to get better living conditions, and they are not interested too much in government.

A political leader must keep looking over his shoulder all the time to see if the boys are still there. If they arent still there, hes no longer a political leader.

Gold has worked down from Alexander's time... When something holds good for two thousand years I do not believe it can be so because of prejudice or mistaken theory.

We are living in a highly organized state of socialism. The state is all; the individual is of importance only as he contributes to the welfare of the state. His property is only his as the state does not need it. He must hold his life and his possessions at the call of the state.

Nothing did more to spur the boom in stocks than the decision made by the New York Federal Reserve bank, in the spring of 1927, to cut the rediscount rate. Benjamin Strong, Governor of the bank, was chief advocate of this unwise measure, which was taken largely at the behest of Montagu Norman of the Bank of England....At the time of the Banks action I warned of its consequences....I felt that sooner or later the market had to break.

Government is not a substitute for people, but simply the instrument through which they act. And if the individual fails to do his duty as a citizen, government becomes a very deadly instrument indeed.

A man can't retire his experience.

Recipe for success: Be polite, prepare yourself for whatever you are asked to do, keep yourself tidy, be cheerful, don't be envious, be honest with yourself so you will be honest with others, be helpful, interest yourself in your job, don't pity yourself, be quick to praise, be loyal to your friends, avoid prejudices, be independent, interest yourself in politics, and read the newspapers.

I am interested in physical medicine because my father was. I am interested in medical research because I believe in it. I am interested in arthritis because I have it.

A man sentenced to death obtained a reprieve by assuring the king he would teach his majesty's horse to fly within the year - on the condition that if he didn't succeed, he would be put to death at the end of the year. "Within a year," the man explained later, "the king may die, or I may die, or the horse may die. Furthermore, in a year, who knows? Maybe the horse will learn to fly." My philosophy is like that man's. I take the long-range view.

I have known men who could see through the motivations of others with the skill of a clairvoyant; only to prove blind to their own mistakes. I have been one of those men.

I was the son of an immigrant. I experienced bigotry, intolerance and prejudice, even as so many of you have. Instead of allowing these thing to embitter me, I took them as spurs to more strenuous effort. .

When the outlook is steeped in pessimism, I remind myself, "Two and two still make four, and you can't keep humankind down for long."

Financial storm definitely passed.

Only liars manage to always be out during bad times and in during good times.

If you have made a mistake cut your losses as quickly as possible.

America has never forgotten - and will never forget - the nobler things that brought her into being and that light her path - the path that was entered upon only one hundred and fifty years ago. . . . How young she is! It will be centuries before she will adopt that maturity of custom - the clothing of the grave - that some people believe she is already fitted for.

Nobody ever lost money taking a profit

No man can humiliate me or disturb me. I won't let him.

I get the facts, I study them patiently, I apply imagination.

Science has taught us how to put the atom to work. But to make it work for good instead of for evil lies in the domain dealing with the principles of human duty. We are now facing a problem more of ethics than physics.

Never answer a critic, unless he's right.

The terror created by weaponry has never stopped men from employing them.

So efficient are the available instruments of slavery; fingerprints, lie detectors, brain washings, gas chambers; that we shiver at the thought of political change which might put these instruments in the hands of men of hate.

Although the shooting war is over, we are in the midst of a cold war which is getting warmer.

Society can progress if men's labors show a profit - if they yield more than is put in. To produce at a loss must leave less for all to share.

I'll give you the bottom 10% and the top 10% of any move if I get to keep the middle 80%.

America has never forgotten - and never will forget - the nobler things that brought her into being and that light her path.

Chance sometimes opens the door, but luck belongs to the good players.

Most of the successful people I know mostly listen, not talk.

Information cannot serve as an effective substitute for thinking.

Buy straw hats in the wintertime. Summer will surely come.

Our problem in money-making or government affairs is how to remain properly venturesome and experimental without making fools of ourselves.

Colleges don't teach economics properly. Unfortunately we learn little from the experience of the past. An economist must know, besides his subject, ethics, logic, philosophy, the humanities and sociology, in fact everything that is part of how we live and react to one another.

The essence of any plan for financing old age is saving-to put aside some part of today's earnings for the future. Anything that saps the value of savings-and inflation is the worst single threat-is the enemy of the aged and of those who expect to grow old.

Whatever men attempt, they seem driven to overdo. When hopes are soaring, I always repeat to myself that two and two still make four.

We are here today to make a choice between the quick and the dead.

Now is always the hardest time to invest.

Never play tips from "insiders." They can't see the forest for the trees.

Be quick to praise people. People like to praise those who praise them.

Become more humble as the market goes your way.

The longer I operated on Wall Street the more distrustful I became of tips and inside information of every kind. Given time, I believe that inside information can break the Bank of England

It is far more difficult... to know when to sell a stock than when to buy.

You can't repeal human nature by an Act of Congress.

When beggars and shoeshine boys, barbers and beauticians can tell you how to get rich it is time to remind yourself that there is no more dangerous illusion than the belief that one can get something for nothing.

I have learned the truth of the observation that the more one approaches great men the more one finds that they are men.

Agriculture is the greatest and fundamentally the most important of our industries. The cities are but the branches of the tree of national life, the roots of which go deeply into the land. We all flourish or decline with the farmer.

Don't speculate unless you can make it a full time job.

A dangerous fallacy is to repudiate freedom in favor of an unknown future. What else but our own sturdy reliance on freedom can explain the unexampled record this country has made? In a period scarcely twice my own lifetime it has risen from nothingness to become the world's greatest power. It has become the ark of the covenant of freedom.

Peace is never long preserved by weight of metal or by an armament race. Peace can be made tranquil and secure only by understanding and agreement fortified by sanctions. We must embrace international cooperation or international disintegration. Science has taught us how to put the atom to work. But to make it work for good instead of for evil lies in the domain dealing with the principles of human dignity. We are now facing a problem more of ethics than of physics.

Learn to take losses quickly and cleanly. There is something about inside information which seems to paralyze a man's reasoning powers. Beware of barbers, beauticians, waiters - or anyone - bringing gifts of 'inside' information or tips. Don't try to be a jack of all investment. Stick to the field you know best.

Bears don't live on Park Avenue.

Behind the black portent of the new atomic age lies a hope which, seized upon with faith, can work out salvation. . . . Let us not deceive ourselves: we must elect world peace or world destruction.

All economic movements, by their very nature, are motivated by crowd psychology.

None of us can be free of conflict and woe. Even the greatest men have had to accept disappointments as their daily bread. ... The art of living lies less in eliminating our troubles than in growing with them.

Approach each new problem not with a view of finding what you hope will be there, but to get the truth, the realities that must be grappled with. You may not like what you find. In that case you are entitled to try to change it. But do not deceive yourself as to what you do find to be the facts of the situation.

Increased wages, higher pensions, more unemployment insurance, all are of no avail if the purchasing power of money falls faster.

There are no such things as incurables. There are only things for which man has not found a cure.

Even when we know what is right, too often we fail to act. More often we grab greedily for the day, letting tomorrow bring what it will, putting off the unpleasant and unpopular.