Selected Quotes by Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie- (November 25, 1835 – August 11, 1919) was an American industrialist and philanthropist. He led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century. He also became one of the richest Americans in history.
He also became a leading philanthropist in the United States, Great Britain, and the British Empire. He gave away around $350 million which is about $5.9 billion in 2022 and represents about 90% of his fortune, during the last 18 years of his life. He gave to charities, foundations and universities. His 1889 article proclaiming "The Gospel of Wealth", called on the rich to use their wealth to improve society, expressed support for progressive taxation and an estate tax, and to stimulate a wave of philanthropy.
He was born in Dunfermline, Scotland. In 1848 at the age of 12, he emigrated to Pittsburgh, United States together with his parents. He worked as a telegrapher but by the 1860s had investments already in railroads, railroad sleeping cars, bridges, and oil derricks. He further accumulated wealth as a bond salesman, raising money for American enterprise in Europe.
He built Pittsburgh's Carnegie Steel Company, which he later sold to J. P. Morgan in 1901 for $303,450,000, which is equal to $10,674,157,200 in today’s money. This formed the basis of the U.S. Steel Corporation. After selling Carnegie Steel, he surpassed John D. Rockefeller as the richest American for the next several years.
Carnegie devoted the remainder of his life to large-scale philanthropy. He specialized on building local libraries, education, scientific research and world peace. He funded the Carnegie Hall in New York City, the Peace Palace in The Hague, founded the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Carnegie Institution for Science, Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, Carnegie Hero Fund, Carnegie Mellon University, and the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, among others.
(Source: Wikipedia)
Selected Quotes by Andrew Carnegie:
“There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration.”
Andrew Carnegie, Intelligence/Wisdom
“A library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people. It is a never failing spring in the desert.”
Andrew Carnegie, Intelligence/Wisdom
“Let there be light."
― Andrew Carnegie, Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie, Goals
“Do not look for approval except for the consciousness of doing your best.”
Andrew Carnegie, Goals
“Do real and permanent good in this world.”
Andrew Carnegie, Goals
“As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.”
Andrew Carnegie, Goals
“If the newspapers begin to publish stories about wars, and the people begin to think and talk of war in their daily conversations, they soon find themselves at war. People get that which their minds dwell upon, and this applies to a group or community or a nation of people, the same as to an individual.”
Andrew Carnegie, Goals, Society
“We cannot afford to lose the Negro. We have urgent need of all and more. Let us therefore turn our efforts to making the best of him.”
Andrew Carnegie, Goals, Society
“To summarize what I have said: Aim for the highest; never enter a bar-room; do not touch liquor, or if at all only at meals; never speculate; never indorse beyond your surplus cash fund; make the firm’s interest yours; break orders always to save owners; concentrate; put all your eggs in one basket, and watch that basket; expenditure always within revenue; lastly, be not impatient, for, as Emerson says, “no one can cheat you out of ultimate success but yourselves.” I congratulate poor young men upon being born to that ancient and honourable degree which renders it necessary that they should devote themselves to hard work. A basketful of bonds is the heaviest basket a young man ever had to carry. He generally gets to staggering under it. We have in this city creditable instances of such young men, who have pressed to the front rank of our best and most useful citizens. These deserve great credit. But the vast majority of the sons of rich men are unable to resist the temptations to which wealth subjects them, and sink to unworthy lives. I would almost as soon leave a young man a curse, as burden him with the almighty dollar. It is not from this class you have rivalry to fear. The partner’s sons will not trouble you much, but look out that some boys poorer, much poorer than yourselves, whose parents cannot afford to give them the advantages of a course in this institute, advantages which should give you a decided lead in the race–look out that such boys do not challenge you at the post and pass you at the grand stand. Look out for the boy who has to plunge into work direct from the common school and who begins by sweeping out the office. He is the probable dark horse that you had better watch.”
― Andrew Carnegie, The Road To Business Success
Andrew Carnegie, Goals, Society
“It is now thirteen years since I ceased to accumulate wealth and began to distribute it. I could never have succeeded in either had I stopped with having enough to retire upon, but nothing to retire to.”
― Andrew Carnegie, The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie and The Gospel of Wealth
Andrew Carnegie, Goals, Wealth
“This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of wealth: To set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent on him; and, after doing so, to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer, and strictly bound as a matter of duty to administer in the manner which, in his judgement, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community--the man of wealth thus becoming the mere trustee and agent for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience, and ability to administer, doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves.”
Andrew Carnegie, Goals, Wealth
“Man does not live by bread alone. I have known millionaires starving for lack of the nutriment which alone can sustain all that is human in man, and I know workmen, and many so-called poor men, who revel in luxuries beyond the power of those millionaires to reach. It is the mind that makes the body rich. There is no class so pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else. Money can only be the useful drudge of things immeasurably higher than itself. Exalted beyond this, as it sometimes is, it remains Caliban still and still plays the beast. My aspirations take a higher flight. Mine be it to have contributed to the enlightenment and the joys of the mind, to the things of the spirit, to all that tends to bring into the lives of the toilers of Pittsburgh sweetness and light. I hold this the noblest possible use of wealth.”
Andrew Carnegie, Goals, Wealth
“Humanity is an organism, inherently rejecting all that is deleterious, that is, wrong, and absorbing after trial what is beneficial, that is, right. If so disposed, the Architect of the Universe, we must assume, might have made the world and man perfect, free from evil and from pain, as angels in heaven are thought to be; but although this was not done, man has been given the power of advancement rather than of retrogression. The Old and New Testaments remain, like other sacred writings of other lands, of value as records of the past and for such good lessons as they inculcate. Like the ancient writers of the Bible our thoughts should rest upon this life and our duties here. "To perform the duties of this world well, troubling not about another, is the prime wisdom," says Confucius, great sage and teacher. The next world and its duties we shall consider when we are placed in it.”
― Andrew Carnegie, The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie and the Gospel of Wealth
Andrew Carnegie, Goals, Belief
“East or West Home is best.”
― Andrew Carnegie, Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie, Life
“The first man gets the oyster, the second man gets the shell.”
Andrew Carnegie, Life
“If we truly care for others we need not be anxious about their feelings for us. Like draws to like.”
― Andrew Carnegie, The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie and The Gospel of Wealth
Andrew Carnegie, Life
“Among the conditions of life or the laws of Nature, some of which seem to us faulty, some apparently unjust and merciless, there are many that amaze us by their beauty and sweetness. Love of home, regardless of its character or location, certainly is one of these.”
― Andrew Carnegie, The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie and The Gospel of Wealth
Andrew Carnegie, Life
“Air castles are often within our grasp late in life, but then they charm not.”
― Andrew Carnegie, Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie, Life
“All honor's wounds are self-inflicted.”
Andrew Carnegie, Life
“I am as a speck of dust in the sun, and not even so much, in this solemn, mysterious, unknowable universe.”
Andrew Carnegie, Life
“And while the law of competition may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race because it ensures the survival of the fittest in every department.”
Andrew Carnegie, Life
“Pittsburgh entered the core of my heart when I was a boy and cannot be torn out.”
Andrew Carnegie, Life
“Do your duty and a little more and the future will take care of itself.”
Andrew Carnegie, Life
“You cannot push anyone up a ladder unless he is willing to climb a little.”
Andrew Carnegie, Life
“Perhaps the most tragic thing about mankind is that we are all dreaming about some magical garden over the horizon, instead of enjoying the roses that are right outside today.”
Andrew Carnegie, Life
“He that cannot reason is a fool. He that will not is a bigot. He that dare not is a slave.”
Andrew Carnegie, Life
“It marks a big step in your development when you come to realize that other people can help you do a better job than you could do alone.”
Andrew Carnegie, Life
“All human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes.”
Andrew Carnegie, Life
“A man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else to which he is justly entitled.”
Andrew Carnegie, Life
“People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.”
Andrew Carnegie, Life
“That best portion of a good man's life— His little, nameless, unremembered acts Of kindness and of love.”
― Andrew Carnegie, Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie, Life, Love, Kindness
“If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.”
Andrew Carnegie, Happiness
“There is little success where there is little laughter.”
Andrew Carnegie, Happiness, Success
“Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.”
Andrew Carnegie, Happiness, Success
“Boulton sold the estate which had come to him by his wife, and the greater part of his father's property, and mortgaged the remainder. It is evident that the great captain had taken in hand far too many enterprises. Probably he had not heard the new doctrine: "Put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.”
― Andrew Carnegie, James Watt
Andrew Carnegie, Wealth
“Certainly the man who makes his own wealth eclipses those who inherit rank from others.”
― Andrew Carnegie, The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie and The Gospel of Wealth
Andrew Carnegie, Wealth
“Ninety percent of all millionaires become so through owing real estate.”
― Andrew carnegie, Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie, Wealth
“Put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.”
Andrew Carnegie, Wealth
“No man becomes rich unless he enriches others.”
Andrew Carnegie, Wealth
“The man who dies rich, dies disgraced.”
Andrew Carnegie, Wealth, Death
“I believe that higher wages to men who respect their employers and are happy and contented are a good investment, yielding, indeed, big dividends.”
― Andrew Carnegie, The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie and The Gospel of Wealth
Andrew Carnegie, Management
“No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or to get all the credit for doing it.”
Andrew Carnegie, Management
“Here lies one who knew how to get around him men who were cleverer than himself.”
Andrew Carnegie, Management
“TEAMWORK: the fuel that allows common people attain uncommon results.”
Andrew Carnegie, Management
“Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.”
Andrew Carnegie, Management
“When fate hands us a lemon, let's try to make lemonade.”
Andrew Carnegie, Opportunities
“The result of my journey was to bring a certain mental peace. Where there had been chaos there was now order. My mind was at rest. I had a philosophy at last. The words of Christ "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you," had a new meaning for me. Not in the past or in the future, but now and here is Heaven within us. All our duties lie in this world and in the present, and trying impatiently to peer into that which lies beyond is as vain as fruitless.”
― Andrew Carnegie, The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie, Belief
“Not only had I got rid of the theology and the supernatural, but I had found the truth of evolution.”
― Andrew Carnegie, The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie, Belief, Truth
“I don't believe in God. My God is patriotism. Teach a man to be a good citizen and you have solved the problem of life.”
Andrew Carnegie, Belief, Problems, Life
“Nothing man has discovered or imagined is to be named with the steam engine. It has no fellow. Franklin capturing the lightning, Morse annihilating space with the telegraph, Bell transmitting speech through the air by the telephone, are not less mysterious—being more ethereal, perhaps in one sense they are even more so—still, the labor of the world performed by heating cold water places Watt and his steam engine in a class apart by itself.”
― Andrew Carnegie, James Watt
Andrew Carnegie, Technology
“This is where the children of honest poverty have the most precious of all advantages over those of wealth. The mother, nurse, cook, governess, teacher, saint, all in one; the father, exemplar, guide, counselor, and friend! Thus were my brother and I brought up. What has the child of millionaire or nobleman that counts compared to such a heritage?”
― Andrew Carnegie, Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie