B. C. Forbes Quotes

I have known not a few men who, after reaching the summits of business success, found themselves miserable on attaining retirement age. They were so exclusively engrossed in their day-to-day affairs that they had no time for friend-making.... They may flatter themselves that their unrelaxing concentration on business constitutes patriotism of the highest order. They may tell themselves that the existing emergency will pass, and that they can then adopt different, more sociable, more friendly habits. [But] such a day is little likely to come for such individuals.

I don't need much more money, and I thought that when I retired that nobody would want to talk to me anymore. Then I did, and people still want to talk to me.

When I retired, I felt that I lived more in that year than I had the previous 27 years of my life.

That my business success is equal to my personal life.

There is no evidence that success in business will make us happy people or allow us to have happy families.

The quality of your life is determined by the quality of your relationships. The quality of your business is no different.

I do not believe a man can ever leave his business. He ought to think of it by day and dream of it by night.

Married couples who work together to build and maintain a business assume broad responsibilities. Not only is their work important to our local and national economies, but their success is central to the well-being of their families.

Business is about making money but it is also about having fun, so get your character across.

Networking has been cited as the number one unwritten rule of success in business. Who you know really impacts what you know.

I just started a business called HDNet. There never is one area that has a door open to everyone. Try to find an area with something you love to do and do it. It's a lot easier to work hard and prepare when you love what you are doing.

I think you have to keep going. Otherwise, you know these fellas that say, "Boy I can't wait to retire. Boy, I'm going to be 65 years old, and I'm retiring and I'm quitting and that's it." Well, two weeks later they're saying to themselves, "What the hell am I gonna do?" And first thing you know they find themselves in a wheelchair or in a rocking chair going back and forth, back and forth, and that's the end of it. And suddenly you're dead.

Nothing is more usual than the sight of old people who yearn for retirement: and nothing is so rare than those who have retired and do not regret it.

A lot of people when they retire, they just expire. It happens to men more than women. Women usually have great interest in the family, because the family's always growing and they're always coming to the rescue.

The happiest people I know are the ones that are still working. The saddest are the ones who are retired. Very few performers retire on their own. It's usually because no one wants them. Six years ago Sinatra announced his retirement. He's still working.

The rare, delicate flavor of a life after retiring in one's sixties, whatever one has "retired" from, the pleasure I experienced beyond my job at Columbia, is a gift of life in the last decades. but it is not easily learned. . . . But sometimes, the only way to live is to get out, or at least seriously to contemplate getting out, doing the impossible,flinging the conventional tea.

In this business, it is about making an impact.

When I lose my marbles which is never, when I lose my energy, I travel the world today for Viacom, China, Turkey, Dubai, Kuwait. When that happens, I'll know enough to retire, but that's never gonna happen. I'm here for forever.

In this business if you're good, you're right six times out of ten. You're never going to be right nine times out of ten.

Many companies have long contended that stress in the home causes productivity loss in the market place.. and it does. But research now reveals that stress on the job causes stress at home. In other words, they feed off each other

My first company was MicroSolutions. I worked 20 hours a day. I didn't take a vacation for 7 years. I didn't even take the time to read a fiction book. It was all about work. When I sold it, I promised myself I would never wear a watch and only wear a suit to weddings, funerals and to meet the President.

At retirement, switching from "I must" to "I want" leaves me puzzled and uneasy.

It [the internet] probably has the effect of weakening personal associations.

I have a life, I have a wife. I have an adult son who I'm very close to, and friends. I go hiking almost every day, four to six miles. In the summer, I'm out surfing or swimming. I think that real, human relationships with people mostly balance dark places in my work.

Successful companies create value by providing products or services their customers value more highly than available alternatives. They do this while consuming fewer resources, leaving more resources available to satisfy other needs in society. Value creation involves making people's lives better. It is contributing to prosperity in society.