Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Business
Nation of shopkeepers.
Attributed to Samuel Adams—Oration, said to have been delivered at Philadelphia State House, Aug. 1, 1776. Printed in Phil., reprinted for E. Johnson, 4 Ludgate Hill, London. (1776). According to W. V. Wells—Life of Adams: “No such American edition has ever been seen, but at least four copies are known of the London issue. A German translation of this oration was printed in 1778, perhaps at Berne; the place of publication is not given.”
Talk of nothing but business, and dispatch that business quickly.
On a placard placed by Aldus on the door of his printing office. See Dibdin—Introduction. Vol. I. P. 436.
Business tomorrow.
Founded on the words of Archias of Thebes.
Come home to men’s business and bosoms.
Bacon—Essays. Dedication of edition 9. To the Duke of Buckingham. Also in Ed. 1668.
The soul’s Rialto hath its merchandise,
I barter curl for curl upon that mart.
E. B. Browning—Sonnets from the Portuguese. XIX.
Business dispatched is business well done, but business hurried is business ill done.
Bulwer-Lytton—Caxtoniana. Essay XXVI. Readers and Writer.
When we speak of the commerce with our colonies, fiction lags after truth, invention is unfruitful, and imagination cold and barren.
Burke—Speech on the Conciliation of America.
In matters of commerce the fault of the Dutch
Is offering too little and asking too much.
The French are with equal advantage content—
So we clap on Dutch bottoms just 20 per cent.
George Canning’s dispatch to Sir Charles Bagot, Jan. 31, 1826. See Notes and Queries, Oct. 4, 1902. P. 270. Claimed for Marvell in London Morning Post, May 25, 1904. “In making of treaties the fault of the Dutch, / Is giving too little and asking too much.”—Given as a verbatim copy of the dispatch.
Keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee. Light gains make heavy purses. ’Tis good to be merry and wise.
George Chapman—Eastward Ho. Act I. Sc. 1. (Written by Chapman, Jonson and Marston.)
Despatch is the soul of business.
Chesterfield—Letters. Feb. 5, 1750.
You foolish man, you don’t even know your own foolish business.
Chesterfield to John Anstis, the Garter King of Arms. Attributed to him in Jesse’s Memories of the Courts of the Stuarts—Nassau and Hanover.
This business will never hold water.
Colley Cibber—She Wou’d and She Wou’d Not. Act IV.
They (corporations) cannot commit treason, nor be outlawed, nor excommunicated, for they have no souls.
Coke—Reports. Vol. V. The Case of Sutton’s Hospital. Campbell—Lives of the Lords Chancellors.
A business with an income at its heels.
Cowper—Retirement. L. 614.
Swear, fool, or starve; for the dilemma’s even;
A tradesman thou! and hope to go to heaven?
Dryden—Persius. Sat. V. L. 204.
The greatest meliorator of the world is selfish, huckstering trade.
Emerson—Work and Days.
In every age and clime we see,
Two of a trade can ne’er agree.
Gay—Fables. Rat-Catcher and Cats. L. 43.
A manufacturing district***sends out, as it were, suckers into all its neighborhood.
Hallam—View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages. Ch. IX.
Lord Stafford mines for coal and salt,
The Duke of Norfolk deals in malt,
The Douglas in red herrings.
Fitz-Greene Halleck—Alnwick Castle.
They [corporations] feel neither shame, remorse, gratitude, nor goodwill.
Hazlitt—Table Talks, Essay XXVII.
Those that are above business.
Mathew Henry—Commentaries. Matthew XX.
Ill ware is never cheap.
Herbert—Jacula Prudentum.
Pleasing ware is half sold.
Herbert—Jacula Prudentum.
The potter is at enmity with the potter.
Hesiod—Works and Days.
Mr. Howel Walsh, in a corporation case tried at the Tralee assizes, observed that a corporation cannot blush. It was a body, it was true; had certainly a head—a new one every year—an annual acquisition of intelligence in every new lord mayor. Arms he supposed it had, and very long ones too, for it could reach at anything. Legs, of course, when it made such long strides. A throat to swallow the rights of the community, and a stomach to digest them. But who ever yet discovered, in the anatomy of any corporation, either bowels or a heart?
Hone. In his Table-Book.
Quod medicorum est
Promittunt medici, tractant fabrilia fabri.
Physicians attend to the business of physicians, and workmen handle the tools of workmen.
Horace—Epistles. II. 1. 115.
Sed tamen amoto quæramus seria ludo.
Setting raillery aside, let us attend to serious matters.
Horace—Satires. I. 1. 27.
Aliena negotia curo,
Excussus propriis.
I attend to the business of other people, having lost my own.
Horace—Satires. II. 3. 19.
Whose merchants are princes.
Isaiah. XXIII. 8.
Trade’s proud empire hastes to swift decay.
Samuel Johnson—Line added to Goldsmith’s Deserted Village.
The sign brings customers.
La Fontaine—Fables. The Fortune Tellers. Bk. VII. Fable 15.
Business today consists in persuading crowds.
Gerald Stanley Lee—Crowds. Bk. II. Ch. V.
It is never the machines that are dead.
It is only the mechanically-minded men that are dead.
Gerald Stanley Lee—Crowds. Pt. II. Ch. V.
Machinery is the subconscious mind of the world.
Gerald Stanley Lee—Crowds. Pt. II. Ch. VIII.
A man’s success in business today turns upon his power of getting people to believe he has something that they want.
Gerald Stanley Lee—Crowds. Bk. II. Ch. IX.
Consilia callida et audacia prima specie læta, tractatu dura, eventu tristia sunt.
Hasty and adventurous schemes are at first view flattering, in execution difficult, and in the issue disastrous.
Livy—Annales. XXXV. 32.
There is no better ballast for keeping the mind steady on its keel, and saving it from all risk of crankiness, than business.
Lowell—Among My Books. New England Two Centuries Ago.
Everybody’s business is nobody’s business.
Macaulay—Essay on Hallam’s Constit. Hist. Quoted as an old maxim.
As touching corporations, that they were invisible, immortal and that they had no soul, therefor no supœna lieth against them, because they have no conscience or soul.
Sir Roger Manwood, Chief Baron of the Exchequer. (1592). See Dictionary of National Biography.
You silly old fool, you don’t even know the alphabet of your own silly old business.
Attributed to Judge Maule.
A blind bargain.
Merrie Tales of the Madmen of Gottam. (1630). No. 13.
Curse on the man who business first designed,
And by’t enthralled a freeborn lover’s mind!
Oldham—Complaining of Absence. 11.
Negotii sibi qui volet vim parare,
Navem et mulierem, hæc duo comparato.
Nam nullæ magis res duæ plus negotii
Habent, forte si occeperis exornare.
Neque unquam satis hæ duæ res ornantur,
Neque eis ulla ornandi satis satietas est.
Who wishes to give himself an abundance of business let him equip these two things, a ship and a woman. For no two things involve more business, if you have begun to fit them out. Nor are these two things ever sufficiently adorned, nor is any excess of adornment enough for them.
Plautus—Pœnulus. I. 2. 1.
Non enim potest quæstus consistere, si eum sumptus superat.
There can be no profit, if the outlay exceeds it.
Plautus—Pœnulus. I. 2. 74.
Nam mala emptio semper ingrata est, eo naxime, quod exprobrare stultitiam domino idetur.
For a dear bargain is always annoying, particularly on this account, that it is a reflection on the judgment of the buyer.
Pliny the Younger—Epistles. I. 24.
The merchant, to secure his treasure,
Conveys it in a borrow’d name.
Prior—Ode. The Merchant, to Secure his Treasure.
We demand that big business give people a square deal; in return we must insist that when any one engaged in big business honestly endeavors to do right, he shall himself be given a square deal.
Roosevelt. Written when Mr. Taft’s administration brought suit to dissolve the Steel Trust.
To business that we love we rise betime,
And go to ’t with delight.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act IV. Sc. 4. L. 20.
I’ll give thrice so much land
To any well-deserving friend;
But in the way of bargain, mark ye me,
I’ll cavil on the ninth part of a hair.
Henry IV. Pt. I. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 137.
Bad is the trade that must play fool to sorrow.
King Lear. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 40.
To things of sale a seller’s praise belongs.
Love’s Labour’s Lost. Act IV. Sc. 3. L. 240.
Losses,
That have of late so huddled on his back,
Enow to press a royal merchant down
And pluck commiseration of his state
From brassy bosoms and rough hearts of flint.
Merchant of Venice. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 27.
It is a man’s office, but not yours.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 268.
A merchant of great traffic through the world.
Taming of the Shrew. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 12.
Traffic’s thy god; and thy god confound thee!
Timon of Athens. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 246.
There’s two words to that bargain.
Swift—Polite Conversation. Dialogue III.
Omnia inconsulti impetus cœpta, initiis valida, spatio languescunt.
All inconsiderate enterprises are impetuous at first, but soon languish.
Tacitus—Annales. III. 58.
Par negotiis neque supra.
Neither above nor below his business.
Tacitus—Annales. VI. 39.
Omnibus nobis ut res dant sese, ita magni atque humiles sumus.
We all, according as our business prospers or fails, are elated or cast down.
Terence—Hecyra. III. 2. 20.
Cujuslibet tu fidem in pecunia perspiceres,
Verere ei verba credere?
Do you fear to trust the word of a man, whose honesty you have seen in business?
Terence—Phormio. I. 2. 10.
Did you ever expect a corporation to have a conscience, when it has no soul to be damned, and no body to be kicked?
Lord Thurlow. See Alison—History of Europe, and Poynder—Literary Extracts. Corporations. Wilberforce—Life of Thurlow. Vol. II. Appendix.
Keep your shop, and your shop will keep you.
Sir William Turner. Steele in Spectator No. 509.
That which is everybody’s business, is nobody’s business.
Izaak Walton—Compleat Angler. Pt. I. Ch. II. Quoted.
A silly old man who did not understand even his silly old trade.
Lord Westbury, of a witness from the Heralds’ College.
The way to stop financial “joy-riding” is to arrest the chauffeur, not the automobile.
Woodrow Wilson. See Richard Linthicum—Wit and Wisdom of Woodrow Wilson.