Today marks the birthday of Bertie Charles Forbes (1880–1954,) American financial journalist and editor. Forbes was the founder of the Forbes business magazine and publishing empire.
Born a poor country boy in Scotland, Forbes started work as a printer’s apprentice at age 14. He soon became a financial journalist in England, and progressively graduated into the roles of reporter, editor, and publisher first in South Africa and then in New York. In 1916, he successfully started the Forbes magazine at age 36 and became famous for writing profiles of business leaders. By 1946, Forbes reached a circulation of 100,000 and was popular not only for its analyses of business and economic trends, but also for Forbes’personal style of business journalism.
Forbes wrote several books including Finance, Business and the Business of Life (1915,) Men Who Are Making America (1917,) Forbes Epigrams (1922,) and 101 Unusual Experiences (1952.)
Inspirational Quotations by B C Forbes
The incontestable truth is that America has been built up by optimists, not by pessimists, but by men possessing courage, confidence in the nation’s destiny, by men willing to adventure, to shoulder risks terrifying to the timid.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)
The human being who lives only for himself finally reaps nothing but unhappiness. Selfishness corrodes. Unselfishness ennobles, satisfies. Don’t put off the joy derivable from doing helpful, kindly things for others.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)
Whimpering never kept a leaking vessel from foundering. Vigorously manning the pumps has. Get busy with your head and hands, not your chin.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)
What you have outside you counts less than what you have inside you.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)
The man of fixed ingrained principles who has mapped out a straight course, and has the courage and self-control to adhere to it, does not find life complex. Complexities are all of our own making.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)
Money, or even power, can never yield happiness unless it be accompanied by the goodwill of others.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)
Opportunity rarely knocks on your door. Knock rather on opportunity’s door if you ardently wish to enter.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)
Thomas Edison reads not for entertainment but to increase his store of knowledge. He sucks in information as eagerly as the bee sucks honey from flowers. The whole world, so to speak, pours its wisdom into his mind. He regards it as a criminal waste of time to go through the slow and painful ordeal of ascertaining things for one’s self if these same things have already been ascertained and made available by others. In Edison’s mind knowledge is power.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)
J.P. Morgan, then past 70, was asked by the son of an eminent father why he (Morgan) didn’t retire. “When did your father retire?” asked Mr. Morgan, without looking up from his desk. “In 1902.” “When did he die? Oh, at the end of 1904.” “Huh!” snapped Mr. Morgan, “If he had kept on working he would have been alive still. Work is God’s best medicine. It is God’s medicine for man.”
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)
We must learn that to enjoy happiness we must conscientiously and continuously seek to spread happiness. Selfishness is suicidal to happiness.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)
You have no idea how big the other fellow’s troubles are.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)
Better to be occasionally cheated than perpetually suspicious.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)
Opportunity can benefit no man who has not fitted himself to seize it and use it. Opportunity woos the worthy, shuns the unworthy. Prepare yourself to grasp opportunity and opportunity is likely to come your way. It is not so fickle, capricious and unreasoning as some complain.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)
There is more genuine joy in climbing the hill of success, even though sweat may be spent and toes may be stubbed, than in aimlessly sliding down the path to failure. If a straight, honorable path has been chosen, the gaining of the summit yields lasting satisfaction. The morass of failure, if reached through laziness, indifference or other avoidable fault, yields nothing but ignominy and sorrow for self and family and friends.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)
The real friend is he or she who can share all our sorrow and double our joys.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)
Life is just an endless chain of judgements…. The more imperfect our judgement, the less perfect our success.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)
Tell me how a young man spends his evenings and I will tell you how far he is likely to go in the world. The popular notion is that a youth’s progress depends upon how he acts during his working hours. It doesn’t. It depends far more upon how he utilizes his leisure…. If he spends it in harmless idleness, he is likely to be kept on the payroll, but that will be about all. If he diligently utilizes his own time … to fit himself for more responsible duties, then the greater responsibilities-and greater rewards-are almost certain to come to him.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)
Lady Luck generally woos those who earnestly, enthusiastically, unremittingly woo her.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)
The man without religion is as a ship without a rudder.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)
Our future and our fate lie in our wills more than in our hands, for our hands are but the instruments of our wills.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)
The man who is intent on making the most of his opportunities is too busy to bother about luck.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)
The victors of the battles of tomorrow will be those who can best harness thought to action. From office boy to statesman, the prizes will be for those who most effectively exert their brains, who take deep, earnest and studious counsel of their minds, who stamp themselves as thinkers.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)
Jealousy… is a mental cancer.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)
Many a man thinks he is patient when, in reality, he is indifferent.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)
The man who has done his level best, and who is conscious that he has done his best, is a success, even though the world may write him down a failure.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)
Diamonds are only lumps of coal that stuck to their jobs.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)
A price has to be paid for success. Almost invariably those who have reached the summits worked harder and longer, studied and planned more assiduously, practiced more self-denial, overcame more difficulties than those of us who have not risen so far.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)
Mediocre men wait for opportunity to come to them. Strong, able, alert men go after opportunity.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)
Ambition means longing and striving to attain some purpose. Therefore, there are as many brands of ambition as there are human aspirations.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)
It is when things go hardest, when life becomes most trying, that there is greatest need for having a fixed goal. When few comforts come from without, it is all the more necessary to have a fount to draw from within.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)
Madame Curie didn’t stumble upon radium by accident. She searched and experimented and sweated and suffered years before she found it. Success rarely is an accident.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)
Honesty is the cornerstone of character. The honest man or woman seeks not merely to avoid criminal or illegal acts, but to be scrupulously fair, upright, fearless in both action and expression. Honesty pays dividends both in dollars and in peace of mind.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)