J. Paul Getty Quotes

The conformist is not born. He is made. I believe the brainwashing process begins in the schools and colleges.

My father said, 'You must never try to make all the money that's in a deal. Let the other fellow make some money too, because if you have a reputation for always making all the money, you won't have many deals'.

In my own opinion, the average American's cultural shortcomings can be likened to those of the educated barbarians of ancient Rome. These were barbarians who learned to speak — and often to read and write — Latin. They acquired Roman habits of dress and deportment. Many of them handily mastered Roman commercial, engineering and military techniques — but they remained barbarians nonetheless. They failed to develop any understanding, appreciation or love for the art and culture of the great civilization around them.

In times of rapid change, experience could be your worst enemy.

In some respects, a society in which the members reach a universal level in which they are anonymous drones by choice is even more frightening than one in which they are forced to be so against their will. When human beings relinquish their individuality and identity of their own volition, they are also relinquishing their claim to being human.

Se riesci a contare i soldi, vuol dire che non hai un miliardo di dollari.

If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars.

In business, as in politics, it is never easy to go against the beliefs and attitudes held by the majority. The businessman who moves counter to the tide of prevailing opinion must expect to be obstructed, derided and damned.

There is obviously something wrong with our educational system. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that there might even be something wrong with at least some of our schoolteachers. But heaven help anyone daring to express such heretical views.

The man who comes up with a means for doing or producing anything better, faster or more economically has his future and his fortune at his fingertips.

If you owe the bank $100, that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem.

My evanescent anarchistic tendencies are purely classical. I use the word anarchist in the sense in which it was understood by the ancient Greeks. They, of course, accepted the anarchist as a fairly respectable — if somewhat vehement — opponent of government encroachment on the individual's rights to think and act freely. It is in this sense that I glimpse myself as an anarchist — regretting the growth of government and the ever-increasing trend toward regulation and, worst of all, standardization of human activity.

There is, however, hope for any person who wants to remain an individual. He can assert himself and refuse to conform. He'll be on his own, that's true, but while he will not have the security enjoyed by those who do conform, there will be no limits to what he may achieve.

The individual who wants to reach the top in business must appreciate the might and force of habit. He must be quick to break those habits that can break him - and hasten to adopt those practices that will become the habits that help him achieve the success he desires.

The majority is by no means omniscient just because it is the majority. In fact, I've found that the line which divides majority opinion from mass hysteria is often so fine as to be virtually invisible.