Top 15 J. Paul Getty Quotes

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

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

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

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

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 meek shall inherit the Earth, but not its mineral rights.

Formula for Success- Rise Early, Work Hard, Strike Oil

It has always been my contention that an individual who can be relied upon to be himself and to be honest unto himself can be relied upon in every other way.

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.

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.

The beauty one can find in art is one of the pitifully few real and lasting products of human endeavor.

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.

It shouldn't be very difficult for anyone to resist the temptation to force himself into the pattern of the structured man. One needs only to remember that a groove may be safe — but that, as one wears away at it, the groove becomes first a rut and finally a grave.

There are one hundred men seeking security to one able man who is willing to risk his fortune.