Where one , Cosimo de Medici, de la Pole or Gresham strove for success we have now literally thousands of keen, clever men as fearless, as progressiv… - Harry Gordon Selfridge

Bigness alone is nothing, but bigness filled with the activity that does everything continually better means much.

The merchant sends the buyer far afield with instructions to invest... in... staples or novelties, as he thinks will interest the home public. He risks his money and a certain amount of prestige upon the judgment of the buyer... Much merchandise begins to depreciate from the day it arrives; practically none increases in value. The buyer then must learn to buy enough and not too much; to buy what will give satisfaction..; to pay not too much for what he buys; to know qualities and values... All this carries with it a certain speculative risk, but so certain does his judgment become, that the house conducted on scientific lines can estimate to a fraction of one per cent.

Commerce is the mother of the arts, the sciences, the professions, and in this twentieth century has itself become an art, a science, a profession.