American Business Quotes

Imagine how differently American business would function were our faith in the power of goodness to replace our faith in the power of money. Huge industries would no longer make billions of dollars on activities that diminish the well-being and safety of our children, our health, and our environment, on the pretext that it's "just business." To put money before goodness is idolatry, and the laws of the universe ensure that in the end all idols will fall.

We have reached in this country an amazing degree of general prosperity, with American business on the whole no longer facing an uphill climb.

If our government servants had to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act as they have forced all of American business to do, they would be in jail.

The American Republic and American business are Siamese twins; they came out of the same womb at the same time; they are born in the same principles and when American business dies, the American Republic will die, and when the American Republic dies, American business will die.

Instead of trade policy that is beneficial to American businesses and workers as well as our trade partners, we have a flawed trade policy that hurts all parties.

Our global corporate investment bank competes with Goldman Sachs, Citibank, and a bunch of other banks that are in those businesses. We may have slightly different products or services, but so what? That's always been true in American business.

The lack of education and lack of skills don't hurt the unemployed, they hurt America and American business, making us less competitive in the global market.

Every company in America should be on its knees thanking Jesus for being born. Without Christmas, most American businesses would be far less profitable. More than enough reason for business to be screaming 'Merry Christmas.'

For society, the Internet is wonderful, but for capitalists, it will be a net negative. It will increase efficiency, but lots of things increase efficiency without increasing profits. It is way more likely to make American businesses less profitable than more profitable. This is perfectly obvious, but very little understood.

While the importance of a strong brand is widely understood, nothing is as misunderstood in American business as the question of how to use it.

The rapid deterioration of education has been recognized as a national problem for the past several years. Consequently, American businesses must meet the immediate challenge of poorly-educated people in today's workforce by strengthening employee training programs.

United States has always been very close to Africa and it's very sad now to see that Africa has a lot more friends - a lot more engagements with the Chinese, with the Indians, with the Brazilians as the United States retreats. Actually, Africa is a wonderful place to do business and American business is missing a big opportunity by really overlooking Africa.

American business men must learn human nature to the point of accepting as necessary the Rabble Rouser of the Right. . . . To get fast action somebody must stir millions to genuine anger over conditions which are adversely affecting their lives.

And as secretary of state, I fought hard for American businesses to get a fair shot around the world and to stop underhanded trading practices like currency manipulation and the theft of intellectual property.

The other thing that's really important in tax reform is making sure that we don't tax American businesses at much higher tax rates than our foreign competitors tax theirs. It is costing us jobs. It's one of the reasons all these American companies are moving overseas.

The problem with all these tired excuses for inaction is that it suggests a fundamental lack of faith in American business and American ingenuity.

American business can out-think, out-work, out-perform any nation in the world. But we can't beat the competition if we don't get in the ball game.

Many of the most successful men I have known have never grown up. They have retained bubbling-over boyishness. They have relished wit, they have indulged in humor. They have not allowed ‘dignity’ to depress them into moroseness. Youthfulness of spirit is the twin brother of optimism, and optimism is the stuff of which American business success is fashioned. Resist growing up!

There is a natural partnership between State and Commerce, and the American business community to work together to educate the United States about marketing overseas.

The US Debt is the single biggest threat I see to innovation in American business.

The American people and American businesses are looking to the federal government to lead our nation on the path to economic recovery. It is time to stop splitting hairs. It is time to act.

American businesses and upper incomes pay a larger portion of the federal taxes of our national taxes than any country in the world.

I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business.

The question really is how do we get Embassy Officers into the minds of the American business community. That is a much more difficult task than understanding a statistical matrix.

American business has just forgotten the importance of selling.

Our competition for American business is no longer in the next county or the next state, it's around the world.

American businesses are struggling to pay outrageous, exploitive insurance bills for their employees, hampering our ability to compete globally.

We both (Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett) insist on a lot of time being available almost every day to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. We read and think.

More customers for Canadian oil means that Canadian producers can charge more for their oil, which then means that American businesses and consumers will pay more for oil.

I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. I read and think. So I do more reading and thinking, and make less impulse decisions than most people in business. I do it because I like this kind of life.

It doesn’t matter who you marry, as long as he thinks like you and is a gentleman and a Southerner and prideful. For a woman, love comes after marriage.” “Oh, Pa, that’s such an Old Country notion!” “And a good notion it is! All this American business of running around marrying for love, like servants, like Yankees! The best marriages are when the parents choose for the girl. For how can a silly piece like yourself tell a good man from a scoundrel?

We have seen numerous instances in which American businesses have brought in foreign skilled workers after having laid off skilled American workers, simply because they can get the foreign workers more cheaply. It has become a major means of circumventing the costs of paying skilled American workers or the costs of training them.

American business long ago gave up on demanding that prospective employees be honest and hardworking. It has even stopped hoping for employees who are educated enough that they can tell the difference between the men's room and the women's room without having little pictures on the doors.

American business at this point is really about developing an idea, making it profitable, selling it while it's profitable and then getting out or diversifying. It's just about sucking everything up. My idea was: Enjoy baking, sell your bread, people like it, sell more. Keep the bakery going because you're making good food and people are happy.

Last year, Congress passed a law that directs the Federal Reserve to set limits on debit card swipe fees that are reasonable and proportional to the cost of processing those transactions. Like most Americans, I had no idea that swipe fees charged to American businesses are the highest in the world.

Trade can really be good for American workers and American businesses.

I have to come to terms with the paternalism of American business. Companies are expected to take on so many social responsibilities which are the province of the state in Europe.

The greatness of America is capitalism, free market capitalism. The exceptionalism of American business.

Today, if you're an American business, you actually get a benefit for going overseas. You get to defer your taxes. So if you're looking at a competitive world, you say to yourself, "Hey, I do better overseas than I do here in America".

American business, while it does not frown on helping the human race, frowns on people who start right in helping the human race without first proving that they can sell things to it.

And, of course, you have the commercials where savvy businesspeople get ahead by using their MacIntosh computers to create the ultimate American business product: a really sharp-looking report.

Then by the springtime, you'll see us moving an effort to cut taxes for working families, small businesses and family farms to reform our business taxes in this country so that American businesses can compete more effectively with businesses around the world.

American businesses are looking for are certainty and executive orders don't really get them that.

Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.

American business would be run better today if there was more alignment between CEOs' interest and the company. For example, would the financial crisis of 2008 have occurred if the CEO of Lehman and Morgan Stanley and Goldman and Citibank had to take a very small percentage of every mortgage-backed security... or every loan they made?

We are in the presence of a recruiting drive systematically and deliberately undertaken by American business, by American universities, and to a lesser extent, American government, often initiated by talent scouts specially sent over here to buy British brains and preempt them for service of the U.S.A. ... I look forward earnestly to the day when some reform of the American system of school education enables them to produce their own scientists so that, in an aimiable free trade of talent, there may be adequate interchange between our country and theirs, and not a one-way traffic.

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.

I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying.

But the fact is, Mr. Chairman, for all the challenges the Postal Service of the 21st century faces, it still retains its traditional place as a key cog in how American businesses conduct their affairs and how Americans all across this land communicate.