Andrew Carnegie Quotes | Success, Leadership, Teamwork

Andrew Carnegie Quotes will help you towards your success. His all quotes are inspiring and motivating.

The world’s richest man, Andrew Carnegie, was one of the most generous philanthropists in history. He used his wealth to create libraries and institutions that still benefit millions of people today. Take a look at some of his most inspirational quotes.

Here you will get some Andrew Carnegie Quotes to charged up your energy and boost your mind.

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Andrew Carnegie Quotes

One of the most famous entrepreneurs of all time was Andrew Carnegie. His legacy still lives on today, in the form of Carnegie libraries, public television and even a car company.

This article talks about some of his most important quotes and how you can use them to improve your business.

  • As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.
  • The first man gets the oyster, the second man gets the shell.
  • The men who have succeeded are men who have chosen one line and stuck to it.
  • And while the law of competition may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it ensures the survival of the fittest in every department.
  • I would as soon leave my son a curse as the almighty dollar.
  • Do not look for approval except for the consciousness of doing your best.
Andrew Carnegie Quotes
Andrew Carnegie Quotes
  • The man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else to which he is justly entitled.
  • Concentration is my motto – first honesty, then industry, then concentration.
  • Every act you have ever performed since the day you were born was performed because you wanted something.
  • There is little success where there is little laughter.
  • I shall argue that strong men, conversely, know when to compromise and that all principles can be compromised to serve a greater principle.
  • He that cannot reason is a fool. He that will not is a bigot. He that dare not is a slave.

I resolved to stop accumulating and begin the infinitely more serious and difficult task of wise distribution.

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  • Mr. Morgan buys his partners; I grow my own.
  • The average person puts only 25% of his energy and ability into his work. The world takes off its hat to those who put in more than 50% of their capacity, and stands on its head for those few and far between souls who devote 100%.
  • There is no class so pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else.
  • The advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding.
  • Upon the sacredness of property civilization itself depends – the right of the laborer to his hundred dollars in the savings bank, and equally the legal right of the millionaire to his millions.
  • All honor’s wounds are self-inflicted.
  • The man who dies leaving behind him millions of available wealth, which was his to administer during his life, will pass away unwept, unhonoured and insung no matter to what uses he leaves the dross which he cannot take with him.

Andrew Carnegie Quotes on Success

Andrew Carnegie Quotes on Success are best Inspirational and Motivational saying of Andrew. This article contains a best collection of famous Andrew Carnegie Quotes about Success.

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  • A sunny disposition is worth more than fortune.
  • We accept and welcome… as conditions to which we must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of environment; the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few; and the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but essential for the future progress of the race.
  • The Republic may not give wealth or happiness, she has not promised these. It is the freedom to pursue these, not their realization, we can claim.
  • Those who would administer wisely must, indeed, be wise, for one of the serious obstacles to the improvement of our race is indiscriminate charity.
  • The worlds civilization started from the day on which everyone received reward for labour.
  • Life is not so much a matter of position as of disposition.
Andrew Carnegie Quotes
Andrew Carnegie Quotes
  • A word, a look, an accent, may affect the destiny not only of individuals, but of nations. He is a bold man who calls anything a trifle.
  • Show me a man of average ability but extraordinary desire and I’ll show you a winner every time.
  • There is very little success where there is very little laughter.
  • All is well since all grows better
  • In [my] life … I did not understand steam machinery, but I tried to understand that much more complicated piece of mechanism – man.
  • Why should men leave great fortunes to their children? If this is done from affection, is it not misguided affection? Observation teaches that, generally speaking, it is not well for the children that they should be so burdened.

The battle of life is already half won by the young man who is brought in contact with high officials; and the great aim of every boy should be to do something beyond the sphere of his duties- something which attracts the attention of those over him.

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  • You develop millionaires the way you mine gold. You expect to move tons of dirt to find an ounce of gold, but you don’t go into the mine looking for the dirt-you go in looking for the gold.
  • Speculation is a parasite feeding upon values, creating none.
  • The only irreplaceable capital an organization possesses is the knowledge and ability of its people. The productivity of that capital depends on how effectively people share their competence with those who can use it.


  • Here lies one who knew how to get around him men who were cleverer than himself
  • A sunny disposition is worth more than [a monetary] fortune. Young people should know that it can be cultivated; that the mind like the body can be moved from the shade into sunshine.

Andrew Carnegie Quotes About Wealth

Andrew Carnegie has had a lot of quotes about wealth that still have a profound impact to this day. He was the founder of US steel and one of the richest people in the world in his time.

  • While the law [of competition] may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it insures the survival of the fittest in every department. We accept and welcome, therefore, as conditions to which we must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of environment, the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few, and the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but essential for the future progress of the race.
  • The rare individuals who unselfishly try to serve others have an enormous advantage-they have little competition.
  • Golf is an indispensable adjunct to high civilization.
  • Upon the sacredness of property civilization itself depends-the right of the laborer to his hundred dollars in the savings bank, and equally the legal right of the millionaire to his millions.
  • Do real and permanent good in this world.
  • Not evil, but good, has come to the race from the accumulation of wealth by those who have the ability and energy that produce it.
  • The secret of happiness is renunciation.
Andrew Carnegie Quotes About Wealth
Andrew Carnegie Quotes About Wealth
  • When fate hands us a lemon, let’s try to make lemonade.
  • Private Property, the Law of Accumulation of Wealth, and the Law of Competition… these are the highest results of human experience, the soil in which society so far has produced the best fruit.
  • There is nothing that robs a righteous cause of its strength more than a millionaire’s money.
  • The surest foundation of a manufacturing concern is quality. After that, and a long way after, comes cost.
  • The sole purpose of being rich is to give away money.


  • I spent the first half of my life making money and the second half of my life giving it away to do the most good and the least harm.
  • Capitalism is about turning luxuries into necessities.
  • It is trying to be other than one’s self that unmans one. Be your own natural self and go ahead.
  • When I did big things, some large corporations like the Pennsylvania Railroad Company were behind me and responsible party.
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Andrew Carnegie Quotes Teamwork

Here are some Andrew Carnegie quotes teamwork, read these quotes and grow your knowledge on team work.

  • That 95 per cent. fail of those who start in business upon their own account seems incredible, and yet such are said to be the statistics upon the subject.
  • Men who reach decisions promptly usually have the capacity to move with definiteness of purpose in other circumstances.
  • Give me a man with an average ability but a burning desire to succeed and I will give you a winner in exchange every time.
  • I can’t afford to pay them any other way.
  • TEAMWORK: the fuel that allows common people attain uncommon results.
Andrew Carnegie Quotes Teamwork
Andrew Carnegie Quotes Teamwork
  • There is scarcely an instance of a man who has made a fortune by speculation and kept it.
  • There is no way of making a business successful that can vie with the policy of promoting those who render exceptional service.
  • Neither the individual nor the race is improved by almsgiving. The best means of benefiting the community is to place within its reach the ladders upon which the aspiring can rise.
  • I will give a million dollars for any convincing proof of a future life.
  • Mutual ignorance breeds mutual distrust.
  • Nothing tells in the long run like a good judgment, and no sound judgment can remain with the man whose mind is disturbed by the mercurial changes of the stock exchange. It places him under an influence akin to intoxication. What is not, he sees, and what he sees, is not.
  • The average person puts only 25% of his energy and ability into his work.

Related- Napoleon Hill Quotes»


  • The sound rule in busi­ness is that you may give money freely when you have a sur­plus, but your name never-nei­ther as en­dorser nor as mem­ber of a cor­po­ra­tion with in­di­vid­ual li­a­bil­ity
  • The morality of compromise sounds contradictory.
  • I began to learn what poverty meant. It was burnt in my heart then that my father had to beg for work and there came the resolve that I would cure that when I got to be a man.
  • He that cannot reason is a fool.
  • Any idea that is held in the mind that is either feared or revered will, begin at once to clothe itself in the most convenient and appropriate physical forms available.
  • Three generations from shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves.

Andrew Carnegie Quotes on Leadership

Andrew Carnegie Quotes are some of the best quotes about Leadership one can find. I’m pretty sure you’ve never read any other quotes from Andrew Carnegie before reading these.

  • I choose free libraries as the best agencies for improving the masses of the people, because they give nothing for nothing. They only help those who help themselves.
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  • The man who dies rich, dies disgraced.
  • Give me the life of the boy whose mother is nurse, seamstress, washerwoman, cook, teacher, angel, and saint, all in one, and whose father is guide, exemplar, and friend. No servants to come between. These are the boys who are born to the best fortune.
  • It is not the rich man’s son that the young struggler for advancement has to fear in the race for life, nor his nephew, nor his cousin. Let him look out for the dark horse in the boy who begins by sweeping out the office.
  • Pittsburgh entered the core of my heart when I was a boy and cannot be torn out.
  • I don’t believe in God. My God is patriotism. Teach a man to be a good citizen and you have solved the problem of life.
  • Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision.
  • To kill a man will be considered as disgusting [in the twentieth century] as we in this day consider it disgusting to eat one.
  • It is more difficult to give money away intelligently than to earn it in the first place.
Andrew Carnegie Quotes on Leadership
Andrew Carnegie Quotes on Leadership
  • I wish to have as my epitaph: ‘Here lies a man who was wise enough to bring into his service men who knew more than he.’
  • Surplus wealth is a sacred trust to be managed for the good of others.
  • It was from my own early experience that I decided there was no use to which money could be applied so productive of good to girls and boys who have good within them and ability and ambition to develop it as the founding of a public library.
  • …the law which is never to be broken is never required.
  • There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration.

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  • The more difficult a problem becomes, the more interesting it is.
  • Ninety percent of all millionaires become so through owning real estate.
  • There is no use whatever trying to help people who do not help themselves. You cannot push anyone up a ladder unless he is willing to climb himself.
  • The man of business knows that only by years of patient, unremitting attention to affairs can he earn his reward, which is the result, not of chance, but of well-devised means for the attainment of ends.
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  • There is no idol more debasing than the worship of money.
  • Success is the power to acquire whatever one demands of life without violating the rights of others.

Andrew Carnegie Negative Quotes

Andrew Carnegie was a great person such as inventor. He also had a world class entrepreneur. He likes to be remembered with his image so he will be known due to his story of becoming one of the richest man in the United States of America. Read some of his negative quotes.

  • No man can become rich without himself enriching others.
  • The wise young man or wage earner of today invests his money in real estate.
  • Strength is derived from unity. The range of our collective vision is far greater when individual insights become one.
  • If it is right that schools should be maintained by the whole community for the well-being of the whole, it is right also that libraries should be so maintained.
  • My hopes were high, and I looked every day for some change to take place. What it was to be I knew not, but that it would come I felt certain if I kept on. One day the chance came.
  • I believe that the road to pre-eminent success in any line of work is to make yourself master of that line of work.
  • Any person can achieve greatness if they understand the philosophy of success and the steps required to achieve it.
  • I give money for church organs in the hope the organ music will distract the congregation’s attention from the rest of the service.
  • I demand riches in definite terms; I have a definite plan for acquiring riches;I am engaged in carrying out my plan, and I am giving an equivalent,in useful service, of the value of those riches I demand.
  • Humanities education is the worst thing for an industrialist.
Andrew Carnegie Negative Quotes
Andrew Carnegie Negative Quotes
  • I have had a long, long life full of troubles, but there is one curious fact about them-nine-tenths of them never happened.
  • Anything in life worth having is worth working for.
  • I believe the true road to preeminent success in any line is to make yourself a master in that line. I have no faith in the policy of scattering one’s resources, and in my experience, I have rarely if ever met a man who achieved preeminence in money making.. certainly never one in manufacturing.. who was interested in many concerns.
  • Instead of the question “What must I do for my employer?” substitute “What can I do”
  • The problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth, so that the ties of brotherhood may still bind together the rich and poor in a harmonious relationship.
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  • Don’t be content with doing only your duty. Do more than your duty. It’s the horse that finishes a neck ahead that wins the race.
  • A man’s reading program should be as carefully planned as his daily diet, for that too is food, without which he cannot grow mentally.
  • There are two types of people who never achieve very much in their lifetimes. One is the person who won’t do what he or she is told to do, and the other is the person who does no more than he or she is told to do.
  • Concentrate your energy, thought and capital exclusively upon the business in which you are engaged… ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket’ is all wrong. I tell you ‘put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket.’
  • Strong men don’t compromise, it is said, and principles should never be compromised.

Andrew Carnegie Quotes Real Estate

Andrew Carnegie had quite a bit to say about the world of real estate and here are some of his best quotes on the subject.

  • One great cause of failure of young men in business is the lack of concentration.
  • Concentrate your energy, your thoughts and your capital.
  • There is no use whatsoever in trying to help people who do not help themselves.
  • The best time to expand is when no one else dares to take risks.
  • Success can be attained in any branch of labor. There’s always room at the top in every pursuit.
  • Watch the costs and the profits will take care of themselves.
Andrew Carnegie Quotes Real Estate
Andrew Carnegie Quotes Real Estate
  • Do not think a man has done his full duty when he has performed the work assigned him. A man will never rise if he does only this. Promotion comes from exceptional work.
  • It marks a big step in your development when you come to realize that other people can help you do a better job than you could do alone.
  • The greatest astonishment of my life was the discovery that the man who does the work is not the man who gets rich.
  • Take away my people, but leave my factories and soon grass will grow on the factory floors……Take away my factories, but leave my people and soon we will have a new and better factory.
  • The secret of success lies not in doing your own work, but in recognizing the right man to do it.
  • A library outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people. It is a never failing spring in the desert.
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  • Be king in your dreams. Make your vow that you will reach that position, with untarnished reputation, and make no other vow to distract your attention.

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  • Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.
  • The older I get the less I listen to what people say and the more I look at what they do.
  • I am no longer cursed by poverty because I took possession of my own mind, and that mind has yielded me every material thing I want, and much more than I need. But this power of mind is a universal one, available to the humblest person as it is to the greatest.
  • Young man, make your name worth something.
  • No man becomes rich unless he enriches others.
  • There is a power under your control that is greater than poverty, greater than the lack of education, greater than all your fears and superstitions combined. It is the power to take possession of your own mind and direct it to whatever ends you may desire.
  • If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.

Inspiring Quotes of Andrew Carnegie

Here we have included some of the most Inspirational Carnegie quotes.

  • You are what you think. So just think big, believe big, act big, work big, give big, forgive big, laugh big, love big and live big.
  • Ninety percent of all millionaires become so through owning real estate. More money has been made in real estate than in all industrial investments combined. The wise young man or wage earner of today invests his money in real estate.
  • Concentrate your energies, your thoughts and your capital…. The wise man puts all his eggs in one basket and watches the basket.
  • Every man gravitates to where he belongs in life, just as surely as water seeks and finds its level. His position is measured precisely by the quality and quantity of the service he renders, plus the mental attitude with which he relates himself to other people..
  • You cannot push anyone up the ladder unless he is willing to climb.
  • Concentrate; put all your eggs in one basket, and watch that basket.
  • No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it.
  • And while the law (of competition) may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it ensures the survival of the fittest in every department.
  • I believe that the true road to preeminent success in any line is to make yourself master of that line.
  • This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of wealth: First, to set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him; and, after doing so, to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to administer, and strictly bound as a matter of duty to administer in the manner which, in his judgment, is best calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community /the man of wealth thus becoming the mere trustee and agent for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience and ability to administer, doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves.
  • It is the mind that makes the body rich.
Inspiring Quotes of Andrew Carnegie
Inspiring Quotes of Andrew Carnegie
  • Concentrate your energies, your thoughts and your capital. The wise man puts all his eggs in one basket and watches the basket.
  • You cannot push any one up a ladder unless he be willing to climb a little himself.
  • Whatever I engage in, I must push inordinately.
  • Immense power is acquired by assuring yourself in your secret reveries that you were born to control affairs.
  • People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.

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  • The way to become rich is to put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.
  • Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community.
  • No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit for doing it.
  • No person will make a great business who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit.
  • You must capture and keep the heart of the original and supremely able man before his brain can do its best.
  • Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!
  • Do your duty and a little more and the future will take care of itself.

Final Words

Andrew Carnegie in some of his quotes he inspires a lot of people. He was the first person to become a millionaire in US. He is the founder of Carnegie Steel Company. He was born on November 25, 1835.

Here are some Inspiring Andrew Carnegie Quotes on Life, Success, Happiness, Motivation and Leadership. Hope this will help you a lot.

FAQ

What is a famous quote given by Andrew Carnegie?

Andrew Carnegie was one of the most famous of the American Industrialists, during his time.
Here is a famous quote given by Andrew Carnegie-
“The richest man is not he who has the most, but he who needs the least”

What was Andrew Carnegie’s motivation?

Theodore Roosevelt said Andrew Carnegie’s motivation was to “put an ocean of liquid steel between the United States and war with England.”

How did Carnegie fail?

Carnegie was forced to reinvent his companies and processes multiple times because he didn’t know what he was doing.
Carnegie was known for his aggression, but this trait also caused him to dismiss new technologies or innovations that would have benefited his factories.

Who dies rich dies disgraced?

One of the most famous quotes by Andrew Carnegie was “Who dies rich dies disgraced?”
Some people are so highly indebted in their old age that they can never pay themselves out of debt before dying, so they can never leave a legacy, which is the real point of wealth.

Was Carnegie a good man?

As the most celebrated industrialist of the 19th Century, Andrew Carnegie is often portrayed as a ruthless robber baron who destroyed competition through cutthroat business practices. Surely someone with so little regard for others would be rampant with sin.

What was Andrew Carnegie’s net worth?

Andrew Carnegie was one of the first self-made billionaires in the late 18th century after he succeeded in the steel industry. His wealth at the time of his death in 1919 was calculated at $480,662,000 USD.

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