J. Paul Getty Quotes

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

"Formula for success: rise early, work hard, strike oil."

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

"If you can actually count your money, then you're not a rich man."

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

"Five wives can't all be wrong."

"I hate to be a failure. I hate and regret the failure of my marriages. I would gladly give all my millions for just one lasting marital success."

"I buy when other people are selling."

"Money is like manure. You have to spread it around or it smells."

"Without the element of uncertainty, the bringing off of even, the greatest business triumph would be dull, routine, and eminently unsatisfying."

"During the 1950s, Aristotle Onassis and I formed what grew to be a close friendship and association in several business ventures."

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

"There are heads of royal families who control hereditary fortunes that defy comprehension."

"No one can possibly achieve any real and lasting success or 'get rich' in business by being a conformist."

"You cannot further the Brotherhood of Man by encouraging class hatred."

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

"Governments, of course, can - and do - soak the rich."

"I am neither a homosexual nor a eunuch, nor have I ever taken any vows of chastity."

"I was 37 when my father died-and I no longer had any freedom of choice over what I would do with the rest of my life."

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

"Going to work for a large company is like getting on a train. Are you going sixty miles an hour or is the train going sixty miles an hour and you're just sitting still?"

"How does one measure the success of a museum?"

"I have never been given to envy - save for the envy I feel toward those people who have the ability to make a marriage work and endure happily."

"Books, like proverbs, receive their chief value from the stamp and esteem of the ages through which they have passed."

"My formula for success is rise early, work late, and strike oil."

"My yachts were, I suppose, outstanding status symbols."

"To succeed in business, to reach the top, an individual must know all it is possible to know about that business."

"The Roaring Twenties were the period of that Great American Prosperity which was built on shaky foundations."

"A hatred of failure has always been part of my nature."

"A marriage contract to me is as binding as any in business, and I have always believed in sticking to an agreement."