P. T. Barnum
P. T. Barnum
Phineas Taylor "P. T." Barnumwas an American politician, showman, and businessman remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and for founding the Barnum & Bailey Circus. Although Barnum was also an author, publisher, philanthropist, and for some time a politician, he said of himself, "I am a showman by profession...and all the gilding shall make nothing else of me", and his personal aim was "to put money in his own coffers". Barnum is widely, but erroneously, credited with coining the phrase "There's...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth5 July 1810
CityBethel, CT
CountryUnited States of America
Every man's occupation should be beneficial to his fellow-man as well as profitable to himself. All else is vanity and folly.
I think it is conceded that I generally do pretty big things as a manager, am audacious in my outlays and risks, give much for little money, and make my shows worthy the support of the moral and refined classes.
To me there is no picture so beautiful as smiling, bright-eyed, happy children; no music so sweet as their clear and ringing laughter.
Engage in one kind of business only, and stick to it faithfully until you succeed, or until you conclude to abandon it. A constant hammering on one nail will generally drive it home at last, so that it can be clinched.
I am indebted to the press of the United States for almost every dollar which I possess...
Many persons are always kept poor, because they are too visionary. Every project looks to them like certain successes, and therefore they keep changing from one business to another, always in hot water, always ‘under the harrow’.
Constant hammering on one nail will generally drive it home at last, so that it can be clinched. When a man's undivided attention is centered on one object, his mind will constantly be suggesting improvements of value, which would escape him if his brain was occupied by a dozen different subjects at once.
Never attempt to catch a whale with a minnow.
Politics and government are certainly among the most important of practical human interests.
There is no such thing in the world as luck. There never was a man who could go out in the morning and find a purse full of gold in the street to-day, and another to-morrow, and so on, day after day: He may do so once in his life; but so far as mere luck is concerned, he is as liable to lose it as to find it.
Money is the excellent slave and a horrible master.
We cannot all see alike, but we can all do good.
Medicine is the means by which we poor feeble creatures try to keep from dying or aching.
Advertising is like learning - a little is a dangerous thing. If a man has not the pluck to keep on advertising, all the money he has already spent is lost.