Top 40 Carlos Slim Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Anyone who is not investing now is missing a tremendous opportunity.”

— Carlos Slim

2. “Most people try to make a better world for our children when what they should be doing is making better children for our world.”

— Carlos Slim

3. “Competition makes you better, always, always makes you better, even if the competitor wins.”

— Carlos Slim

4. “Do not allow negative feelings and emotions to control your mind. Emotional harm does not come from others; it is conceived and developed within ourselves.”

— Carlos Slim

5. “Live the present intensely and fully, do not let the past be a burden, and let the future be an incentive. Each person forges his or her own destiny.”

— Carlos Slim

6. “Focus on essentials and try not to get distracted and bogged down by things that don’t add value to the bottom line.”

— Carlos Slim

7. “Building a business and becoming a billionaire is it’s not championship. It’s the competence; the competence in your sector with other companies not looking to have some kind of records in this issue.”

— Carlos Slim

8. “Firm and patient optimism always yields its rewards.”

— Carlos Slim

9. “All times are good time for those who know how to work and have the tools to do so.”

— Carlos Slim

10. “Poverty isn’t solved with donations.”

— Carlos Slim

11. “When we face our problems, they disappear. So learn from failure and let success be the silent incentive.”

— Carlos Slim

12. “It’s important to give a better country to your children, but it is more important to give better children to your country.”

— Carlos Slim

13. “Work well done is not only a responsibility to yourselves and society; it is also an emotional need.”

— Carlos Slim

14. “The biggest things in life are not materials.”

— Carlos Slim

15. “I love baseball. And American Football, too. But not rugby.”

— Carlos Slim

16. “It is not important NOT to make mistakes, but the mistakes to be small.”

— Carlos Slim

17. “No, my father passed away when I was 13 years old. I was very young.”

— Carlos Slim

18. “Mistakes are normal and human. Make them small, accept them, correct them, and forget them.”

— Carlos Slim

19. “Money is not a goal. The goal is to make companies grow, develop, be competitive, be in different areas, be efficient to have a great human team inside the company.”

— Carlos Slim

20. “When we decide to do something, we do it quickly.”

— Carlos Slim

21. “I still have my laptop but I haven’t used it. I’m a paper man, not electronic.”

— Carlos Slim

22. “Well, when I was very young, maybe 12 years, I began to make investments.”

— Carlos Slim

23. “I am convinced that all this poverty in Mexico and in Latin America, like it’s happening in China is the opportunity to grow. It’s an opportunity for investment; it’s an economic activity and to take out poverty is the best investment any person or a person can do in any place.”

— Carlos Slim

24. “In this new wave of technology, you can’t do it all yourself, you have to form alliances.”

— Carlos Slim

25. “Technology is going to transform people’s lives and society everywhere in the world. I spend most of my time studying new technologies. My main task is to understand what’s going on and try to see where we can fit in.”

— Carlos Slim

26. “My mother born in Mexico, but was Lebanese in origin. She born 1902 the same year my father arrived to Mexico when he was 14 years old.”

— Carlos Slim

27. “The key is the Internet. The United States is by far the most advanced country in this new digital culture, so we have to be there. The Internet is the heart of this new civilization, and telecommunications are the nervous system, or circulatory system.”

— Carlos Slim

28. “Choose the right employees and then set them loose.”

— Carlos Slim

29. “You cannot make thousands of universities or hundreds of thousands of professors, but with technology and the Internet you can have great courses and make a digital university.”

— Carlos Slim

30. “I studied engineering in the national university, the Universidad Autonoma, in San Ildefonso.”

— Carlos Slim

31. “Staying occupied displaces preoccupation and problems, and when we face our problems, they disappear.”

— Carlos Slim

32. “You have to have an international reference of competition. You have to go beyond your home.”

— Carlos Slim

33. “If you are in business, you are not enjoying. You are working.”

— Carlos Slim

34. “When there is a crisis, that’s when some are interested in getting out and that’s when we are interested in getting in.”

— Carlos Slim

35. “You cannot have people in your organization who are pessimists. They take you to mediocrity.”

— Carlos Slim

36. “You cannot live without doing something.”

— Carlos Slim

37. “I’ve always said that the better off you are, the more responsibility you have for helping others.”

— Carlos Slim

38. “I think that anything that has privileges have responsibility and all people that is clear about their responsibility has compromise.”

— Carlos Slim

39. “I’ve always said that the better off you are, the more responsibility you have for helping others. Just as I think it’s important to run companies well, with a close eye to the bottom line, I think you have to use your entrepreneurial experience to make corporate philanthropy effective.”

— Carlos Slim

40. “In high school, I loved history. I also loved cosmography, algebra. Mexico is so rich in culture and history, and I have always enjoyed that.”

— Carlos Slim

41. “My parents weren’t artistic, but I was always surrounded by beautiful things. And Mexico is a country which has experienced thousands of years of art and culture.”

— Carlos Slim

42. “All businesses make mistakes. The trick is to avoid large ones.”

— Carlos Slim