Top 50 Charles M. Schwab Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “The difference between getting somewhere and nowhere is the courage to make an early start. The fellow who sits still and does just what he is told will never be told to do big things.”

— Charles M. Schwab

Featured in: Courage Quotes, Professional Growth Quotes, Taking Action Quotes, Career Development Quotes, Progress Quotes

2. “Work hard. Hard work is the best investment a man can make.”

— Charles M. Schwab

3. “The real test of business greatness is in giving opportunity to others.”

— Charles M. Schwab

4. “Good morning! Remember: A person can succeed at almost anything for which they have unlimited enthusiasm.”

— Charles M. Schwab

5. “A man to carry on a successful business must have imagination. He must see things in a vision, a dream of the whole thing.”

— Charles M. Schwab

6. “There’s no limit possible to the expansion of each one of us.”

— Charles M. Schwab

7. “A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband, while a man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.”

— Charles M. Schwab

8. “A man who trims himself to suit everybody will soon whittle himself away.”

— Charles M. Schwab

9. “When a man has put a limit on what he will do, he has put a limit on what he can do.”

— Charles M. Schwab

10. “Personality is to a man what perfume is to a flower.”

— Charles M. Schwab

11. “Every one’s got it in him, if he’ll only make up his mind and stick at it. None of us is born with a stop-valve on his powers or with a set limit to his capacities, There’s no limit possible to the expansion of each one of us.”

— Charles M. Schwab

12. “Lead the life that will make you kindly and friendly to everyone about you, and you will be surprised what a happy life you will lead.”

— Charles M. Schwab

13. “The man who fails to give fair service during the hours for which he is paid is dishonest. The man who is not willing to give more than this is foolish.”

— Charles M. Schwab

14. “The man who has done his best has done everything. The man who has done less than his best has done nothing.”

— Charles M. Schwab

15. “In my wide association in life, meeting with many and great men in various parts of the world, I have yet to find the man, however great or exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than he would ever do under a spirit of criticism.”

— Charles M. Schwab

16. “Bare hands grip success better than kid gloves.”

— Charles M. Schwab

17. “Nothing is more fatal to success than taking one’s job as a matter of course.”

— Charles M. Schwab

18. “Many of us think of salespeople as people travelling around with sample kits. Instead, we are all salesman, every day of our lives.”

— Charles M. Schwab

19. “I have always felt that the surest way to qualify for the job just ahead is to work a little harder than any one else on the job one is holding down.”

— Charles M. Schwab

20. “If you must be a glutton, be a glutton for work.”

— Charles M. Schwab

21. “I thought and dreamed of nothing else but the steel works.”

— Charles M. Schwab

22. “The man who counts his hours and kicks about his salary is a self-elected failure.”

— Charles M. Schwab

23. “One of the most successful men I have known never carried a watch until he began to earn ten thousand dollars a year.”

— Charles M. Schwab

24. “The captains of industry are not hunting money. America is heavy with it. They are seeking brains – specialized brains – and faithful, loyal service. Brains are needed to carry out the plans of those who furnish the capital.”

— Charles M. Schwab

25. “Keeping a little ahead of conditions is one of the secrets of business; the trailer seldom goes far.”

— Charles M. Schwab

26. “Most talk about ‘super-geniuses’ is nonsense. I have found that when ‘stars’ drop out, successors are usually at hand to fill their places, and the successors are merely men who have learned by application and self-discipline to get full production from an average, normal brain.”

— Charles M. Schwab

27. “There is not a man in power at our Bethlehem steel works today who did not begin at the bottom and work his way up.”

— Charles M. Schwab

28. “When you go into your customary barber shop, you will wait for the man who gives you a little better shave, a little trimmer hair-cut. Business leaders are looking for the same things in their offices that you look for in the barber shop.”

— Charles M. Schwab

29. “I disagreed with Carnegie’s ideas on how best to distribute his wealth. I spent mine!”

— Charles M. Schwab

30. “Looking to the future I see in the further acceleration of science continuous jobs for our workers. Science will cure unemployment.”

— Charles M. Schwab

31. “A factory can be closed down, its chimneys smokeless, waiting for the worker to come back to his job, and all will be peaceful. But the moment workers are imported, and the striker sees his own place usurped, there is bound to be trouble.”

— Charles M. Schwab

32. “The inventor, the man with a unique, specialized talent, is the only real super-genius. But he is so rare that he needs no consideration.”

— Charles M. Schwab

33. “All successful employers are stalking men who will do the unusual, men who think, men who attract attention by performing more than is expected of them.”

— Charles M. Schwab

34. “The thing that most people call ‘genius’ I do not believe in.”

— Charles M. Schwab

35. “For my own part I am more interested in my work than its mere money value.”

— Charles M. Schwab

36. “Don’t be reluctant about putting on overalls!”

— Charles M. Schwab

37. “If more persons would get so enthused over their day’s work that some one would have to remind them to go out to lunch there would be more happiness in the world and less indigestion.”

— Charles M. Schwab

38. “The truth is that we have hitherto made no genuine effort to produce forged steel working parts of automobiles of the highest quality. That is one of the reasons why our automobiles have not ranked with those of foreign make.”

— Charles M. Schwab

39. “What we must seek is a plan by which the men will receive high wages when the employers are receiving high prices for the product.”

— Charles M. Schwab

40. “I didn’t take up shorthand with any idea of becoming a professional at it. It merely appeared to me to be a good thing to know – something that might come in handy.”

— Charles M. Schwab

41. “You can never really get away – – you can only take yourself somewhere else.”

— Charles M. Schwab

42. “It may be in seemingly unimportant things that a man expresses his passion for perfection, yet they will count heavily in the long run.”

— Charles M. Schwab

43. “You can tell a workingman you like him, but he knows whether you are sincere or not. You can’t make him believe you are interested in his welfare unless you are.”

— Charles M. Schwab

44. “Don’t be afraid of imperilling your health by giving a few extra hours to the company that pays your salary!”

— Charles M. Schwab

45. “I have probably purchased fifty ‘hot tips’ in my career, maybe even more. When I put them all together, I know I am a net loser.”

— Charles M. Schwab

46. “The first essential in a boy’s career is to find out what he’s fitted for, what he’s most capable of doing and doing with a relish.”

— Charles M. Schwab

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

— Charles M. Schwab

48. “Spending creates more wealth for everybody.”

— Charles M. Schwab

49. “Young men may enjoy dropping their work at five or six o’clock and slipping into a dress suit for an evening of pleasure; but the habit has certain drawbacks.”

— Charles M. Schwab

50. “I will not be in the position of having management dictated to by labor.”

— Charles M. Schwab