Top 50 Claude C. Hopkins Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Impressive claims are made far more impressive by making them exact.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

2. “Advertising is much like war, minus the venom.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

3. “The time has come when advertising in some hands has reached the status of a science.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

4. “This is no lazy mans field.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

5. “People don’t buy from clowns.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

6. “Remember the people you address are selfish, as we all are. They care nothing about your interests or profit. They seek service for themselves.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

7. “The only purpose of advertising is to make sales. It is profitable or unprofitable according to its actual sales.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

8. “The compass of accurate knowledge directs the shortest, safest, cheapest course to any destination.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

9. “We cannot go after thousands of men until we learn now to win one.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

10. “Ads are planned and written with some utterly wrong conception. They are written to please their seller. The interest of the buyer is forgotten.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

11. “Ads are not written to entertain. When they do, those entertainment seekers rare little likely to be the people whom you want. This is one of the greatest advertising faults. Ad writers abandon their part. They forgot they are salesmen and try to be performers. Instead of sales, they seek applause.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

12. “Curiosity is one of the strongest human incentives.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

13. “Genius is the art of taking pains.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

14. “The best ads ask no one to buy. That is useless. Often they do not quote a price. They do not say that dealers handle the product. The ads are based entirely on service. They offer wanted information.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

15. “Changing people’s habits is very expensive.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

16. “Every reader of your ad is interested, else he would not be a reader. You are dealing with someone willing to listen. Then do your level best. That reader, if you lose him now, May never again be a reader.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

17. “Picture what others wish to be, not what they may be now.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

18. “People will not be bored. They may listen politely at a dinner table to boasts and personalities, life history, etc. But in print they choose their own companions, their own subjects. They was to be amused or benefitted.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

19. “Platitudes and generalities roll of the human understanding like water from a duck.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

20. “The advertising man who spares the midnight oil will not get very far.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

21. “The product itself should be it’s own best salesman. Not the product alone, but the product plus a mental impression, and atmosphere, which you place around it.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

22. “If a claim is worth making, make it in the most specific way.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

23. “Remember the people you address are selfish, as we all are. They care nothing about your interests or profit. They seek service for themselves. Ignoring this fact is a common mistake and a costly mistake in advertising.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

24. “Scientific advertising has altered many old plans and conceptions. It has proved many long established methods to be folly.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

25. “On most lines, making a sale without making a convert does not count for much. Sales made by conviction – by advertising – are likely to bring permanent customers. People who buy through casual recommendations often do not stick.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

26. “Literary qualifications have no more to do with it than oratory has with salesmanship. One must be able to express himself briefly, clearly, and convincingly, just as a salesman must.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

27. “Fine writing is a distinct disadvantage. So is unique literary style. They take attention from the subject.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

28. “A man coined to superlative must expect that his every statement will be taken with some caution.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

29. “Whatever claim you use to get attention, the advertisement should tell a story reasonably complete.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

30. “Don’t think of people in the mass. This gives you a blurred view.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

31. “Lust is a monstrous sin which altereth, marreth, and drieth the body, weakening all the joints and members, making the face bubbled and yellow, shortening life, diminishing memory, understanding, and the very heart.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

32. “One may gain attention by wearing a fools cap. But he would ruin his selling prospects.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

33. “Most national advertising is done without justification. It is merely presumed to pay. A little test might show a way to multiply returns.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

34. “The weight of an argument may often be multiplied by making it specific.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

35. “Never be led in new paths by the blind.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

36. “Human nature is perpetual. In most respects it is the same today as in the time of Caesar. So the principles of psychology are fixed and enduring.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

37. “We learn, for instance, that curiosity is one of the strongest human incentives.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

38. “We are influenced by our surroundings. The prosperous mingle with the prosperous, so do those of certain likes and inclinations. The higher we ascend the farther we proceed from ordinary humanity. That will not do in advertising. I have seen.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

39. “Advertising is utterly unprofitable, and I could prove it to you in one week. End an ad with an offer to pay five dollars to anyone who writes you that he read the ad through. The scarcity of replies will amaze you.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

40. “The man who wins out and survives does so only because of superior science and strategy.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

41. “Use pictures only to attract those who may profit you. Use them only when they form a better selling argument than the same amount of space set in type.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

42. “Advertising pictures should not be eccentric. Don’t treat your subject lightly. Don’t lessen respect for your self or your article by any attempt at frivolity. People do not patronize a clown. There are two things about which men should not joke. One is business, one is home. An eccentric picture may do you serious damage. One may gain attention by wearing a fools cap. But he would ruin his selling prospects.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

43. “If a thing is useful they call it work, if useless they call it play. One is as hard as the other. One can be just as much a game as the other. In both there is rivalry. There’s a struggle to excel the rest. All the difference I see lies in attitude of mind.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

44. “In the old days, advertisers ventured on their own opinions. The few guess right, the many wrong. Those were the time of advertising disaster.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

45. “Do nothing to merely interest, assume or attract. This is not your province. Do only that wins the people you are after in the cheapest possible way.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

46. “The writing of headline is one of the great journalistic arts. They either conceal or reveal am interest.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

47. “Don’t, to gain general and useless attention, sacrifice the attention that you want.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

48. “No generality has any weight whatever. It is like saying “how do you do?” When you have no intention of inquiring about ones health. But specific claims when made in print are taken at their value.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

49. “Address the people you seek, and them only.”

— Claude C. Hopkins

50. “When I find what seems to be the right course I always wish to keep it. There may be another way to success, even to greater success. But the chances are against it. The ways to great success in any line are not numerous. When a certain method has proved itself profitable I hesitate to drop it, until I have found and proved a better method by some local tests. The best way found to sell a product to thousands is probably the best way to sell other thousands.”

— Claude C. Hopkins