Top 60 J. Paul Getty Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “I’d rather have 1% of the effort of 100 men than 100% of my own effort.”

— J. Paul Getty

Featured in: Short Quotes, Positive Work Quotes, Quotes About Work, Clever Quotes

2. “Patience; this is the greatest business asset. Wait for the right time to make your moves.”

— J. Paul Getty

3. “There is only one way to make a great deal of money; and that is in a business of your own.”

— J. Paul Getty

4. “Money isn’t everything but it sure keeps you in touch with your children.”

— J. Paul Getty

5. “The key to wealth is to learn how to make money while you sleep.”

— J. Paul Getty

6. “If you can count your money, you don’t have a billion dollars.”

— J. Paul Getty

7. “Formula for success: rise early, work hard, strike oil.”

— J. Paul Getty

8. “Buy when everyone else is selling and hold until everyone else is buying. That’s not just a catchy slogan. It’s the very essence of successful investing.”

— J. Paul Getty

9. “The meek shall inherit the Earth, but not its mineral rights.”

— J. Paul Getty

10. “If you owe the bank $100 that’s your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that’s the bank’s problem.”

— J. Paul Getty

11. “People who don’t respect money don’t have any.”

— J. Paul Getty

12. “In times of rapid change, experience could be your worst enemy.”

— J. Paul Getty

13. “You must take risks, both with your own money or with borrowed money. Risk taking is essential to business growth.”

— J. Paul Getty

14. “If you look after the pennies, the dollars will look after themselves.”

— J. Paul Getty

15. “The individual who wants to reach the top in business must appreciate the might and force of habit. He must be quick to break those habits that can break him-and hasten to adopt those practices that will become the habits that help him achieve the success he desires.”

— J. Paul Getty

16. “The man who comes up with a means for doing or producing almost anything better, faster or more economically has his future and his fortune at his fingertips.”

— J. Paul Getty

17. “You must never try to make all the money that’s in a deal. Let the other fellow make some money too, because if you have a reputation for always making all the money, you won’t have many deals.”

— J. Paul Getty

18. “The employer generally gets the employees he deserves.”

— J. Paul Getty

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

— J. Paul Getty

20. “Build wealth as a by product of your business success. If wealth is your only objective in business, you will probably fail.”

— J. Paul Getty

21. “Wealth is only a benefit of the game of money. If you win, the money will be there.”

— J. Paul Getty

22. “To build wealth today, you must be in your own business.”

— J. Paul Getty

23. “Money is like manure. You have to spread it around or it smells.”

— J. Paul Getty

24. “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?”

— J. Paul Getty

25. “Men of means look at making money as a game which they love to play.”

— J. Paul Getty

26. “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.”

— J. Paul Getty

27. “Age doesn’t matter, unless you are cheese.”

— J. Paul Getty

28. “Some people find oil. Others don’t.”

— J. Paul Getty

29. “It shouldn’t be very difficult for anyone to resist the temptation to force himself into the pattern of the structured man. One needs only to remember that a groove may be safe – but that, as one wears away at it, the groove becomes first a rut and finally a grave.”

— J. Paul Getty

30. “Nostalgia often leads to idle speculation.”

— J. Paul Getty

31. “You must not only learn to live with tension, you must seek it out. You must learn to thrive on stress.”

— J. Paul Getty

32. “A sense of thrift is essential to success in business. The businessman must discipline himself to practice economy whenever possible, in his personal life as well as his business affairs.”

— J. Paul Getty

33. “There is, however, hope for any person who wants to remain an individual. He can assert himself and refuse to conform. He’ll be on his own, that’s true, but while he will not have the security enjoyed by those who do conform, there will be no limits to what he may achieve.”

— J. Paul Getty

34. “There are always opportunities through which businessmen can profit handsomely if they will only recognize and seize them.”

— J. Paul Getty

35. “The conformist is not born. He is made. I believe the brainwashing process begins in the schools and colleges.”

— J. Paul Getty

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

— J. Paul Getty

37. “I buy when other people are selling.”

— J. Paul Getty

38. “In my opinion, an individual without any love of the arts cannot be considered completely civilized.”

— J. Paul Getty

39. “In business, as in politics, it is never easy to go against the beliefs and attitudes held by the majority. The businessman who moves counter to the tide of prevailing opinion must expect to be obstructed, derided and damned.”

— J. Paul Getty

40. “Oil is like a wild animal. Whoever captures it has it.”

— J. Paul Getty

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

— J. Paul Getty

42. “I find all this money a considerable burden.”

— J. Paul Getty

43. “No one can possibly achieve any real and lasting success or ‘get rich’ in business by being a conformist.”

— J. Paul Getty

44. “If you get up early, work late, and pay your taxes, you will get ahead – if you strike oil.”

— J. Paul Getty

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

— J. Paul Getty

46. “Getting results through people is a skill that cannot be learned in the classroom.”

— J. Paul Getty

47. “You cannot further the Brotherhood of Man by encouraging class hatred.”

— J. Paul Getty

48. “The majority is by no means omniscient just because it is the majority. In fact, I’ve found that the line which divides majority opinion from mass hysteria is often so fine as to be virtually invisible.”

— J. Paul Getty

49. “I have no complex about wealth. I have worked very hard for my money; producing things people need.”

— J. Paul Getty

50. “The rich are not born sceptical or cynical. They are made that way by events, circumstances.”

— J. Paul Getty