Top 90 Sam Walton Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “High expectations are the key to everything.”

— Sam Walton

Featured in: Startup Quotes

2. “There is only one boss: the customer. And he can fire everybody in the company, from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.”

— Sam Walton

Featured in: Startup Quotes, Business Quotes, Quotes About Work, Boss Quotes

3. “There is only one boss. The customer.”

— Sam Walton

Featured in: Boss Quotes

4. “The goal as a company is to have customer service that is not just the best, but legendary.”

— Sam Walton

5. “We’re all working together; that’s the secret.”

— Sam Walton

Featured in: Quotes About Work

6. “Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish.”

— Sam Walton

Featured in: Leadership Quotes

7. “Exceed your customer’s expectations. If you do, they’ll come back over and over. Give them what they want – and a little more.”

— Sam Walton

8. “If you don’t listen to your customers, someone else will.”

— Sam Walton

9. “Individuals don’t win in business, teams do.”

— Sam Walton

10. “Do it. Try it. Fix it.”

— Sam Walton

11. “Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom.”

— Sam Walton

12. “Great ideas come from everywhere if you just listen and look for them. You never know who’s going to have a great idea.”

— Sam Walton

13. “To succeed in this world, you have to change all the time.”

— Sam Walton

14. “If you love your work, you’ll be out there every day trying to do it the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you – like a fever.”

— Sam Walton

15. “Communicate everything you can to your associates. The more they know, the more they care. Once they care, there is no stopping them.”

— Sam Walton

16. “Celebrate your success and find humor in your failures. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Loosen up and everyone around you will loosen up. Have fun and always show enthusiasm. When all else fails, put on a costume and sing a silly song.”

— Sam Walton

17. “Don’t get so stuck in your ways that you can’t change.”

— Sam Walton

18. “You can’t just keep doing what works one time, everything around you is changing. To succeed, stay out in front of change.”

— Sam Walton

19. “Capital isn’t scarce; vision is.”

— Sam Walton

20. “Leaders must always put their people before themselves. If you do that, your business will take care of itself.”

— Sam Walton

21. “You can learn from everybody.”

— Sam Walton

22. “Focus on something the customer wants, and then deliver it.”

— Sam Walton

23. “There’s absolutely no limit to what plain, ordinary, working people can accomplish if they’re given the opportunity and encouragement to do their best.”

— Sam Walton

24. “If you want a successful business, your people must feel that you are working for them – not that they are working for you.”

— Sam Walton

25. “Lose your smile and lose your customers.”

— Sam Walton

26. “The way management treats their associates is exactly how the associates will then treat the customers.”

— Sam Walton

27. “I was asked what I thought about the recession. I thought about it and decided not to take part.”

— Sam Walton

28. “Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anybody else.”

— Sam Walton

29. “We’re all working together; that’s the secret. And we’ll lower the cost of living for everyone, not just in America, but we’ll give the world an opportunity to see what it’s like to save and have a better lifestyle, a better life for all. We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished ; we’ve just begun.”

— Sam Walton

30. “The secret of successful retailing is to give your customers what they want.”

— Sam Walton

31. “Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage.”

— Sam Walton

32. “Our best ideas come from clerks and stockboys.”

— Sam Walton

Featured in: Innovation Quotes

33. “Most everything I’ve done I’ve copied from somebody else.”

— Sam Walton

34. “It was almost as if I had a right to win. Thinking like that often seems to turn into sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

— Sam Walton

35. “Take the best out of everything and adapt it to your needs.”

— Sam Walton

36. “The key to success is to get out into the store and listen to what the associates have to say. It’s terribly important for everyone to get involved. Our best ideas come from clerks and stockboys.”

— Sam Walton

37. “It’s just paper – all I own is a pickup truck and a little Wal-Mart stock.”

— Sam Walton

38. “Curiosity doesn’t kill the cat; it kills the competition.”

— Sam Walton

39. “Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction.”

— Sam Walton

40. “A computer can tell you down to the dime what you’ve sold, but it can never tell you how much you could have sold.”

— Sam Walton

41. “Celebrate your successes. Find some humor in your failures.”

— Sam Walton

42. “I have always been driven to buck the system, to innovate, to take things beyond where they’ve been.”

— Sam Walton

43. “You can make a lot of mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you’re too inefficient.”

— Sam Walton

44. “When all else fails, put on a costume and sing a silly song.”

— Sam Walton

45. “Keep everybody guessing as to what your next trick is going to be. Don’t become too predictable.”

— Sam Walton

46. “I had to get up everyday with my mind set on improving something.”

— Sam Walton

47. “Share your profits with all your associates, and treat them as partners. In turn, they will treat you as a partner, and together you will all perform beyond your wildest expectations.”

— Sam Walton

48. “I had to pick myself up and get on with it, do it all over again, only even better this time.”

— Sam Walton

49. “I believe in always having goals, and always setting them high.”

— Sam Walton

50. “If I had to single out one element in my life that has made a difference for me, it would be a passion to compete.”

— Sam Walton