Top 150 Thomas J. Watson Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate.”

— Thomas J. Watson

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2. “Failure is a teacher; a harsh one, but the best.”

— Thomas J. Watson

3. “Till sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet.”

— Thomas J. Watson

4. “Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the danger of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of ‘crackpot’ than the stigma of conformity.”

— Thomas J. Watson

5. “Our murmuring is the devil’s music.”

— Thomas J. Watson

6. “The fastest way to succeed is to double your rate of failure.”

— Thomas J. Watson

7. “All the problems of the world could be settled easily if men were only willing to think. The trouble is that men very often resort to all sorts of devices in order not to think, because thinking is such hard work.”

— Thomas J. Watson

8. “Nothing so conclusively proves a man’s ability to lead others as what he does from day to day to lead himself.”

— Thomas J. Watson

9. “You can be discouraged by failure, or you can learn from it. So go ahead and make mistakes, make all you can. Because, remember that’s where you’ll find success – on the far side of failure.”

— Thomas J. Watson

10. “Prayer delights God’s ear; it melts His heart; and opens His hand. God cannot deny a praying soul.”

— Thomas J. Watson

11. “Christ went more willingly to the cross than we do to the throne of grace.”

— Thomas J. Watson

12. “Success is on the far side of failure.”

— Thomas J. Watson

13. “Whenever an individual or a business decides that success has been attained, progress stops.”

— Thomas J. Watson

14. “Wisdom is the power to put our time and our knowledge to the proper use.”

— Thomas J. Watson

15. “Knowledge without repentance will be but a torch to light men to hell.”

— Thomas J. Watson

16. “Sin has the devil for its father, shame for its companion, and death for its wages.”

— Thomas J. Watson

17. “Really big people are, above everything else, courteous, considerate and generous – not just to some people in some circumstances – but to everyone all the time.”

— Thomas J. Watson

18. “It is a common mistake to think of failure as the enemy of success. Failure is a teacher-a harsh one, but the best. Pull your failures to pieces looking for the reason. Put your failure to work for you.”

— Thomas J. Watson

19. “The angel fetched Peter out of prison, but it was prayer that fetched the angel.”

— Thomas J. Watson

20. “A weak faith can lay hold on a strong Christ.”

— Thomas J. Watson

21. “If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work.”

— Thomas J. Watson

22. “The toughest thing about the power of trust is that it’s very difficult to build and very easy to destroy. The essence of trust building is to emphasize the similarities between you and the customer.”

— Thomas J. Watson

23. “Every time we’ve moved ahead in IBM, it was because someone was willing to take a chance, put his head on the block, and try something new.”

— Thomas J. Watson

24. “There is more evil in a drop of sin than in a sea of affliction.”

— Thomas J. Watson

25. “Once an organization loses its spirit of pioneering and rests on its early work, its progress stops.”

— Thomas J. Watson

26. “A manager is an assistant to his men.”

— Thomas J. Watson

27. “Praising God is one of the highest and purest acts of religion. In prayer we act like men; in praise we act like angels.”

— Thomas J. Watson

28. “Eternity to the godly is a day that has no sunset; eternity to the wicked is a night that has no sunrise.”

— Thomas J. Watson

29. “Let us then ascribe the whole work of grace to the pleasure of God’s Will. God did not choose us because we were worthy, but by choosing us He makes us worthy.”

— Thomas J. Watson

30. “A man’s greatest care should be for that place where he lives longest; therefore eternity should be his scope.”

— Thomas J. Watson

31. “The great accomplishments of man have resulted from the transmission of ideas and enthusiasm.”

— Thomas J. Watson

32. “Affliction may be lasting, but it is not everlasting.”

— Thomas J. Watson

33. “Knowledge is the eye that must direct the foot of obedience.”

— Thomas J. Watson

34. “Are there not millions of us who would rather go sleeping to hell; than sweating to heaven?”

— Thomas J. Watson

35. “Recently, I was asked if I was going to fire an employee who made a mistake that cost the company $600,000. No, I replied, I just spent $600,000 training him. Why would I want somebody to hire his experience?”

— Thomas J. Watson

36. “Every time we draw our breath we suck in mercy.”

— Thomas J. Watson

37. “First we practice sin, then defend it, then boast of it.”

— Thomas J. Watson

38. “It is our work to cast care, and it is God’s work to take care.”

— Thomas J. Watson

39. “God did not choose us because we were worthy, but by choosing us He makes us worthy.”

— Thomas J. Watson

40. “It is hard to carry a full cup without spilling, and a full estate without sinning.”

— Thomas J. Watson

41. “The pleasure of sin is soon gone, but the sting remains.”

— Thomas J. Watson

42. “Obedience without knowledge is blind, and knowledge without obedience is lame.”

— Thomas J. Watson

43. “The right manner of growth is to grow less in one’s own eyes.”

— Thomas J. Watson

44. “We spend our years with sighing; it is a valleyof tears; but death is the funeral of all our sorrows.”

— Thomas J. Watson

45. “God sweetens outward pain with inward peace.”

— Thomas J. Watson

46. “The prayer that is faithless is fruitless.”

— Thomas J. Watson

47. “The world can create trouble in peace, but God can create peace in trouble.”

— Thomas J. Watson

48. “If a wicked man seems to have peace at death, it is not from the knowledge of his happiness, but from the ignorance of his danger.”

— Thomas J. Watson

49. “Prayer is the soul’s breathing itself into the bosom of its heavenly Father.”

— Thomas J. Watson

50. “If joining IBM was commitment, not employment, and the company engaged in something more than business, it had a right to demand of its men unconditional loyalty, Watson believed.”

— Thomas J. Watson