Quotes and Opinions of Andrew Carnegie

Published December 20, 2020
Updated May 11, 2022

​ Andrew Carnegie's Quotes and Opinions​

• The Three-Legged Stool of Capital, Labor and Management

We shall one day all recognize capital, labor and business ability as a three-legged stool, each necessary for the other, neither first, second nor third in rank, all equal. All my earnings were from manufacturing. If it were necessary for me to return to that calling, I should not consider the problem of labor as at all difficult. On the contrary, I enjoyed conferences with our men.
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​We have one rule: Come what may, we would never think of running our works with new men. Able, sober, well-behaved workmen such as ours were, are not to be picked up on the streets, and we wished no others. We were very particular in regard to drinking: first offense, men were excluded thirty days; second offense, sixty days; third offense, we parted company.

​Andrew Carnegie, System: The Magazine of Business, July 1915

• Boss Your Boss

Always break orders to save the owners [of the business].

There never was a great character who did not sometimes smash the routine regulations and make new ones for himself. ... Do not hesitate to do it [break the rules] whenever you are sure the interests of your employer will be thereby promoted and when you are so sure of the result that you are willing to take the responsibility.

You will never be a partner unless you know the business of your department far better than the owners possibly can. When called to account for your independent action, show him the result of your genius, and tell him that you knew that it would be so; show him how mistaken the orders were.

Boss your boss just as soon as you can; try it on early.

There is nothing he will like so well if he is the right kind of boss; if he is not, he is not the man for you to remain with - leave him when ever you can, even at a present sacrifice, and find one capable of discerning genius.

​Andrew Carnegie, The Empire of Business, 1913

• The Counterfeit to Business

All pure coins have their counterfeit. The counterfeit of business is speculation.

A man in business always gives value in return for his revenue, and thus performs a useful function. His services are necessary and benefit the community. He labors steadily in developing the resources of the country, and thus contributes to the advancement of the race. This is the genuine coin.

Speculation, on the contrary, is a parasite fastened upon the labor of business men. It creates nothing and supplies, no want. When the speculator wins he takes all the money, without rendering service or giving value; therefore, when he loses, his fellow speculator takes the money from him. It is a pure gambling operation between them, degrading to both.

You can never be an honest man of business and a speculator. The modes and aims of the one career are fatal to the other.

​Andrew Carnegie, The Empire of Business, 1913

• On Egotism

Many men are to be met with in this life who would have been great and successful had the world rated them at the value which they placed upon themselves.
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This class are the victims of an hallucination.

​Andrew Carnegie, The Empire of Business, 1913

• On Diversity

Nothing should be done that would tend to reduce diversity of talents in our [human] race.

Everything should be done to increase it if possible; for it is through "variation" the progress of the [human] race has been achieved, and progress is the chief end of existence. This is what we are here for, as is proven by the fact that progress from the lower to the higher has prevailed from the time this earth cooled and life began to appear.
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This is our God-like mission: that every individual in his day and generation push this march upward, so that each succeeding generation may be better than the preceding.

​Andrew Carnegie, The Empire of Business, 1913

• On Socialism

It is a healthful sign when there is unrest and dissatisfaction, and zealous, even extreme, advocates of change clamoring for better things and quicker march.

Divine discontent is the root of progress, and even our socialistic friends, with their revolutionary ideas, stir the waters for our good, if we reason soberly together and test their proposed remedies before we forsake the path which has so far led our [human] race upward from the brute to civilized manhood. By the nature of its being, the one rule which the human race never can persistently violate is that which proclaims, "Hold fast to that which has proved itself good."

Complaint against our socialistic friends is not that they do not mean well. On the contrary, no class is moved by worthier impulses. Their hearts are in the right place, and one cannot but sometimes admire their aspirations. Thus Keir Hardie writes:
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"Surely it is reasonable to hope that a day will dawn in which a desire to serve rather than to be served shall be the spur which shall drive men onward to noble deeds."

​Andrew Carnegie, The Empire of Business, 1913

• The Business Man Owes Society a Debt

A man's first duty is to make a competence and be independent. But his whole duty does not end here.

It is his duty to do something for his needy neighbors who are less favored than himself. It is his duty to contribute to the general good of the community in which he lives. He has been protected by its laws. Because he has been protected in his various enterprises he has been able to make money sufficient for his needs and those of his family. All beyond this, belongs in justice, to the protecting power that has fostered him and enabled him to win pecuniary success.
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To try to make the world in some way better than you found it is to have a noble motive in life. Your surplus wealth should contribute to the development of your own character and place you in the ranks of nature's noblemen.

​​Andrew Carnegie, The Empire of Business, 1913

• How to Achieve Superlative Human Performances

“There lie latent unsuspected powers in willing men [and women] around us which only need appreciation and development to produce surprising results. Money rewards alone will not insure these, for to the most sensitive and ambitious natures there must be the note of sympathy, appreciation, friendship. Genius is sensitive in all its forms, and it is unusual ability—not ordinary ability, that tells [achieves results].

​"You must capture and keep the 'heart' of the original and supremely able man [or woman] before his [or her] brain can do its best.”

Burton J. Hendrick, The Life of Andrew Carnegie

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