William Crosbie Hunter

“ The only man who has a sure thing on the Board of Trade or Stock Exchange or the race track is the man with the "Wienerwurst" privilege.
The successful business man some day wakes up to the fact that his bills are paid, and that he has surplus money. This surplus money should be used for investment purposes and not for speculation. Of course, it is hard to draw the line where investment leaves off and speculation begins.
When you speculate on margins you are like the fellow holding on a bear's tail as it runs around a tree—if you lose your hold the bear will get you. ”

“ The real vacation you get is when you take yourself away from the business marts of trade, and go to a place where you can get your feet on good old mother earth. Go where fences are unknown, where there are no "keep off the grass" signs, climb the hills, walk through the forests, fill your lungs with good ozone, say to yourself "all these beautiful things are mine."
Nature has arranged it so that the poorest man in the world can get the most priceless things as easily as the multi-millionaire. ”

“ Get kindness in each day.
The man who is grave, austere, the man who tries to skin the other fellow, who devotes all his energies to money-making alone, finds as the years go by and he has attained his goal, but that he does not know how to enjoy himself.
There are three periods in a man's life—the future, the now and the past. When we attain old age our life is largely made up of reminiscences, or looking back over the past. If our past life has been one of struggle, worry and getting the best of the other fellow, then there is little happiness in looking back over such a life. ”

“ If my friends have alabaster boxes laid away full of fragrant perfumes of sympathy and affection which they intend to lay over my dead body, I would rather they would bring them out in my weary and troubled hours, and open them, that I may be refreshed and cheered by them while I need them. I would rather have a plain coffin without a flower and a funeral without an eulogy, than a life without the sweetness of love and sympathy. ”

“ The good fellow is ever found where pleasures abound. He shines at the dinner. His knowledge of mixed drinks is a revelation.
The good fellow spends his time where the glasses clink, where the horses run, and where the revelers congregate. His earnings go for dinners, bottles and shows, and while these occupy his mind he imagines he is having a good time, that his actions evidence "good fellowship."
Go to the clubs and you will see the "good fellow." He is spoken of by all the other "good fellows" as a "good fellow." And they are all good fellows together. ”

“ If it were not for discontent many of the leaders in the business world today would still be on the farm or clerking in a country store.
Keep busy, young man, do the first thing that comes handy. Change your job if you are discontented, for no one can do his best work if his heart is not in it. When discontent causes you to change frequently you may be sure that some day you will strike your gait, and then ambition will fire you to stick at it.
When you get on the right track and are not discontented you have struck it right. ”

“ The brain is like a muscle, it must be exercised or it becomes flabby.
Cultivate concentration of thought; study your sphere of usefulness; cut out the weeds that grow in your brain; get out of the mental rut you are in; stop drifting; keep your brain healthily active.
Men are paid either for what they think or for what their muscles do. Man's muscles have a limit; he can move just so much matter by physical force. But his capacity from a mental standpoint is unlimited.
The world offers golden prizes to the man who thinks. Therefore we should cultivate our brains and make them expand. ”

“ The real brain and moral growth takes place in solitude.
Here again we must remember the law of compensation, for if a plant had all sunshine and no shadow, and if a man had all hustle and bustle and no solitude, it would be like a machine without a governor; the man and the plant would run so fast something would have to give way.
On the other hand compensation says that if a man is too much in solitude, or the plant too much in darkness, they will wither and die.
Man has always had strong admiration for the strong individual, whether bird, beast, fish, plant or human. ”

“ In proportion as we have endured these backaches and pains and are patient in our occupation, the aches will lessen until finally we have laid up a store of energy so that the aches will not bother us.
The backaches and muscle-aches and headaches we have, when they come from honest work performed for the benefit of those we love, are sweet aches and pains. They represent sacrifice, these aches and pains do, and sacrifice brings happiness. The only way to be truly happy is to do something for somebody, and doing something for somebody is making a sacrifice for somebody. ”

“ They make it difficult for their friends to see them. They put a lot of red tape around their business, and by these acts they get out of touch with the pulse of the business. They look at things through colored glasses. Their judgment gets warped.
In proportion as a man cultivates independence and autocratic ideas, just so in proportion is he nearing the brink over which many have fallen to destruction. When an independent man has a fall, his enemies glory and loud are the shouts that arise from them, and if we listen closely we will hear the multitude say: "Serves him right." ”

“ The business man who goes along day by day without taking on any responsibilities or without tackling more difficult problems, finds he does not progress.
The man who gets into a rut and reads light, frothy literature all the time—the kind that is pleasing to the imagination, the kind that leaves no permanent impression—does not progress mentally.
Reading should be like eating, we should have the dessert as well as the substantials. It would be a great mistake to eat dessert alone, and it is certainly a mistake to read light, frothy reading matter alone. ”

“ The gambler and the foolish man like success to come quickly and with great strides. It is because there are many foolish men and gamblers that the get-rich-quick fake thrives.
The man who gets rich suddenly usually indulges in such sports as lighting cigars with ten dollar bills, and his wind-up is in the pauper's grave.
No man knows the true value of money unless he has worked for it. The man who has earned his dollars through the penny route knows the value of the penny, and he gets mighty good value when he spends a dollar. ”

“ There is nothing in your old age that will be such a comfort to you as retrospection, or looking back over a long life of happiness in the home. The happy little incidents which today seem trivial will be remembered in the future, and a thousand and one occurrences which are happening in the home are being put away in the store-house of memory, later to be called upon and enjoyed again. ”

“ With the keen competition of these days it is necessary for the individual to be a specialist in business.
Pleasure and recreation are the only things in which an individual should be a generalist.
Were it not for specialists we should know little about the sun, little of electricity, little of steam, little of railroads, little of advertising, little of anything else. It is because individuals have made a speciality of one thing, because they have concentrated their energies and their brain power on one thing that the world has progressed. ”

“ The dude employe does not like perspiration, so he sees to it that he does not exert himself enough to perspire.
Employes should remember that very truthful axiom: "The employe who never does more than he is paid for is never paid for more than he does."
The employe should remember that the boss takes large chances in hiring help, for there is not one employe out of ten that is a good investment. The employes should remember that it is necessary for the boss to make a good margin of profit on each employe, else he could not maintain his business. ”

“ The most familiar objects change their aspect with every change of the soul. When you worry, everything is distorted, everything appears unnatural, the world looks dark, our friends seem far off. The jokes we hear fall flat. We indulge ourselves in pessimism.
When the whole matter is summed up philosophically, there is no bad luck in the world except sickness. All other so-called hard luck is simply temporary. If you lose your money, don't worry about it, make some more. If you lose a friend, don't worry; show him his mistake. If you lose an opportunity, do not worry ”

“ The true friend is not one made in a hurry. There is no friend like the old one with whom you went birdnesting in your youth, the friend that has plodded along life's road with you shoulder to shoulder. ”

“ It is not the clock that strikes the loudest that keeps the best time. The expensive chronometer works steadily along doing its work well and faithfully. It does not attract as much attention as the gilt clock with its sweet chimes, but men who know things are aware that the chronometer has the more real merit. Have the chronometer for your ideal and not the fancy clock, for true merit will certainly receive due reward.
We should all have some ideal which we hope to attain tomorrow, but let us remember that the way to reach the ideal tomorrow is to make today successful. ”

“ Ambition makes men strive to get ahead. Ambition cultivates taking chances.
Nearly every man is a gambler. Some of you will be shocked at this statement, yet upon careful analysis nearly every move a successful business man makes is a gamble. He is betting that he will take in more money than he lays out on a new plan. The man with ambition is a gambler. The man who learns a trade and does not strive to increase his earnings is not a gambler.
We pride ourselves on our ability to buy cheaply, because the cheaper we can buy the greater our earnings will be and the less our gamble. ”

“ If the boss is careless in little things, if he is sharp in his practice, if he does mean acts, he may rely upon it his employes will copy him, and later on, when some blow strikes the business, he will find it has happened through the practices of the employes who got their cues from the boss.
Kindness wins kindness; love wins love. If the boss is generous and charitable, if he sets a good example, he will have an esprit de corps among his employes that is of incalculable value. ”

“ The herd man exists in infinitely greater numbers than the individual man.
We cannot imagine Lincoln, Bismarck, Webster, Clay, Edison or Burbank living in the herd, or spending their time in the boulevard cafes.
The man who lives in a herd, who is ever present where the lights are bright, where gaiety abounds, where excitement reigns, where feasting is present, soon gets himself into the habit of cultivating this excitement. He is never happy when alone.
The brain never sleeps and something must occupy it. The herd man fills his brain with frivolous things, he seeks constant excitement. ”

“ He should be willing to grant an audience to an employe and should work with him.
The boss should say we rather than I. He should talk with the employes and not down to them. He should make each individual under him feel that he is part of the institution and an element in its success.
Remember this—employes watch the boss and they copy him. Where you find hard working employes you will find a hard working boss.
The boss cannot run the whole business himself; he is dependent upon willing hands, and, in order to get willing hands, he must have willing hands himself. ”

“ Hard work will be much easier if you keep worry out of it.
Hard work brings success, but to do hard work, the machinery must be in good order. You must keep your constitution up, you must have plenty of sleep and you must learn to eat and breathe properly.
No story of success has ever been truly written that did not depict hard work in every line.
Success comes by inches, not by leaps or bounds. Success is the pushing forward each day by hard work.
Burn the candle at one end only and you replace each day what you have burned, by rest, sleep and recreation. ”

“ Real estate booms come in cycles. Prices go up and men get the fever and buy vacant property. The boom explodes, property goes down and you can't get your money back. The chances are you have bought the property on two or three years' time, and it certainly is paying for a white elephant when you are paying for land that is worth less than what it cost you. You cannot get out, however, because the original payment has already been made, and your only hope is to save something on your investment. ”

“ We wish to be plainly understood that the matter of good birth and good ancestors is a good thing to have. The writer has a pedigree that would be his passport into the aristocracy of birth if he chose to belong to that lodge. Your good ancestors is no handicap. It is a credit to you, but mark this down well: You, yourself, are entitled to no credit for any acts of your ancestors. Your measure is and should be taken for what your own net worth is.
The aristocracy of boodle is the slimmest aristocracy of all. Yet there are more people who try to get into that lodge than any other. ”

“ Grumbling is an advertisement to the world that you are not well balanced. Grumbling won't help things a bit. The more you indulge in the habit the more firmly it becomes fixed upon you, and later you will find it almost impossible to shake it off. ”

“ We are not pessimistic when we say that no man ever became wealthy through the savings bank plan of putting away a certain amount each week. We will say, however, that there is no better training for the employe than this one thing of saving. Saving a part of your weekly income and putting it away, if carried on for a number of years becomes a habit and it means that you will keep your expenses within your income. It is the saving habit that makes the benefit, for later on when you are in business the habit stands you in good stead and teaches you the value of having a reserve. ”

“ The four most precious things in the world are good air, good food, good water and good health. Money cannot buy any one of these things. The man with millions cannot get any better air, or more nourishing food, or purer water, or better health than can the poor man.
The man who goes to the big woods for his vacation, who lives out of doors, who gets near to nature, is putting by a reserve in his constitution and brain that he will draw upon for the remainder of the year. Such vacations will clear the cobwebs from your brain. ”

“ When afflictions come to our families, or reverses come to our business, when the dark clouds hang over us, when stormy seas are about to swamp us, when we need help, then is the time we find who are our true friends. ”