Bernard Mannes Baruch (1870–1965) was an American financier who was an economic consultant to U.S. presidents.
Born in Camden, South Carolina, and educated in New York City, Baruch worked as an office boy in a linen company and later in Wall Street brokerage houses. Over the years, he accumulated a fortune as a stock market speculator. He helped finance some of the principal industrial firms of his time including Texas Gulf Sulphur, Utah Copper, and the Intercontinental Rubber Company.
During World War I, Baruch served as Chairman of the War Industries Board, where he assisted the military readiness of America’s businesses. As an adviser to Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt, he served as chairman of the War Industries Board 1918–19 and US representative on the UN Atomic Energy Commission 1946.
Baruch wrote two autobiographical works—My Own Story (1958) and The Public Years (1961)—as well as A Philosophy for Our Times (1953.)
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Never follow the crowd.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Individuality
Take the obvious, add a cupful of brains, a generous pinch of imagination, a bucketful of courage and daring, stir well and bring to a boil.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Ideas
Approach each new problem not with a view of finding what you hope will be there, but to get the truth, the realities that must be grappled with. You may not like what you find. In that case you are entitled to try to change it. But do not deceive yourself as to what you do find to be the facts of the situation.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Facts
Don’t try to buy at the bottom and sell at the top. This can’t be done, except by liars.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Business
Always do one thing less than you think you can do.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Happiness, Contentment
During my eighty-seven years, I have witnessed a whole succession of technological revolutions. But none of them has done away with the need for character in the individual or the ability to think.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Character
The ability to express an idea is well nigh as important as the idea itself.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Speech, Communication
The art of living lies not in eliminating but in growing with troubles.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Realistic Expectations, Life and Living
Old age is fifteen years older than I am.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Age, Birthdays
One of the secrets of a long and fruitful life is to forgive everybody, everything, every night before you go to bed.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Two things are bad for the heart—running up stairs and running down people.
—Bernard M. Baruch
I have known men who could see through the motivations of others with the skill of a clairvoyant; only to prove blind to their own mistakes. I have been one of those men.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Failures, Mistakes
Unless each man produces more than he receives, increases his output, there will be less for him and all the others.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Whatever failures I have known, whatever errors I have committed, whatever follies I have witnessed in private and public life have been the consequence of action without thought.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Thought, Planning
Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Questions
The terror created by weaponry has never stopped men from employing them.
—Bernard M. Baruch
The essence of any plan for financing old age is saving-to put aside some part of today’s earnings for the future. Anything that saps the value of savings-and inflation is the worst single threat-is the enemy of the aged and of those who expect to grow old.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Aging
I made my money by selling too soon.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Even when we know what is right, too often we fail to act. More often we grab greedily for the day, letting tomorrow bring what it will, putting off the unpleasant and unpopular.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Responsibility
If the history of the past fifty years teaches us anything, it is that peace does not follow disarmament—disarmament follows peace.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Peace
Every man has a right to be wrong in his opinions. But no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Opinion, Facts
There are no such things as incurable, there are only things for which man has not found a cure.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Possibilities, Potential
Vote for the man who promises least; he’ll be the least disappointing.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Promises, Politics
Nobody ever lost money taking a profit.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Business
The greatest blessing of our democracy is freedom. But in the last analysis, our only freedom is the freedom to discipline ourselves. Discipline is deciding not to be led around by our gotta haves. It is the task of a lifetime, an indispensable prerequisite to success, and the only way to be truly free.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Freedom
We can’t cross a bridge until we come to it; but I always like to lay down a pontoon ahead of time.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Planning
Colleges don’t teach economics properly. Unfortunately we learn little from the experience of the past. An economist must know, besides his subject, ethics, logic, philosophy, the humanities and sociology, in fact everything that is part of how we live and react to one another.
—Bernard M. Baruch
We didn’t all come over on the same ship, but we’re all in the same boat.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Life, Equality
No man should think himself a zero, and think he can do nothing about the state of the world.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Thoughts, Thought, Thinking
Try as we may, none of us can be free of conflict and woe. Even the greatest men have had to accept disappointments as their daily bread…. The art of living lies less in eliminating our troubles than in growing with them. Man and society must grow together. Each individual’s efforts to discipline himself must be matched by society’s struggle to enforce the rules of law and of justice under the law.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Opportunities, Reality, Failure
Most of the successful people I’ve known are the ones who do more listening than talking.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Success, Success & Failure
Save for gold, jewels, works of art, perhaps good agricultural land, and a very few other things, there ain’t no such animal as a permanent investment.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Wealth
A political leader must keep looking over his shoulder all the time to see if the boys are still there. If they aren’t still there, he’s no longer a political leader.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Politics, Politicians
Age is only a number, a cipher for the records. A man can’t retire his experience. He must use it. Experience achieves more with less energy and time.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Age, Accomplishment, Retirement
You can overcome anything if you don’t bellyache.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Only as you do know yourself can your brain serve you as a sharp and efficient tool. Know your failings, passions, and prejudices so you can separate them from what you see. Know also when you actually have thought through to the nature of the thing with which you are dealing and when you are not thinking at all.
—Bernard M. Baruch
Topics: Self-Knowledge