Quotes about Profit

The forbidden truth is that we are living by a set of lies which are necessary for short-term profit, at the expense of human physical and psychological life and global environmental integrity. We are living in a system where power ensures that the requirements of profit take priority over the requirements of living things-including the need to know that this is the case. Consequently our freedom extends as far as, and no further than, the satisfaction of these requirements, with all else being declared neurosis, paranoia, communism, extremism, the work of the devil, or Neptunian nonsense.

Focus on cash flow. I understand the difference between cash flow and profitability, and I'm not recommending that you strive for a lack of profitability. But cash is what keeps the doors open and pays the bills. Paper profits on an accrual accounting basis is of no more than secondary or tertiary importance for a startup. As my mother used to say, "Sales fixes everything."

I do not believe maximizing profits for the investors is the only acceptable justification for all corporate actions. The investors are not the only people who matter. Corporations can exist for purposes other than simply maximizing profits.

Do what you love, but be damned sure it’s profitable.  If you do work you love, but it doesn’t generate income, your business will fail.  If you do work you hate, but it generates income, your health will fail… and your business along with it.  If you can’t do what you love and make it profitable, you’ve either got a hobby or a headache, not a sustainable business.  Don’t settle for anything less than passion and profit.

...making profits is important because it keeps all our people in jobs and, you know, it keeps what we — what we’ve created going, but, you know, what we’re — what I get my — what I’m proud about doing is creating companies which we’re really proud of, you know, which we can really be proud of and a byproduct of that hopefully will be that they’ll be profitable and be able to pay the bills.

The status quo is a very powerful opiate and when you have a system that seems to be working and producing profits by the conventional way of accounting for profits. It’s very hard to make yourself change. But we all know that change is an inevitable part of business. Once you have ridden a wave just so far, you have to get another wave. We all know that. For us, becoming restorative has been that new wave and we have been riding it for 13 years now. It’s been incredibly good for business.

During the last five years, those four advantages—costs, products, people, goodwill—have been the salvation of Interface during a recession that saw our primary marketplace shrink by 38% from peak to trough—38%! As a heavily leveraged company with over $400 million in debt, we might not have made it without the sustainability initiative and, especially, the support of our customers. This revised definition of success—this new paradigm—has a name: “Doing well by doing good”. It is a better way to bigger profits.

...there is no more strategic issue for a company, or any organization, than its ultimate purpose. For those who think business exists to make a profit, I suggest they think again. Business makes a profit to exist. Surely it must exist for some higher, nobler purpose than that.

...it's the same with business. If you focus on the goal and not the process, you inevitably compromise. Businessmen who focus on profits wind up in the hole. For me, profit is what happens when you do everything else right.

One percent of the equity, 1 percent of the profits, and 1 percent of the people go into Google.org. The most important asset isn’t money, it’s people. One percent of the people means 60 or 70 of the smartest people in the world trying to solve some of the biggest problems in the world.

It is possible for a company to pursue multiple bottom lines if it’s closely held by a group of like-minded shareholders--that was the case at my former company, Working Assets. But once a corporation goes public--that is, sells stock to strangers—the die is pretty much cast. Strangers want a stock that will rise when they plunk down their money, and profit is the sure path to doing that. It’s just a matter of time, then, until the profit-maximizing algorithm kicks in.

"The corporation cannot be ethical, its only responsibility is to make a profit."

...The market is a hard task master: It does not allow either self-indulgence or consideration for others. What others think of you matters, but the results--measured by and objective criterion, money--matters more. Having an objective criterion encourages objective performance. That is what makes financial markets so efficient.: they turn people into profit-making machines. That has its merits, but a society dominated by financial markets could easily become inhuman. this is not a flight of fancy but a present danger.

But we have not achieved our tremendous increase in shareholder value by making shareholder value the primary purpose of our business. In my marriage, my wife's happiness is an end in itself, not merely a means to my own happiness; love leads me to put my wife's happiness first, but in doing so I also make myself happier. Similarly, the most successful businesses put the customer first, ahead of the investors. In the profit-centered business, customer happiness is merely a means to an end: maximizing profits. In the customer-centered business, customer happiness is an end in itself, and will be pursued with greater interest, passion, and empathy than the profit-centered business is capable of.

The only source from which an entrepreneurs profits stem is his ability to anticipate better than other people the future demand of the consumers.

Do what you love, but be damned sure it's profitable. If you do work you love, but it doesn't generate income, your business will fail.  If you do work you hate, but it generates income, your health will fail… and your business along with it.  If you can't do what you love and make it profitable, you've either got a hobby or a headache, not a sustainable business.  Don't settle for anything less than passion and profit.

When you cut corners or when you undermine others for the sake of ego or profit, you are only hurting yourself.

There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things.  For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order, this lukewarmness arising partly from fear of their adversaries, who have the laws in their favour; and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had the actual experience of it.

When each of these three elements of vision--concern for excellence, for people and for the wider environment--are present, business is transformed from a tool for making profits into a creative, humane experiment for improving life.     

There's no such thing as business ethics; there's just ethics. And ethics makes no concessions for the real or imagined necessities of making a profit.

No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en:
In brief, sir, study what you most affect.

We, ignorant of ourselves; Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers Deny us for our good; so find we profit By losing of our prayers.

A Garden, an Elaboratory, a Work-house, Improvements and Breeding, are pleasant and Profitable Diversions to the Idle and Ingenious: For here they miss Ill Company, and converse with Nature and Art; whose Variety are equally grateful and instructing; and preserve a good Constitution of Body and Mind.

. . . store of bees, in a dry and warme bee-house, comely made of fir boards, to sing, and sit, and feede upon your flowers and sprouts, make a pleasant noyse and sight. For cleanly and innocent bees, of all other things, love and become, and thrive in your orchard. If they thrive (as they must needs if your gardiner be skilfull, and love them: for they love their friends and hate none but their enemies) they will besides the pleasure, yeeld great profit, to pay him his wages; yea the increase of twenty stock of stools with other bees, will keep your orchard.

In positive terms, we can state that psychological maturity entails finding greater satisfaction in giving than in receiving; having a capacity to form satisfying and permanent loyalties; being primarily a creative, contributing person; having learned to profit from experience; having a freedom from fear (anxiety) with a resulting true serenity and not a pseudo absence of tension; and accepting and making the most of unchangeable reality when it confronts one.

One of the best lessons that anyone can learn in life is how to use time wisely. Consider what can be done in ten minutes. If you need a little mental relaxation, you can sit down with a friend and play a game of cards. If you need some physical recreation, you can engage in a few exercises that will help tone up your body. Perhaps you have a friend who for weeks or months has been looking for a letter. Then there may be among your acquaintances someone whose friendship you would value highly and whose counsel would be profitable. Learn to use ten minutes intelligently. It will pay you huge dividends.

What we need to do is learn to work in the system, by which I mean that everybody, every team, every platform, every division, every component is there not for individual competitive profit or recognition, but for contribution to the system as a whole on a win-win basis.

Wisdom: to live in the present, plan for the future, and profit from the past.

It may be that the most benefit occurs when something is dealt with for its own sake, rather than for the attainment of some external goal. If one is too eager to wring profit from an experience, the potential slips through his grasping fingers.

In order for you to profit from your mistakes, you have to get out and make some.