Chuck Feeney Quotes
118 Chuck Feeney Quotes (DFS Quotes, Duty Free Shoppers, Charles Feeney)
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[On saving the company that was to make him a billionaire] We had no choice but to salvage the company or go over the cliff.
Chuck Feeney
[On signing away his fortune to his charitable foundation] How to become a millionaire? Become a billionaire first!
Chuck Feeney
The world changed when we sold DFS. Our coffers were full from the $1.6 billion transaction. I sort of felt we could do more good by taking that money and putting it into things, but the challenge was, where do you put it?
Chuck Feeney
I’m a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of guy.
Chuck Feeney
I simply decided I had enough money.
Chuck Feeney
Use your wealth to help people, use your wealth to create institutions to help people.
Chuck Feeney
No matter how much money you have, you can’t solve the health issues of those you love.
Chuck Feeney
Money has an attraction for some people, but you can’t wear two pairs of shoes at one time.
Chuck Feeney
[On being asked if he wanted to walk or take a cab back when the Forbes rich list had changed his net worth from $1.9 billion in 1991 to $0.9 billion in 1992] Forbes just said I lost a billion in the past year so we’d better walk.
Chuck Feeney
[To people interested in buying the DFS business in the early 1990’s] It’s a cash transaction, and the cash involved would be $3 or $4 billion dollars.’ That chased away the walkers, talkers, and gawkers.
Chuck Feeney
Since my earliest days I have been frugal, but I am a frugal person in that I hate waste, at any level.
Chuck Feeney
If I can get a watch for $15 that keeps perfect time, what am I doing messing around with a Rolex?
Chuck Feeney
Money is more worthwhile to the people in need when things are tough rather than when things are good.
Chuck Feeney
[At university being known as the ‘Sandwich Man’ in the beginning buying ingredients at the store late on Friday so that his checks would not be cashed until Monday – (later at his peak he was averaging selling 700 sandwiches/week)] It was my first experience in deficit financing.
Chuck Feeney
[On the early days of Tourists International – DFS] Financial controls weren’t necessary. We didn’t have any money!
Chuck Feeney
[On being thrilled with his three daughters, Juliette, Caroleen and Leslie in 1966] Kids are good – make some!
Chuck Feeney
[On suppliers giving credit to DFS (Duty Free Shoppers) in 1965] If you were a booming success they would give you credit, but if you were just starting out they wouldn’t.
Chuck Feeney
[On cultivating a frugal lifestyle, wearing a cheap Timex watch and buying a second hand Volvo] I just reached the conclusion with myself that money, buying boats and all the trimmings, didn’t appeal to me.
Chuck Feeney
[To Tony Pilaro] Tony, you are foolish; you put 100 percent of yourself into the company and take only two and a half percent out. I’m not going to put in 100 percent and only take 38.75 percent.
Chuck Feeney
[On his definition of success] There has to be a balance in life. A balance of business, family, and the opportunity to learn and teach.
Chuck Feeney
I’m not really into money. Some people get their kicks that way. That’s not my style.
Chuck Feeney
[When thinking seriously about charity] I came to the conclusion I didn’t need a lot of money because I didn’t intend to live a lifestyle that required it.
Chuck Feeney
Big balls, big bucks.
Chuck Feeney
It ain’t over till it’s over.
Chuck Feeney
[On the obduracy (being unyielding/inflexible) in his character] I prefer another word – tenacity.
Chuck Feeney
[On being asked whether he was nervous about his first public appearance] Well, they promised me $20 to make the speech.
Chuck Feeney
If we could buy those at $1 and sell them for $10, that’s my sort of profit.
Chuck Feeney
[On picking up rubbish in the street] If everybody picked up trash, there would be no trash on the streets.
Chuck Feeney
Home is where the heart is, and where my books are. Everywhere I go, I have my books.
Chuck Feeney
[On one of his early entrepreneurial ventures as a child clearing other people’s snowed in driveways with a friend Moose Foley] I would call and collect the 25 cents and Moose would dig the snow, and we would split the money.
Chuck Feeney
[On wanting to get expelled from Regis High due to the high cost for his parents] I got caught cribbing in a religion exam, but it was part of my plot. If you get caught cribbing in a religious exam they asked you to leave.
Chuck Feeney
[On joining the US Air Force in June 1948 when he was only seventeen knowing that he would be drafted anyway with a few years with conscription] So I felt, well, I’ll just be scratching my ass, I may as well get it over with, so I signed up for three years.
Chuck Feeney
[On one of his comrades with two Russian language specialists breaking the rules by flying over the line between Russia and the United States and their plane being shot down] They were dead because this guy didn’t follow orders which were very clear – don’t go over the line.
Chuck Feeney
[On studying at Cornell Hotel School] Once they let me in I was certainly capable of competing with the people who were in there. I had to get there to figure that out.
Chuck Feeney
[On selling programs at the football stadium and being told by a guy from Princeton who they were playing ‘I don’t need a program, I can’t read.’] Oh you must be from Princeton!
Chuck Feeney
[On a friend gambling and wanting to bet everything on the next one after they had been winning and started losing] No. We’re through. [They ended up ahead by $1,600 each]
Chuck Feeney
[On him stopping gambling or playing any games of chance again] I have always been down on gambling since then. We had the good fortune to make $3,200 divided by two before our system went belly-up, and to stop playing before we lost all of that.
Chuck Feeney
[On learning that vacationers were permitted by US Customs to import a five-pack of liquor – five one-fifth bottles amounting to one gallon – once every thirty-one days, without paying duty] I all of a sudden realized, sh*t, you can sell this to anybody anywhere. It didn’t matter where you bought it from, as long as you declared it when you got back into the States.
Chuck Feeney
[On Lichtenstein] It was a tax haven, and people like us went there to do business.
Chuck Feeney
[On importing foreign cars – The buyer gave them 10% of the cost, and the company booked the order for 5 percent] The customers were funding us, and the suppliers were also giving us credit in a funny way.
Chuck Feeney
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