Jay Gould Quotes
104 Jay Gould Quotes
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[On buying gold] I had to buy, or show the white feather. The other fellows deserted me like rats.
Jay Gould
If you show that note. I am a ruined man.
Jay Gould
[On Thursday the day preceding Black Friday] I sold that day, and only bought enough to make the street think I was still a bull.
Jay Gould
[On directing everything on a council of war by nods and whispers] I determined not to open my mouth that day, and I did not.
Jay Gould
[On the Black Friday panic - The] Result of over-trading. [The real cause was] The fluctuations in the price of gold caused by the war!
Jay Gould
I then went into the Union Pacific road. I met Horace Clark and Augustus Schell out West, and they gave me so good an account of the road that I concluded to buy in it. I telegraphed to New York an order to buy at a certain price. When Mr Clark got home he was taken ill, and as soon as his brokers learned that his illness was to be fatal they sold out this stock. That broke the market and filled orders which I had sent at a price lower than I ever expected. When I got home I found myself the owner of a large amount of this property and at once inquired into its condition. I learned that it was saddled with a large floating debt and that there were $10,000,000 of bonds coming due within a month. It was in rather a blue condition. The directors were consulting who should be the receiver. I made up my mind that I would carry it through, and I told them that if they would furnish half of the money to pay the debt I would furnish the other half. The stock went down to 15. It was a large loss, but still I kept right on buying, so when the turn came there did not seem to be any top to it. It went up to 75 and I immediately went to work to bring the road up. I went out over it, started coal mines, and to the surprise of everybody it soon began to pay dividends and has never passed a dividend since.
Jay Gould
When this road began to be a financial success and developed other ways there arose quite a clamor, and it was said to be Jay Gould’s road, as though it were a dangerous thing to have one man control a road. I thought that it was better to bow to public opinion, so I took an opportunity when I could place the stock in the hands of investors. In the course of a very few months, instead of controlling the road, I was entirely out of it, and the stock was twenty percent higher than I had sold it for. Instead of being thirty or forty stockholders there were between six and seven thousand, representing the savings of widows and orphans. There were also a great many lady stockholders.
Jay Gould
I consider the past a good thing to judge a [rail] road by, but the future more.
I have been all my life dealing in railroads, that is, since before I came of age. I always bought on the future; that’s how I made my money.
Jay Gould
The bonds on the first road I bought were down to 10 cents. I built up the road and sold them for $125.
Jay Gould
I saw that Kansas Pacific [Railroad] was going to develop faster than the Union Pacific [Railroad].
Jay Gould
[On the development of the Missouri Pacific railroad system a system of more than 5,000 miles] I did not care about making money with it. I had got beyond that point where I cared about making money for myself. I was chiefly interested in convincing myself and others that I could make an effective and financially successful railroad combination.
Jay Gould
I have been all my life a laborer or an employer of laborers. Strikes come from various causes, but are principally brought about by the poorest, and therefore the dissatisfied element. The best workers generally look forward to advancement in the ranks or save money enough to go into business on their own account. Though there may be few advanced positions to be filled, there is a large number of men trying to get them. They get better pay here than in any other country, and that is why they come here. My idea is that if capital and labor are let alone they will mutually regulate each other. People who think they can regulate all mankind and get wrong ideas which they which they believe to be panaceas for every ill cause much trouble to both employers and employees by their interference.
Jay Gould
I am in favor of arbitration as an easy way of settling differences between corporations and their employees.
Jay Gould
[In 1881] I am interested in the telegraph, for the railroad and telegraph systems go hand in hand, as it were, integral parts of a great civilization. I naturally became acquainted with the telegraph business and gradually became interested in it. I thought well of it as an investment and I kept increasing my interests.
Jay Gould
[In 1881 on the history of Western Union] When the Union Pacific was built I had an interest in a company called the Atlantic and Pacific and I endeavored to make that a rival to the Western Union. We extended it considerably, but found it rather uphill work. We saw that our interest lay more with the Western Union. Through that we could reach every part of the country, and through a small company we could not; so we made an offer to sell to Western Union the control of the Atlantic and Pacific. At the time a very dear friend of mine was the manager, and I supposed that he would be made the manager of the Western Union, but after the consolidation was perfected it was not done, and I made up my mind that he should be at the head of as good a company as I had taken him from. The friend was General Eckert, and for him I started another company – the American Union – and we carried it forward until a proposition was made to merge it also into the Western Union. As the stock of the latter went down I bought a large interest in it, and found that the only way out was to put the two companies together. Gen. Eckert became general manager of the whole system. Meanwhile I bought so much of its property and its earning power that I have kept increasing my interest. I thought it better to let my income go into the things that I was in myself, and I have never sold any of my interests, but have devoted my income to increasing them. This is the whole history of it.
Jay Gould
The very dividend of the Western Union is based upon doing business well, keeping her customers and developing her business.
Jay Gould
[In 1881 on suggestions of the government buying Western Union] If the Democrats were in power there would be a Democratic telegraph; if the Republicans came into power there would be a Republican telegraph, and if the Reformers came in I don’t know what there would be. I think it would be a mere political machine.
Jay Gould
[On valuing a property or stock] I judge of property myself by its net earning power; that is the only rule I have been able to get. If you show me a property that is paying no more than the taxes, I don’t want it. I want property that earns money.
Jay Gould
[In 1881] You will find this property valued by its earning power, by its rent power, and that is the way to value a railroad or a telegraph. So it is worth what it earns now, a capital that pays 7 percent. [‘That would be $100,000,000?] Yes, and it is worth much more than that, because there are a great many assets.
Jay Gould
[On a head of a department in Western Union requesting for a salary increase from $2,400 to $3,000 together with his report for the period when some of the directors did not seem to be willing to vote make the increase] If that man made out this report he is entitled to the salary he asks. He is a valuable man. [The salary was voted to him.]
Jay Gould
[In 1873 on buying $10,000,000 of Union Pacific stock and having it bound into a book and put into a safe] For my wife and family as an investment.
Jay Gould
Stock doesn’t always depend upon dividends… You pay more for rubies than for diamonds, and more for diamonds than for glass.
Jay Gould
I always paid my own hotel bills.
Jay Gould
[On a small boat seeming to challenge his yacht in a race] Choose somebody of your own size; we are too big for you.
Jay Gould
[In 1887 being interviewed in France] We have got some things yet to learn from the Old World, but in all essential respects, in the form of government, of national character, resources and opportunities we have the great country of the future, and the more I see of foreign countries the better American I am.
Jay Gould
What would this country be but for corporations?
Jay Gould
My theory of investments is this: To go into everything that promises profit.
Jay Gould
For me business possess a very great fascination. I believe in this country, in its future. Unfortunately I do not always success. I have been in a score, a hundred speculations from which I would have gladly have withdrawn, but once in an enterprise it is very hard to leave it. We are all slaves, and the man who owns $1,000,000 is the greatest slave of all, except him who owns $2,000,000.
Jay Gould
I am a mere passenger in all my undertakings. I am interested not with one or a dozen men, but with thousands.
Jay Gould
No man in this country, outside of a lunatic asylum, whom I know, imagines for a moment that he could control the press or mould the opinion of this country.
Jay Gould
[On making out a check for $5,000 to the widow of one of the employees who had stood by the company and unfortunately had been shot and killed.] We must look out for those who stand by us.
Jay Gould
Remember my boy, the essential thing in business is to keep up your credit.
Jay Gould
I don’t know that I can give you the information you seek.
Jay Gould
There are many chances to make money in this Western country. That rock may contain valuable mineral.
Jay Gould
There are so many undeveloped resources to be developed.
Jay Gould
It is too bad you came so far for nothing, but I suppose you will write an article anyway. I hope you will be accurate.
Jay Gould
If I denied all the lies circulated about me I should have no time to attend to business. Of course there is no truth in this.
Jay Gould
Do you know that my father’s poverty was never worth a single thousand dollars to me?
Jay Gould
[After black Friday when Mr Gould’s old partner Henry N. Smith was shaking his finger in Mr Gould’s face shouted ‘I’ll live to see the day, sir when you have to earn a living by going around this street with a hand organ and a monkey.’] Maybe you will, Henry, maybe you will. And when I want a monkey Henry, I’ll send for you.
Jay Gould
Whenever I am obliged to get into a fight I always wait and let the other fellow get tired first.
Jay Gould
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