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Staff post about: P.T. Barnum Become an Author

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I had my room papered and carpeted previously to taking possession.

Brass, for silver and gold I have none.

Without promotion something terrible happens, nothing!

Newspaper reporters came from far and near, and wrote glowing accounts of the elephantine performances. The six acres were plowed over at least sixty times before I thought the advertisement sufficiently circulated.

Many persons are always kept poor, because they are too visionary. Every project looks to them like certain successes, and therefore they keep changing from one business to another, always in hot water, always ‘under the harrow’.

Do not scatter your powers.

Engage in one kind of business only, and stick to it faithfully until you succeed, or until your experience shows that you should abandon it.

A constant hammering on one nail will generally drive it home at last, so that it can be clinched. When a man's undivided attention is centered on one object, his mind will constantly be suggesting improvements of value, which would escape him if his brain was occupied by a dozen different subjects at once.

Many a fortune has slipped through a man's fingers because he was engaged in too many occupations at a time.

There is good sense in the old caution against having too many irons in the fire at once.

Work at it, if necessary, early and late, in season and out of season, not leaving a stone unturned, and never deferring for a single hour that which can be done just as well now…Ambition, energy, industry, perseverance, are indispensable requisites for success in business.

Politeness and civility are the best capital ever invested in business. Large stores, gilt signs, flaming advertisements, will all prove unavailing if you or your employees treat your patrons abruptly.

The truth is, the more kind and liberal a man is, the more generous will be the patronage bestowed upon him.

Men who drive sharp bargains with their customers, acting as if they never expected to see them again, will not be mistaken. They will never see them again as customers. People don’t like to pay and get kicked also.

If you whip him, he will never visit the museum again, and he will induce friends to go with him to other places of amusement instead of this, and thus you see, I should be a serious loser.

If he owned the Museum, and you had paid him for the privilege of visiting it, and he had then insulted you, there might be some reason in your resenting it, but in this instance he is the man who pays, while we receive, and you must, therefore, put up with his bad manners.

If you hesitate, some bolder had will stretch out before you and get the prize.

A man who is known to be strictly honest, may be ever so poor, but he has the purses of all the community at his disposal, for all know that if he promises to return what he borrows, he will never disappoint them.

As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them, and they will do better by you than if you always treated them as if you wanted to get the most you could of them for the least return.

We are all, no doubt, born for a wise purpose.

Unless a man enters upon the vocation intended for him by nature, and best suited to his peculiar genius, he cannot succeed.

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