Always try to associate yourself closely with and learn as much as you can from those who know more than you, who do better than you, who see more clearly than you. Apart from the rewards of friendship, the association might pay off at some unforeseen time - that is only an accidental byproduct. The important thing is that the learning will make you a better person.

It is unwise to make education too cheap. If everything is provided freely, there is a tendency to put no value on anything. Education must always have a certain price on it; even as the very process of learning itself must always require individual effort and initiative.

A teacher can never truly teach unless he is still learning himself. The teacher who has come to the end of his subject, who has no living traffic with his knowledge but merely repeats his lesson to his students, can only load their minds, he cannot quicken them.

Most of the learning that you had as a merchant - especially back then - came from the people around you, so it's really learning on the job and principles coming out like - back then, we didn't really sign contracts, and we had some vendor agreements to make sure we could pay people, but your handshake was your agreement.

Learning acquired in youth arrests the evil of old age; and if you understand that old age has wisdom for its food, you will so conduct yourself in youth that your old age will not lack for nourishment.

2/3 of our management associates come from our hourly ranks. We put in place academies to help people with education. We've put a dollar a day college program in to help people get college hours if they want to advance their degrees.