Quotes by Sam Walton

Celebrate your successes. Find some humor in your failures.

I probably have traveled and walked into more variety stores than anybody in America.

Expenses should never exceed one percent of our purchases.

Most of us don't invent ideas. We take the best ideas from someone else.

In the beginning, I was so chintzy I really didn't pay my employees well.

I've never been one to dwell on reverses.

If you don't listen to your customers, someone else will.

I'd still say that visiting the stores and listening to our folks was one of the most valuable uses of my time as an executive. But really, our best ideas usually do come from the folks in the stores. Period.

Job security lasts only as long as the customer is satisfied. Nobody owes anybody else a living.

I'd hate to see any descendants of mine fall into the category of what I'd call 'idle rich' -- a group I've never had much use for.

I've always been driven to buck the system.

The way management treats their associates is exactly how the associates will then treat the customers.

Great ideas come from everywhere if you just listen and look for them. You never know who's going to have a great idea.

It's just paper -- all I own is a pickup truck and a little Wal-Mart stock.

I was asked what I thought about the recession. I thought about it and decided not to take part.

If one of our customers comes into the store without a smile, I'll give them one of mine.

The job of senior management is to cultivate an environment where store managers can learn from the market and from each other.

After a lifetime of swimming upstream, I am convinced that one of the real secrets to Wal-mart's phenomenal success has been that very tendency.

Information is power, and the gain you get from empowering your associates more than offsets the risk of informing your competitor.

I think my constant fiddling and meddling with the status quo may have been one of my biggest contributions to the later success of Wal-Mart.

It was almost as if I had a right to win. Thinking like that often seems to turn into sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I don't know what would have happened to Wal-Mart if we had laid low and never stirred up the competition. My guess is that we would have remained a strictly regional operator.

You can learn from everybody.

Focus on something the customer wants, and then deliver it.

When all else fails, put on a costume and sing a silly song.

Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen,

well-timed, sincere words of praise.

They're absolutely free and worth a fortune.

I've owned about 18 airplanes over the years, and I've never bought one of them new.

There is only one boss. The customer.

The secret of successful retailing is to give your customers what they want.

I not only knew I wanted to go into retailing, I also knew I wanted to go into business for myself.

Appreciate everything your associates do for the business.

Exceed your customer's expectations. If you do, they'll come back over and over. Give them what they want -- and a little more.

I have always been driven to buck the system, to innovate, to take things beyond where they've been.

One person seeking glory doesn't accomplish very much.

Give ordinary folk the chance to buy the same things as rich people.

Share your profits with all your associates, and treat them as partners. In turn, they will treat you as a partner, and together you will all perform beyond your wildest expectations.

If you love your work, you'll be out there every day trying to do it the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you -- like a fever.

Maybe I was born to be a merchant, maybe it was fate. I don't know about that. But I know this for sure: I loved retail from the very beginning.

I learned this early on in the variety business: You've got to give folks responsibility, you've got to trust them, and then you've got to check on them.

If everybody is doing it one way, there's a good chance you can find your niche by going exactly in the opposite direction.

Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom.

Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage.

Each Wal-Mart store should reflect the values of its customers and support the vision they hold for their community.

We let folks know we're interested in them and that they're vital to us. cause they are.

We're all working together; that's the secret.