Bruce Barton Quotations

When you are through changing, you are through.

Most successful men have not achieved their distinction by having some new talent or opportunity that was at hand.

It would do the world good if every man would compel himself occasionally to be absolutely alone. Most of the world s progress has come out of such loneliness.

When you have something for breakfast, you're not going to be starving by lunch.

Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside of them was superior to circumstance.

The five steps in teaching an employee new skills are preparation, explanation, showing, observation and supervision.

Action and reaction, ebb and flow, trial and error, change - this is the rhythm of living. Out of our over-confidence, fear; out of our fear, clearer vision, fresh hope. And out of hope, progress.

It takes a real storm in the average person's life to make him realize how much worrying he has done over the squalls.

In good times, people want to advertise; in bad times, they have to.

If you can give your child only one gift, let it be enthusiasm.

Cereal eating is almost a marker for a healthy lifestyle. It sets you up for the day, so you don't overeat.

What a curious phenomenon it is that you can get men to die for the liberty of the world who will not make the little sacrifice that is needed to free themselves from their own individual bondage.

If you have anything really valuable to contribute to the world it will come through the expression of your own personality, that single spark of divinity that sets you off and makes you different from every other living creature.

Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things, I am tempted to think there are no little things.

The essential element in personal magnetism is a consuming sincerity - an overwhelming faith in the importance of the work one has to do.

Not eating breakfast is the worst thing you can do, that's really the take-home message for teenage girls.

Many a man who pays rent all his life owns his own home; and many a family has successfully saved for a home only to find itself at last with nothing but a house.

No sex, age, or condition is above or below the absolute necessity of modesty; but without it one vastly beneath the rank of man.

Jesus picked up twelve men from the bottom ranks of business and forged them into an organisation that conquered the world.

Before you give up hope, turn back and read the attacks that were made on Lincoln.

Christ would be a national advertiser today, I am sure, as He was a great advertiser in His own day. He thought of His life as business.

I got more potholes in my concrete slab, ... than all of Venice has in their streets.

If we can find something as small as a finger or a tip of a finger, even, that could allow the police departments to hopefully get a DNA match on somebody. And that's going to allow closure for families.

Cereal is fairly high in fiber. Fiber fills you up so you don't eat as much at lunch. Probably the other foods you eat with cereal, such as milk and orange juice, help.

Cereal is not very high in calories, but it tends to be absorbed more slowly by the body, keeping you satisfied longer than, say, a bagel,

Some of the girls who didn't eat cereal, would just raid the fridge in the morning, ... One had a breakfast of hot dogs and chocolate milk.

The popularity of that baby-faced boy, who possessed not even the elements of a good actor, was a hallucination in the public mind, and a disgrace to our theatrical history.

I do not like the phrase: Never cross a bridge till you come to it. The world is owned by men who cross bridges on their imaginations miles and miles in advance of the procession.

Great men suffer hours of depression through introspection and self-doubt. That is why they are great. That is why you will find modesty and humility the characteristics of such men.

When you're through changing, you're through.

The most important thing about getting somewhere is starting right where we are.

The big rewards come to those who travel the second, undemanded mile.

If you are going to do anything, you must expect criticism. But it's better to be a doer than a critic. The doer moves; the critic stands still, and is passed by.

Talkers have always ruled. They will continue to rule. The smart thing is to join them.

As a profession advertising is young; as a force it is as old as the world. The first four words ever uttered, Let there be light, constitute its charter. All nature is vibrant with its impulse.

Conceit is God's gift to little men.

If you expect perfection from people your whole life is a series of disappointments, grumblings and complaints. If, on the contrary, you pitch your expectations low, taking folks as the inefficient creatures which they are, you are frequently surprised by having them perform better than you had hoped.

A daughter is the happy memories of the past, the joyful moments of the present, and the hope and promise of the future.

Voltaire spoke of the Bible as a short-lived book. He said that within a hundred years it would pass from common use. Not many people read Voltaire today, but his house has been packed with Bibles as a depot of a Bible society.

Jesus brought forth men's greatest efforts by the promise of obstacles not rewards.

In the long run no individual prospers beyond the measure of his faith.

The faults of advertising are only those common to all human institutions. If advertising speaks to a thousand in order to influence one, so does the church. And if it encourages people to live beyond their means, so does matrimony. Good times, bad times, there will always be advertising. In good times, people want to advertise; in bad times they have to.

Get money - but stop once in a while to figure what it is costing you to get it. No man gets it without giving something in return. The wise man gives his labor and ability. The fool gives his life.

Every time you open your mouth you let men look into your mind.

We pay just as dearly for our triumphs as we do for our defeats. Go ahead and fail. But fail with wit, fail with grace, fail with style. A mediocre failure is as insufferable as a mediocre success.

A man may be down, but he is never out.

Much brass has been sounded and many cymbals tinkled in the name of advertising; but the advertisements which persuade people to act are written by men who have an abiding respect for the intelligence of their readers, and a deep sincerity regarding the merits of the goods they have to sell.

If you want to know if your brain is flabby, feel your legs.

I had never thought of advertising as a life work, though I had on the side, written some very successful copy.

The Bible rose to the place it now occupies because it deserved to rise to that place, and not because God sent anybody with a box of tricks to prove its divine authority.

If there is no intelligence in the universe, then the universe has created something greater than itself-for it has created you and me.

An election goes on every minute of the business day across the counters of hundreds of thousands of stores and shops where the customers state their preferences and determine which company and which product shall be the leader today and which shall lead tomorrow.

As a profession advertising is young; as a force it is as old as the world.

When you can dump a load of bricks on a corner lot, and let me watch them arrange themselves into a house - when you can empty a handful of springs and wheels and screws on my desk, and let me see them gather themselves together into a watch - it will be easier for me to believe that all these thousands of worlds could have been created, balanced, and set to moving in their separate orbits, all without any directing intelligence at all.

There are no little things.

Learn their lesson, that if you would teach people you first must capture their interest with news; that your service rather than your sermons must be your claim upon their attention; that what you say must be simple, and brief, and above all sincere - the unmistakable voice of true regard and affection.

Surely no one will consider us lacking in reverence if we say that every one of the "principles of modern salesmanship" on which business men so much pride themselves, are brilliantly exemplified in Jesus' talk and work.

The ablest men in all walks of modern life are men of faith. Most of them have much more faith than they themselves realize.

My program is to leave the fools to nature. She has diseases with which to deal with them.

If advertising encourages people to live beyond their means, so does matrimony.

It is said that great leaders are born, not made. The saying is true to this degree, that no man can persuade people to do what he wants them to do, unless he genuinely likes people, and believes that what he wants them to do is to their own advantage.

The American conception of advertising is to arouse desires and stimulate wants, to make people dissatisfied with the old and out-of-date and by constant iteration to send them out to work harder to get the latest model-whether that model be an icebox or a rug or a new home.

As the piles are being dropped off from the vehicles, they're spreading the material out fairly flat on the ground, and then the dogs are running through the piles looking for any remains they can identify.

Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things - a chance word, a tap on the shoulder, or a penny dropped on a newsstand - I am tempted to think - there are no little things

This is a study of girls during adolescence, from 9 to 19, which is an age range that has not been well studied. This is an age range when a lot of girls put on a lot of weight.

If you can give your son or daughter only one gift, let it be enthusiasm.

I told them I didn't want any bull and they just said they don't know what the problem is but they're investigating it.

When a load of bricks, dumped on a corner lot, can arrange themselves into a house; when a handful of springs and screws and wheels, emptied on a desk, can gather themselves into a watch, then and not until then will it seem sensible, to some of us at least, to believe that all these thousands or millions of worlds could have been created, balanced and set to revolving in their separate orbits -- all without any directing intelligence at all.

We think it kick-starts your metabolism because you've eaten something. When you get to lunch you're not starving and you can make reasonable choices for lunch and dinner.