If a person is not willing to make a mistake, you're never going to do anything right.

I wonder how many people would have thought at the end of World War II that the capitalist system would be one that was meeting the challenges and making things better for people as we approach the 21st century.

If we build something great, like we have at Travelers Group so far, a whole host of people benefit.

So it's the kind of business where you can't wait to get up in the morning and read the papers, or listen to what's on the news, and you know, how the world's going to change.

One of the people that I respect the most now, a person I think has done a heck of a lot for this world as a leader, is Margaret Thatcher. She helped create a world that offers us a lot of excitement as we look to the next century.

And when we used to play and fight in the streets in Brooklyn and I would get hurt or something, my mother would always come out and save me. So that sort of postponed the inevitable about getting a good beating, without having somebody to come and save you.

And learn that when you do make a mistake, you'll surface that mistake so you can get it corrected, rather than trying to hide it and bury it, and it becomes a much bigger mistake, and maybe a fatal mistake.

I would say that my parents were supportive of me.

I think life is sort of like a competition, whether it's in sports, or it's achieving in school, or it's achieving good relationships with people. And competition is a little bit of what it's all about.

The whole financial industry is consolidating in the United States.

Learn how to be a loser, because it's important to be a loser to be a winner.

I've been involved with Carnegie Hall for the last 13 years, and Chairman for the last six. I feel really good about what we've done growing our educational programs there, building a board that has made Carnegie Hall really a world-class institution.

From the business point of view, always encouraging the people in our company to own stock in the company, and if we're going to build something great, to have a lot of people share in the benefits of that greatness.

A lot of people at Shearson ended up making a lot of money because they had stock or stock options. Their kids were able to go to college, and it changed a lot of people's lives.

What turned me on then, and turns me on even today - and when the time comes from me to retire from management I think I'd still be interested in it - is that everything that happens in the world affects the price of securities.

I believe in giving back very strongly.

The more we can do to create a better society, that benefits more people, the better chance we have that our society will continue to grow and prosper.

I think we are a product of all our experiences.

Details create the big picture.

I read a lot, but I read about the areas that I'm interested in.

You never want to think the best things are in the past. You want to get yourself to believe that the best things are going to be in the future.

My mother really didn't know a heck of a lot about business. She was a very good mother, that made sure we ate right and we had our cod liver oil, but didn't know a heck of a lot about what I did.

And I thought I'd always like some form of business, I didn't know what kind of business I'd go in.

I'm not as involved in every little thing as I used to be.

I think Latin has some logic to it and there was a discipline.

I was sort of a sissy as a little kid.

I think the American Dream says that anything can happen if you work hard enough at it and are persistent, and have some ability. The sky is the limit to what you can build, and what can happen to you and your family.

Our company is working with Disney to create a game for children between the ages of maybe four and 12, so we can teach them what the capitalist system is all about.

I've had a terrific life, from building one company to be the second largest company in the securities industry and merging that into American Express, and becoming president of that company.

And it was where I learned how to play tennis and eventually became captain of the tennis team at the school and was on the Junior Davis Cup in New York City.

I remember the mentoring experiences of some teachers that I had, like a second term home room teacher in public school that really was very helpful to me.

If a person is not willing to make a mistake, you're never going to do anything right.

My parents moved back to New York from Florida when I was in the ninth grade.

Marriage is a very good thing, but I think it's a mistake to make a habit out of it.

It's pretty simple, pretty obvious: that people's first impressions of people are really a big mistake.

They all went into the bar business. Which was a mistake, because they began to sip at the merchandise and it set them back, set us all back. Well, them more than I.

The choice is between which mistake is easier to correct: underdoing it or overdoing it.

I've got to keep breathing. It'll be my worst business mistake if I don't.

They think something's gone wrong, but in Don't Look Now, for instance, one scene was made by a mistake. It's the scene where Donald Sutherland goes to look for the policeman who's investigating the two women.

It's a mistake to assume that Islamists always come from the slums. Indeed, many come from affluent families but for some reason just couldn't manage to integrate into Western society, even though they had good opportunities for advancement.

I find that the best way to do things is to constantly move forward and to never doubt anything and keep moving forward, if you make a mistake say you made a mistake.

The first mistake of art is to assume that it's serious.

It's a great mistake, I think, to put children off with falsehoods and nonsense, when their growing powers of observation and discrimination excite in them a desire to know about things.

The secularists in Turkey haven't underestimated religion, they just made the mistake of believing they could control it with the power of the army alone.

In traditional schools, you're penalized for making a mistake. But that won't work in the new information culture, in the digital world we live in today.

You are just as capable of making a mistake as anyone else. By insisting too eagerly upon a small right, you may turn it into a wrong against yourself and also against your neighbor.

Last Friday night, I Twitted a photograph of myself that I intended to send as a direct message as part of a joke to a woman in Seattle. Once I realized I posted to Twitter I panicked, I took it down and said that I had been hacked. I then continued with that story, to stick to that story which was a hugely regrettable mistake.

It is a mistake for a sculptor or a painter to speak or write very often about his job. It releases tension needed for his work.

To help yourself, you must be yourself. Be the best that you can be. When you make a mistake, learn from it, pick yourself up and move on.