Writings
Selfridge authored a book, The Romance of Commerce, published by John Lane-The Bodley Head, in 1918, but actually written several years prior. In it, he has chapters on ancient commerce, China, Greece, Venice, Lorenzo de' Medici, the Fuggers, the Hanseatic League, fairs, guilds, early British commerce, trade and the Tudors, the East India Company, north England’s merchants, the growth of trade, trade and the aristocracy, Hudson’s Bay Company, Japan, and representative businesses of the 20th century.
Among the more popular quotations attributed to Selfridge:
- People will sit up and take notice of you if you will sit up and take notice of what makes them sit up and take notice.
- The boss drives his men; the leader coaches them.
- The boss depends upon authority; the leader on good will.
- The boss inspires fear; the leader inspires enthusiasm.
- The boss says "I"; the leader, "we."
- The boss fixes the blame for the breakdown; the leader fixes the breakdown.
- The boss knows how it is done; the leader shows how.
- The boss says "Go"; the leader says "Let's go!"
- The customer is always right.
Read more about this topic: Harry Gordon Selfridge
Famous quotes containing the word writings:
“If someday I make a dictionary of definitions wanting single words to head them, a cherished entry will be “To abridge, expand, or otherwise alter or cause to be altered for the sake of belated improvement, one’s own writings in translation.””
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“In this part of the world it is considered a ground for complaint if a man’s writings admit of more than one interpretation.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A people’s literature is the great textbook for real knowledge of them. The writings of the day show the quality of the people as no historical reconstruction can.”
—Edith Hamilton (1867–1963)