Various business aphorisms, proverbs, wise saws, quips and sayings.

 When it comes to copying down any sort of apocryphal business rules, maxims, dictums or precepts, I like to say, perhaps unsurprisingly, that if you have found no rule of business that you want to follow, then invent one. So, together with a few other anonymous sayings, old saws, quips and proverbs (which, from time to time, I have picked up while going about my business), I have included a few of my own more humorous aphorisms here, as set out below. As solidly reliable rules go maybe they just miss the mark, or give it a glancing blow, but I place them here probably just to “spice up the mix” a bit, so to say. Perhaps in part I have done so simply as an object lesson on how not to go too far when trying to produce serious, useful or interesting aphorisms on subjects such as business, trading, commerce, salesmanship, bargaining, profit and loss, etc. But hopefully, in doing so anyway, they are nearly as amusing as those aphorisms (which I have already mentioned in a previous post) that were made up for the Rules of Acquisition of the Ferengi, if perhaps not so witty or well written.

 

 Putting the more proverbial entries aside, the following business based aphorisms of mine are not in themselves just going to be another spurious attempt at writing rules, quirky add-ons to something I have actually attempted to address quite seriously already. They are also something more akin to proverbs, old saws, short apothegms, even wisdom-sayings—essentially introverted remarks with a twist of philosophical wit. And so this is how I look at these few short business orientated sentences of mine (which are in reality brief aphorisms) which I have written out here, and, as put together with the other more anonymous ones (they being mostly proverbial, traditional wisdom, folk-sayings or verbal cultural relics) is, perhaps, also done in homage to those of the Ferengi’s Rules of Acquisition, perhaps even in slight mockery of that whole cynically humorous genre; but whatever they are they are certainly not ever going to be so lucrative.

 

 To me, these little snippets of business wisdom that are set out below have a sort of cheeky charm about them, and they also possess a naïve inventiveness that is at the heart of writing quirky, but well-meaning business advice. These brief little sentences just manage to do that, and in a very cantankerous way as well. But how relevant they would be in the real world is a matter of opinion, as they are highly subjective and, when it comes right down to it, probably simply rather trivial anyway. But still, in looking at this sort of humorous writing, as a branch of satire, or maybe of sly, underhand sophistry, it has managed to interest me enough to try my hand here at creating a few tongue-in-cheek aphorisms myself. Those entries below marked with an asterisk are generally considered to be proverbs, or are ones derived from common cultural sayings usually of a European origin; the rest are mine—products of my own acquisitive thoughts and imaginings, or are ones which I am particularly responsible for in some way.

 

 

                                         Business aphorisms and proverbs.

 

Never panic, it’s bad for business.

 

*You can’t turn a profit by keeping your money in your wallet.

 

*When you send a fool to market, the merchants rejoice.

 

In every speculation, the riskier the route, the greater the profit.

 

*While the sand is yet on your feet, sell.

 

The only done deal is the one which has been and done.

 

*The pot that belongs to partners is neither hot nor cold.

 

*If you invest in a fever, your profit is a disease.

 

Profit justifies almost anything, if there’s a profit in it.

 

*Better a small profit at home than a large one abroad.

 

*If you invest a needle, you won’t win more than a needle.

 

There is no profit to be had by betraying anyone by mistake.

 

*Always go one better than the competition, or go one worse.

 

There is no profit in envy, but there is in empathy.

 

*At a great bargain, pause.

 

Always grasp a customer by his ears.

 

*When you buy, use your eyes as much as your ears.

 

Everything has a sell-by date attached to it.

 

*Bargaining has neither friends nor relations.

 

A binding contract is only as strong as its weakest loophole.

 

*Do not look at somebody else’s profit, look to your own.

 

One man’s economic downturn is another man’s updraft.

 

Never deal in cash if a promise will do instead.

 

*The best broker is cash.

 

Always bring enough money along with your offers.

 

*He who swells in prosperity will shrink in adversity.

 

Never attribute to bad luck what can be adequately explained by sheer stupidity.

 

*It’s easier to get into a business than to get out of it.

 

Never assume a competitor may be as crafty as you are, he may be craftier.

 

*It is not enough to aim at the mark; you must hit it.

 

*While the discreet advise, the fool does his business.

 

To look after your own business, keep it to yourself.

 

*Entrances are wide; exits are narrow.

 

For someone to succeed in business, somebody else must lose to the same extent.

 

*Eat and drink with your relatives; do business with strangers.

 

The busiest men have most leisure, but most businessmen tend to forget that.

 

*No one fouls his hands in his own business.

 

Beware of those bearing bribes that do not appear to be tax deductible.

 

*You get what you pay for, and you pay for what you get.

 

One man’s portable property can always become someone else’s ready merchandise.

 

You can buy whatever you want, but if you can’t afford it you can’t have it.

 

*Better sell for small profits than fail in business.

 

*Wilful waste makes woeful want.

 

*The worth of a thing is what it will bring.

 

Keep your ear to the ground and your eyes open.

 

*Fools rush in where wise men fear to trade.

 

Greed is only profitable when exploited with alacrity.

 

*You never lose money by making a profit.

 

*You don’t make big fortunes by peddling little things in the street.

 

If you’re not still in the race, then you’re out of the running.

 

*Pay what you owe, and what you’re worth you’ll know.

 

John D. Rockefeller’s [abridged] rules concerning his business experiences and business principles.

 The 19^th century American industrialist, John D. Rockefeller, knew that there is no great mystery in business success. The great industrial leaders have told again and again the plain and obvious fact that if you follow good business principles diligently, with intelligence and forethought, you can make a success out of almost everything which is economically worthwhile that you do with them. If you have a natural flair for it, that is, and which, I’m sure, comes at an immense personal cost anyway.

 

 Earlier on in this blog, perhaps a couple of years back, I presented a set of business principles by John D. Rockefeller in an excerpt from his autobiography, Random Reminiscences of Men and Events (published in 1909), and the excerpt transcribed exactly in the order he wrote the words and in his original paragraphs. Perhaps simply out of idle curiosity, I now wonder what those basic business principles of his would look like today numbered and set out as simple rules, and set down very much like the short list of rules by Deborah Meaden (above). Or, perhaps more relevantly, like those Rules of Acquisition of the Ferengi I have included (above) in this blog.

 

 Here then is my attempt to satisfy my own idle curiosity. As I say, they have been presented here before: but these short, ordered sentences are how they look numbered and separated by a bit of clear space, a bit of judicious editing, perhaps even a few deletions of superfluous waffle. Amazingly enough (or maybe it was only to be expected), they have turned out quite well, and are ready for any budding entrepreneur reading them in this form to take immediately to heart. So, without further adieu, here they are:

 

 

Rule 1. The underlying, essential element of success in business affairs is to follow the established laws of high-class dealing.

 

Rule 2. Keep to broad and sure lines, and study them to be certain that they are correct ones.

 

Rule 3. Watch the natural operations of trade, and keep within them.

 

Rule 4. Don’t even think of temporary or sharp advantages.

 

Rule 5. Don’t waste your effort on a thing which ends in a petty triumph unless you are satisfied with a life of petty success.

 

Rule 6. Be sure that before you go into an enterprise you see your way clear to stay through to a successful end.

 

Rule 7. Look ahead. It is surprising how many bright business men go into important undertakings with little or no study of the controlling conditions they risk their all upon.

 

Rule 8. Study diligently your capital requirements, and fortify yourself fully to cover possible setbacks, because you can absolutely count on meeting setbacks.

 

Rule 9. Be sure that you are not deceiving yourself at any time about actual conditions.

 

Rule 10. The man who starts out simply with the idea of getting rich won’t succeed; you must have a larger ambition.

 

Rule 11. There can be no permanent success without fair dealing that leads to widespread confidence in the man himself. That is the real capital we all prize and work for.

 

Rule 12. Do each day’s task successfully, and stay faithfully within these natural operations of commercial laws which I talk so much about.

 

Rule 13. Keep your head clear, you will come out all right.

 

Rule 14. Do not to lose your head over a little success, or to grow impatient or discouraged by a little failure.

 

 

 Please note that these rules are free of any legal copyright restrictions and can be copied freely by anyone interested in doing so. However, the basic idea of actually presenting them in this handy rule form is my idea: an interesting little innovation, so to speak. So I would be very disappointed to hear that its basic rule form was copied as it is without my receiving any real profit or substantial financial benefit from it, despite my having no legal powers whatsoever over anyone who would wish to do so. But it would, of course, be nice to get all the credit for it.

 

A few short notes on the fictitious Ferengi Rules of Acquisition from Star Trek.

 The Ferengi’s Rules of Acquisition are a set of fictitious guidelines intended to ensure the profitability of businesses run by members of the alien race known as the Ferengi. In the fictional Star Trek universe, the Rules of Acquisition are essentially a set of ethically based business guidelines intended to ensure the profitability of any enterprise pursued by members of the ultra-capitalist alien race, the Ferengi. One of many alien races inhabiting the Star Trek universe, within it they epitomize the concept envious, greed-ridden, self-centred, avaricious ultra-capitalists, and are virtually caricatures of capitalistic ideals in themselves. As a dramatic tool, or constantly reoccurring theme of an on-going plot line, the Ferengi’s Rules of Acquisition are an original literary idea thought up for the Paramount Pictures science fiction television series, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Most of the Rules were written at the time the series was being aired on television, by the screenwriter, Ira Steven Behr. Later on he published many of them in a short paperback book, The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition. That is where, as curious ideals, they began, almost as casual quips about business morals and its more humorous side. And, quite possibly, in the far future that is where they will end up, as humorous business literature—forgotten and unread. However, right now they do have something to offer the business world, if only to remind it to keep a sense of humour as far as business rules are concerned.

 

 In the plot line of the television series, the Rules of Acquisition were said to be divinely inspired and sacred to the Ferengi race. The Rules themselves take the form of short, witty aphorisms, often with an amusing twist of sarcasm to them, such as the highly pragmatic (if not particularly user-friendly) 21^st rule, which is, “Never place friendship above profit,” the 33^rd rule (and one known to all employees, wherever they dwell), which is, “It never hurts to suck up to the boss,” the 41^st rule (which cannot seriously be argued with), which is, “Profit is its own reward,” the 60^th rule (being one probably known to all machiavellian thinkers from time immemorial), which is, “Keep your lies consistent,” the 62^nd rule (and clearly self-evident to those who can see it coming), which is “The riskier the road, the greater the profit,” and which, funnily enough, has a parallel in an old Anglo-Saxon proverb, “In every river, the worse the ford the better the fish,” and now is all but forgotten (except by a few scholarly academics interested in such things), the 99^th rule (it being a self-evident truth not often worth questioning), which is, “Trust is the biggest liability of all,” and the 261^st rule (it being more of an ethical comment than a strict rule), which is, “A wealthy man can afford anything except a conscience.” Although it has been noted and recorded within the continuity records (kept by Star Trek scriptwriters throughout the life of the series) that there are 285 rules, not all of them have yet been stated in canon, if now they ever will be. All of them, it can be argued, despite their deliberately humorous intent do have a basis in truth, as they do sound remarkably plausible in their way, if not quite reasonable.

 

 In addition, there are a number of traditional Ferengi saws, wise sayings, quips and proverbs, not actually identified as being Rules of Acquisition but which come pretty close to them; many of which have apparently become accepted by the followers of the series anyway, as non-canon Rules. Several of these are certainly derived from non-canon sources such as scraps of odd pieces of fanzine information, or spin-off books from the Star Trek films or the various television series. These words of wisdom have often been found dotted around the scripts for the series of Deep Space Nine, and are not always easy to spot (unless you happen to be looking out for such things as a matter of course). Apparently, even groups of fans on unofficial Internet websites can occasionally have the gall to have a go at adding to their number; these efforts either being poorly written or are quite inspired, depending on your point of view. They often turn up as new Rules on numerous unofficial websites whenever a search is made on Google for the Rules of Acquisition. So much so, in fact, that I expect that it is probably virtually impossible for the Paramount Pictures Rights Department (based in California) to keep copyright tags on them anymore, let alone enforce their legal claims to them.

 

 Here as set out below (reprinted under the legal permission afforded by international copyright laws under the “fair use” clause concerning scholarly criticism (whether particularly scholarly or not)) are some of what I consider to be the best or, to me at least, the most interesting of these Ferengi business rules. They have been acquired here for the bargain price of reaching out and taking them off of the Internet (rather than buying the actual book off of Amazon), but how much they apply in reality to doing good business or running an effective business concern is anyone’s guess:

 

 

The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition.

 

#1. Once you have their money, you never give it back.

 

#2. The best deal is the one that brings the most profit.

 

#3. Never pay more for an acquisition than you have to.

 

#6. Never allow family to stand in the way of opportunity.

 

#7. Keep your ears open.

 

#8. Small print leads to large risk.

 

#9. Opportunity plus instinct equals profit.

 

#13. Anything worth doing is worth doing for money.

 

#16. A deal is a deal… until a better one comes along.

 

#19. Satisfaction is not guaranteed.

 

#21. Never place friendship above profit.

 

#22. A wise man can hear profit in the wind.

 

#23. Nothing is more important than your health, except for your money.

 

#34. War is good for business.

 

#35. Peace is good for business.

 

#41. Profit is its own reward.

 

#44. Never confuse wisdom with luck.

 

#52. Never ask when you can take.

 

#59. Free advice is seldom cheap.

 

#60. Keep your lies consistent.

 

#62. The riskier the road, the greater the profit.

 

#76. Every once in a while, declare peace. It confuses the hell out of your enemies.

 

#82. The flimsier the product, the higher the price.

 

#85. Never let the competition know what you’re thinking.

 

#87. Learn the customer’s weaknesses so you can better take advantage of them.

 

#97. Enough… is never enough.

 

#98. Every man has his price.

 

#99. Trust is the biggest liability of all.

 

#106. There is no honour in poverty.

 

#111. Treat people in your debt like family… exploit them.

 

#121. Everything is for sale, even friendship.

 

#162. Even in the worst of times, someone makes a profit.

 

#177. Know your enemies… but do business with them always.

 

#181. Not even dishonesty can tarnish the shine of profit.

 

#190. Hear all, trust nothing.

 

#194. It’s always good business to know your customers before they walk in the door.

 

#202. The justification for profit is profit.

 

#214. Never begin a business negotiation on an empty stomach.

 

#218. Always know what you’re buying.

 

#236. You can’t buy fate.

 

#239. Never be afraid to mislabel a product.

 

#242. More is good… all is better.

 

#266. When in doubt, lie.

 

#267. If you believe it, they believe it.

 

#285. No good deed ever goes unpunished.

 

Business quotes:

Entrepreneurs need to be prepared for things not working out as planned, they have to be prepared to make sacrifices for the business, and be prepared for taking risks.

James Caan.

 

For entrepreneurs, it is less about waiting for the door to open and more about pushing it open themselves or even finding a new way to create the doorway itself.

Deborah Meaden.

 

It’s about being brave. I measure my company each year on how brave we have been.

Anita Roddick.

 

Once you raise the bar and urge business as a whole to raise its standards, you paint a bull’s eye on your back. The press will watch you for signs of hypocrisy.

Craig Cox.

 

Pushing a new enterprise past all the barriers to success takes learnable skills, to be sure, but it also takes a tenacious inner passion bordering on monomania. This combination is what I call leadership.

Kye Anderson.

 

Most successful entrepreneurs understand that action is just like a powerful drug. Entrepreneurs make things happen.

Peter Jones.

 

There’s no difference whenever you’re starting. It’s about people, motivation, and a clear idea of marketing, and marketing yourself and the business.

Phil Harris.

 

The best businesses go on forever… but not all of them.

Evan Davis.

 

If you get the right people leading a business, it will improve.

Lawrence Bossidy.

 

In business, eternal vigilance is the price of liquidity.

Morris Franklin.

 

If business is regarded as an object for serving and obtaining private profit by means of service, then I am with that business.

Woodrow Wilson.

 

Ethics in a corporation is like water—it flows downhill.

Thomas Donaldson.

 

Examining the business rules of the Ferengi.

 Following in age-old literary traditions founded on the parodying of ideas of greed and avarice (from which their comically grotesque origins clearly stem), the Ferengi are a brash, greed-ridden alien race of self-centred individualists—the stunted, gnome-like inhabitants of the fictitious Star Trek universe. They were originally a comic invention of producers and scriptwriters of one of the most iconic series of the ever-popular television, film and literary science fiction genre. The Ferengi possibly being a way of presenting darker ideas that did not fit too well with the ethos of the Star Trek television series, but which were too honest a part of human nature to be seriously left out. Supposedly, they are greedy, avaricious, ruthless, unheroic and completely unscrupulous individuals—definitely not a role model for today’s budding business people and anyone in business out to make a reasonably fair profit. They are also an essential part of the light comic element which is also at the heart of the series; as even Shakespeare noted about drama, even in the dreariest plots and sub-plots there is always room for a little light relief: the Ferengi characters provide this to great degree.

 

 In the television series of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine itself (where their presence has most been felt over the period when the series was at its height), the Ferengi are supposedly consummate business people, but they being purely exploitative ones. Apparently it is part of their ingrained cultural heritage, so, in that at least, there must be a partly acceptable good excuse for it. To their credit (or, more relevantly, to the credit of those working in the hustle and bustle of Hollywood’s notoriously fickle film and television industry, probably just on some whim) they devised a short handbook of maxims called, funnily enough, the Rules of Acquisition. It being a small business rulebook come instruction book come almost semi-religious document lying at the heart of Ferengi culture, and which outlines certain fundamental ethical principles of Ferengi business dealings, and its accompanying etiquette, through the medium of short aphorisms.

 

 The Ferengi’s Rules of Acquisition consist of two hundred and eighty-five guiding principles that form the basis of Ferengi business philosophy. These quirky rules in themselves are appropriately quite pragmatic, but, in my view, are still somewhat stilted. Perhaps they are just too humorous to be taken seriously; quite possibly this also adds to their naïve charm as aphorisms. This basic limitation to their scope, however, could simply be as a result of coming from the acerbic pen of some jaded would-be playwright in The States, perhaps immersed a little too deeply in the television scriptwriting industry. He probably being someone of a capable artistic bent who, at the time, was naturally more interested in the preservation of artistically clever writing of a satirical kind, than in simply making purely commercial sense. Or, at least, as good business sense as, say, someone like P. T. Barnum’s (or even Deborah Meaden’s) rules for doing business can so easily be seen as being, and especially for someone who is looking for just such a “wisdom-packed” work of brevity and wit to be getting along with.

 

 Unsurprisingly, it is more than likely that this kind of ruthlessly exploitative opportunism as is exemplified in these Rules, will not win many long-term friends in business dealings, or any willing business allies, even in the short-term. However, despite this the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition are still refreshingly utilitarian: in this way they applying equally to everyone, rich or poor, privileged or oppressed, lucky or unlucky; if not all in an equal measure or a purely egalitarian way. Or, say, much like raw, fundamentalist capitalism can still so easily be seen as being in today’s cosmopolitan world market place (and especially exemplified by the recent resurgence of Chinese business culture around the world). Even though these rules can come across as unpalatable (as truth to tell, when being manipulated by economic necessity, the truth may so easily be seen to be) they still have a feel of genuine home truths to them. And so, if taken with a healthy dose of amused scepticism and a pinch of salt, may still have something to say about human nature and the all-to-human ways of transacting business; especially when boldly going to do business where no one has seen to do it before.

 

 Of course, I would have to have a favourite phrase taken from a long line of similarly instructive saws, or my favourite remark of the lot (probably at the risk of sounding like a Trekkie myself) taken from this particular Star Trek television series, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. But this favourite one of mine is not actually one of the accepted, or official canon rules, it is apparently an old Ferengi proverb quoted by Quark, the barkeep of a rough-and-tumble space-bar in the series, and which is, “There is no profit in envy.” It is an undervalued truth but a valid one, and so one that can always be dug up from the back of the memory for something appropriate to say, and is especially useful when in a tight spot stuck in a business limbo somewhere between doing good business and the bankruptcy courts. Now I suppose all I have to do now is find a place in my daily business where I can use it with impunity and maybe even, if repeated often enough in the right company, to great effect as well.

 

 In the business world, it is generally held to be the rule that it is always the simplest solutions that are the hardest to take, especially when they are so blindingly obvious that nothing else occurs to you except to accept them in situ. Such are the often amusing, pithy aphoristic sentences that make up the bulk of the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition. But despite seeming so easily to be an overly dramatic construction of a hugely popular television science fantasy franchise, they do have their own naïve charm. A charm that stems from their simple overly-machiavellian, and even their occasional ruthlessly capitalistic, nature, but which still, especially due to their humorous tongue-in-cheek, over-the-top business-wise satire, is a nature which could not possibly be attractive an ethic to follow as a set of practical business principles in today’s world. Or, for that matter, even in the rough and tumble existence of earlier, perhaps more honestly barbaric, times when rules were relaxed wholesale in favour of an immediately profitable expediency. Or are they so much at odds with the real, practical needs of present business paractices…? Perhaps such forthright expediency is, after all, the best solution to a pressing problem you will ever find; and rules are always expedient, to say nothing about being swiftly effective. After all, the business rule you just have to obey is probably the last one you shall ever need.

 

Deborah Meaden’s [abridged] rules for doing good business.

 At the risk of being accused of a bit of underhand intellectual property piracy, possibly up to and including committing international copyright theft of “unique intellectual material” (be it obvious adaptations of topical business adages, old saws or well-known “pearls of wisdom”), what follows here is a neat little list of the favourite business rules of Deborah Meaden, the British businesswoman and entrepreneur, as compressed into the shortest possible maxims. That is, they being shortened, or summarized, or have just been taken out of longer, wandering paragraphs of what amounts to rules. Or, just possibly, in that they simply say what they mean and mean what they say and do so in the shortest possible, very instructive way; so then are easy for me to transcribe here as to be in keeping with their original and concise, essentially forthright meaning.

 

 It is more than likely that these business rules are of the highly instructive type which will work wonders when doing business in the real world. That is, of course, if you care to work as hard with them as much as you would have to do at keeping the daily, day to day business of running a viable business under control. And then considering that it is hard to work constructively in a business if you are not standing on a framework of practical business knowledge; knowledge which primarily has been built up through your own unique efforts and experience. As, after all, if you immerse yourself body and soul in a commercial business enterprise, and then find you have no clue as to what to do or where to start, then it is certainly going to be hard to do anything constructive there if you have no real idea what to do with one. So then, despite all the irritatingly annoying ”ifs and buts” of remarkably over-esoteric business advice that seem to be part and parcel of the genre of business advice literature, here are a few more useful business “rules of thumb” to get along with, courtesy of Deborah Meaden’s business website:

 

 

1. Any business discipline requires creative thought, but creative thinking should be an everyday occurrence.

 

2. Just because an idea isn’t completely original, doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing.

 

3. Every day is not a new challenge, because that would be impossible to sustain.

 

4. If you are looking for an opportunity, you will see it.

 

5. The appropriate strategy is to keep ahead of events.

 

6. No matter how well entrepreneurs think they know a given market, the consumer will always surprise them.

 

7. Lunches with a purpose are a good environment to talk about key issues.

 

8. Communicate something through the organisation quickly and get an instant reaction.

 

9. Things going wrong should not become an everyday part of life.

 

10. Looking after number one is selfish and short sighted.

 

 

 Deborah Meaden is a well-known British businesswoman who has come to the public’s notice mainly through being involved with the BBC television series on entrepreneurial business activity, Dragons’ Den; and then, subsequently, through her increasing involvement in the entrepreneurial development of new businesses in Britain, which the popular television programme itself has so obviously encouraged and enabled her to do.

 

The Rules of Business, No. 903 to No. 923.

903^rd Rule: Always strive to be acceptable enough to be acceptable to those who excel in providing what others need from them.

 

904^th Rule: Only create a new need for something of value you could provide to place you in as good a position to supply it as well as others can.

 

905^th Rule: Always do as well in supplying the needs of others in what you do as well as those who excel in finding what others need from them.

 

906^th Rule: Never allow yourself to be forced into obeying an objective truth at the cost of coming into opposition with what you believe in.

 

907^th Rule: Strategy cannot lose itself in obscure examinations, subtleties, and fabrications, but must always remain a practical matter.

 

908^th Rule: In the same market you can only benefit as much from the loss of your competitor to the same extent that he can profit from your loss.

 

909^th Rule: The future can be planed for with confidence only if you feel that you are intimately involved with the future investment in what you do.

 

910^th Rule: To plan ahead you must hypothesise about possibilities solely with what facts you know about them, or otherwise you will fail to do so.

 

911^th Rule: Whatever is being manipulated to create a profitable outcome it is always information that has to be manipulated first.

 

912^th Rule: The most dangerous of all the attacks to be exposed to are those upon a vulnerability for which no adequate defence has been prepared.

 

913^th Rule: Never take things easily in a time of growth, but rather use that time diligently in order to be able to make a profit in a time of recession.

 

914^th Rule: Great achievement may be fostered only through coupling planning and ambition with the appropriate use of time and energy.

 

915^th Rule: Choosing to adopt the pursuit of excellence may also deflect the negative response of inadequacy to an inevitable change entirely.

 

916^th Rule: The choice to adopt the pursuit of excellence cannot be the only reason success may be attained or retained in any endeavour.

 

917^th Rule: Real time limits on vital tasks shall always need to be separated from those being artificially imposed by someone else with his own agenda.

 

918^th Rule: Concentration must always be open to the effects of being aware of the environment that is either being participated in, or manipulated.

 

919^th Rule: Never assume that any parties involved with you in a matter of business will give you any information you require for nothing.

 

920^th Rule:  Conscience needs to be considered in any business transaction as much as any other asset capable of being manipulated in completing it.

 

921^st Rule: To the extent that it maintains an existing balance opposition that cannot be affected in one aspect should always be opposed in another.

 

922^nd Rule: It is never necessary to achieve what is desired at all costs, it is only necessary to achieve what it is right to achieve in all fairness.

 

923^rd Rule: Hindsight shall always give a better view of reality than was expected after events have unfolded, but it will never improve them in the slightest.