Aristotle Onassis Quotes
103 Aristotle Onassis Quotes
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Look where I am now. I am married to the daughter of the richest shipowner in the world and I am going to build bigger and better tankers.
Aristotle Onassis
[In 1949 on visiting the A.G. Weser shipyard in Germany which had been levelled by bombing and stripped of machinery by the Russian army] How can you build ships here? You haven’t even got a damn crane.
Aristotle Onassis
[In 1950 due to the demand for oil Tankers had become] A sort of San Francisco gold rush.
Aristotle Onassis
When you have been through what I have been through in South America, you know that everyone is out to swindle you.
Aristotle Onassis
Millions of honest dollars. Take my US citizen friends, form a Panamanian corporation, and apply for forty [T-2] tankers. You will end up with the ships paid for in five years… and anybody will be willing to buy the whole package from you.
Aristotle Onassis
[On the proposal to make money buying ex government T-2 tankers after WWII] He couldn’t believe it. Neither could his associates. It sounded almost crooked. I don’t blame him.
Aristotle Onassis
We rarely think of psychological effects though our whole existence is based and depends on them.
Aristotle Onassis
[On his Saudi misadventure in 1955] My mistake, was that I woke up too early and disturbed those who were still asleep, and as a result I got into the biggest mess of my life.
Aristotle Onassis
When you own something worth $300 million, you don’t begin selling your cars and sacking your servants for economies of a few thousand dollars. It is meaningless. The crisis is all part of the game.
Aristotle Onassis
[On a court judgement] 100,000 or 100 million francs, it’s all the same to me.
Aristotle Onassis
[On tall poppy syndrome and what advice he would give to the modern boy in 1957 some time after going through some court cases] Our system of life outlaws individualism today. Everything is done through public corporations, associations, groups of people. If an individual is mediocre today, he can get away with it. If he’s outstandingly successful, he becomes suspect. Outstanding individualism aggravates and disturbs the rest of society. A pity, perhaps, but it is so. For those reasons it is harder for a boy to succeed today than when I first started. The social system has changed so much.
Aristotle Onassis
[On the quality he most disliked] Ingratitude and meanness. I’ve seen some people whose greatest satisfaction is to hurt needlessly. Others like to be nice… Sometimes without realizing it at the time I know I’ve been ungrateful. That makes me suffer most. Because there is no excuse.
Aristotle Onassis
Money talks. That is what you mean… Money doesn’t talk at all. It talks as much as a fish.
Aristotle Onassis
I will give you 30,000 examples in any business, Mr Zelenko. Take a bank for instance. Do you want anybody more than a bank to apply the proverb, ‘Money talks?’ If a bank gives me $50 million tomorrow , payable over a period of 10 or 15 years, what say does that bank have with me? Nothing, as long as I am not in default. They have $50 million of their money in my hands. However, as long as I am not in default, what saying that bank can have? Their money doesn’t talk at all. It talks as much as a fish. I can give you examples like that until tomorrow morning.
Aristotle Onassis
There are 70-some corporations. I can’t remember exactly…Whether it is in my own name or through another corporation whose stock is in my own name, that is a detail which I cannot answer because I don’t know.
Aristotle Onassis
I am telling you if it is someone else, I own that someone else.
Aristotle Onassis
[On being so thoroughly investigated on his right to own and operate US ships] I even had to state whether my grandmother knew how to swim.
Aristotle Onassis
[On being asked to describe the function of a service company in shipping] They service. From painting the vessel and dry docking it to providing the lipstick of the captain’s wife.
Aristotle Onassis
[On the role of Jews in the shipping business] What Jew has ever run a shipping line successfully? [‘Ellerman – the British shipping magnate’ came the reply] He was only half a Jew. He was really a German. [‘And Noah’] You’ve got something there. But that damn fellow had a monopoly!
Aristotle Onassis
You told me, Sir Winston [Churchill] your father died very young, if he had lived to your age you might not have had to struggle so hard. Your life would have been easier, and you might not have done what you did. [‘We were very different people’ –Churchill] Yes, of course, you were different, but you would not have been driven on by necessity. My mother died when I was six. If she had lived, I might not have worked as hard as I have done. [‘Would you like to play a little cards instead of talking philosophy?’ – Churchill] Not philosophy but history. [‘They are not very different. I enjoy living on your yacht.]
Aristotle Onassis
You must let your nearest and dearest go to hell when they are no longer any use to you.
Aristotle Onassis
[On his wife Tina (Athina Livanos) Onassis] She has kidnapped the children and is demanding $20 million ransom.
Aristotle Onassis
[On his father in law Stavros Livanos – He] Has not even enough money to buy Niarchos’s art collection or my hobby enterprises.
Aristotle Onassis
[On becoming the majority shareholder of SBM] I am the boss here now.
Aristotle Onassis
I’ll be a cuckold if I haven’t got rid of the airline by tomorrow!
Aristotle Onassis
There is no logic in business. With logic I would not be where I am today.
Aristotle Onassis
[On long time girlfriend Maria Callas] Madame Callas is not a vehicle for me to drive; she has her own brakes and her own brains.
Aristotle Onassis
I’m not wrong. It must be the Congressional Record that is wrong!
Aristotle Onassis
Take care of your body. Make yourself as good as you can. Don’t worry about shortcomings. Look at me. I am no Greek God but I did not waste my life in crying because I wasn’t born good looking. Remember nobody is as ugly as he thinks he is.
Aristotle Onassis
Eat lightly and stay away from the wines and rich food when you have a job to do. Spending several hours at the table in the middle of a working day is the best way to shorten your life.
Aristotle Onassis
Wait until evening, when you have more time and the day’s labor is finished. Then enjoy a good meal with friends, and never talk business while you eat.
Aristotle Onassis
Exercise and keep yourself trim. The basic yoga exercises help immensely, both mind and body. And if you can manage an hour or two of judo every week, it frees you of all your complexes.
Aristotle Onassis
Keep a tan even if you have to use a lamp. To most people a tan in winter means only that you have been where the sun is, and in that respect, sun is money.
Aristotle Onassis
Once you have taken care of your physical appearance, establish a successful way of life. Live in an elegant building – even if you have to take a room in the attic – where you will rub shoulders with wealthy, successful people in the corridors and on the elevators. Frequent luxury cafes even if you have to sip your drinks. Soon you will learn that many people with money are very lonely.
Aristotle Onassis
If you are short of money, borrow it. And never ask for small loans. Borrow big abut always promptly repay.
Aristotle Onassis
Keep your troubles to yourself and let people believe you are having a wonderful time.
Aristotle Onassis
Don’t sleep too much or you’ll wake up a failure. If you sleep three hours less each night for a year, you will have an extra month and a half to succeed in.
Aristotle Onassis
If you aspire for success, do not squander your time reading about things others have done. It is better to get on living your own life than to concern yourself with what others have done. This rule applies strongly to all the stories about me, Jackie and my friends. If a quarter of what reporters have written about me were true, I would already be ruined, abandoned, and so depressed by my misadventures that I would be on the point of shooting myself. [He had his own personal library on his ship]
Aristotle Onassis
[On Stratis Andreadis] He is a banker. What does he want with oil [‘When you had it you didn’t want it’ –Consultant] Don’t you understand, I don’t like to lose.
Aristotle Onassis
You don’t force with money, my dear. You seduce.
Aristotle Onassis
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