Aristotle Onassis Quotes

103 Aristotle Onassis Quotes

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[On one premature report of his death] It helps to sell newspapers. I didn’t deny the rumor. I just walked the streets.
Aristotle Onassis

I’m just an old man. I don’t dress in a fancy way. Nobody will recognize me.
Aristotle Onassis

[On a prophecy] Western Europeans do it with tea leaves but the Greeks use coffee grounds. One prediction was that my father would be released in a few weeks. Another was that I would have a dispute and go to the ends of the earth and do well there. Finally, the coffee grounds predicted that I would not marry for a long, long time. Every bit of it came true.
Aristotle Onassis

I was just seventeen and seventeen just doesn’t nurse its sorrows forever.
Aristotle Onassis

Venice is the most romantic city in the world.
Aristotle Onassis

My relationships with American businessmen and with the Government have been a source of pride to me. Shortly after World War II, it was my good fortune to be able to prevent the shutting down of one of the finest American shipyards – the Bethlehem Yards at Sparrows Point – by placing with them an order for the construction of the first fleet of supertankers.
Aristotle Onassis

[On Middle Eastern countries and oil] They stuck to drilling, exploration and marketing. When they made these oil agreements, transportation was not considered as a major item. As things turned out, particularly after the war, transportation become important and profit-making.
Aristotle Onassis

[On his Saudi misadventure] It’s exactly the same as an employee who makes a move, learns that his boss is mad at him, goes to the boss to explain his reasons and before he has the time to open his mouth his boss yells at him ‘You are a disloyal so and so. Get the hell out of here’ – and the employee has no chance to explain what he meant.
Aristotle Onassis

[On estimations that Onassis had realised a profit of over several hundred million dollars due to the battle closing the Suez Canal] I was lucky.
Aristotle Onassis

[On Monaco law being changed in 1967 to force SBM to buy Onassis’s shares for $16 each when they were worth at least $50 each] We were gypped.
Aristotle Onassis



It’s a hell of a business to learn. I suppose, looking back, it was an answer to a challenge.
Aristotle Onassis

[On his short venture into the whaling business] I have one thousand men in that fleet and it costs me more than $35,000 a day to operate it. You gamble against the elements – storms, fogs, icebergs. You gamble that you will find whales. And suppose everything goes well, and in six months you bring back a good cargo of oil. Then comes the biggest gamble of all. Prices of whale oil you can never predict.
Aristotle Onassis

[On his short time in the whaling business] On the whole, we did fairly well but it was nothing in comparison with the risks we took. I have sometimes thought I shouldn’t have done it. Anyway I have done it. And now I’m out of it. It’s one hell of an experience you don’t forget.
Aristotle Onassis

[On people sitting on his ships bar stools being covered with the foreskin of a whale] You are sitting on the world’s largest penis!
Aristotle Onassis

If people have to work very hard for sustenance, if they have to rub their hands to keep warm, they have no time for leisure.
Aristotle Onassis

When nature provides a perfect climate and enough food, people sleep all day and do nothing.
Aristotle Onassis

A father would be crazy if he wanted to separate his children from their mother.
Aristotle Onassis

I am a sailor and anything can happen to me.
Aristotle Onassis

They do not respond to reality.
Aristotle Onassis

I never question her and she never questions me.
Aristotle Onassis



That is my secret, sex and money.
Aristotle Onassis

Necessity plays a big part in what men will do.
Aristotle Onassis

The first five thousand dollars is always the hardest to make.
Aristotle Onassis



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