Charles Revson Quotes

110 Charles Revson Quotes

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I just want you to know that I don’t care what you do with your private life… I just think you should be a little discreet.
Charles Revson

If it wasn’t terrible, it wouldn’t be my life.
Charles Revson

[On the person saving him ten thousand dollars] Who’s the clown with the moustache? Keep him around, he’s got balls.
Charles Revson

[On someone wearing a perfectly matched brown Glen plaid suit] Kiddie, you know what brown’s the color of? Get out.
Charles Revson

[At a large and serious marketing meeting to his son John Revson] Stop eating those cookies! You’ve been eating them all day and that’s enough, already. Joey. [To another employee Joe Spellman] Take those cookies away from Johnny and don’t let him have any more.
Charles Revson

[On ‘The Question’ television show] If I had known that these shows were fixed, crooked, rigged, do you think for one minute that I would have watched or bothered this way?
Charles Revson

I don’t know how to answer it. It is something that is past. It is part of a business experience.
Charles Revson

We paid for the show. We paid for the time. We paid for the contestants, sir. So therefore, in turn, we made a profit on it… I am not trying to be cute.
Charles Revson

Show it to me in writing.
Charles Revson

I hear the Aquamarine lotion isn’t being filled to the top. How come?
Charles Revson



Not a mistake Mr Marketing Man, a major error… You better go learn your business, Mr Marketing Man, and you better give me another reason why our nail enamel isn’t selling in France!
Charles Revson

[On people throwing pop bottles with two cent deposit off an acquaintance’s boat in the 1950’s] What are you doing? There’s two cents on those bottles!
Charles Revson

This is a f*cking white shoe operation. A f*cking white shoe operation, so I don’t want any swearing or shouting in there. I don’t want these guys to think we’re a bunch of bums.
Charles Revson

Well, goddamn it, this is my f*cking company, and if I want to say ‘f*ck,’ I’ll say ‘f*ck!’ Anybody object to that?… Nobody?… Good.
Charles Revson

[On a water glass and the meaning of product differentiation eg changing the design, the color of the water, giving it a stem and similar] Hello, glass. What makes you different? You’re not crystal. You’re a plain glass. You’re not empty, you’re not full…
Charles Revson

[On simplicity of thinking] The funny part of it is that we get so smart, we get so educated, we get so intelligent, that we forget the simple things of the A, B, C, D, and E are the only ones that matter. All the rest of them just don’t matter a goddamn bit. Take a watch for example. The first thing I must understand about a watch is that it is a timepiece. Regardless of how beautiful it is, regardless of how expensive it is, that the purpose of this watch is to tell time. Is that correct? Now the minute I forget that this watch is a timepiece I'm a horse's whatever it is. Is that correct? And we get so smart, sometimes, that we want to take a watch and make it into an alarm clock. And we keep forgetting that this is only a watch. The next thing that a watch has to be after it keeps time… now, there's such a thing as keeping time and there's such as keeping perfect time. And there's such a thing as not winding it - that's a great help, too. Then there's such a thing as being most beautiful - then there's such a thing you don't have to repair it for five years. Then it is in solid gold. Then it's this and then it's that and it has a great name. That's a watch.
Charles Revson

Stop beating around the rosary bush.
Charles Revson

I want it done one, two, six.
Charles Revson

What you guys have to do is reupholster your thinking.
Charles Revson

I’m the kind of guy who burns his graves behind him.
Charles Revson



If you had all the money in the world, whatever it may be, you can’t have it all.
Charles Revson

You can’t have all the window displays and all the advertising you want, and all this and so forth. It’s impossible. And so therefore, you must find out what are the most important things that you need, and what are the winning numbers. What are those numbers that pay off the best?
Charles Revson

I don't think if the competition have got something wonderful, whomever they may be, that there is anything wrong in looking at it, and copying it. You know, great copyists or great experts in copying are those that can create a copy, and for that you have to be smart. On how to create a copy. Does everybody understand? Is that too hard to understand? It means if you copy something, that you copy it so well and so differently that nobody recognizes the fact you copied it. That's creative copy.
Charles Revson

If you come into my ball park, I’ll kick your ass.
Charles Revson

[On picking up a Estee Lauder compact] Look how smart that is. Why don’t we think of things like this? The customer can’t miss seeing the instructions, so, in turn, she’s going to learn how to use the product and, in turn, she will like it better. Why the f*ck can’t we think of things like this?!
Charles Revson

Look, I’ve got business to do.
Charles Revson

You’re in that business, you take that chance.
Charles Revson

I graduated from school – I wasn’t considered a genius. I never was an outstanding success from the day I went to work. I never had any whatever it is. The only thing you can say about me is that if I have something to do, I’ll learn everything about it – that I will. I’m a nosy as a son of a gun. There’s nothing about it I won’t learn.
Charles Revson

Of course the other guy has a right to make a living, but let him make it in some other business.
Charles Revson

[On being asked ‘Charles, why do you work so hard?’] It’s easy to get to the top. The hard thing is to stay there.
Charles Revson



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