Conrad Hilton Quotes

120 Conrad Hilton Quotes

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Walking is a great device for clearing the head, for keeping the body so busy that ideas can come through.
Conrad Hilton

I was not above trying to impress my bride; summoning a bellboy, I handed him one of my brand new cards: Conrad N. Hilton, President, Hilton Hotels. It did the trick.
Conrad Hilton

At Waco I discovered that air conditioning was not only a novelty but almost a necessity.
Conrad Hilton

I decided to build another mountain, this one bigger and more challenging than ever.
Conrad Hilton

I was dreaming bigger and bigger.
Conrad Hilton

I was expanding on the brink of disaster… In the fall of 1929, I announced that we would build a hotel on Pioneer Plaza costing $1,750,000. Nineteen days later the stock market crashed.
Conrad Hilton

If I had climbed tall mountains, looked at wide horizons, and felt myself equal to anything I could dream, the time had come now to walk through a long, dark valley. I was not alone. The whole of America went through that great Depression. And on each of us it left a mark.
Conrad Hilton

Heights had bred vision and confidence…it was in the valley that I learned true humility…
Conrad Hilton

[I] found that when everything material failed, faith remained the only gilt-edged security.
Conrad Hilton

Each time the walls were about to close in and crush me, when there was no light for even one step ahead, ‘something’ happened – a bellboy thrust his life savings into my hand, a difficult business rival…
Conrad Hilton



I myself am incapable of pulling a single rabbit out of a hat. Yet throughout the Depression, when I desperately needed a rabbit one seemed to appear.
Conrad Hilton

The panic that paralyzed the East in 1929 and sent men leaping from windows did not immediately engulf the south-west. It swept toward us slowly but inevitably. It was not like a sudden plunge off a steep precipice but like slipping out of control down a rocky hillside, bump, bump, bump, getting sorer and weaker all the time.
Conrad Hilton

You cannot erect a hotel without money any more than you can make bricks without straw.
Conrad Hilton

[On opening a hotel in a depression] The El Paso Hilton opened…more people came then from all over Texas, all over New Mexico…to participate in a miracle of hope, a flag flown confidently in the face of adversity.
Conrad Hilton

America… the Golden Land… the Land of Opportunity.
Conrad Hilton

When I signed my name to a note putting up the Hilton Hotels, Inc. stock as security, and received in return the money I so sorely need, I couldn’t have been more surprised if a cottontail had suddenly hopped out of my old Stetson… Time was all I got out of it.
Conrad Hilton

‘Maybe,’ I said ruefully, ‘I’m in the wrong business.. Maybe I should have learned to make cradles and coffins.’ Mother got up and she looked every inch a Laufersweiler, every inch a pioneer. It was then she said, ‘Some men jump out of windows, some quit, some go to church. Pray Connie, pray harder. And don’t you dare give up!’
Conrad Hilton

Credit is my life’s blood. I can’t go bankrupt. I couldn’t either. There was a stigma about it, an admission of defeat. It was quitting and I wasn’t about to quit.
Conrad Hilton

Only a few weeks before, when I’d been out of carfare and everything seemed unalterably black, a young bellboy, Eddie Fowler, walked resolutely up to me in the lobby and thrust something in my hand. ‘Just eating money, Mr. Hilton,’ he blurted out and fled, leaving me with $300, his life’s savings… and I took it… because I needed eating money… and because Eddie has confidence that I will come back. And I will.
Conrad Hilton

This was America. I could still hope. I could still dream.
Conrad Hilton



The instinct for preservation did not cloud my common sense.
Conrad Hilton

Two hotels. No money. It wasn’t a good score, but it was an improvement.
Conrad Hilton

If, for short moments, I had doubted myself, my friends and partners had never doubted me. And in the end I justified their faith.
Conrad Hilton

I found that the nation was full of fine hotels, four-fifths of which had been lost by their original owners, had gone into receivership, or 77B, or wound up in the hands of people who knew nothing about hotels and regards these properties as ‘depression White Elephants.’ They were there for the taking and at depression prices. All a man needed was a little capital and a lot of faith.
Conrad Hilton

I stubbornly worked my way out of debt.
Conrad Hilton

The Sir Francis Drake [hotel] had originally cost $4,100,000 to build, and I acquired it for a cash outlay of $275,000… it’s always interesting to see how you can get a lot for a little…
Conrad Hilton

I could dream, couldn’t I?
Conrad Hilton

I wanted the largest hotel in the world… I was discovering something this type of buying demanded besides the patience of job. You needed the sleuthing abilities of Sherlock Holmes.
Conrad Hilton

Don’t worry if it takes a little time to find your own niche! It took me thirty-two years and I started out to be a banker. History proves that this isn’t shameful.
Conrad Hilton

Don’t worry about what you haven’t got in the way of talent. Find out what you have!
Conrad Hilton



Your value is determined by the mould you yourself make.
Conrad Hilton

If you have enthusiasm for life you cannot ever know an inactive time of life.
Conrad Hilton

Everyone faces hardships along their chosen path. What carries them through? Makes them work and pray with no thought of quitting? Enthusiasm!
Conrad Hilton

There is no such thing as being ‘a little bit enthusiastic.’ You either are or aren’t.
Conrad Hilton

Worrying has never solved anything yet. Prayer, thought, action – yes. Just worrying, no! Instead it magnifies, creates apprehension, breeds resentment and self-pity. The other fellow’s lot seems easier than our own.
Conrad Hilton

It is wisdom to profit by yesterday’s mistakes. It is fatal to hang onto yesterday’s victories.
Conrad Hilton

A man with his eyes turned backward is very apt to fall into a ditch.
Conrad Hilton

The true fruits of successful living are not material. They are contentment, the joy of usefulness, growth through the fulfillment of our particular talent.
Conrad Hilton

All a man needed was a little capital and a lot of faith.
Conrad Hilton

You’ve got to dream.
Conrad Hilton



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