Hetty Green Quotes

120 Hetty Green Quotes

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I remained with my father and mother until eighteen months old, and then went to live with my aunt.
Hetty Green

My grandfather’s eyesight was failing, and my father’s too, and as soon as I learned to read it became my daily duty to read aloud to them the financial news of the world.
Hetty Green

[On reading daily to her father and grandfather as a child the financial news of the world] In this way I came to know what stocks and bonds were, how the markets fluctuated, and the meaning of ‘bulls’ and ‘bears’.
Hetty Green

[On being asked the mystifying question as to her birthplace in New Bedford] There now, there is a dispute over that matter. Well, I was so young at the time that I really don’t remember.
Hetty Green

[On being told ‘Madam, your cow has chased me across the lot. Madam, do you know who I am? I’m the Honorable Vivian Westleigh, of London’] Go tell that to the cow.
Hetty Green

As for society, I believe in it.
Hetty Green

I don’t think society means what some rich people would have us believe.
Hetty Green

I should get very tired of living in one of the great houses in New York, going all night and sleeping all day. They don’t have any real pleasure. It’s intercourse with people that I like.
Hetty Green

[On her secret to success in life] Hard work and right living. That will make any one succeed.
Hetty Green

I like to see everybody get along but the wrongdoers.
Hetty Green



I especially love the young, and like to see them attain to what they seek if it is right.
Hetty Green

Girls, never allow anything to be said or done so far as you can help it that you would be ashamed for your father or your heavenly father to hear or see. If you follow that rule in life and work hard… you will be successful and what is still better, you will be happy.
Hetty Green

If we live good lives here, clean lives, and are honest… we need not worry about the next world. I am not worrying.
Hetty Green

I do not know what the next world is, but I do know that a kindly light is leading me, and that I shall be happy after I leave here.
Hetty Green

[On why women don’t get rich] Because they try the wrong way.
Hetty Green

My whole life, has been a struggle against heavy odds. I have been more abused and misrepresented than any woman alive. Periodical attempts have been made to declare me crazy, and for forty years I have had to fight every inch of the way.
Hetty Green

What should an old lady like me know about politics? Some men in pretty high places, out of the kindness of their hearts, keep me posted.
Hetty Green

I saw this situation developing three years ago, and I am on record as predicting it. I said then that the rich were approaching the brink; and that a panic was inevitable.
Hetty Green

The New York Central quietly negotiated with me for a big loan and that make me sit up and do some thinking, for that road is one of the wealthiest in the world.
Hetty Green

There had been an enormous inflation of values, and when the unloading process was begun the holders of the securities found great difficulty in getting real money from the public. The stringency was felt by the big brokers and manipulators long before the people had any inkling that such a condition existed.
Hetty Green



I saw the handwriting on the wall and began quietly to call in my money, making few new transactions and getting into my hands every available dollar of my fortune against the day I knew was coming.
Hetty Green

Every real estate deal which I could possibly close up was converted into cash.
Hetty Green

I never buy real estate. First mortgages are good enough for me.
Hetty Green

When the crash came I had money, and I was one of the very few who really had it. The others had their ‘securities’ and their ‘values.’ I had the cash and they had to come to me in droves.
Hetty Green

I had the cash and they had to come to me in droves. Some of them I lent money to, and some I did not. That was my privilege.
Hetty Green

Those to whom I loaned my money got it at 6 percent. I might just as easily have secured 40 percent. But never in my life, no matter what has been said against me, have I practiced usury, and no one knows it better than the wealthy men who have had business dealings with me.
Hetty Green

Aside from the ‘financiers’ I went to the relief of many others engaged in ‘legitimate’ business. Nearly all the big department stores in New York came to me and I loaned them money.
Hetty Green

I loaned money to the New York Central, but when the Vanderbilt family applied I refused them. They came to me some little time ago – that was before the wedding – and brought a box two feet long containing the famous Vanderbilt jewels. They wanted me to take them as security and lend them money. But Lord bless you, I know nothing about diamonds and such things.
Hetty Green

I know a few things about real estate mortgages, but not jewels. I have no use for them in my business.
Hetty Green

They say Mrs Cornelius Vanderbilt is going to marry a Hungarian Count. She ought to have a guardian instead.
Hetty Green



[On Mrs Cornelius Vanderbilt] Her husband was one of God’s anointed, one of the finest men I ever knew. He gratified every whim of his wife, and she, poor woman, thinks that every other man in the world is like him. She will be sadly disillusioned if she marries that foreigner.
Hetty Green

[On Mrs Cornelius Vanderbilt potential marriage] If she marries him the control of the Vanderbilt system of railroads will pass out of the family’s hands. The millions which Gladys brought to her husband have been shipped to Hungary, and the other millions which her mother will have to give up if she marries her Count will be shipped to Hungary.
Hetty Green

[In 1908] Money is easier than it was a spell back, as every one knows. Why should not it be after the rain of Government dollars which Cortelyou poured into the banks? But that is merely first aid to the injured. It doesn’t correct the evil.
Hetty Green

The hard times are bound to continue until after the election, and then what will happen no one knows.
Hetty Green

Ultimately the financial situation will adjust itself, but not on the past inflated basis.
Hetty Green

I have faith in American business institutions, and as soon as this faith spreads again to the people the financial depression will be a thing of the past, and not till then.
Hetty Green

[In 1908 on the financial depression] It was caused by this very lack of faith: A good many things contributed to the loss of confidence… In my opinion, the President has not made good.
Hetty Green

What would you think if I were to say every day for years that I was going [to go] out and kill a muskrat, and then never did it?
Hetty Green

What has he accomplished, aside from helping to create the present situation?
Hetty Green

The hard times haven’t hurt me any.
Hetty Green



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