Hetty Green Quotes

120 Hetty Green Quotes (The Witch of Wall Street Quotes)
(Henrietta R ‘Hetty’ Green, Hetty Howland Robinson)

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There is no great secret in fortune making. All you do is buy cheap and sell dear, act with thrift and shrewdness and be persistent.
Hetty Green

More money is made in the end by an over-supply of caution than by indiscriminate recklessness.
Hetty Green

I buy when things are low and no one wants them. I keep them until they go up, and people are crazy to get them.
Hetty Green

A good business woman is often sharper than a good business man.
Hetty Green

Railroads and real estate are the things I like. Before deciding on an investment, I seek out every kind of information about it.
Hetty Green

When I see a thing, going cheap because nobody wants it, I buy a lot of it and tuck it away. Then, when the time comes, they have to hunt me up and pay me a good price for my holdings.
Hetty Green

For forty years I have had to fight every inch of the way.
Hetty Green

As long as women won’t save we’re not likely to have many women millionaires in this country.
Hetty Green

I saw the handwriting on the wall and began quietly to call in my money…
Hetty Green

When the crash came I had money, and I was one of the very few who really had it.
Hetty Green



[A bird] in the hand is worth the whole arithmetic in the bush.
Hetty Green

I don’t deal in diamonds.
Hetty Green

[On the government pumping money into the economy in 1908] That is merely first aid to the injured. It doesn’t correct the evil.
Hetty Green

I always try to deal justly with everyone. But if anyone wants to fight me I’ll give him all the fight he wants.
Hetty Green

When quite a child I was required to read the reports of the stock markets and of various business transactions to my father who would carefully explain to me those things I did not understand. I was also obliged to keep a strict account of personal and household expenses. All these things were most useful in forming the mind for business responsibilities when it became necessary to assume them.
Hetty Green

When quite a child I was required to read the reports of the stock markets and of various business transactions to my father…
Hetty Green

[On men trying to take advantage of women in business] I have found this particularly so in the courts, where I have been fighting men all my life.
Hetty Green

American women would be much happier, if they learned the principles of business in girlhood.
Hetty Green

[In 1900] With the same environment, I believe that a woman is quite as capable as man in conducting business affairs.
Hetty Green

I wish women had more rights in business. I find men will take advantage of women in business in ways they would not attempt with men.
Hetty Green



Why is a lawyer like a man who is restless in bed? Because both lie first on one side, then the other.
Hetty Green

[On carrying a revolver] Mostly to protect myself against lawyers. I’m not much afraid of burglars or highwaymen.
Hetty Green

My father taught me never to owe anyone anything, not even a kindness.
Hetty Green

[On learning about stocks from her grandfather] By the time I was 15, I knew more about these things than many a man that makes a living out of them.
Hetty Green

Money was no object.
Hetty Green

[In 1900] $200,000 is the largest sum I ever made in a day, though I’ve cleared more than that on single deals.
Hetty Green

Do you suppose I would have named my daughter Sylvia Ann Howland if I had forged my aunt’s name? I’d have had a living picture of forgery before me all those years.
Hetty Green

I have come for what belongs to me.
Hetty Green

Here are these letters where [your father] says none of my money will be used in anything, yet Mr Green was using it all the time.
Hetty Green

Didn’t you expect to put me out of the way as they did my father?
Hetty Green



Never speculate in Wall Street; eat slowly; don’t stay up all night; don’t drink ice water; keep out of drafts.
Hetty Green

My dear young man. You don’t understand this case. Let me explain it to you.
Hetty Green

[To the railroad treasurers on Judge Collins] Well, you put him on the bench and you can now take him off, or you can pay your loans to me.
Hetty Green

[On setting tests for her son Ned in this case getting him to paint on of her Chicago blocks] I wanted him to learn what it cost to make a building and what went into it, so he would know something of what a mortgage on a building was worth.
Hetty Green

[To Collis P Huntington on threatening to have Ned jailed on a contempt charge] Harm a hair of Ned’s head and I’ll put a bullet through your heart.
Hetty Green

[On a boom having been going for six years and being due in 1903 for a crash] There were signs which I couldn’t ignore. Some of the solidest men in the street came to me and wanted to unload all sorts of things. The New York Central quietly negotiated with me for a big loan and that make me sit up and do some thinking.
Hetty Green

[To her son Ned] I need you every day. I implore you to be careful of your health. I have a bad cold. They are robbing me.
Hetty Green

I’ll live to be 100.
Hetty Green

Buy cheap and sell dear.
Hetty Green

Tuck it away.
Hetty Green



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