S Truett Cathy Quotes

100 S Truett Cathy Quotes (Chick-fil-A Quotes, Samuel Truett Cathy)

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We’re not just in the chicken business, we’re in the people business.
S Truett Cathy

Sometimes success is disguised in hard work.
S Truett Cathy

It’s easier to succeed than to fail.
S Truett Cathy

I live in a do-it-yourself world.
S Truett Cathy

Take advantage of unexpected opportunities.
S Truett Cathy

If you wish to enrich days, plant flowers; If you wish to enrich years, plant trees; If you wish to enrich Eternity, plant ideals in the lives of others.
S Truett Cathy

I enjoy few things more than making people – especially children – smile.
S Truett Cathy

Our EDL (Everyday Living course at highschool) teacher taught us about common courtesies as well as common sense… He also introduced us to a book by Napoleon Hill that had just been published, ‘Think and Grow Rich’. In it Mr Hill wrote, ‘Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.’
S Truett Cathy

[On reading Napoleon Hill’s ‘Think and Grow Rich’ book as a high school student] As I read Mr. Hill’s book, I realized I could do anything if I wanted it badly enough. His words motivated me and showed me that I live in a do-it-yourself world.
S Truett Cathy

We live in a changing world, but we need to be reminded that the important things have not changed…
S Truett Cathy



Businesses are not dishonest or greedy, people are.
S Truett Cathy

If they can’t take care of the personal life, how can you expect them to take care of business?
S Truett Cathy

Put two Cows on a billboard with a bucket of paint and a brush, and they’ll create some unexpected opportunities… They remind people in their unique style to ‘Eat Mor Chikin!’ The Cows still haven’t learned to spell, and their grammar leaves a lot to be desired, but the opportunities are real. Five years after they painted their first billboard, Chick-fil-A had doubled our sales volume, achieving annual sales of more than $1 billion.
S Truett Cathy

The Chick-fil-A Chicken Sandwich itself was born in the wake of an unexpected opportunity. When one of my first two restaurants burned to the ground, I found myself with time on my hands and the availability to develop a new recipe…
S Truett Cathy

To take advantage of unexpected opportunities, we must leave ourselves available.
S Truett Cathy

Many successful people I know set magnificent goals for themselves, then let nothing stand in the way of their achievement. I don’t engage in that kind of long-range planning. Instead, I leave myself and my company available to take advantage of opportunities as they arise.
S Truett Cathy

Many of the unexpected opportunities we encounter are small but significant.
S Truett Cathy

The unexpected opportunity I enjoy most is the opportunity to turn a frown into a smile.
S Truett Cathy

We have an impact on our children by what we say, but particularly by what we do. They forget many of the things we say, but they observe everything we do. We can’t expect to keep beer in the refrigerator and expect our fifteen-year-old not to drink beer.
S Truett Cathy

Rural life left many scars. Six years before I was born, a fire destroyed the family home and all its contents… With no insurance, the expense laid a heavy financial burden on the family.
S Truett Cathy



My dad got a job with the Life and Casualty Insurance Company of Nashville, selling policies and collecting premiums. He earned so little money, however, my mother had to step in and become the family breadwinner.
S Truett Cathy

My mother… began taking boarders in our rented home in the West End section of Atlanta. For a dollar a day a boarder got a bed – we put two or three beds in each bedroom – and two meals a day. We had only one bathroom, so the boarders had to schedule around each other. Our family, of course, got the bathroom last, with the children bringing up the rear. My two brothers, four sisters, and I took our baths on Saturday…
S Truett Cathy

[As a boy] In winter I continued to generate my own income by selling magazine subscriptions door to door. I sold ‘Ladies’ Home Journal’ for fifteen cents a copy and made four cents profit, or the Saturday Evening Post for a nickel, earning a cent-and-a-half profit. You can guess which one I tried to sell first…
S Truett Cathy

At the age of fifty-six, Mother was tired. Running a boarding house for over a decade had worn her out…
S Truett Cathy

My business grew on my understanding that customers are always looking for somebody who is dependable and polite and will take care of them.
S Truett Cathy

[As a child] My success with the paper route convinced me that I would one day open a business of my own, most likely a service station, grocery store, or restaurant.
S Truett Cathy

I never thought… my balding head would keep me out of World War II, but it did. Instead of being sent to the front lines, I fought the war with a typewriter.
S Truett Cathy

A reporter once asked me how I would like to be remembered. I answered, ‘I think I’d like to be remembered as one who kept my priorities in the right order. We live in a changing world, but we need to be reminded that the important things have not changed, and the important things will not change if we keep our priorities in proper order.
S Truett Cathy

When World War II ended, my brother Ben and I decided we wanted to go into the restaurant business. Ben had all of the restaurant experience between us – a short time working at The Varsity near the Georgia Tech campus…
S Truett Cathy

[On building their first restaurant] We soon ran into another roadblock – a shortage of building materials. The war effort had consumed virtually every scrap of steel and copper in America, and lumber was almost as scare… so I had to beat the bushes for material.
S Truett Cathy



Sir John Templeton, the financial investment expert and creator of the Templeton Funds, tells audiences the safest recommendation and the one that pays the greatest dividend is tithing…
S Truett Cathy

[On Sir John Templeton] He had never known anything who had tithed for ten years who was not rewarded.
S Truett Cathy

My riches are my family and my foster children. I try to store any material wealth in my hand, not my heart, so that I always feel free to give it away when the opportunity rises.
S Truett Cathy

[On establishing a Chick-fil-A restaurant] After we make the necessary investment – buying the real estate and building the restaurant – we turn over the responsibility of running a $2 million-plus business (for a free-standing location) to these independent franchisees – many who have not yet turned thirty years old.
S Truett Cathy

The ‘Eat Mor Chikin’ Cows now have become more than characters in an advertisement. They’re real. Wherever I go I carry a bunch of plush Cow toys. They always make people happy, whether they’re children or adults – even workers in boots and soiled shirts. Everybody loves them. When I give one away I always ask the person to tell me what the Cows say, and hold onto it until they say, ‘Eat Mor Chikin!’
S Truett Cathy

We’re not limited to traditional media for advertising. Some of the strongest messages can be delivered for free. I carry a big Chick-fil-A shopping bag whenever I travel…
S Truett Cathy

One-on-one brand building, which can be the most effective.
S Truett Cathy

For the cost of 100 Eat Mor Chikin Cows I get more positive response than any newspaper advertisement.
S Truett Cathy

One of the greatest rewards for me as a foster grandparent is for children to grow up in a WinShape Home and dedicate their lives to becoming foster parents themselves…
S Truett Cathy

The one thing I take more joy in than anything else in the world is seeing young people develop.
S Truett Cathy



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