Great Throughts Treasury

"If you're not born in the United States, you cannot be president. And, there is a real question. And if this birth certificate exists, you know what I get a kick out of? The Governor of Hawaii says, "I remember when he was born 50 years ago." I doubt it. I think this guy should be investigated. I doubt it. He remembers when Obama was born? Give me a break! He's just trying to do something for his party. The fact is, if you're not born in the United States, you cannot be president. He is having a hard time — he spent millions of dollars trying to get away from this issue, millions of dollars in legal fees trying to get away from this issue. And I'll tell you what, I brought it up just routinely and all of a sudden, a lot of facts are emerging, and I'm starting to wonder myself whether or not he was born in this country."

"I'm a bit of a P. T. Barnum. I make stars out of everyone."

"I'm not a schmuck. Even if the world goes to hell in a handbasket, I won't lose a penny."

"In business — every business — the bottom line is understanding the process. If you don't understand the process, you'll never reap the rewards of the process."

"I'm the No. 1 developer in New York, I'm the biggest in Atlantic City, and maybe we'll keep it that way."

"It doesn`t hurt to get more education."

"In life you have to rely on the past, and that's called history."

"It’s important to focus on the solution, not the problem."

"It's a great thing when you can show that you've been successful and that you've made a lot of money and that you've employed a lot of people."

"It's a blip, not a catastrophe."

"It's tangible, it's solid, it's beautiful. It's artistic, from my standpoint, and I just love real estate."

"It's always good to be underestimated."

"It's not like I'm anti-China. I just think it's ridiculous that we allow them to do what they're doing to this country, with the manipulation of the currency, that you write about and understand, and all of the other things that they do."

"It's important to focus on the solution, not the problem."

"It's very important that people aspire to be successful. The only way you can do it is if you look at somebody who is."

"I've seen people that are extremely brilliant and they don't have the staying power. They don't have that never-give-up quality. I've always said that other than bad ideas, which is a reason for failure, the ability to never ever quit or give up is something that is very, very important for success as an entrepreneur."

"I've read hundreds of books about China over the decades. I know the Chinese. I've made a lot of money with the Chinese. I understand the Chinese mind."

"I've known people who had fantastic ideas, but who couldn't get the idea off the ground because they approached everything weakly. They thought that their ideas would somehow take off by themselves, or that just coming up with an idea was enough. Let me tell you something — it's not enough. It will never be enough. You have to put the idea into action. If you don't have the motivation and the enthusiasm, your great idea will simply sit on top of your desk or inside your head and go nowhere."

"Leaders are people who can discern the inevitable and act accordingly. When people talk about business acumen, discernment is a big part of it. It's a bit like gut instinct, but a little more developed."

"Leona Helmsley is a truly evil human being. She treated employees worse than any human being I've ever witnessed and I've dealt with some of the toughest human beings alive."

"Many people are afraid to fail, so they don't try. They may dream, talk, and even plan, but they don't take that critical step of putting their money and their effort on the line. To succeed in business, you must take risks. Even if you fail, that's how you learn. There has never been, and will never be, an Olympic skater who didn't fall on the ice."

"Mitt - what I speak to Mitt Romney about is jobs. What I speak to Mitt Romney about is China, because he's got a great view on China and how they're trying to destroy our country by taking our jobs and making our product and manipulating their currency, so that it makes it almost impossible for our companies to compete."

"Life is what you do while you're waiting to die."

"Let me tell you, I'm a really smart guy."

"Money was never a big motivation for me, except as a way to keep score. The real excitement is playing the game."

"My big focus is China and OPEC and all of these countries that are just absolutely destroying the United States."

"Now, if your boss is a sadist, then you have a big problem. In that case, fire your boss and get a new job."

"No, I've never really changed. Nothing's changed my mind. And by the way, you know, you have a huge group of people — I walk down the street, and people are screaming, "Please don't give that up.""

"More votes equals a loss...revolution!"

"Not teaching your kids about money is like not caring whether they eat. If they enter the world without financial knowledge, they will have a much harder go of it."

"Obama and his attack dogs have nothing but hate and anger in their hearts and spew it whenever possible."

"Obama does not like the issue of where he was born."

"One of the key problems today is that politics is such a disgrace, good people don't go into government."

"Now, it's appropriate, I think, that we get to the subject of hand, which is — at hand, which is jobs, which is the economy, which is how our country is not doing well at all under this leadership, which is how are we going to do something about energy, which is really that things that I wanted to talk to you about, but you like to keep going back to the place of birth."

"Part of being a winner is knowing when enough is enough. Sometimes you have to give up the fight and walk away, and move on to something that's more productive."

"Obama has no solutions. Obama has failed the country and its great citizens, and they don't like it when somebody such as myself speaks the truth about this - it hurts too much."

"Part of the beauty of me is that I am very rich."

"Passion is absolutely necessary to achieve any kind of long-lasting success. I know this from experience. If you don't have passion, everything you do will ultimately fizzle out or, at best, be mediocre. Is that how you want to live your life?"

"So we really need jobs now. We have to take jobs away from other countries because other countries are taking our jobs. There is practically not a country that does business with the United States that isn't making — let's call it a very big profit. I mean China is going to make $300 billion on us at least this year."

"People might not think that, but the Republicans have all of the cards. And this is the time to get rid of Obamacare. This is the time to make the great deal."

"Some people aren't meant to be rich. It's like when Babe Ruth was the greatest home run hitter. There had never been anybody like him, and his teammates would ask, "Babe, Babe, how do you hit the long ball?" And he'd say, "I don't know, man. I just swing at it." I see it like that. It's just something you have, something you're born with. Many people don't have the ability to be rich, because they're too lazy or they don't have the desire or the stick-to-itiveness. It's a talent. Some people have a talent for piano. Some people have a talent for raising a family. Some people have a talent for golf. I just happen to have a talent for making money."

"So Bush certainly wasn't the greatest, and Obama has not done the job. And he's created a lot of disincentive. He's created a lot of great dissatisfaction. Regulations and regulatory is going through the roof. It's almost impossible to get anything done in the country."

"People who think achieving success is a linear A-to-Z process, a straight shot to the top, simply aren't in touch with reality. There are very few bona fide overnight success stories. It just doesn't work that way. Success appears to happen overnight because we all see stories in newspapers and on TV about previously unknown people who have suddenly become famous. But consider a sequoia tree that has been growing for several hundred years. Just because a television crew one day decides to do a story about that tree doesn't mean it didn't exist before."

"Real estate is at the core of almost every business, and it's certainly at the core of most people's wealth. In order to build your wealth and improve your business smarts, you need to know about real estate."

"Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war."

"Show me someone without an ego, and I'll show you a loser."

"Sometimes your best investments are the ones you don't make."

"The Arab League tells us to go in and take out Qaddafi. We've spent billions of dollars already with respect to the Arab League. Billions of dollars, because they told us to do it. Why aren't they paying for it? They don't like Qaddafi, Qaddafi's been a terrible thorn in their side."

"The debt limits have to come down. The whole world of debt has to be changed as far as this country is concerned. We have to create jobs and we have to create them rapidly because if we don't things are just going to head in a direction that's going to be almost impossible to recover from."

"The first thing the secretary types is the boss."