The beginnings of business decadence
Posted by Jorge Bernal May 25, 2007
The pursuit of happiness
Business was originated to produce happiness, not to pile up millions. Too many so-called “successful” men are making business an end and aim in itself. They regard the multiplying of their millions and the extension of their works as the be-all and end-all of life. Such men are sometimes happy in a feverish, hustling sort of way, much as a fly placed in a tube of oxygen is furiously happy until its life burns out. But they have no time for the tranquil, finer, deeper joys of living. They are so obsessed with the material that they cannot enjoy the immaterial, the intangible, the ideal, the spiritual&emdash;quiet thought, self-communion, reflection, poise, inward happiness, domestic felicity. What profiteth it a man to gain uncounted riches if he thereby sacrifices his better self, his nobler qualities of manhood? Mere getting is not living.
Forbes Magazine, September 15, 1917
This was the first Forbes editorial, the first US business magazine.
