1. If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning. 2. We must free ourselves of the hope that the sea will ever rest. We must learn to sail in high winds.
3. It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.
5. The secret of business is to know something that nobody else knows.
6. Find a priest who understands English and doesn't look like Rasputin.
7. To succeed in business it is necessary to make others see things as you see them.
9. The more you own, the more you know you don't own.
10. Behind every millionaire hides a frenzied borrower.
11. To my mind, the world is just too small. I don't need a university degree. One day what I do will astonish you!
13. You usually find that if you make things comfortable for people they like you.
14. Mr (Paul) Getty is in a rich man's business. He produces oil and carries it. I am in a poor man's business. All I do is carry it.
15. The crisis is all part of the game.
17. (on Noah being successful in the shipping business) But that damn fellow had a monopoly.
18. (on growing his shipping business) It is my rule in business, to be the buyer, never the seller.
19. I don't like to lose.
20. I made one great mistake. I never thought that in our world emotions could override all business reason.
22. Take care of your body. Be as good to it as possible. Don't worry about incidents. Look at me - there's nothing of the Greek God about my physique. But I didn't waste any time crying about the unpleasant aspects of my person. And remember that things are only as ugly as you believe they are.
24. Wait for the night to come, and don't celebrate until your thinking is done. Then enjoy a good meal in the company of friends, and try to avoid talking business at the table.
26. Eat moderately; when you have something urgent to take care of, avoid rich foods and wine. Spending hours at the table, while your mind is wrapped up in work, that has to be done, is still one of the best ways to shorten your existence.
27. To be successful, keep looking tanned, live in an elegant building (even if you're in the cellar), be seen in smart restaurants (even if you nurse one drink) and if you borrow, borrow big.
29. (on refusing to wear a coat) Since I am known as a "rich" person, I feel I have to tip at least five dollars each time I check my coat.
30. The two elements of success are to rise early and always have a tan.
31. Be rich or be an enemy of the rich. I understand both. But never envy the rich and try to please them.
33. People forget quickly. Only a few weeks earlier they may have been on the verge of death. Then comes safety and the grumbles and complaints begin - over all sorts of trivialities.
35. (An early business selling tobacco and cigars) Wrap the cigars up in cellophane.
36. (on a "sordid action" which some businessmen began to use against their competition) A man would go into a tobacconist, buy a pack of cigarettes, and once out of the shop inject a chemical into the pack with a hypodermic syringe. He would then return and explain: "I made a mistake, this is not the brand I wanted. Can I please exchange it." The hole would be very small, invisible to the human eye. The chemical gave the tobacco an abominable taste. It would spread through the whole pack. There were very few brands of cigarettes in Buenos Aires, so it was quite easy to disgust the buyers of these well-respected products and they would turn to you, who sold superior tobacco with that incomparable taste.
37. I don't like small-town life.
40. (on introducing himself to a tall Norwegian blonde in 1934) Aristotle Socrates Onassis, a Greek shipowner.
41. Let me have some freedom first.
42. (on the plight of Oil companies who desperately needed the growth of independent tanker fleets) Any Wall Street executive who throughout the pre-Christmas rainy and snowy days would be only too glad to play the philanthropist with the cab drivers. All he prays is to get the cab.
44. (In 1949 on visiting the A.G. Weser shipyard in Germany which had been levelled by bombing and stripped of machinery by the Russian army) How can you build ships here? You haven't even got a damn crane.
45. When you have been through what I have been through in South America, you know that everyone is out to swindle you.
47. (on the proposal to make money buying ex government T-2 tankers after WWII) He couldn't believe it. Neither could his associates. It sounded almost crooked. I don't blame him.
49. (on his Saudi misadventure in 1955) My mistake, was that I woke up too early and disturbed those who were still asleep, and as a result I got into the biggest mess of my life.
51. (on a court judgement) 100,000 or 100 million francs, it's all the same to me.
52. (on tall poppy syndrome and what advice he would give to the modern boy in 1957 some time after going through some court cases) Our system of life outlaws individualism today. Everything is done through public corporations, associations, groups of people. If an individual is mediocre today, he can get away with it. If he's outstandingly successful, he becomes suspect. Outstanding individualism aggravates and disturbs the rest of society. A pity, perhaps, but it is so. For those reasons it is harder for a boy to succeed today than when I first started. The social system has changed so much.
54. I will give you 30,000 examples in any business, Mr Zelenko. Take a bank for instance. Do you want anybody more than a bank to apply the proverb: "Money talks?" If a bank gives me $50 million tomorrow , payable over a period of 10 or 15 years, what say does that bank have with me? Nothing, as long as I am not in default. They have $50 million of their money in my hands. However, as long as I am not in default, what saying that bank can have? Their money doesn't talk at all. It talks as much as a fish. I can give you examples like that until tomorrow morning.
56. (on being so thoroughly investigated on his right to own and operate US ships) I even had to state whether my grandmother knew how to swim.
58. (on his wife Tina (Athina Livanos) Onassis) She has kidnapped the children and is demanding $20 million ransom.
59. (on his father in law Stavros Livanos - He) Has not even enough money to buy Niarchos's art collection or my hobby enterprises.
61. I'll be a cuckold if I haven't got rid of the airline by tomorrow!
62. There is no logic in business. With logic I would not be where I am today.
63. (on long time girlfriend Maria Callas) Madame Callas is not a vehicle for me to drive; she has her own brakes and her own brains.
65. Keep a tan even if you have to use a lamp. To most people a tan in winter means only that you have been where the sun is, and in that respect, sun is money.
66. Keep your troubles to yourself and let people believe you are having a wonderful time.
68. If you aspire for success, do not squander your time reading about things others have done. It is better to get on living your own life than to concern yourself with what others have done. This rule applies strongly to all the stories about me, Jackie and my friends. If a quarter of what reporters have written about me were true, I would already be ruined, abandoned, and so depressed by my misadventures that I would be on the point of shooting myself. (He had his own personal library on his ship)
70. You don't force with money, my dear. You seduce.
71. (on one premature report of his death) It helps to sell newspapers. I didn't deny the rumor. I just walked the streets.
72. I'm just an old man. I don't dress in a fancy way. Nobody will recognize me.
73. (on a prophecy) Western Europeans do it with tea leaves but the Greeks use coffee grounds. One prediction was that my father would be released in a few weeks. Another was that I would have a dispute and go to the ends of the earth and do well there. Finally, the coffee grounds predicted that I would not marry for a long, long time. Every bit of it came true.
74. I was just seventeen and seventeen just doesn't nurse its sorrows forever.
75. Venice is the most romantic city in the world.
78. (on people sitting on his ships bar stools being covered with the foreskin of a whale) You are sitting on the world's largest penis!
80. When nature provides a perfect climate and enough food, people sleep all day and do nothing.
81. A father would be crazy if he wanted to separate his children from their mother.
82. I am a sailor and anything can happen to me.
84. Necessity plays a big part in what men will do.
85. The first five thousand dollars is always the hardest to make.
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