# Businessperson

A businessman is a business professional; especially one with a senior position, such as a corporate executive.

## Quotes

* Such a businessman has never become rich whose mouth was full of slander and his heart full of envy of success of the others, who could with great skill reveal the mistakes of his competitor. However that one has never been and will never be poor who serves his customers with words of cordial kindness and whose eyes can see rather the positive than the negative features of the competitor so that he could use them.
** Tomas Bata (1928), translated and cited in: Tribus, Myron. "Lessons from Tomas Bata for the Modern Day Manager." Tvůrčí odkaz Tomáše Bati a současné podnikatelské metody (2001).
* The Renaissance had its man: Il Cortesano. The 20th century had its man: the businessman.
** Giannina Braschi, United States of Banana, (2011), p. 28.
* The businessman, the preacher, the vendor, the spies, the clients and managers—all walking around Wall Street like chickens with their heads cut off—rushing to escape bankruptcy—plotting to melt down the Statue of Liberty—to press more copper pennies—to breed more headless chickens—to put more feathers in their caps—medals, diplomas, stock certificates, honorary doctorates—eggs and eggs of headless chickens—multitaskers—system hackers—who never know where they’re heading—northward, backward, eastward, forward, and never homeward—(where is home)—home is in the head—(but the head is cut off)—and the nest is full of banking forms and Easter eggs with coins inside. Beheaded chickens, how do you breed chickens with their heads cut off? By teaching them to bankrupt creativity.
** Giannina Braschi, United States of Banana, (2011), p. 32
* Everybody knows by now, all businessmen are completely full of shit; just the worst kind of low-life, criminal, cocksuckers you could ever wanna' run into – a fuckin' piece of shit businessman. And the proof of it, the proof of it is, they don't even trust each other. They don't trust one another. When a business man sits down to negotiate a deal, the first thing he does is to automatically assume that the other guy is a complete lying prick who's trying to fuck him outta his money. So he's gotta do everything he can to fuck the other guy a little bit faster and a little bit harder. And he's gotta do it with a big smile on his face. You know that big, bullshit businessman smile? And if you're a customer – Whoah! – that's when you get the really big smile. Customer always gets that really big smile, as the businessman carefully positions himself directly behind the customer, and unzips his pants, and proceeds to service...the...account. 'I am servicing this account. This customer needs service.' Now you know what they mean. Now you know what they mean when they say, 'We specialize in customer service.' Whoever coined the phrase 'let the buyer beware' was probably bleeding from the asshole. That's business.
** George Carlin, You Are All Diseased (1999)
* It may seem paradoxical to say that there are similarities between a poetical and a commercial mind, but it is a fact that both a poet and a businessman are constantly dealing with problems that are directly related to people and for which sensitivity is of prime importance. The business-like mind is sometimes described as being cold, sober, calculating, hard; but perhaps these are simply qualities that are necessary for dealing with people if one wants to achieve anything. One is always concerned with the mysterious, incalculable, dark, hidden aspects for which there is no easy formula, but which form essentially the same human element as that which inspires the poet.
** M. C. Escher, "On Being a Graphic Artist" (PDF file)
* Language became a colorless and as indistinct as the business suit which is now worm by everyone, by the scholar, by the businessman, by the professional killer. Being accustomed to a dry and dreary norm and sees in it an obvious sign of arrogance and aggression; viewing authority with almost religious awe he gets into a frenzy when he sees someone pluck the beard of his favorite prophet.
** Paul Karl Feyerabend Science in a Free Society (1978), pg. 150
* The Businessman is one who supplies something great and good to the world, and collects from the world for the goods.
** Elbert Hubbard. 'George Peabody', Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen (1916).
* What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity, devoid of troubling or disturbing subject matter, an art which could be for every mental worker, for the businessman was well as the man of letters, for example, a soothing, calming influence on the mind, something like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue.
** Henri Matisse "Notes d'un Peintre" in La Grande Revue (Paris, 25 December 1908); as translated by Jack Flam in Matisse on Art (1995)
* In former days this maxim was displayed in Business Offices, "Call upon a Businessman, at business hours, on business only. Go about your business and thus enable him to finish his own business. This is purely a business matter." There are two reasons why some people don't mind their own business; one is that they haven't any mind and the other that they haven't any business. However, now the Businessman is plagued at all hours by a spate of visitors with no business in view, who just drop in for free information or hospitality and more often than not for contributions to all sorts of charities, often of doubtful flavour or unauthorised.
** Peter de Noronha, The Pageant of Life (1964), Pages 134-135,
* Ninety-nine men in a hundred are natural men, that is, beasts of prey; and it is mere insanity, in business matters, to deal with a stranger upon any other assumption than that he is a natural man, though we should veil our knowledge of the actual fact by a courteous recognition in words and manners of his better possibilities.
** Coventry Patmore, The Rod, the Root, and the Flower (London: George Bell and Sons, 1895), Magna Moralia XXIV, p. 174.
* The working life of the businessman has the psychology of a hundred-yards race, but as the race upon which he is engaged is one whose only goal is the grave, the concentration, which is appropriate enough for a hundred yards, becomes in the end somewhat excessive.
** Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness, Ch. 3: Competition.
* The businessman's religion and glory demand that he should make much money; therefore, like the Hindu widow, he suffers the torment gladly.
** Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness, Ch. 3: Competition.
* Most politicians and businesspeople are clever. Very few are intelligent. Whatever is attained through cleverness is short lived and always turns out to be eventually self defeating. Cleverness divides; intelligence unites.
** Eckhart Tolle in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, (2005)

## See also

* Business
* Man