Getty Quotes & Sayings

Buy when everyone else is selling and hold until everyone else is buying. That's not just a catchy slogan. It's the very essence of successful investing. — J. Paul Getty

A marriage contract to me is as binding as any in business, and I have always believed in sticking to an agreement. — J. Paul Getty

There are no safeguards that can protect the emotional investor from himself. — J. Paul Getty

Either your understanding of the meaning of music is there from the beginning or it is not. — Gordon Getty

I have a passion for modern and contemporary art. I spend a lot of time in museums; I particularly like the Guggenheim, MoMA in New York or LACMA and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, for example. I cannot wait for the Louis Vuitton Foundation to open. — Delphine Arnault

I wanted to be a professional baseball player. — Balthazar Getty

I didn't do the typical things that young kids do. — Balthazar Getty

You cannot further the Brotherhood of Man by encouraging class hatred. — J. Paul Getty

My yachts were, I suppose, outstanding status symbols. — J. Paul Getty

My background is Protestant so I benefited from the great Bible teaching that was provided there. I did love the more culturally classical things, like Irish music, which I think is some of the most congregational-style music when you think of St. Patrick's Breastplate (and) Danny Boy. These are traditional Irish melodies. I think being brought up there (Ireland) gave me a sense of melody that is very attuned to congregational singing. — Keith Getty

A lasting relationship with a woman is only possible if you are a business failure, — J. Paul Getty

But I've consistently worked for 10 years. — Balthazar Getty

The rich are not born sceptical or cynical. They are made that way by events, circumstances. — J. Paul Getty

When you go in and do a cool, small character, it feels less like work and more like fun. — Balthazar Getty

Patience; this is the greatest business asset. Wait for the right time to make your moves. — J. Paul Getty

Let me tell you girls the three most important things I learned about life: Number one: Hold fast to your friends; number two: There's no such thing as security; and number three: Don't go see 'Ishtar.' — Estelle Getty

Money isn't everything but it sure keeps you in touch with your children. — J. Paul Getty

My theory is, independent movies only work if you're willing to push the material and do something different. — Balthazar Getty

sticks and stones might break your bones, but cement pays homage to tradition. — Estelle Getty

The Getty family has been fully supportive throughout this situation, and for that, I am very grateful. — Gordon Getty

Congregational singing is a holy act, and as I organize my thoughts, I hear my old pastor, Alistair Begg, reminding me that in our song worship, we have to be spiritually alive (dead people don't sing), spiritually assisted (through the enabling of the Holy Spirit), and spiritually active (committed to daily walking with the Lord). — Keith Getty

I just have to take my chances like any other composer. — Gordon Getty

I vehemently deny that I was born a cynic and a pessimist. — J. Paul Getty

My tendency is to be the guy in the back, even though I often end up being the guy in the front. — Balthazar Getty

Too many of you, my friends, are dying. Now it's time for me to do my part and help you. — Estelle Getty

I had a very modest upbringing. — Balthazar Getty

Nicolette, Kendalle, and Alexandra are my children. Their mother, Cynthia Beck, and I, love them very much. — Gordon Getty

In my own opinion, the average American's cultural shortcomings can be likened to those of the educated barbarians of ancient Rome. These were barbarians who learned to speak--and often to read and write--Latin. They acquired Roman habits of dress and deportment. Many of them handily mastered Roman commercial, engineering and military techniques--but they remained barbarians nonetheless. They failed to develop any understanding, appreciation or love for the art and culture of the great civilization around them. — J. Paul Getty

I think just the above things. I think I wanted to learn from both cultures. So, I think the music is a little more reflective of the ... Catholic culture but the theology, obviously, is much more Reformational. — Keith Getty

Blue grass was the outgrowth of Irish music. As a matter of fact a lot the tunes, a lot of the melodies and the jigs ... have different names but are actually the same tunes. — Keith Getty

Some people find oil. Others don't. — J. Paul Getty

If you look after the pennies, the dollars will look after themselves. — J. Paul Getty

All ages serve and worship the same God, gather under the same gospel and add to the collective song that praises the faithfulness of God as each generation shares in his promises to us. — Keith Getty

I've had every advantage in the world, despite the 18 years of silence which were nobody's fault but mine. — Gordon Getty

My music is all about an idealistic human personality. I have 19th-century ideals. — Gordon Getty

Before marriage, many couples are very much like people rushing to catch an airplane; once aboard, they turn into passengers. They just sit there. — J. Paul Getty

There's no scientific definition. A hymn ... is a song of praise to God. I think there were three real goals with our hymns that made them seem more in line with traditional classical hymn writing than with the modern worship movement and differentiate us slightly. — Keith Getty

The family of God is the choir, and God is their audience. — Keith Getty

I think it's of huge importance to us as worship leaders ... to ask ourselves these two questions: What were the words we put into our congregation's mouths, minds, and memories? And how well did our congregation sing? Our role is simply to be an accompaniment to them as they sing. — Keith Getty

I've never been one to bet on the weather. — J. Paul Getty

Both parents were very encouraging - especially my father. My father thought the sun rose and set with me. Neither one had a musical background or any musical talent. They liked classical music, but neither could carry a tune. — Gordon Getty

Five wives can't all be wrong. — J. Paul Getty

I'm a terrible singer, but it helps when I have to call a taxi. — Gordon Getty

To build wealth today, you must be in your own business. — J. Paul Getty

Without knowing anything else about him, i already know he'd be worth the hurt. — K. Bromberg

We live; we feel; we hurt. the world makes no exceptions. — Balthazar Getty

To succeed in business, to reach the top, an individual must know all it is possible to know about that business. — J. Paul Getty

Rhetoric and dialectics can't change what I have learned from observation and experience. — J. Paul Getty

The key to wealth is to learn how to make money while you sleep — J. Paul Getty

There are one hundred men seeking security to one able man who is willing to risk his fortune. — J. Paul Getty

I don't think events in your life affect your music. — Gordon Getty

The man who comes up with a means for doing or producing almost anything better, faster or more economically has his future and his fortune at his fingertips. — J. Paul Getty

Money is like manure. You have to spread it around or it smells. — J. Paul Getty

The individual who wants to reach the top in business must appreciate the might and force of habit. He must be quick to break those habits that can break him-and hasten to adopt those practices that will become the habits that help him achieve the success he desires. — J. Paul Getty

Americans ... automatically equate dissension with disloyalty. They view any criticism of our existing social, economic, and political forms, as sedition and subversion ... (" The growing reluctance of Americans to criticize, and their increasing tendency to condemn those who, in ever dwindling numbers, will still voice dissent") is disturbing, deplorable, and truly dangerous. — J. Paul Getty

Some of our newspapers and magazines are more concerned with the welfare of their advertisers than they are with the dissemination of news and the discussion of matters of lasting importance ... Radio, television, motion pictures, popular books - all contribute ... to ... the stifling of dissent on all but the most banal levels ... a renunciation of the most basic and precious of democratic principles. — J. Paul Getty

I personally do not write highbrow music. If I do, it's by accident. — Gordon Getty

You can do anything you want to do. — Estelle Getty

There is no change - I'm as deep or as shallow as I ever was. What's new is on-the-job experience. This is what you gain with years. — Gordon Getty

During the 1950s, Aristotle Onassis and I formed what grew to be a close friendship and association in several business ventures. — J. Paul Getty

Oil is like a wild animal. Whoever captures it has it. — J. Paul Getty

If you can actually count your money, then you're not a rich man. — J. Paul Getty

Even in my darkest times I knew I had a good future ahead of me. — Balthazar Getty

The meek shall inherit the Earth, but not its mineral rights. — J. Paul Getty

There are heads of royal families who control hereditary fortunes that defy comprehension. — J. Paul Getty

Each year, tens of millions of museumgoers walk through the entrance of the Getty, or the Metropolitan or the Prado or the Hermitage, and never consider the possibility of having to arbitrate for themselves the authenticity of what they have come to see. — Peter Landesman

We must have something of substance to say in our worship [services] that reminds us why Christ's story is so unique and so utterly essential. — Keith Getty

I have a habit of recording records very quickly - and not in a haphazardly way, not in a way where I'm not focused on details, because I'm a freak when it comes to that. — Balthazar Getty

Hearing the record and seeing the response is affirming that it was the right time and right choice. — Balthazar Getty

Control of a company does not carry with it the ability to control the price of its stock. — J. Paul Getty

My evanescent anarchistic tendencies are purely classical. I use the word anarchist in the sense in which it was understood by the ancient Greeks. They, of course, accepted the anarchist as a fairly respectable--if somewhat vehement--opponent of government encroachment on the individual's rights to think and act freely. It is in this sense that I glimpse myself as an anarchist--regretting the growth of government and the ever-increasing trend toward regulation and, worst of all, standardization of human activity. — J. Paul Getty

You must take risks, both with your own money or with borrowed money. Risk taking is essential to business growth. — J. Paul Getty

In my opinion, an individual without any love of the arts cannot be considered completely civilized. — J. Paul Getty

My love of fine art increased - the more of it I saw, the more of it I wanted to see. — J. Paul Getty

My father was so much more than an accomplished businessman. — Gordon Getty

How does one measure the success of a museum? — J. Paul Getty

It's true that I tend to daydream. I'm the same person in business as I am in music: I can be distracted and absentminded. It's my style. — Gordon Getty

In the Eisenhower era, when earnings over $400,000 were subject to 91 percent taxes and the world was a smaller place, you could count the truly wealthy on one hand: Getty, Dupont, Mellon, Rockefeller, though even those fortunes were being dispersed to children as the old robber barons died off. — Michael Shnayerson

I've always loved the music ... My favorite kind of music is Christmas music and the only thing I love better music is my wife and daughters. So, hanging out with my wife and daughters and cuddling them will be pretty cool. — Keith Getty

Without the element of uncertainty, the bringing off of even, the greatest business triumph would be dull, routine, and eminently unsatisfying. — J. Paul Getty

Governments, of course, can - and do - soak the rich. — J. Paul Getty

The conformist is not born. He is made. I believe the brainwashing process begins in the schools and colleges. — J. Paul Getty

I've managed to dodge the curse. Not all my family have. Of course, music helped me - music is all about civilization, about something worthwhile. It's all about ideas. — Gordon Getty

I'd rather have 1% of the effort of 100 men than 100% of my own effort. — J. Paul Getty

I take pride in the creation of my wealth, in its existence and in the uses to which it has been and is being put. — J. Paul Getty

You must not only learn to live with tension, you must seek it out. You must learn to thrive on stress. — J. Paul Getty

There is only one way to make a great deal of money; and that is in a business of your own. — J. Paul Getty

Then, the stunningly white cubes that make up the Getty Museum. It's an architectural masterpiece funded by a venal billionaire's trust, housing third-rate art. Pure L.A.: might makes right and packaging is all. Traffic — Jonathan Kellerman

I find all this money a considerable burden. — J. Paul Getty

In some areas, [Getty Images has] more images than the rest of the market put together. But libraries are being built up at a terrific pace. A photographer in a lifetime will produce maybe a million images, and there are about 15,000 professionals at work out there. — Mark Getty

Like, they know that I have a habit of rubbing my earlobes, I've been doing it since I was two. — Balthazar Getty

Money is like manure, you don't have to spread it around, you can just sell it to Potash Corp as fertilizer. — J. Paul Getty

You must never try to make all the money that's in a deal. Let the other fellow make some money too, because if you have a reputation for always making all the money, you won't have many deals. — J. Paul Getty

There may be some substitute for hard facts, but if there is, I have no idea what it can be. — J. Paul Getty

There are always opportunities through which businessmen can profit handsomely if they will only recognize and seize them. — J. Paul Getty

I do not think that music keeps evolving. It evolved through Bach; since then, in my humble opinion, all the innovations added nothing. — Gordon Getty

Even the great bad guys in cinema history, they're likable. — Balthazar Getty

I am neither a homosexual nor a eunuch, nor have I ever taken any vows of chastity. — J. Paul Getty

I like to challenge myself and give myself a timeline. It pushes me to be more creative and actually do these things, not just dream about them. — Balthazar Getty

Nobody believes it, but I slept on a futon till I was 13. — Balthazar Getty