Quotes for success

This is excerpt from speech of J. Steven Whisler, Chairman and CEO, Phelps Dodge Corp. in American Mining Hall of Fame Banquet, Tucson, Arizona on December 4, 2004

I tried to come up with a few eternal truths and rules for success to share with you tonight. The best I could do was five, and here they are:

• First, stay humble in the mining business. As the author Otis Young noted in his book Western Mining, “For every fortune made in mining, another fortune was spent ultimately to provide palatiallodgings for gophers.”

• Second, keep in touch with the latest in high tech. For example, even in the midst of confusion and frustration, always remember that hardware is the part of the computer that can be kicked or thrown.

• Third, don’t blindly follow conventional wisdom. Remember that Noah was an amateur … and the Titanic was designed and built by professionals.

• Fourth, never assume that everyone already understands the problem. As science and history have long since proved, the two most abundant elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.

• Finally, always put safety first. As Mark Twain once said, “It is better to be careful 100 times than to be killed once.”

Now here is comment from Dwight D. Eisenhower:

“We succeed, only as we identify in life, or in war, or in anything else, a single overriding objective, and make all other considerations bend to that one objective.”