I've devoted most of my life to understanding the principles that enable people to improve their lives. It's those principles, the principles of free society, that have shaped my life, my family, our company, and America. Charles Koch More Quotes by Charles Koch More Quotes From Charles Koch Embrace change. Envision what could be, challenge the status quo, and drive creative destruction. Charles Koch embrace creative challenges My father would always say "learn everything you can and whenever you can, because you never know when it'll come in handy." Charles Koch handy knows father I like to think that I try to learn something every day - and change my views, modify my views as I learn. Charles Koch views trying thinking If you have methods without principles, you're going to have trouble. But if you develop methods based on principles, then you can make progress. Charles Koch progress principles trouble Success is one of the worst enemies of success, because success tends to breed complacency and lack of humility. Charles Koch complacency worst-enemy humility The only way you improve is to try new things. Charles Koch new-things trying way I believe my business and non-profit investments are much more beneficial to societal well-being than sending more money to Washington. Charles Koch money business motivational A truly free society is based on a vision of respect for people and what they value. Charles Koch free-society vision people To be happy you have to fulfill your nature. That's what Aristotle taught so many centuries ago, that the road to happiness isn't to go drink more or consume more. The road to happiness is to fully develop your abilities, and then apply them to do good. Charles Koch drink taught century Successful companies create value by providing products or services their customers value more highly than available alternatives. They do this while consuming fewer resources, leaving more resources available to satisfy other needs in society. Value creation involves making people's lives better. It is contributing to prosperity in society. Charles Koch business success people If what you preach and what you do are inconsistent, your children will spot hypocrisy faster than anybody and do the opposite. Charles Koch hypocrisy opposites children I don't have all the answers. I have a lot of questions. And I have some basic principles. Charles Koch basic-principles principles answers I try to hire people who will challenge and have the humility to be challenged - people who have basically good values. Charles Koch humility challenges people We must measure what leads to results, not simply what is easy to measure. Charles Koch results easy To do meaningful work is to contribute - to create value in society. Charles Koch meaningful-work values meaningful Best part of my job is fulfillment. When I see that, that we're creating value, that we're helping improve people's lives, and we benefit from it, so it's a system of mutual benefit. Our philosophy's working. That's what turns me on. That's what keeps me going. Charles Koch mutual-benefit jobs philosophy If you never failed, then you're probably not doing very much. Charles Koch ifs The old idea that some genius pulls all of this stuff out of the air is ridiculous. As Ridley pointed out, the only way Edison could invent the lightbulb is because all the elements had been developed before. That's obvious it wasn't just his genius - 20 others developed it at the same time. And that's true for almost every invention and discovery. Charles Koch air discovery ideas My view on well-being and fulfillment comes from Maslow and positive psychology, and that is that you're satisfying three sets of needs. First need is physiological and safety needs: Got to satisfy those first. And the second is you got to satisfy your community needs because we're social animals, and if we don't have that, we're empty and we don't have people to share knowledge and bounce things off of, and challenge ourselves. And then the third is the idea is to find a calling. Charles Koch views animal ideas When everyone gets something for nothing, soon no one will have anything, because no one will be producing anything. Charles Koch responsibility
