Ida Tarbell

The whole force of the respectable circles to which I belonged, that respectable circle which knew as I did notthe value of…

— Ida Tarbell

My whole theory for the improvement of society is based on a belief in the discipline and the education of the individual…

— Ida Tarbell

Life is but a collection of habits.

— Ida Tarbell

The surprise of the fight on the long day, of the experiments with the shorter one, has been not only that the…

— Ida Tarbell

A mind which really lays hold of a subject is not easily detached from it.

— Ida Tarbell

It's always a revolution, you know, when things occur of which you have never happened to hear!

— Ida Tarbell

In walking through the world there is a choice for a man to make. He can choose the fair and open path,…

— Ida Tarbell

There is no more effective medicine to apply to feverish public sentiments than figures.

— Ida Tarbell

I have never had illusions about the value of my individual contribution! I realized early that what a man or a woman…

— Ida Tarbell

[John D. Rockefeller] didn't care about anyone he did anything just to be rich and be the only company standing without any…

— Ida Tarbell

I decided to write the book to open the eyes of the people of how corrupt John D. Rockefeller company was and…

— Ida Tarbell

Now, if the Standard Oil Company were the only concern in the country guilty of the practices which have given it monopolistic…

— Ida Tarbell

Rockefeller and his associates did not build the Standard Oil Co. in the board rooms of Wall Street banks. They fought their…

— Ida Tarbell

Perhaps our national ambition to standardize ourselves has behind it the notion that democracy means standardization. But standardization is the surest way…

— Ida Tarbell

Speculation in oil stock companies was another great evil ... From the first, oil men had to contend with wild fluctuations in…

— Ida Tarbell

Ripe old age, cheerful, useful, and understanding, is one of the finest influences in the world.

— Ida Tarbell

A mind truly cultivated never feels that the intellectual process is complete until it can reproduce in some media the thing which…

— Ida Tarbell

... the economic advantages of sobriety have never been doubtful.

— Ida Tarbell

The only reason I am glad I am a woman is because I will not have to marry one.

— Ida Tarbell

How defeated and restless the child that is not doing something in which it sees a purpose, a meaning! It is by…

— Ida Tarbell

we were raising our standard of living at the expense of our standard of character.

— Ida Tarbell

[On dishonest business methods:] ... frequently the defender of the practice falls back on the Christian doctrine of charity, and points out…

— Ida Tarbell

Imagination is the only key to the future. Without it none exists - with it all things are possible.

— Ida Tarbell

Sacredness of human life! The world has never believed it! It has been with life that we settled our quarrels, won wives,…

— Ida Tarbell

The quest of the truth had been born in me - the most tragic and incomplete, as well as the most essential,…

— Ida Tarbell