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Daniel Ludwig Quotes

28 quotes from Daniel Ludwig — Shipping and real estate magnate who was the richest person in the world before most people had heard his name..

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“I'm in this business because I like it. I have no hobbies.”

Work

“His only bad habit is work – and that he can't stop.”

Perseverance

“Ludwig's organization is staffed with competent men—but not one man too many.”

— Fortune interview, 1957Leadership

“I have a lifelong penchant for keeping my mouth shut.”

Privacy

“Loving his work to the ultimate degree, Ludwig is unable to take much pleasure from anything else.”

Dedication

“He counts calories religiously.”

Discipline

“His frugality made him almost an ascetic, despite his wealth.”

Frugality

“Once a project begins, Ludwig doesn't rest easy until completion date.”

Commitment

“He shares neither the rewards nor the risks with anyone.”

Independence

“I am interested in achievement, not fame.”

Achievement

“His zest for these operations is that of the lone wolf.”

Individualism

“He doesn't drink much, he doesn't smoke at all, he doesn't entertain lavishly.”

Lifestyle

“I have no interest in fame; I am only interested in achievement.”

Achievement

“Once a project begins, I don't rest easy until completion date.”

Commitment

“I count calories religiously.”

Discipline

“I like martinis, but later on leaned toward the milder substitutes like buttermilk and soda.”

Lifestyle

“I share neither the rewards nor the risks with anyone.”

Independence

“My most notable characteristic is a lifelong penchant for keeping my mouth shut.”

Privacy

“I am a lone wolf in my business endeavors.”

Independence

“I avoid the press like the plague.”

Privacy

“He proposed to assign the charter to the bank. The bank would then collect the charter fees directly from the oil company, and that money would go toward paying off Ludwig's loan.”

— A Chase Manhattan executive, on Ludwig's financing method

“You can't carry oil in a grand piano.”

— Daniel Ludwig, when asked why he didn't put a grand piano aboard his ships like Stavros Niarchos

“In creating this organization I have been guided by certain principles which throughout my life I have found to be highly effective. Success in any complex enterprise consists in bringing the best minds to bear on each problem, in providing the best resources possible, and in putting each concept into practice whenever and wherever the opportunities are most favorable.”

— Daniel K. Ludwig, December 17, 1974

“I'm in this business because I like it. I have no other hobbies.”

— Daniel K. Ludwig, in his sole press interview, Fortune, 1957

“The rare vision and ability needed in the battle against cancer are not limited by frontiers, and the scientists who possess these gifts must be sought wherever they are to be found. Nor does cancer reveal itself in the same guise in every nation, but strikes different populations in different forms.”

— Daniel K. Ludwig, December 17, 1974, on founding the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research

“The elimination of cancer will surely rank as one of man's greatest and uncontroversial achievements. That day may be long delayed. How long we cannot tell. But I do not doubt that it will surely come.”

— Daniel K. Ludwig, December 17, 1974

“Mr. Ludwig organizes his business as a system of separate cells. The members of one cell do not usually know that the others exist, except by rumor. Only Mr. Ludwig knows the full extent of his empire, and how it all fits together.”

— A senior executive who left Ludwig's employ, quoted in TIME, 1970

“Ludwig's most notable characteristic, besides his imagination and pertinacity, is a lifelong penchant for keeping his mouth shut.”

— Dero Saunders, Fortune, 1957

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Daniel Ludwig

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Daniel Ludwig

Shipping and real estate magnate who was the richest person in the world before most people had heard his name.