Samuel Zemurray Quotes
22 quotes from Samuel Zemurray — Known as 'Sam the Banana Man.' Built the Cuyamel Fruit Company and eventually took over United Fruit Company..
“You gentlemen have been fucking up this business long enough. I'm going to straighten it out.”
“You're there, we're here; Go see for yourself; Don't trust the report.”
“Sam grew fixated on ripes, recognizing a product where others had seen only trash.”
“No story is without the possibility of redemption; with cleverness and hustle, the worst can be overcome.”
“His early life was a series of adventures, with odd job leading to odd job.”
“A series of jobs followed, tried on and thrown off like thrift-store suits.”
“Sam's defining characteristic was his belief in his own agency, his refusal to despair.”
“He grew fixated on ripes, recognizing a product where others had seen only trash.”
“He was looking for different work and would try anything, if only for experience.”
“By eighteen, he had saved enough to send for his brothers and sisters.”
“He didn't build a banana empire with focus groups or angel investors.”
“Zemurray anticipated that United would try to absorb Cuyamel, so he secretly began acquiring United stock.”
“Understanding how so-called garbage might be valued under a different name.”
“Seeing nutrition where others saw only waste.”
“With cleverness and hustle, the worst can be overcome.”
“That revolution saved Honduras from the bankers and left it free to be conquered by the fruit companies.”
“Without Sam Zemurray, maybe there wouldn't be an Israel. He believed if something gets done, you do it yourself.”
“He recognized a product where others saw only trash. It was the world view of the immigrant: understanding how so-called garbage might be valued under a different name, seeing nutrition where others saw only waste.”
“When he arrived in America in 1891 at age 14, Zemurray was tall, gangly, and penniless. When he died in the grandest house in New Orleans 69 years later, he was among the richest, most powerful men in the world.”
“You've been fucking up this business long enough. I'm going to straighten it out.”
“Samuel Zemurray has been getting what he wanted ever since he landed in Manhattan in the 1880's as an 11-year-old Bessarabian immigrant. From banana jobbing in New Orleans he got a stake to start importing bananas. When he could not get all the bananas he wanted in Central America he got some revolutionists busy.”
“If you want to understand the spirit of our nation, the good and bad, you can enroll in college, sign up for classes, take notes, and pay tuition, or you can study the life of Sam, the Banana Man.”
