Leonard Lauder's Quotes

I don't think there's anything wrong with being paternalistic as a company.

I happen to like Precisionism. It talks to me because I collect Cubism.

I love rumors. It gives me something to think about and enjoy.

I love that works of art are printed so that anyone can buy them. The variety of what they put on little postcards astounds me.

I think a cosmetics company should be headed by a woman.

I'd rather be a big fish in a specialized pond than a little, little fish in a more generalized big pond.

I'm not a builder of buildings, I'm a builder of collections.

If I don't learn something every single day, it's a wasted day.

No one stopped buying I.B.M. because Tom Watson wasn't there, but they stopped buying Elizabeth Arden because she wasn't there.

One person really can make a difference.

Power is winning the battle over who owns the customer: the brand or the retailer.

When you live in the shadow of a big tree, you have to run twice as fast to get into the sunlight.

You are only as successful as the people who work for you want you to be.

You can't separate a house from a family. It's a living, breathing home.

A visionary is someone who can see the future, or thinks he sees the future. In my case, I use it and it comes out right. That doesn't come from daydreams or dreams, but it comes from knowing the market and knowing the world and knowing people really well and knowing where they're going to be tomorrow.

Every morning, I eat one fat-free yogurt with a sliced peach when peaches are in season, and one thin slice of whole-wheat bread. The same thing. I don't want to get fat. And I want to keep my fitness.

If tomorrow all of America were to become paternalistic, we would beat the Japanese every day of the week. I think that the concept of accusing someone of running a paternalistic company, that's not an accusation. One should compliment someone on that.

My mother always used to say when picking up a product, 'Would you give this to the Duchess of Windsor?' Well, that's lovely. But the Duchess of Windsor is dead.

The best advice I ever got came from my mother, Estee Lauder: She believed that if you had something good to say, you should put it in writing. But if you had something bad to say, you should tell the person to his or her face.

To be a great leader, you firstly have to like people. If you don't like people, at the end of the day they will figure this out and you can't lead them too well.