Acquisition

Acquisition refers to the act or processes of acquiring things, or the things acquired or gained. In more specialized applications it can refer to various forms of business or military procurements, or to business takeovers.

Quotes

Sorted alphabetically by author or source

• Never pay more for an acquisition than you have to.
  • Ira Steven Behr, Rule #3, The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition (1995).

• Hand, n. A singular instrument worn at the end of a human arm and commonly thrust into somebody's pocket.
  • Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's Dictionary (1906); republished as The Devil's Dictionary (1911).

• To whose gain? [Cui bono]
  • Marcus Tullius Cicero, in Pro Milone, ch. 12, sct. 32 (44-43 BC).

• No man acquires property without acquiring with it a little arithmetic, also.
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson, in "Montaigne; or, the Skeptic", Representative Men (1850).

• With the catching end the pleasures of the chase.
  • Abraham Lincoln, speech (January 27, 1838).

• People find gold in fields, veins, river beds and pockets. Whichever, it takes work to get it out.
  • Art Linkletter, in A Child's Garden of Misinformation (1965).

• The more there is in the world to have, the more people want it.
  • Dame Vera Lynn, in Some Sunny Day (2009), Ch. 15, Never Quite Retired, p. 299.

• The wish to acquire more is admittedly a very natural and common thing; and when men succeed in this they are always praised rather than condemned. But when they lack the ability to do so and yet want to acquire more at all costs, they deserve condemnation for their mistakes.
  • Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527), in The Prince (1514), Ch. III, ‘Composite Principalities’.

• No man divulges his revenue, or at least which way it comes in; but everyone publishes his acquisitions.
  • Michel de Montaigne, in ‘Of the Education of Children’, Essays (1580).

• We go to gain a little patch of ground
  That hath in it no profit but the name.
  • William Shakespeare, in Hamlet, Act 4, sc. 4, l. 18 (1604).

• The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.
  • Adam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations, Vol. 1, Bk. 1, Ch. 5 (1776).

• An end to our gettings is the only end to our losses.
  • Publilius Syrus, Moral Sayings (1st century B.C.).