Cornelius Vanderbilt — "I built my own fortune."
I built my own fortune.
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More from Cornelius Vanderbilt
"I'm too big a fellow to live in Staten Island. My name means something in Wall Street."
"Any fool can make a fortune; it takes a man of brains to hold onto it."
"I don't care a copper who makes the laws or how they are made. I've got the power, and I'll use it."
"I have been in this country a long time, and I have seen many changes. But one thing has never changed: the desire of men to get rich."
"Ain't got time to be sick."
About Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877)
American shipping and railroad magnate whose New York Central railroad and aggressive consolidation built the largest fortune in 19th-century America. Closely associated with John D. Rockefeller (later Gilded Age titan who learned the consolidation playbook). For an intellectual contrast, see Jay Gould, railroad speculator (1836-1892) — Vanderbilt built and ran railroads; Gould watered stock and manipulated markets. Their Erie Railroad rate-war and Gould's Black Friday (1869) gold-corner schemes were the public foil to Vanderbilt's quieter operational consolidation. The cleanest 'industrialist vs speculator' Gilded Age pairing.