Anita Roddick Quotations

If you think you're too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito.

Over the past decade... while many businesses have pursued what I call 'business as usual,' I have been part of a different, smaller business movement, one that tried to put idealism back on the agenda.

But if you can create an honorable livelihood, where you take your skills and use them and you earn a living from it, it gives you a sense of freedom and allows you to balance your life the way you want.

I believe in businesses where you engage in creative thinking, and where you form some of your deepest relationships. If it isn't about the production of the human spirit, we are in big trouble.

Since the governments are in the pockets of businesses, who's going to control this most powerful institution? Business is more powerful than politics, and it's more powerful than religion. So it's going to have to be the vigilante consumer.

Nobody talks of entrepreneurship as survival, but that's exactly what it is and what nurtures creative thinking.

The end result of kindness is that it draws people to you.

If you do things well, do them better. Be daring, be first, be different, be just.

Look at the Quakers - they were excellent business people that never lied, never stole; they cared for their employees and the community which gave them the wealth. They never took more money out than they put back in.

If I had learned more about business ahead of time, I would have been shaped into believing that it was only about finances and quality management.

Some men give up their designs when they have almost reached the goal; while others, on the contrary, obtain a victory by exerting, at the last moment, more vigorous efforts than ever before. Herodotus, historian If I had to name a driving force in my life, I'd name passion every time.

If I can't do something for the public good, what the hell am I doing?

The Body Shop Foundation is run by our staff and supports social activism and environmental activism. We don't tend to support big agencies.

I am still looking for the modern equivalent of those Quakers who ran successful businesses and made money because they offered honest products and treated their people decently . . . This business creed, sadly, seems long forgotten.

Consumers have not been told effectively enough that they have huge power and that purchasing and shopping involve a moral choice.

There is no scientific answer for success. You can't define it. You've simply got to live it and do it.

I want to work for a company that contributes to and is part of the community. I want something not just to invest in. I want something to believe in.

When you run an entrepreneurial business, you have hurry sickness - you don't look back, you advance and consolidate. But it is such fun

I traveled enormously during the 1960's, when you measured everything by where you traveled and what you did as travelers.

But the minute we went public on the stock market, which is how our wealth was created, it was no longer how many people you employed, it was how much you were worth and how much your company was worth.

All through history, there have always been movements where business was not just about the accumulation of proceeds but also for the public good.

At The Body Shop we had always been measured by how many jobs we had created, and I got a major award from the Queen on that.

The market controls everything, but the market has no heart.

I didn't go to business school, didn't care about financial stuff and the stock market.

The movement for the environment really only started in the mid 1970's.

The money that we make from the company goes into The Body Shop Foundation, which isn't one of those awful tax shelters like some in America. It just functions to take the money and give it away.

Years ago nobody was elected on the economic ticket. It was either the education platform, or it was health or it was other issues. It is only recently that economic values have superceded every other human value.

Ninety-nine per cent of what we say is about values. I firmly believe that ethical capitalism is the best way of changing society for the better.

Over the past decade, ... while many businesses have pursued what I call 'business as usual,' I have been part of a different, smaller business movement, one that tried to put idealism back on the agenda.

Women are storytellers, they are communicators. They'll go and sit around a table and talk about their first date, their first smoke, their first lipstick, whatever it is. Those rituals of life, marriages and death aren't part of the language of men.

You've got so many groups that have no voice in this world - the indigenous, the poor. So how can I use the resources that I have and bring them up, highlight them. And it's not that difficult. It's just choosing and concentrating and focusing.

I think progress is a sort of comfortable disease, and we've got a media that says entertainment and celebrity, which isn't bad in itself but it stops the real issues coming forward.

If you've got a partner that's supportive and you're doing something you enjoy it doesn't ever become a job or a burden. Its about community, new friendships, support mechanism.

Women are networkers, women hate hierarchy and especially entrepreneurs hate hierarchy because when they see hierarchy structured in they see rules and regulations are commonplace, and they want to tear it down.

One of the most intriguing things in management and in business is the role of storytelling - people need the anecdotes to do the work that they do.

Any business or enterprise that shaves away loneliness is going to last forever. And like it or not but we've got a lonely society.

The aging process is fascinating because it doesn't disturb me, because this is what it is supposed to be like. But I'll tell you what does - it's the lack of strength - you can't hold up suitcases and do it yourself. Loss of physical strength.

Retiring isn't even a word I'd understand. Taking what makes you feel alive, and everyone's looking for ways of making them feel alive, in whatever they do - relationships, business or work - and not just being a voice for a money making business.

Communication is the key for any global business.

A woman in advancing old age is unstoppable by any earthly force. I love it.

It is a critical job of any entrepreneur to maximize creativity, and to build the kind of atmosphere around you that encourages people to have ideas. That means open structures, so that accepted thinking can be challenged.

You can't change t he wor ld f rom t he rear view mir ror.

Business is not financial science, it's about trading.. buying and selling. It's about creating a product or service so good that people will pay for it.

Women want to be free to choose from the same range of options that men take for granted. In our quest for equal pay, equal access to education and opportunities, we have made great strides. But until women can move freely and think freely in their homes, on the streets, in the workplace without the fear of violence, there can be no real freedom.

If you don't believe one person can make a difference, you have never been in bed with a mosquito.

I want to define success by redefining it. For me it isn't that solely mythical definition - glamour, allure, power of wealth, and the privilege from care. Any definition of success should be personal because it's so transitory. It's about shaping my own destiny.

I started The Body Shop in 1976 simply to create a livelihood for myself and my two daughters, while my husband, Gordon, was trekking across the Americas. I had no training or experience and my only business acumen was Gordon's advice to take sales of £300 a week. Nobody talks of entrepreneurship as survival, but that's exactly what it is and what nurtures creative thinking.

Not all revolutionaries set out to change the world per se; some set out to change their own worlds. And in so doing, they often change the way one person, or a few people, or whole communities, or entire nations or the world thinks and operates in some significant way.

Creativity comes by breaking the rules, by saying that you're in love with the anarchist.

By definition, design, and practice, capitalism is a system that concentrates economic power in the hands of the few to the exclusion of the many.

I run my company according to feminine principles, principles of caring, making intuitive decisions, not getting hung up on hierarchy or all those dreadfully boring business-school management ideas; having a sense of work as being part of your life, not separate from it; putting your labor where your love is; being responsible to the world in how you use your profits; recognizing the bottom line should stay at the bottom.

A great advantage I had when I started The Body Shop was that I had never been to business school.

What we are trying to do is to create a new business paradigm, simply showing that business can have a human face and a social conscience.

I think it is completely immoral for a shop to trade in the middle of a community, to take money and make profits from that community and then ignore the existence of that community, its needs and problems.

Why should how I act in my workplace be any different from how I interact with my family at home? It's making sure the company runs on feminine principles where the major ethic is care.

I don't think I'm a risk-taker. I don't think any entrepreneur is. I think that's one of those myths of commerce. The new entrepreneur is more values-led: you do what looks risky to other people because that's what your convictions tell you to do. Other companies would say I'm taking risks, but that's my path - it doesn't feel like risk to me.

I don't want our success to be measured only by financial yardsticks, or by our distribution or number of shops. What I want to be celebrated for - and it's going to be tough in a business environment - is how good we are to our employees and how we benefit our community. It's a different bottom line.

Don't underestimate the power of the vigilante consumer.

The next time you go shopping, demand more change.

We are essentially outsiders and that is the best definition of an entrepreneur I have ever come across.

Entrepreneurs are all a little crazy. There is a fine line between an entrepreneur and a crazy person. Crazy people see and feel things that others don't. An entrepreneur's dream is often a kind of madness, and it is almost as isolating. What differentiates the entrepreneur from the crazy person is that the former gets other people to believe in his vision.

Entrepreneurs are outsiders by nature - outsiders with a work ethic.

With fewer and fewer corporations controlling more and more of the world's trade, there is an ever greater need to know more about the practices of these large faceless organizations.

The predominant idea behind globalization, in its most virulent form, is an unpleasant kind of social Darwinism - that the world is for winners not losers, that only the successful count, that money is considerably more important than votes.

The freedom that comes with globalization is freedom for the rich and powerful nations to further exploit and further marginalize those at the bottom of the social ladder.

Economic globalization creates wealth, but only for the elite who benefit from the surge of consolidations, mergers, global scale technology, and financial activity.

Corporate crime kills far more people and costs taxpayers far more money than street crime.

if companies are in business solely to make money, no consumer can fully trust what they do or say.

If you pretend that business is beyond morality, that's the kind of morality you get.

If civilization is going to survive, business and policy-makers must move on, to find within themselves more developed emotions than fear or greed.

If you can shape your business life or your working life, you can just look at it as another extension - you just fulfill all your values as a human being in the work place. If you are an activist, you bring the activism of your life into your business, or if you love creative art, you can bring that in.

It's about creating a product or service so good that people will pay for it. Now 30 years on The Body Shop is a multi local business with over 2.045 stores serving over 77 million customers in 51 different markets in 25 different languages and across 12 time zones. And I haven't a clue how we got here!

My goal was livelihood. We don't use that word often enough. If I could give one piece of advice to anyone it's don't obsess with this notion that you have to turn everything you do into a business, because that ends up being a small version of a large company. But if you can create an honorable livelihood, where you take your skills and use them and you earn a living from it, it gives you a sense of freedom and allows you to balance your life the way you want.

By creating conversation, we let our customers spread our message by word of mouth.

To run this business ... you need ... optimism, humanism, enthusiasm, intuition, curiosity, love, humour, magic and fun, and that secret ingredient-euph oria.

People don't want simply to buy the product, they want to have sympathy with the company too.

My argument is: keep the bloody bottom line at the bottom. That's where it should be.

If there is excitement in their lives, it is contained in the figures on the profit and loss sheet. What an indictment.

Let me tell you how the French seduce you. They are the most bloody seductive people on Earth. They are charming, they are well-mannered and they praise and flatter you.

Never be seduced into believing it isn't the role of business to tackle the big issues, because it absolutely is.

There are a lot of dark sides to success, but the light side of it is the ability to be opportunistic, and to be able to do things.

Never feel too small or powerless to make a difference.

I believe that conventional marketing techniques are increasingly ineffective. Customers are hyped out. They have been overmarketed. They are becoming more cynical about the whole advertising and marketing process.

business itself is now the most powerful force for change in the world today, richer and faster by far than most governments. And what is it doing with this power? It is using free trade, the most powerful weapon at its disposal, to tighten its grip on the globe.

If trade undermines life, narrows it or impoverishes it, then it can destroy the world. If it enhances life, then it can better the world.

I wake up every morning thinking...this is my last day. And I jam everything into it. There's no time for mediocrity. This is no damned dress rehearsal.

Advertising beauty products is easy. All you have to do is revile your customers by creating a disease called getting older, and then provide a remedy which does not work.

The most exciting thing happening in business is the rise of vigilante consumers.

How can you ennoble the spirit when you are selling something as inconsequential as a face cream?

My mother's bottom line was truth to her values. It meant bringing your heart and your humanity to work.

Internationalism means that we can see into the dark corners of the world, and hold those companies to account when they are devastating forests or employing children as bonded labour. Globalization is the complete opposite, its rules pit country against country and workers against workers in the blinkered pursuit of international competitiveness.

You persuade people with passion, so you've got to have a product or service you feel emotionally charged about. Then you can tell stories about it that will inspire others.

We are honest about our methods and our mistakes. We are not perfect - it isn't possible to be perfect - but we are trying to go in the right direction and in those circumstances, it's best not to mystify what we are trying to do.

I'd have opened a bloody library if I'd wanted to be quiet.

The growth of The Body Shop is testimony to the fact that you don't need to waste money on costly advertising campaigns to be successful. Instead, we've always relied on word of mouth and stories.

The bigger you grow, the more intimate communication has to be. It almost has to be belly and belly. As you get bigger and bigger in an organization, everything gets more and more detached and everything is on email or voicemail. That's the worse thing because lack of intimacy is one of the downsides (of growth).

Tap the energy of the anarchist and he will be the one to push your company ahead.

We have our values from the church, the temple, the mosque. Do not rob, do not murder. But our behaviour changes the minute we go into the corporate place. Suddenly all of this is irrelevant.

A Sense Of Outrage Is Essential For The Entrepreneurial Spirit. I Think Discontentment Drives You To Want To Do Something About It. And My Outrage Came Very Early On.

Make heroes out of the employees who personify what you want to see in the organization.