A Short Study in Business.

I rarely feel inclined to quote Charles Dickens, but this one I like. It’s no self-consciously clever sound bite which over-simplifies a deep and complex theme, as so many of them do. It is, to my mind, a self-evident truth nicely stated.

The day is appropriate, since it comes from the visit of Marley’s ghost to Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas Eve. And I think the message is even more lost on today’s people of business than it was in Dickens’s day.

‘But you were always a good man of business,’ faltered Scrooge.

‘Business!’ cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. ‘Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!’