Baron Thyssen

"what my great-grandfather was trying to do was to prepare his children to lead the industrial revolution that had started in England more than half a century earlier, and which Germany was just beginning to enter at that time. In 1861, at the age of nineteen, and after his time at Karlsruhe, Grandfather August enrolled in the Higher Institute of Commerce of Antwerp, a center founded in 1852 that was prestigious worldwide. It was there that he acquired a solid education in both European and world economics, and where he specialized in business administration."

"I have always been a very tenacious man, but above all, I have been true to myself in making and deciding at all times what I have wanted. Additionally, I am very intuitive, although my intuition always involves deep reflection, never improvisation. However, I have neither had nor ever had a cohort of advisers: in my decisions, I am sufficient and more than enough because I consider myself the best adviser to myself."

""You should have another child, because in the three that you have given me so far, I cannot see my true heir, the descendant who can one day take over the business." In the end, and with the help of mustard, which my mother had relied on to avoid getting pregnant, my grandfather August got his way."

"what my grandfather had very clear when he repeated time and again: "Wenn Ich rasten Ich rosten" ("If I rest, I rust")."