There is something warm and appealing and cozy about this picture of the human race marching forward, locked arm in arm and mind to mind; and there are insecure ages in life and insecure people in life to whom this vision of progress by phalanx brings comfort and strength. But I, for one, think this is nonsense socially and scientifically. [T]here is no such thing as group originality or group creativity or group perspicacity. I do believe wholeheartedly in the individual capacity for greatness. Profundity and originality are attributes of single, if not singular, minds. By very definition things which we care about most—the important breakthroughs—do not occur spontaneously in multiple because they are the result of a very special way of seeing, by a very special mind.

People think they can eat you up and swallow you whole. The head of Fabergé, Mr. Sam Rubin, once asked me the same question: Was I for sale? He'd like to buy our business. "You don't know much about cosmetics. Perfume is your specialty," I answered. "Why buy my business? I'll buy yours."

The greatest female entrepreneur ever. She invented a category at a time when people scoffed at women working. At its peak, Estee Lauder was worth 100 billion.

Early flyers—“Birdmen,” as they were called—were pioneers, heeding the same draw to riches or fame or illumination of the unknown that motivated those who had crossed uncharted oceans centuries before, and so aviation was replete with outsized personalities, brutal competition, and staggering bravery.

At the peak of the bicycle bubble (yes, really), comes the dawn of a new technology: flight.

So the first biological lesson of history is that life is competition. Competition is not only the life of trade, it is the trade of life—peaceful when food abounds, violent when the mouths outrun the food.

Too many judge their lives by fleeting, happy moments. Life was never about happiness. Embrace the struggle.