Quotes By Mr. Hershey

Hostetter Collection

The following quotes are taken from the book "The Body, Mind and Soul Of Milton Snavely Hershey" by Dr. Herman H. Hostetter.  Doctor Hostetter was Mr. Hershey's personal physician and a close friend.

"If I ever become rich, I am going to use my money to build schools to give every boy and girl an opportunity to get an education." (spoken by Milton Hershey when he was young)

When Mr. Hershey was asked, "why not a school for girls," his reply was,
 "I could not afford to buy the powder and paint the girls use."

"God speaks through men to speak the truth, our hands to do His work here below, voices and clean hands to make liberty and love prevail over injustice and hate."

"Without faith; in our work and in ourselves we cannot succeed in a long measure in life's undertaking. Without faith we cannot know our God and Creator."

"I am a Christian in the only sense that Christ wished anyone to be, sincerely attached to his doctrine in preference to all others. I became a Mennonite when I went to church with my mother, and I am still a Mennonite."

Mr. Hershey maintained that hard luck and misfortune are good for you; that they test your nettle, strength and character.
"Therefore, you should take your problem as you asked it, nay pray for it. Difficulties show men what they are."

"We should deal with one another not as classes but as persons, as brothers. The more closely we work together, the more effectively can we contribute to the better health of all mankind; this should be our common objective and its achievement would make the world a happier place in which to live."

"I admire that man. He does not want charity or anyone to support his family. Although he is a skilled mechanic he told me he would work in a ditch or anywhere to support his family."

"The value of our good is not measured by what it does, but by the amount of good it does to the one concerned."

"It isn't what you leave your children but how you leave them."

"No education, therefore, is complete or indeed sufficient which does not inspire the student with a sense of responsibility; so to live that he shall, by act or by word, install or enforce in the hearts, the minds, the souls, the conscience of men, those eternal varieties of human life without which civilization would perish--to worship one common God, to maintain civic and personal morality, to love our neighbor as ourselves and to govern our conduct accordingly."

"I am going to build a new high school that will be adequate for many, many years to come. In twenty or twenty-five years the demand for trained mechanics, and technicians will be so great that the schools will not be able to supply the demand. So, I am going to build a Technical-Vocational School which will surpass any other institution of its kind in the world. In twenty or twenty-five years the colleges and universities will not he able to accommodate all the boys and girls who want to go to college. I am going to build a new junior College and when the time comes, we will change the Junior College into a four year college and there should be plenty of money there to do it. I will take the ground between Cocoa Avenue, Governor Road and Homestead Road and make a nice campus for these schools. The Technical-Vocational School will be for the boys in the Milton Hershey School, the children in the Derry Township School and the children of my employees."

At least on two occasions he was approached about building a Medical Center in Hershey, He said,
"This I would never do because it is not a place for a Medical Center, and I want all of my money for the benefit of my employees and the people of Hershey, for the education of the children in Derry Township and the children of my employees--all my money."

"If the-wrong people or organization get control, they can spend or give away more money in a short time than I have made in my life, to build monuments unto themselves, for their own financial gains, ego and recognition-- whose heads would swell and hearts would shrink, who would give to those who had plenty and take away from those who had little or none".