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Malcom Forbes

By Tom Kirvan

As a businessman, he helped define the importance of “branding,” the practice of creating a distinctive identity through a combination of elements like name, image, and values.

Malcolm Forbes helped turn his family’s small publishing company into a world-famous brand with a special zeal for marketing in imaginative ways. A prime example was his little green and gold book.

Ironically, the book was modeled in a strange way after a little red book called the “Sayings of Chairman Mao,” the communist dictator who ruled China with an iron fist for decades. Mao issued millions of copies of his book, which Chinese people were expected to carry everywhere and wave at public rallies. 

As an ardent capitalist, Forbes turned the tables on the communist leader, publishing “The Sayings of Chairman Malcolm,” a book covered in U.S.-money green and gold and its pages filled with many of his pithy witticisms. For followers of Forbes, the book was a keepsake and helped create the company’s powerful global image.

“Putting pen to paper lights more fire than matches ever will,” Forbes said of his candid and hard-charging editorial style.

2026 February 24 - Weekly Historical Quote - Malcolm Forbes
Malcolm Forbes*

He made well known his quest for the “triple crown” of “loving father, sagacious publisher, and daredevil motorcyclist,” which when mixed with his love of Faberge eggs, hot air ballooning, and living on the edge helped him brand Forbes magazine as “The Capitalist Tool.”

A graduate of Princeton University, Forbes enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1941, serving as a machine gunner in Europe, receiving the Bronze Star and Purple Heart after he was wounded in action. He served two terms in the New Jersey Senate and made two unsuccessful bids for governor before turning his attention to running the magazine that was founded by his late father, B.C. Forbes.

As publisher, Forbes used his column to dispense plenty of wisdom, including such gems as “When you cease to dream, you cease to live” and “People who never get carried away should be.”

When he died of a heart attack on February 24, 1990 at the age of 70, Forbes already had his epitaph firmly in place: “While alive he lived.”

*Acpritt, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons