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Who really said it

Well, I don't know as I want a lawyer to tell me what I cannot do. I hire him to tell how to do what I want to do

Attributed to J. P. Morgan 1837–1913 · American financier and banker
Attributed Free to reuse

Documented, but at one remove. Ida Tarbell prints the line in her 1925 biography of Judge Elbert H. Gary as Gary’s own recollection of a rebuke Morgan gave him — and Tarbell’s text reads “I hire him to tell me how to do what I want to do,” one word longer than the version everyone quotes.

Last verified 18 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Unconfirmed quote & credit

“Well, I don't know as I want a lawyer to tell me what I cannot do. I hire him to tell how to do what I want to do” attributed to J. P. Morgan (1837–1913), as recollected by Judge Elbert H. Gary in Ida M. Tarbell, The Life of Elbert H. Gary: The Story of Steel (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1925), p. 81. The widely circulated version drops the word "me." · Verbatim: “Well, I don't know as I want a lawyer to tell me what I cannot do. I hire him to tell me how to do what I want to do.”

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In context

Evoking the world of J. P. Morgan — American financier, banker and art collector. Theme: "Well, I don't know as I want a lawyer to tell me what I cannot do. I hire him to tell how to do what I want to do". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Well, I don't know as I want a lawyer to tell me what I cannot do. I hire him to tell how to do what I want to do". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

Where the line is actually printed

Source
The Life of Elbert H. Gary: The Story of Steel
Author
Ida M. Tarbell
Published
D. Appleton and Company, New York and London, 1925 — page 81
Standing
Second-hand — Judge Gary’s recollection, printed after Morgan’s death in 1913

Judge Gary was not unknown to the famous banker. Some months before this, when in New York on business, he had been called in by one of Mr. Morgan’s counsel to give his opinion on a railroad matter involving Illinois law and practice. “I don’t think you can do that legally, Mr. Morgan,” Judge Gary had said when the case had been stated.

“Well,” said Mr. Morgan — and his “well” was always a challenging, often a terrifying expletive — “I don’t know as I want a lawyer to tell me what I cannot do. I hire him to tell me how to do what I want to do.”

“Tell me your purpose,” the Judge replied, “and I will see what can be done.” Page 81 · “Gary Goes into Iron and Steel”

Note the pronoun. Tarbell’s text reads “I hire him to tell me how to do what I want to do”; the version that circulates online has lost the “me.”

Scanned first edition
Open page 81 of the 1925 D. Appleton edition
The Life of Elbert H. Gary: The Story of Steel (1925), full scan

How we checked

  • Started at Wikiquote ↗, which files the line under Attributed and points to Ida Tarbell’s Life of Elbert H. Gary — but gives no page, and reproduces the shortened “tell how” wording. Quote Investigator has not examined this one.
  • Pulled the full 1925 D. Appleton first edition from the Internet Archive ↗ and found the exchange on page 81, in the chapter “Gary Goes into Iron and Steel” — reading “I hire him to tell me how.”
  • Compared the aggregators: Goodreads ↗ prints the shortened form with no source at all, while LibQuotes ↗ keeps the “me” and does name Tarbell’s 1925 book.
  • Checked the two men against Wikipedia’s articles on J. P. Morgan ↗ and Elbert Henry Gary ↗: Morgan died in 1913, and Gary chaired the board of the U.S. Steel Corporation formed in 1901.
Public domain

The wording we can verify comes from Ida M. Tarbell’s The Life of Elbert H. Gary: The Story of Steel, published by D. Appleton and Company in 1925 — comfortably before the 1931 line, so both the book and this passage are in the public domain in the United States. The Internet Archive ↗ carries the full scan openly, with no lending restriction.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

What went wrong in transit

Nobody else is credited with this one — the trouble is what happened to it on the way to the quote sites. The line left a 1925 biography as one half of a two-man exchange and arrived online as a free-floating Morgan maxim, a word short.

“I hire him to tell how to do what I want to do” Misquoted

This is the form Goodreads ↗ carries, and the form Wikiquote ↗ reproduces too. Tarbell’s printed text reads “I hire him to tell me how to do what I want to do.” The missing pronoun looks like a copying artefact rather than a second thing Morgan said.

A standalone Morgan aphorism Context stripped

In Tarbell’s account ↗ it is a retort, not a motto. Judge Gary had just told him “I don’t think you can do that legally, Mr. Morgan,” and Gary’s reply — “Tell me your purpose, and I will see what can be done” — is the half that always gets left off.

A verbatim Morgan quotation Second-hand

Morgan died in 1913; the remark reaches us only through a 1925 biography whose subject, Judge Gary, was the other man in the room and sat for interviews with the author. That is why Wikiquote ↗ lists it under “Attributed” rather than among its sourced quotations — and why we do the same.

The line is solid enough to print, and it is one word off. Ida Tarbell’s The Life of Elbert H. Gary ↗ (1925), page 81, is where it lives — as Judge Gary’s memory of what Morgan said to him some months before the 1897 wire-and-nail negotiations.

Context

Why the line stuck

Elbert H. Gary was a county judge from Wheaton, Illinois who had just told the most powerful banker in America that his plan would not stand up. Morgan’s answer — delivered with a “well” that Tarbell describes as always challenging and often terrifying — is close to a founding statement of transactional lawyering: counsel is not there to say no, it is there to find the route to yes.

What actually makes the anecdote work is Gary’s comeback, which the quote sites never carry. He did not argue the point; he asked what Morgan was trying to achieve, then told him there was a legal way to get there. Tarbell writes that the banker was immensely pleased and never forgot it — and in 1901 it was Gary who chaired the board of the U.S. Steel Corporation that Morgan assembled.

Tell me your purpose, and I will see what can be done.

A note on who wrote this down

Ida M. Tarbell was the muckraker whose History of the Standard Oil Company helped break up Rockefeller’s trust, which makes her an unexpected biographer for a steel executive. She explains the arrangement in her own preface: D. Appleton invited her to write the book, Gary agreed to hand over his biographical papers and open the Corporation’s records, and he sat with her at length to “discuss with me the events of his life.”

That is the reason to read this particular anecdote carefully rather than dismiss it. It is well sourced in the sense that it comes from a named participant in a book he cooperated with — and it is weak in the sense that the participant is the man the story flatters, recalling a remark made roughly three decades earlier by someone who had been dead since 1913.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Power Leadership Freedom

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Wikiquote: J. P. Morganen.wikiquote.org

Files the line under “Attributed” and credits Ida Tarbell’s Life of Elbert H. Gary.
The Life of Elbert H. Gary (1925), full scanarchive.org

Tarbell’s biography, complete and searchable; the exchange with Morgan is on page 81.
J. P. Morganen.wikipedia.org

Life dates, the House of Morgan, the 1901 formation of U.S. Steel and the Panic of 1907.
Elbert Henry Garyen.wikipedia.org

The judge on the other side of the exchange, later chairman of U.S. Steel.
LibQuotes: the line with its citationlibquotes.com

One of the few aggregators that keeps the “me” and names Tarbell’s 1925 book.
Goodreads: the shortened versionwww.goodreads.com

The unsourced “tell how” form that dominates search results.

About the speaker

J. P. Morgan

J. P. Morgan

1837–1913 · American financier, banker and art collector

J. P. Morgan was the most powerful private financier the United States has produced — founder of J.P. Morgan & Company, and the man who in 1901 assembled U.S. Steel, described as the world’s first billion-dollar company. During the Panic of 1907 he personally marshalled New York’s bank and trust executives to halt the collapse, because there was no central bank to do it. He was also a formidable art collector — and, on this evidence, not a man who enjoyed hearing what the law would not let him do.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

Ida M. Tarbell, The Life of Elbert H. Gary: The Story of Steel (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1925), 81. This is the source to which the attribution traces; Tarbell reports the remark as Judge Gary’s recollection of a conversation, not from a contemporary record, and her text reads “I hire him to tell me how to do what I want to do.”

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Well, I don't know as I want a lawyer to tell me what I cannot do. I hire him to tell how to do what I want to do’?” Last verified 18 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/well-i-dont-know-as-i-want-a-lawyer-to-tell-me-what-i/

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