Henry Ford

Much depends on people knowing what opportunity means; it doesn’t mean a silver platter, it oftener means a spade. Self-help means something sterner than ‘help yourself’–reach over and take it.

The South has a future which it can shape for itself, and avoid the mistakes which the more populous parts of the country have made.

You say I started out with practically nothing, but that isn’t correct. We all start with all there is, it’s how we use it that makes things possible.

Although Mr. Edison was called ‘The Wizard’ of the electrical world and everyone thought that electricity was the coming thing, he actually encouraged me to go with my second car.

You’ve got to teach youngsters the difference between right and wrong, but you shouldn’t try to poke it down their throats. Let them ask the questions and then give them the answers.

A big business never becomes big by being a narrow society looking after only the interests of its organization and stockholders.

We can serve our customers well only if our buying jobs are right. You cannot sell if you haven’t ordered wanted goods into your store.

No king on earth is as safe in his job as a Trade Union official. There is only one thing that can get him sacked; and that is drink. Not even that, as long as he doesn’t actually fall down.

A nation that knows how to work will never suffer.

There are very few men of genius in advertising agencies. But we need all we can find. Almost without exception they are disagreeable. Don’t destroy them. They lay golden eggs.

Advertising is only evil when it advertises evil things.

There should be rivalry between men and between business.

Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.

The keystone of successful business is cooperation. Friction retards progress.

A big business never becomes big by being a narrow society looking after only the interests of its organization and stockholders.

From the start I had my own ideas about how the business should run. I wanted it to benefit everybody who contributed to its success-stockholders, labor and the American public.

In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.

I will build a motor car for the great multitude – constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise. So low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one-and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God’s great open spaces.

When people are ‘stung’ in false investment schemes there are three causes; greed of something for nothing; sheer inability to know their mind; or infantile trustfulness.

I feel that the best companies are started not because the founder wanted a company but because the founder wanted to change the world… If you decide you want to found a company, you maybe start to develop your first idea. And hire lots of workers.

The worst of times often create the best opportunities to make good deals.