Henry Ford - Quotes and phrases
Life
«Every living person is here for, and that is to get experience. That’s all we can get out of life.»
«Whether you think you can, or think you cannot, you are right.»
«Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.»
«When I can’t handle events, I let them handle themselves.»
«There is no such thing as no chance.»
«An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous.»
«Skepticism, if by that we mean cautiousness, is the balance wheel of civilization.»
«People in general have so little and it costs so much to buy even the barest necessities because nearly everything that we make is much more complex than it needs to be. Our clothing, our food, our household furnishings—all could be much simpler than they now are and at the same time be better looking.»
«One who fears the future, who fears failure, limits his activities.»
«Failure is only the opportunity more intelligently to begin again.»
«It is not a bad thing to be a fool for righteousness’ sake. The best of it is that such fools usually live long enough to prove that they were not fools—or the work they have begun lives long enough to prove they were not foolish.»
«If you keep on recording all of your failures you will shortly have a list showing that there is nothing left for you to try.»
«Everything can always be done better than it is being done.»
«Everything that is good is dangerous — when mishandled.»
Friendship
«My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.»
Business
«Don’t find fault, find a remedy.»
«Almost any one can think up an idea. The thing that counts is developing it into a practical product.»
«The producer depends for his prosperity upon serving the people. Money comes naturally as the result of service.»
«The essence of my idea is that waste and greed block the delivery of true service. Both waste and greed are unnecessary.»
«One who fears the future, who fears failure, limits his activities.»
«Whoever does a thing best ought to be the one to do it.»
«One idea at a time is about as much as any one can handle.»
In the first advertisement of Ford Corporation they said:
«Our purpose is to construct and market an automobile specially designed for everyday wear and tear—business, professional, and family use; an automobile which will attain to a sufficient speed to satisfy the average person without acquiring any of those breakneck velocities which are so universally condemned; a machine which will be admired by man, woman, and child alike for its compactness, its simplicity, its safety, its all-around convenience, and—last but not least—its exceedingly reasonable price, which places it within the reach of many thousands who could not think of paying the comparatively fabulous prices asked for most machines.»
«Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black.»
«I will build a motor car for the great multitude.»
«Save ten steps a day for each of twelve thousand employees and you will have saved fifty miles of wasted motion and misspent energy.»
«If you keep on recording all of your failures you will shortly have a list showing that there is nothing left for you to try.»
«The kind of workman who gives the business the best that is in him is the best kind of workman a business can have.»
«The people who consume the bulk of goods are the people who make them. That is a fact we must never forget — that is the secret of our prosperity.»
«Where people work longest and with least leisure, they buy the fewest goods.»
Work
«There is joy in work. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something.»
«Labour is the human element which makes the fruitful seasons of the earth useful to men. It is men’s labour that makes the harvest what it is.»
«If the machine does not give service, then it is better for the manufacturer if he never had the introduction, for he will have the worst of all advertisements—a dissatisfied customer.»
«The man who has the largest capacity for work and thought is the man who is bound to succeed.»
«No one ever considers himself expert if he really knows his job.»
«Everything can always be done better than it is being done.»
«When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.»