Henry Ford

Efficient industry is the sole key to prosperity.

See what a 25-cent raise will do to us, said Mr. Ford. So they figured the daily and monthly cost of a 25-cent increase. Put on another quarter and see what that will cost, he said. And so they went on, 25 cents a step. Finally the wage of $2.34 stood at $4.75–more than 100 percent increase. One of the associates–a good financial head–remarked rather sarcastically that if they were going to be fools, why not be first-class fools and make it $5. All right, said Mr. Ford, let’s make it $5.

I believe that any stock that is sold should have real value as automobile or bushel of potatoes, and stock market should be run as a vegetable market.

Profits are not financial-they’re social. Everybody profits from industry. Politicians don’t understand profits because they can pay bills out of taxation.

Fairs and public displays are the best means we have yet found of showing large numbers of people the real methods of industry.

Competition is the lifeblood of industry.

Foolproof systems don’t take into account the ingenuity of fools.

Credulity is the man’s weakness but the child’s strength.

In a mad world, only the mad are sane.

I didn’t start a war. Nobody died.

Boredom: the desire for desires.

Life is neither old or new, ancient or modern, but simply more or less vivid-any song or musical composition will live that expresses or reproduces this vividness of life.-From this you will see that I believe that music fills a great place. The teaching of it goes far to restore the balance and richness of life, and-I might add- the unit of life also.

You’re only lonely if you’re not there for you.

We don’t see things as they are. We see things as we are.

I tell you, if you’re in the front row of the parade and you stop walking, pretty soon you’re back in the tuba section. And if you want to lead the parade you’ve got to keep moving.

Things that seemed simple and superfluous had some meaning, maybe it wasn’t a great meaning, it didn’t shake the world…

Why would I want a place of my own? Then I would have to things worry about, like doing laundry and having food in the fridge.

We change every minute, never the same. If there’s no room to express the changes there can’t be any truthfulness.

I can’t understand why a person will take a year to write a novel when he can easily buy one for a few dollars.

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.