Henry Ford

It is regrettable that people think about our monetary system, and of our economic structure, only in times of depression.

We ought to know more about the families who founded this nation, and how they lived. One way to do this is to reconstruct as nearly as possible the conditions under which they lived.

If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.

Idleness is the reason for many of our troubles.

As members of the Ford Motor organization we are engaged in the production of an article of use for the people of all countries. Our principle is to make our work as profitable for the buyer as for the seller.

Profits made out of the distress of the people are always much smaller than profits made out of the most lavish service of the people at the lowest prices that competent management can make possible.

It’s true we’ve got some fantastic clients. We’re very fortunate to be connected with the movers and shakers of all the global cities of the world. You can usually tell when we’ve got a client in here because their bodyguards are all over the place: two outside the front door, two in the lobby, one in the lift…

The Model T blazed the way for the motor industry and started the movement for good roads everywhere. It is still the pioneer car in many parts of the world which are just beginning to be motorized.

Did I have a problem with lying to get the job? None whatsoever.

Prune – prune businesses, products, activities, people. Do it annually.

I have no Napoleonic dream. I’m just hard working and pragmatic.

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

The epiphany for me at William Morris was realizing, ‘They bullshit on the phone! I can bullshit on the phone too!’

Profits made out of the distress of the people are always much smaller than profits made out of the most lavish service of the people at the lowest prices that competent management can make possible.

I’ve been making deals all my life.

Machines were devised not to do a man out of a job, but to take the heavy labor from man’s back and place it on the broad back of the machine.

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 have a theory that the best advertisements come from personal experience. Some of the good ones I have done have really come out of the real experience of my life, and somehow this has come over as true and valid and persuasive.

My dream was to have a steady job, was not to be on the road, to exist like a guy that goes to work as a mechanic or a carpenter and knows he’s gonna have a job.

Always be smarter than the people who hire you.