Henry Ford

It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.

An educated person, I think, is one who not only knows a lot, but knows how to do a lot of things.

When I went to our American history books to learn how our forefathers harrowed the land, I discovered that the historians knew nothing about harrows. Yet our country has depended more on harrows than on guns or speeches. I thought that a history which excluded harrows, and all the rest of daily life, was bunk. And I think so yet.

You can’t learn in school what the world is going to do next year.

Every one knows that insufficient rest and gorging are not good for anyone, either physically or mentally.

The unhappiest man on earth is the one who has nothing to do.

The five separate fingers are five independent units. Close them and the fist multiplies strength. This is organization.

Change is vital, improvement the logical form of change.

[To his ex-entertainment lawyer Eric Eisner who resigned from the presidency of The David Geffen Company in 1991 just as a deal was about to be made with some Japanese] Keep your stock. [Eric sold it.]

In the long run people are going to buy the cheapest and the best article no matter where it is made.

I never trust an executive who tends to pass the buck. Nor would I want to deal with him as a customer or a supplier.

As betting at the race ring adds neither strength nor speed to the horse, so the exchange of shares in the stock market adds no capital to business, no increase in the production and no purchasing power to the market.

An imitation may be quite successful in its own way, but imitation can never be Success. Success is a first-hand creation.

Leverage: don’t make deals without it!

The final key to the way I promote is bravado. I play to people’s fantasies. People may not always think big themselves. but they can get very excited by those who do. That is why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest, the greatest and the most spectacular.

I never went to business school. I was just bumbling through a lot of my life. I was like the guy behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz.

My style of deal-making is quite simple and straightforward. I aim very high, and then I just keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get what I’m after.

[On Calvin Klein asking him ‘Why don’t you call it Geffen Records?’] People in the record business just don’t do that. They come up with names likes Asylum, Capricorn, or Island. [Calvin Klein said if you put your own name on the door ‘You’ll get laid more.’]

Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon.

Work mixed with management becomes not only easier but more profitable. The time is past when anyone can boast about ‘hard work’ without having a corresponding result to show for it.

The thought in my mind was that I must be a good merchant. If I were a good merchant, the rest would probably take care of itself.