Henry Ford

Faith is one of the most effective tools in the human equipment. I believe that faith works.

Whatever it is, people who have more spare time than people ever had before get the sense of whirlwind pressure,and repeat the common criticism that ‘we are going too fast.’ Yet the people live longer than ever before, live with less effort, live on a higher plane. Is it possible that this common saying about our rapid pace is just another thoughtless mob suggestion?

There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: make the best quality goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.

We have had just one main purpose during these years, and that is to give the people transportation of the most dependable quality at the lowest possible cost. Our car was called the Universal Car thirty years ago, because it fulfilled so many needs; it is The Universal Car today for the same reason.

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.

Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right.

A well-run restaurant is like a winning baseball team. It makes the most of every crew member’s talent and takes advantage of every split-second opportunity to speed up service.

Good copy can’t be written with tongue in cheek, written just for a living. You’ve got to believe in the product.

The way out of the depression is to start spending and doing things.

If you are not taking care of your customer, your competitor will.

I foresee the time when industry shall no longer denude the forests which require generations to mature, nor use up the mines which were ages in making, but shall draw its raw material largely from the annual produce of the fields. I am convinced that we shall be able to get out of yearly crops most of the basic materials which we now get from forest and mine.

Nothing can be made except by makers, nothing can be managed except by managers. Money cannot make anything and money cannot manage anything.

If hard work were such a wonderful thing, surely the rich would have kept it all to themselves.

Change is vital, improvement the logical form of change.

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.

We’’ve designed swimming pools that turn into ballrooms, and fitted security devices that fill a garage with gas if someone is stealing your car.

Salesmanship is limitless. Our very living is selling. We are all salespeople.

What right have you, save service to the world, to think that other men’s labor should contribute to your gains?

I don’t hire a lot of number-crunchers, and I don’t trust fancy marketing surveys. I do my own surveys and draw my own conclusions.

The advertisers who believe in the selling power of jingles have never had to sell anything.

Competition is the lifeblood of industry.