Henry Ford

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.

We are here for experience, and experience is a preparation to know the Truth when we meet it.

I can visualize the time when almost every family will have a small plane in their back yard.

A big business never becomes big by being a narrow society looking after only the interests of its organization and stockholders.

No one can be helped unless he can be put in the way of helping himself.

The genius of the American people is Self-Reliance.

No business can succeed in any great degree without being properly organized.

Work is our sanity, our self-respect, our salvation. The day’s work is the center of everything.

We have a very open culture at the company, where we foster a lot of interaction between not just me and people but between everyone else. It’s an open floor plan. People have these desks where no one really has an office. I mean, I have a room where I meet with people. But it has all glass, so everyone can see into it and see what’s going on.

Do not spend too much time planning or trying to anticipate and solve problems before they happen. That is just another kind of excuse for procrastination. Until you start, you won’t know where the problems will occur. You won’t have the experience to solve them. Instead, get into action, and solve the problems as they arise.

Founding a company is hard. Most of it isn’t smooth. You’ll have to make very hard decisions. You have to fire a few people. Therefore, if you don’t believe in your mission, giving up is easy. The majority of founders give up. But the best founders don’t give up.

We can serve our customers well only if our buying jobs are right. You cannot sell if you haven’t ordered wanted goods into your store.

If the boss stands in the way of men getting what they earn, he is not fit to be boss.

I feel that the best companies are started not because the founder wanted a company but because the founder wanted to change the world… If you decide you want to found a company, you maybe start to develop your first idea. And hire lots of workers.

[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.’]

Owning a great golf course gives you great power.

If you go through some big corporate change, it’s just not going to be the same. If we sold to Yahoo, they would have done something different; if you want to continue your vision of the company, then don’t sell because there’s inevitably going to be some change.

I have a great, great company. I employ thousands of people. And I’m very proud of the job I did.

[In 1990 on the president of MCA calling and saying ‘We’re going to make you the biggest offer this company has ever made, and I’m going to send it to you by messenger right now.’] It’s 1990. Send me a fax.

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.

Anyone who criticises me for talking about fair trade is a few pebbles short of a beach. Because everyone should care about it, just like everyone should care about the environment, because we all live here.