Henry Ford

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

No one loses anything by raising wages as soon as he is able. It has always paid us. Low wages are the most costly any employer can pay. It is like using low-grade material–the waste makes it very expensive in the end. There is no economy in cheap labor or cheap material. The hardest thing I ever had to do was to reduce wages. I think we were the last big company to come to it. Now I am mighty glad that wages are climbing again.

The gifted man bears his gifts into the world, not for his own benefit, but for the people among whom he is placed; for the gifts are not his, he himself is a gift to the community.

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.

You can’t tell me you can make any system or country work with low wages and high prices, and high wages with high prices don’t mean anything when the prices eat up the wages and don’t leave anything over.

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

It is only by being bold that you get anywhere. If you are a risk-taker, then the art is to protect the downside.

Mass production is craftsmanship with the drudgery taken out of it.

When prices go up, business goes down.

Never write an advertisement which you wouldn’t want your family to read. You wouldn’t tell lies to your own wife. Don’t tell them to mine.

If it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative.

Success cannot come from standstill men. Methods change and men must change with them.

Does advertising corrupt editors? Yes it does, but fewer editors than you may suppose… the vast majority of editors are incorruptible.

Investors are visionaries in some respects – they look beyond the present.

If you think your boss is stupid, remember: you wouldn’t have a job if he was any smarter.

Selling is our No. 1 job. Never get away from selling a lot of merchandise personally. The more you sell the more you learn.

[On being partners with Laura Nyro in Tuna Fish Music (Laura’s favorite food was Tuna Fish)] We became partners in this new publishing company.

I don’t know the exact details of his background but from what I have read Mr. Abramovich had a very humble start in life and has made his own luck.

There are good examples of companies – Coca-Cola is one – that invested before there was a huge market in countries, and I think that ended up playing out to their benefit for decades to come.

Hire people who are better than you are, then leave them to get on with it. Look for people who will aim for the remarkable, who will not settle for the routine.

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.