James Cash Penney

No serious-minded man should have time for the mediocre in any phase of his living.

It is always the start that requires the greatest effort.

Too many would-be executives are slaves of routine.

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.

The best teamwork comes from men who are working independently toward one goal in unison.

The men who have furnished me with my greatest inspiration have not been men of wealth, but men of deeds.

For a long time now, I have believed that industry and agriculture are natural partners and that they should begin to recognize and practice their partnership. Each of them is suffering from ailments which the other can cure. Agriculture needs a wider andsteadier market; industrial workers need more steadier jobs. Can each be made to supply what the other needs? I think so. The link between is Chemistry. In the vicinity of Dearborn we are farming twenty thousand acres for everything from sunflowers to soy beans. We pass the crops through our laboratory to learn how they may be used in the manufacture of motor cars and, thus provide an industrial market for the farmers’ products.

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

Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving.

You don’t have to hold a position in order to be a leader.

No matter what his position or experience in life, there is in everyone more latent than developed ability; far more unused than used power.

I wanted to be an editor or a journalist, I wasn’t really interested in being an entrepreneur, but I soon found I had to become an entrepreneur in order to keep my magazine going.

People in the beauty community don’t like copycats, so I think it’s important to stay true to who you are and people will stay your customer.

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.

Fairs and public displays are the best means we have yet found of showing large numbers of people the real methods of industry.

I always look at it that I work with my employees as opposed to them working for me.

Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.

Profits are not financial-they’re social. Everybody profits from industry. Politicians don’t understand profits because they can pay bills out of taxation.

It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night. I doubt if more than one campaign in a hundred contains a big idea.

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.

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.