Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I've got to get stop getting fired like this. People will start to think I'm a drifter.
We are continually faced by great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.
If you own up to your mistakes, you don't suffer as much. But that's a tough lesson to learn.
I learned that monthly payments are the cornerstone of everything in the automobile business.
Are we going to be a services power? The double-cheeseburger-hold-the-mayo kings of the world?
I don't need a $100 million mistake. Try to make a $5 million mistake if you have to make one.
The only rock I know that stays steady, the only institution I know that works, is the family.
If I Had To Sum Up In One Word The Qualities That Make Up A Good Manager, I'd Say Decisiveness.
In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words: people, product, and profits.
The affections are like lightning: you cannot tell where they will strike till they have fallen.
There is no substitute for accurate knowledge. Know yourself, know your business, know your men.
A major reason capable people fail to advance is that they don't work well with their colleagues.
You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can't get them across, your ideas won't get you anywhere.
What is it that you like doing? If you don't like it, get out of it, because you'll be lousy at it.
I guess I invented extended warranties, because that's all we had to sell at Chrysler in those days.
I was at Ford for 32 years. I went to Chrysler in 1978, four or five months after I got canned by Henry Ford.
My father always used to say that when you die, if you've got five real friends, then you've had a great life.
The thing that lies at the foundation of positive change, the way I see it, is service to a fellow human being.
There's a world of difference between a strong ego, which is essential, and a large ego-which can be destructive.
A country's competitiveness starts not on the factory floor or in the engineering lab. It starts in the classroom.
That's the American way. If little kids don't aspire to make money like I did, what the hell good is this country?
If you want to make good use of your time, you've got to know what's most important and then give it all you've got.
Any supervisor worth his salt would rather deal with people who attempt too much than with those who try too little.
Apply yourself. Get all the education you can, but then, by God, do something. Don't just stand there, make it happen.
Leadership means setting an example. When you find yourself in a position of leadership, people follow your every move.
The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.
I was good friends with Frank Sinatra, I heard Steve Kaufman painting his portrait, so I asked Steve to paint my portrait.
It's a good thing god doesn't let you look a year or two into the future, or you might be sorely tempted to shoot yourself.
You can't have a country or a city or a state that's worth a damn unluss you govern within yourself in your day-to-day life.
You've got to say, "I think that if I keep working at this and want it badly enough I can have it." It's called perseverance.
In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something else.
We load up on oat bran in the morning so we'll live forever. Then we spend the rest of the day living like there's no tomorrow.
When future historians look back on our way of curing inflation...they'll probably compare it to bloodletting in the Middle Ages.
In times of great stress or adversity, it's always best to keep busy, to plow your anger and your energy into something positive.
There's no great mystery to satisfying your customers. Build them a quality product and treat them with respect. It's that simple.
Formal learning can teach you a great deal, but many of the essential skills in life are the ones you have to develop on your own.
There's a billboard in a little farm town in the Midwest that says: IF YOU COMPLAIN ABOUT FARMERS, DON'T TALK WITH YOUR MOUTH FULL.
The primary skill of a manager consists of knowing how to make assignments and picking the right people to carry out those assignments
Incompetency begets incompetency. The last thing a guy who isn't sure of himself wants is a guy backing him up who is sure of himself.
Most people are looking for security, a nice, safe, prosperous future. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's called the American Dream.
The ability to concentrate and to use your time well is everything if you want to succeed in business--or almost anywhere else for that matter.
A guy named Charlie Beacham was my first mentor at Ford. He taught me the importance of the dealers, and he rubbed my nose in the retail business.
In the old days, if a neighbors apples fell into your yard, you worked it out over the back fence or picked them up and made pies. Today, you sue.
What is wrong with changing your mind because the facts changed? But you have to be able to say why you changed your mind and how the facts changed.
Why is our free-enterprise system so strong?- Not because it stands still, frozen in the past, but because it has always adapted to changing realities
There are times when even the best manager is like the little boy with the big dog, waiting to see where the dog wants to go so he can take him there.
Mistakes are a part of life; you can't avoid them. All you can hope is that they won't be too expensive and that you don't make the same mistake twice.
In business, I loved cars. I couldn't wait to get to work in the morning. Only in America can you decide to get a good education and pursue what you like.
As you go through life, there are thousands of little forks in the road, and there are a few really big forks-those moments of reckoning, moments of truth.
Start with good people, lay out the rules, communicate with your employees, motivate them and reward them. If you do all those things effectively, you can't miss.