Top 431 Quotes & Sayings by Henry Ford - Page 4

The depression was just a state of mind. It is over for everyone who has changed his state of mind.

Paying good wages is not charity at all-it is the best kind of business.

Sometimes you just don't like somebody

It is the customer that pays the wages

Business must be run at a profit, else it will die. But when anyone tries to run a business solely for profit, then also the business must die, for it no longer has a reason for existence.

The hardest thing in the world to do is to think, and that is why people do so little of it.

One of the most difficult things to do in life is thinking; that's why so few people engage in it.

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

A customer votes everyday with his dollar. Our job is make sure he votes for us.

Thinking is the hardest work we do.

Borrowing for expansion is one thing; borrowing to make up for mismanagement and waste is quite another.

An educated man is not one whose memory is trained to carry a few dates in history - he is one who can accomplish things.

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.

Anyone who stops learning is old — whether this happens at twenty or at eighty. Anyone who keeps on learning not only remains young but becomes constantly more valuable — regardless of physical capacity.

Merely gathering knowledge may become the most useless work a man can do. What can you do to help and heal the world? That is the educational test.

If I lose a billion dollars, I will have it back in less than five years.

Nobody can think straight who does not work. Idleness warps the mind.

Thinking without constructive action becomes a disease.

You can do anything if you have enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is the yeast that makes your hopes rise to the stars.

Gold is the most useless thing in the world. I am not interested in money but in the things of which money is merely a symbol.

Any man can learn anything he will, but no man can teach except to those who want to learn.

A manufacturer is not through with his customer when a sale is completed. He has then only started with his customer.

There is no failure except failure to serve one's purpose.

Women do not win formula one races, because they simply are not strong enough to resist the G-forces. In the boardroom, it is different. I believe women are better able to marshal their thoughts than men and because they are less egotistical they make fewer assumptions.

I don't like to read books. They muss up my mind.

If you think you can or cannot accomplish a task, you will be correct in either case.

There are no dead ends. There is always a way out. What you learn in one failure you utilize in your next success.

If there is one thing I would banish from earth, it is fear. And the only way to do that is to see that there is nothing to fear - nothing in all of life to be afraid of.

I don't expect to retire. Every man must work, that's his natural destiny.

Profit is a by-product of work; happiness is its chief product.

An imitation may be quite successful in its own way, but imitation can never be Success. Success is a first-hand creation.

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

That the Devil finds work for idle hands to do is probably true. But there is a profound difference between leisure and idleness.

If there is unemployment in America, it is because the unemployed do not want to work.

When you get a whole country - as did ours - thinking that Washington is a sort of heaven and behind its clouds dwell omniscience and omnipotence, you are educating that country into a dependent state of mind which augers ill for the future.

If people understood how the economic system works, there'd be a revolution in a minute.

Why should I clutter my mind with general information when I have men around me who can supply any knowledge I need?

There should be no unemployment. There is large percentage of labor now which cannot make a living because wages are not high enough. That is industry's 2nd job. 1st job is to make good product. 2nd pay a good wage.

We are always seeking for those things which are in the clouds, not for those that lie at our feet.

Enthusiasm is the sparkle in your eyes, the swing in your gait.

Most people think that faith means believing something; oftener it means trying something, giving it a chance to prove itself

All Fords are exactly alike, but no two men are just alike. Every new life is a new thing under the sun; there has never been anything just like it before, never will be again. A young man ought to get that idea about himself; he should look for the single spark of individuality that makes him different from other folks, and develop that for all he is worth. Society and schools may try to iron it out of him; their tendency is to put it all in the same mold, but I say don't let that spark be lost; it is your only real claim to importance.

A low wage business is always insecure.

As long as we look to legislation to cure poverty or to abolish special privilege we are going to see poverty and special privilege grow

The basically simple things are best, whether it's automobiles or diets or philosophy.

The time is coming when man will be able to determine the length of his lifespan by controlling his diet.

Unless you have courage, a courage that keeps you going, always going, no matter what happens, there is no certainty of success. It is really an endurance race.

He who believes he can and he who believes he cannot are both correct.

If the people really set their minds on anything it is impossible to prevent their getting what they want.

History doesn't mean dates and wars and textbooks to me; it means the unconquerable pioneer spirit of man.

I invented nothing new. I simply combined the inventions of others into a car. Had I worked fifty or ten or even five years before, I would have failed.

We teach children to save their money. As an attempt to counteract thoughtless and selfish expenditure, that has value. But it is not positive; it does not lead the child into the safe and useful avenues of self-expression or self-expenditure. To teach a child to invest and use is better than to teach him to save.

Many people miss opportunity because it came disguised in overalls.

If governments would only understand that if people are left alone they'll work out their own salvation.

Chop your own wood and it will warm you twice

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.

There is fuel in every bit of vegetable matter that can be fermented. There's enough alcohol in one year's yield of an acre of potatoes to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the fields for a hundred years.

One needs to be successful in the conventional way to learn just how far away from success it may be.

The only motive that can keep politics pure is the motive of doing good for one's country and its people.

The function of the machine is to liberate man from brute burdens, and release his energies to the building of his intellectual and spiritual powers for conquests in the fields of thought and higher action.