Lee Iacocca Quotes

They're on you day and night. Their oversight is just too extreme [ ... ] That's why our 10-year loan, we paid it back in three years. We couldn't stand the government. The bureaucracy kills you.

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.

I hire people brighter than me and then I get out of their way.

I've always felt that a manager has achieved a great deal when he's able to motivate one other person. When it comes to making the place run, motivation is everything. You might be able to do the work of two people, but you can't be two people. Instead, you have to inspire the next guy down the line and get him to inspire his people.

In business, you're trying to make a buck. God was good to me and blessed me. I made some money and started this foundation years ago, and it has grown in size. With the foundation it's a lot different, because the bottom line isn't how you can make more money or get a better return, it's helping the projects that you feel strongly about move forward.

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.

Listening can make the difference between a mediocre organization and a great one.

Every little kid wants to grow up to be a cowboy, and I did.

I'm still not sure what is meant by good fortune and success. I know fame and power are for the birds. But then life suddenly comes into focus for me. And, ah, there stand my kids.

I've got to get stop getting fired like this. People will start to think I'm a drifter.

Are we going to be a services power? The double-cheeseburger-hold-the-mayo kings of the world?

The only rock I know that stays steady, the only institution I know that works, is the family.

No matter how I'm doing financially, the Depression has never disappeared from my consciousness. To this day, I hate waste. When neckties went from narrow to wide, I kept all my old ones until the style went back to narrow.

We at Chrysler borrow money the old-fashioned way. We pay it back.

The only mistake I ever made was not listening to my gut.

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.

I guess I invented extended warranties, because that's all we had to sell at Chrysler in those days.

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

When future historians look back on our way of curing inflation ... they'll probably compare it to bloodletting in the Middle Ages.

People want economy, and they'll pay any price to get it.

I only wish I could find an institute that teaches people how to listen. Business people need to listen at least as much as they need to talk. Too many people fail to realize that real communication goes in both directions.

To solve big problems you have to be willing to do unpopular things.

In times of great stress or adversity, it's always best to keep busy, to plow your anger and your energy into something positive.

Name me a leader who has a better idea for homeland security than making us take off our shoes in airports and throw away our shampoo?

I was fortunate to get a scholarship when I went to Lehigh University and Princeton. They were both wonderful schools. Somebody was kind enough to spend their money to educate people that they would never get to know. That's what I think philanthropy is about.

A good deal is a state of mind.

In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words: people, product, and profits.

It was emotional when Chrysler sold out to the Germans.

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.

Apply yourself. Get all the education you can, but then ... do something. Don't just stand there, make it happen.

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.

Your legacy should be that you made it better than it was when you got it.

Life can be difficult for kids born with a gold spoon in their mouth, because they never really get to find out if they're able to work hard and make it on their own.

If a guy is over 25 percent jerk, he's in trouble. And Henry was 95 percent.

They've got about as many lawyers as we have sumo-wrestlers.

One of the things the government can't do is run anything. The only things our government runs are the post office and the railroads, and both of them are bankrupt.

I'm sometimes described as a flamboyant leader and a hip-shooter, a fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants operator. But if that were true, I could never have been successful in this business.

The great issues facing us today are not Republican issues or Democratic issues. The political parties can debate the means, but both parties must embrace the end objective, which is to make America great again.

There is no substitute for accurate knowledge. Know yourself, know your business, know your men.

Thanks to properly selecting the clients you will not be unnecessarily wasting time.

If your product is great, you yourself do not have to be a great seller.

If I Had To Sum Up In One Word The Qualities That Make Up A Good Manager, I'd Say Decisiveness.

If you set a good example you need not worry about setting rules.

If I had to sum up in a word what makes a good manager, I'd say decisiveness. You can use the fanciest computers to gather the numbers, but in the end you have to set a timetable and act.

Never rest on your oars as a boss. If you do, the whole company starts sinking.

We've got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need?

The most successful businessman is the man who holds onto the old just as long as it is good, and grabs the new just as soon as it is better.

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.

In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something else.

The kind of people I look for to fill top management spots are the eager beavers, the mavericks. These are the guys who try to do more than they're expected to do - they always reach.

Decisiveness is the one word that makes a good manager.

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.

I was at Ford for 32 years. I went to Chrysler in 1978, four or five months after I got canned by Henry Ford.

Leadership means setting an example. When you find yourself in a position of leadership, people follow your every move.

In the great undertakings, there is glory, even in failure.

If we wait until we've satisfied all the uncertainties, it may be too late.

Styling cars sells cars and safety does not.

I have always found that if I move with seventy-five percent or more of the facts that I usually never regret it. It's the guys who wait to have everything perfect that drive you crazy.

No matter what you've done for yourself or for humanity, if you can't look back on having given love and attention to your own family, what have you really accomplished?

People want economy and they will pay any price to get it.

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.

So what do we do? Anything. Something. So long as we just don't sit there. If we screw it up, start over. Try something else. If we wait until we've satisfied all the uncertainties, it may be too late. - Lee Iacocca

A little righteous anger really brings out the best in the American personality. Our nation was born when 56 patriots got mad enough to sign the Declaration of Independence. We put a man on the moon because Sputnik made us mad at being number two in space. Getting mad in a constructive way is good for the soul- and the country.

Over the years, many executives have said to me with pride: 'Boy, I worked so hard last year that I didn't take any vacation.' I always feel like responding, You dummy. You mean to tell me you can take responsibility for an eighty-million-dollar project and you can't plan two weeks out of the year to have some fun?

I have found that being honest is the best technique I can use. Right up front, tell people what you're trying to accomplish and what you're willing to sacrifice to accomplish it.

Greenmail, in case you're wondering, is when a company pays a raider a premium for his holdings-if he'll go away. What I think it really is is blackmail in a pin-striped suit.

The one word that makes a good manager - decisiveness.

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.

Business, after all, is nothing more than a bunch of human relationships.

Trouble shared is trouble halved.

The affections are like lightning: you cannot tell where they will strike till they have fallen.

What is it that you like doing? If you don't like it, get out of it, because you'll be lousy at it.

Chrysler invented rebates, I'm sorry to say. I didn't have anything to do with that. A lot of flaky deals were made in order to give the customer enough cash for a down payment.

Every business and every product has risks. You can't get around it.

That's the American way. If little kids don't aspire to make money like I did, what the hell good is this country?

You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can't get them across, your ideas won't get you anywhere.

Get all the education you can then go out and do something - do anything.

Here's what we should be doing. We've got to get off fossil fuels.

If you make believe that ten guys in pin-striped suits are back in a kindergarten class playing with building blocks, you'll get a rough picture of what life in a corporation is like.

We are continually faced by great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluable problems.

My father always used to say that when you die, if you've got five real friends, then you've had a great life.

Here's what management is about: Pick good people and set the right priorities.

I learned that monthly payments are the cornerstone of everything in the automobile business.

Talk to people in their own language. If you do it well, they'll say, 'God, he said exactly what I was thinking.' And when they begin to respect you, they'll follow you to the death.

A country's competitiveness starts not on the factory floor or in the engineering lab. It starts in the classroom.