Ray Kroc Quotes

I put the hamburger on the assembly line.

I was an overnight success all right, but 30 years is a long, long night.

In my experience, good executives don't make mistakes.

We provide food that customers love, day after day after day. People just want more of it.

I like to get people fired up, fill them with zeal for McDonald's, and watch the results in their work.

The key to success is being in the right place at the right time, recognizing that you are there, and taking action!

If you believe in it, and you believe in it hard, it is impossible to fail.

The McDonald brothers were simply not on my wavelength at all. I was obsessed with the idea of making McDonald's the biggest and the best. They were content with what they had; they didn't want to be bothered with more risks and more demands.

If you've got time to lean, you've got time to clean.

I never considered my dreams wasted energy; they were invariably linked to some form of action. When I dreamed about having a lemonade stand, for example, it wasn't long before I set up a lemonade stand.

The definition of salesmanship is the gentle art of letting the customer have it your way.

If any of my competitors were drowning, I'd stick a hose in their mouth and turn on the water. It is ridiculous to call this an industry. This is not. This is rat eat rat, dog eat dog. I'll kill 'em, and I'm going to kill 'em before they kill me. You're talking about the American way - of survival of the fittest.

Its easy to have principles when you're rich. The important thing is to have principles when you're poor.

One of my suppliers told me, "Ray, you know you aren't in the hamburger business at all. You're in the french-fry business. I don't know how the livin' hell you do it, but you've got the best french fries in town, and that's what's selling folks on your place.

Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get.

There are things money can't buy and hard work can't win. One of them is happiness.

Creativity is a highfalutin word for the work I have to do between now and Tuesday.

Visions of McDonald's restaurants dotting crossroads all over the country paraded through my brain. I don't believe in saturation. We're thinking and talking worldwide.

If you do it first class and you don't compromise values, and you don't compromise quality, and you don't compromise service, and you don't compromise cleanliness, then everybody else who is the competitor has got to play catch-up.

When you're green, your growing. When you're ripe, you rot.

Too many salesmen, I found, would make a good presentation and convince the client, but they couldn't recognize that critical moment when they should have stopped talking. If

The more I help others to succeed, the more I succeed.

The organization cannot trust the individual; the individual must trust the organization.

Adversity can strengthen you if you have the will to grind it out.

I saw opportunity appear in an ugly six-spindle shake machine ... and grabbed it.

This is rat eat rat, dog eat dog. I'll kill 'em, and I'm going to kill 'em before they kill me. Speaking of competition in the fast-food industry.

No self-respecting pitcher throws the same way to every batter and no self-respecting salesman makes the same pitch to every client.

You must perfect every fundamental of your business if you expect it to perform well.

All money means to me is a pride in accomplishment.

As long as you're green, you're growing. As soon as you're ripe, you start to rot.

Luck is a dividend of sweat.

I believe in God, family, and McDonald's. And in the office, that order is reversed.

We take the hamburger business more seriously than anyone else.

I didn't know what we would be selling in the year 2000 but whatever it was we would be selling the most of it.

I was 52 years old. I had diabetes and incipient arthritis. I had lost my gall bladder and most of my thyroid gland in earlier campaigns, but I was convinced the best was ahead of me.

We have an obligation to give something back to the community that gives so much to us.

But after World War II, the brothers realized they were running hard just to stay in one place. They weren't building volume even though their parking lot was always full. So they did a courageous thing. They closed that successful restaurant in 1948 and reopened it a short time later with a radically different kind of operation. It was a restaurant stripped down to the minimum in service and menu, the prototype for legions of fast-food units that later would spread across the land. Hamburgers, fries, and beverages were prepared on an assembly line basis, and, to the amazement of everyone, Mac and Dick included, the thing worked!

Happiness is not a tangible thing, it's a byproduct - a byproduct of achievement.

Take calculated risks. Act boldly and thoughtfully. Be an agile company.

To be successful, you must be daring, be first and be different.

The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.