Henry Ford Quotes

We try to pay a man what he is worth and we are not inclined to keep a man who is not worth more than the minimum wage. ~ Henry Ford

Every success is the mother of countless others. ~ Henry Ford

Chop your own wood and it will warm you twice ~ Henry Ford

A company that does not produce anything other than money is a poor business ~ Henry Ford

A poor man is not the one without a cent. A poor man is the one without a dream. ~ Henry Ford

Sometimes you just don't like somebody ~ Henry Ford

As I witness and participate in our visionary efforts to revitalize Detroit and contrast them with the multibillion dollars' worth of megaprojects advanced by politicians and developed that involve casinos, giant stadiums, gentrification, and the Super Bowl, I am saddened by their shortsightedness. At the same time I rejoice in the energy being unleashed in the community by our human-scale programs that involve bringing the country back into the city and removing the walls between schools and communities, between generations, and between ethnic groups. And I am confident just as in the early twentieth century people came from around the world to marvel at the mass production lines pioneered by Henry Ford, in the twenty-first century they will be coming to marvel at the thriving neighborhoods that are the fruit of our visionary programs. ~ Grace Lee Boggs

Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently. ~ Henry Ford

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

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

He had every prejudice and aspiration of every American Common Man. He believed in the desirability and therefore the sanctity of thick buckwheat cakes with adulterated maple syrup, in rubber trays for the ice cubes in his electric refrigerator, in the especial nobility of dogs, all dogs, in the oracles of S. Parkes Cadman, in being chummy with all waitresses at all junction lunch rooms, and in Henry Ford (when he became President, he exulted, maybe he could get Mr. Ford to come to supper at the White House), and the superiority of anyone who possessed a million dollars. He regarded spats, walking sticks, caviar, titles, tea-drinking, poetry not daily syndicated in newspapers and all foreigners, possibly excepting the British, as degenerate. ~ Sinclair Lewis

Improved productivity means less human sweat, not more. ~ Henry Ford

Every one knows that insufficient rest and gorging are not good for anyone, either physically or mentally. ~ Henry Ford

Change is not always progress ... A fever of newness had been everywhere confused with the spirit of progress. ~ Henry Ford

I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can't be done. ~ Henry Ford

When you once get an idea in which you believe with all your heart, work it out. ~ Henry Ford

The whole secret of a successful life is to find out what is one's destiny to do, and then do it. ~ Henry Ford

Greed is merely a species of nearsightedness. ~ Henry Ford

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. ~ Henry Ford

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

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

Almost all enduring success comes to people after they are forty. For seldom does mature judgment arrive before then. ~ Henry Ford

When the leaves of the strongest tree fall, spring is here. ~ Henry Ford

The farther we get away from the land, the greater our insecurity. ~ Henry Ford

Be ready to revise any system, scrap any method, abandon any theory, if the success of the job requires it. ~ Henry Ford

Historical fact: People stopped being people in 1913. That was the year Henry Ford put his cars on rollers and made his workers adopt the speed of the assembly line. At first, workers rebelled. They quit in droves, unable to accustom their bodies to the new pace of the age. Since then, however, the adaptation has been passed down: we've all inherited it to some degree, so that we plug right into joy-sticks and remotes, to repetitive motions of a hundred kinds. ~ Jeffrey Eugenides

Life, as I see it, is not a location, but a journey. Even the man who most feels himself "settled" is not settled - he is probably sagging back. Everything is in flux, and was meant to be. Life flows. We may live at the same number of the street, but it is never the same man who lives there. ~ Henry Ford

The man who is too set to change is dead already. The funeral is a mere detail. ~ Henry Ford

I believe God is managing affairs and that He doesn't need any advice from me. With God in charge, I believe everything will work out for the best in the end. So what is there to worry about? ~ Henry Ford ~ Karen Moore

History is more or less bunk. ~ Henry Ford

Nothing can be made except by makers, nothing can be managed except by managers. Money cannot make anything and money cannot manage anything. ~ Henry Ford

Henry Ford, who despite his immense wealth never owned a Cadillac. Never got a dinner! ~ Red Buttons

Labor unions are the worst thing that ever struck the earth because they take away a man's independence. ~ Henry Ford

If two people agree, one of them is unnecessary. ~ Henry Ford

Henry Ford has several times sneered at unproductive stockholders ... Well, now. Let's see. Who made Henry Ford's own automobile company possible? The stockholders who originally advanced money to him. Who makes it possible for you and me to be carried to and from business by train or street car? Stockholders ... Who made our vast telephone and telegraph service possible? Stockholders ... Were stockholders all over the country to withdraw their capital from the enterprises in which they are invested, there would be a panic ... on a scale never before known. ~ B.C. Forbes

Every time you try to quit smoking you are actually getting closer to staying smoke free ~ Henry Ford

The biggest start-up successes - from Henry Ford to Bill Gates to Mark Zuckerberg - were pioneered by people from solidly middle-class backgrounds. These founders were not wealthy when they began. They were hungry for success, but knew they had a solid support system to fall back on if they failed. ~ Eric Ries

Don't find fault, find a remedy; anybody can complain ~ Henry Ford

The best way is always the simplest. The attics of the world are cluttered up with complicated failures. ~ Henry Ford

My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me. ~ Henry Ford

Competition is the keen cutting edge of business, always shaving away at costs. ~ Henry Ford

Every business is a monarchy with, not a man, but an idea as king. ~ Henry Ford

There is joy in work. ~ Henry Ford

Failure is the opportunity to begin again, only more intelligently. ~ Henry Ford

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. ~ Henry Ford

Musk's vision, and, of late, execution seem to combine the best of Henry Ford and John D. Rockefeller. With ~ Ashlee Vance

There is a subtle danger in a man thinking that he is "fixed" for life. It indicates that the next jolt of the wheel of progress is going to fling him off. ~ Henry Ford

The only statement I care to make about the Protocols is that they fit in with what is going on. ~ Henry Ford

Businessmen go down with their businesses because they like the old way so well they cannot change. ~ Henry Ford

Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we endure help us in our marching onward. ~ Henry Ford

Our country is still young and its potential is still enormous. We should remember, as we look toward the future, that the more fully we believe in and achieve freedom and equal opportunity - not simply for ourselves but for others - the greater our accomplishments as a nation will be. ~ Henry Ford

It is always possible to do a thing better the second time. ~ Henry Ford

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. ~ Henry Ford

Whatever you have, you must either use or lose. ~ Henry Ford

Wanda was one of the sighers and moaners, the omigod-I-never-dreamed-it-could-be-like-this-types. When she wasn't purring with cinematic sincerity, she was a warm and giving bedmate with the full complement of womanly slopes and curves and warm, tender places. Sometime around dawn, she told me I looked like Harrison Ford. Or was it Henry Ford? ~ Paul Levine

The object of living is work, experience, happiness. ~ Henry Ford

The secret of success is to understand the viewpoint of others. ~ Henry Ford

There is no man living who isn't capable of doing more than he thinks he can do. ~ Henry Ford

That is to say, under the old way any time we wish to add to the national wealth we are compelled to add to the national debt. Now, that is what Henry Ford wants to prevent. He thinks it is stupid, and so do I, that for the loan of $30,000,000 of their own money the people of the United States should be compelled to pay $66,000,000 - that is what it amounts to, with interest. ~ Thomas A. Edison

It is the customer that pays the wages ~ Henry Ford

It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning. ~ Henry Ford

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

Failure is the chance to do it better next time. ~ Henry Ford

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

Today Americans living below the poverty line are not just light-years ahead of most Africans; they're light-years ahead of the wealthiest Americans from just a century ago. Today 99 percent of Americans living below the poverty line have electricity, water, flushing toilets, and a refrigerator; 95 percent have a television; 88 percent have a telephone; 71 percent have a car; and 70 percent even have air-conditioning. This may not seem like much, but one hundred years ago men like Henry Ford and Cornelius Vanderbilt were among the richest on the planet, but they enjoyed few of these luxuries. ~ Peter H. Diamandis

New York is a different country. Maybe it ought to have a separate government. Everybody thinks differently, they just don't know what the hell the rest of the United States is. ~ Henry Ford

You must know all there is to know in your particular field and keep on the alert for new knowledge. The least difference in knowledge between you and another man may spell his success and your failure. ~ Henry Ford

Whereas once it was the customer who favored the merchant by dealing with him, conditions changed until it was the merchant who favored the customer by selling to him. That is bad for business. Monopoly is bad for business. Profiteering ~ Henry Ford

Anyone who does anything useful will not go unpaid. ~ Henry Ford

To me this is the most beautiful, the most satisfactory from a scientific standpoint, the most logical theory of life. For thirty years I have leaned toward the theory of Reincarnation. It seems a most reasonable philosophy and explains many things. ~ Henry Ford

Henry Ford, in a sense, was the first Keynesian. He paid his assembly workers high wages so they could afford to buy his cars. ~ Robert Kuttner

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

Our help does not come from Washington, but from ourselves. ~ Henry Ford

A nation that knows how to work will never suffer. ~ Henry Ford

The bus here because they lost Rosa Parks's bus."

"Who lost Rosa Parks's bus?"

"White people. Who the fuck else? Supposedly, every February when schoolkids visit the Rosa Parks Museum, or wherever the fuck the bus is at, the bus they tell the kids is the birthplace of the civil rights movement is a phony. Just some old Birmingham city bus they found in some junkyard. That's what my sister says, anyway."

"I don't know."

Cuz took two deep swallows of gin. "What you mean, 'You don't know'? You think that after Rosa Parks bitch-slapped white America, some white rednecks going to go out of their way to save the original bus? That'd be like the Celtics hanging Magic Johnson's jersey in the rafters of the Boston Garden. No fucking way. ~ Paul Beatty

Time waste differs from material waste in that there can be no salvage. ~ Henry Ford

Being greedy for money is the surest way not to get it, but when one serves for the sake of service - for the satisfaction of doing that which one believes to be right - then money abundantly takes care of itself. ~ Henry Ford

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

The way to learn to do things is to do things. The way to learn a trade is to work at it. Success teaches how to succeed. Begin with the determination to succeed, and the work is half done already. ~ Henry Ford

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

Failure is only the opportunity more intelligently to begin again. ~ Henry Ford

I would love to see Mr. (Henry) Ford in there, really. I don't know who started the idea that a President must be a Politician instead of a Business man. A Politician can't run any other kind of business. So there is no reason why he can run the U.S. That's the biggest single business in the World. ~ Will Rogers

Every man starts with all there is. Everything is here-the essence and substance of all there is. ~ Henry Ford

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

When I can't handle events, I let them handle themselves. ~ Henry Ford

Who stops learning may be old. ~ Henry Ford

The one aim of these financiers is world control by the creation of inextinguishable debt. ~ Henry Ford

Dollars had once gathered like autumn leaves on the wooden collection plates; dollars were the flourishing sign of God's specifically American favor, made manifest in the uncountable millions of Carnegie and Mellon and Henry Ford and Catholina Lambert. But amid this fabled plenty the whiff of damnation had cleared of dollars and cents the parched ground around Clarence Wilmot. ~ John Updike

Public officials are all right if they stay in their proper sphere and perform their proper functions but when they get greedy for wider scope and more power and money they lose their value and become parasites. ~ Henry Ford

Two classes of people lose money; those who are too weak to guard what they have; those who win money by trick. They both lose in the end. ~ Henry Ford

Why should not Africa give to the world its Black Rockefeller, Rothschild and Henry Ford? Now is the opportunity. Now is the chance for every Negro to make every effort toward a commercial, industrial standard that will make us comparable with the successful business men of other races. ~ Marcus Garvey

There is no such thing as no chance. ~ Henry Ford

I see no advantage in these new clocks. They run no faster than the ones made 100 years ago. ~ Henry Ford

3. The putting of service before profit. Without a profit, business cannot extend. There is nothing inherently wrong about making a profit. Well-conducted business enterprise cannot fail to return a profit, but profit must and inevitably will come as a reward for good service. It cannot be the basis - it must be the result of service. ~ Henry Ford

The end of money is not ease but the opportunity to perform more service. ~ Henry Ford

Speculation is only a word covering the making of money out of the manipulation of prices, instead of supplying goods and services. ~ Henry Ford

A lot of guys have had a lot of fun joking about Henry Ford because he admitted one time that he didn't know history. He don't know it, but history will know him. He has made more history than his critics ever read. ~ Will Rogers

The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time. ~ Henry Ford

The journalist Walter Lippmann identified in Henry Ford, for all his peculiarity, a common strain of "primitive Americanism." The industrialist's conviction that he could make the world conform to his will was founded on a faith that success in economic matters should, by extension, allow capitalists to try their hands "with equal success" at "every other occupation." "Mr. Ford is neither a crank nor a freak," Lippmann insisted, but "merely the logical exponent of American prejudices about wealth and success. ~ Greg Grandin

Good intentions can often lead to unintended consequences. It is hard to imagine a law intended for the workforce known to Henry Ford can serve the needs of a workplace shaped by the innovations of Bill Gates. ~ Tim Walberg