The 80 best quotes by Henry Ford

Famous quotes and reflections from one of the most revolutionary entrepreneurs of the 19th century.

Henry Ford (1863 - 1947) was a famous American businessman. He founded the Ford Motor Company and developed the production lines we know today.

Born into a rural family in the state of Michigan, Henry Ford patented more than 150 engines. His passion for the engine was a true revolution, since it made vehicles accessible to the general population.

Henry Ford Phrases (and famous quotes).

In today's article we are going to learn more about the thinking of this entrepreneur.

Through the best phrases of Henry Ford we will also be able to learn more about the vision of this genius of the motor industry.

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

Out of a need came his ingenuity to build cars more efficient and faster than horses.

2. Obstacles are the horrible things you see when you take your eyes off the goal.

If you stick with it, you can do it.

Whether you think you can or think you can't, you are right.

Our thoughts determine our success or failure.

4. Thinking is the hardest work there is, perhaps that is why so few do it.

A great reflection of Henry Ford.

5. A business that only makes money is a poor business.

If all you get out of it is money, maybe you are not doing it right.

6. Everything comes to him who hastens while he waits.

Little by little, everything arrives.

7. You cannot learn in school what the world will do next year.

The past is knowable, the future is unpredictable.

8. The secret to a successful life is to find our purpose and then do it.

Without one we don't have the other.

9. There is no man alive who cannot do more than he thinks he can do.

We all have strength and ingenuity to go further.

10. Nothing is especially difficult if you break it down into small jobs.

One of the keys to efficiency.

11. My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.

A great phrase of friendship.

12. Don't find fault, find a remedy.

Problems always have a solution.

13. You don't have to hold a position in order to be a leader.

Leading is more than being at the top of a hierarchy.

14. Quality means doing the right thing when no one is watching.

No need for supervision.

15. Even a mistake may turn out to be the only thing necessary for a valuable achievement.

Sometimes mistakes bring positive consequences.

16. An idealist is a person who helps others to become prosperous.

An ambitious definition.

17. Chop your own wood and it will warm you twice.

Ford's valuable reflection on effort.

18. Capital punishment is fundamentally wrong as a cure for crime, just as charity is wrong as a cure for poverty.

One of Henry Ford's most politically influential quotes.

19. Money is like an arm or a leg: use it or lose it.

If you don't invest it, it atrophies and loses its value.

20. Any customer can have a car painted any color he wants, as long as it is black.

Free interpretation.

21. As we go through life we learn the limits of our capabilities.

There is nothing wrong with knowing our weaknesses.

22. You can't build a reputation on something you are going to do.

Do it first, then think about the secondary.

23. I can't discover anyone who knows enough to say definitively what is possible and what is impossible.

No one knows anything.

24. Most people spend more time and energy hovering around problems than trying to solve them.

Why bother if it's not really effective?

25. Getting together is a start; staying together is progress; working together is success.

The key to success in cooperative work.

26. First of all, preparation is the secret of success.

Training is crucial to our future performance.

27. Failure is simply a new opportunity to start over, this time more intelligently.

Demystifying failure.

28. The competitor to fear is the one who never worries about you, but keeps improving his own business all the time.

A great Henry Ford quote to apply to business.

29. Speculation is just a word that covers the manufacture of money from the manipulation of prices, rather than the supply of goods and services.

A criticism of certain errors in the economic system, according to Ford.

30. There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: make the best possible quality of products at the lowest possible cost, paying the highest possible wages.

A way of managing the company that was a true revolution in its time.

31. Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who continues to learn stays young.

Our life must be full of learning.

32. One of the greatest discoveries a man can make, one of his greatest surprises, is to discover that he can do what he feared he could not do.

Such a comforting feeling.

33. It is my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.

While some waste their time on stupid things, others work from sunrise to sunset to achieve their goals.

34. There is joy in work. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have achieved something.

The feeling that we are excelling can give meaning to what we do.

There is no shame in honest failure; there is shame in fear of failure.

Exposure to error is fundamental to improvement.

36. There are no big problems; there are just a lot of little problems.

Knowing how to isolate them and deal with them in a coherent way is the key.

37. If we all move forward together, success takes care of itself.

Success comes only when certain conditions are met.

38. Money does not create us, it only unmasks us.

We exist beyond transactions.

39. The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.

When we fail, we must try to draw a lesson from it.

40. Vision without execution is only a hallucination.

Nothing is of value if it is not translated into action.

41. The secret of my success lies in paying as if I were prodigal and selling as if I were broke.

A double dynamic that in Ford's time brought prosperity.

42. If there is a secret to success, it lies in the ability to appreciate another's point of view and to see things from that point of view as well as one's own.

Having a richly nuanced viewpoint empowers you to change things.

43. If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you always got.

A matter of logic.

44. We do not want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only worthwhile history is the history we make today.

For Ford, the traditional has no value by default.

45. It is not the employer who pays the wages. Entrepreneurs only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages.

A way of looking at the relationship between employer and employee.

46. Experience is something of supreme importance.

Learning how to do things gives us the potential for repeated success.

47. How we serve our jobs, we serve the world.

On a day-to-day basis we bring value to the world.

48. Genius is rarely recognized for what it is: a great capacity for hard work.

Eccentricity attracts more attention than patience and effort.

49. Those who quit are more numerous than those who fail.

Many battles are first lost in the imagination.

50. To see a thing clearly in the mind, make it begin to take shape.

Concretizing and committing to ideas is essential.

51. If money is your hope of independence, you will never have it. The only real security a man can have in this world is a store of knowledge, experience and skill.

Power does not lie in money, but in that which leads us to carve out a way to survive.

52. When we think that tomorrow will never come, it has already become yesterday.

Thought projects us into the future.

53. Impossible means that you have not found the solution.

Nothing is impossible in itself.

54. No man should be forced to do the work that a machine can do.

Modernity linked to the industrial revolutions is embodied in the thought of Henry Ford.

55. There are three things that become more valuable with age; old wood to burn, old books to read, and old friends to enjoy.

An interesting comparison about the value of old things.

56. You say I started with practically nothing, but that is not correct. We all start with everything there is, it's how we use it that makes things possible.

No person appears in a vacuum; in all cases there is a context to rely on.

57. The man who uses his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, will succeed.

Thinking big gets us ahead.

58. Enthusiasm is the leaven that makes your hopes shine in the stars. Enthusiasm is the twinkle in your eye, the swing in your gait. The grip of your hand, the irresistible surge of will and energy to execute your ideas.

Every interesting project has in it an irrational component.

59. I did not invent anything new. I simply put together the discoveries of other men who worked for centuries.

Demolishing the myth of the self-made man.

60. Progress occurs when all the factors that constitute it are ready, and then it is inevitable.

A deterministic view of progress.

61. Don't look for blame, look for solutions.

Looking for people to punish does not solve problems.

62. Competition is at the forefront of business, always reducing costs.

In that context, creativity is used to reach maximum productivity.

63. I do not believe that a man can leave his business. He should think about it by day and dream about it by night.

The professional can come to watch us.

64. A market is never saturated with a good product, but it quickly becomes saturated with a good one.

Over time, good products can stifle the competition.

65. How come when I want a pair of hands they also bring me a human being.

Part of the dehumanization posed by the corporate world.

66. Physical exercise is nonsense. If you are well you don't need it and if you are bad you can't do it.

A game of concepts that many will find debatable.

67. Failure is sometimes more fruitful than success.

From defeats something useful can be extracted.

68. The best motorist is the one who drives with imagination. He imagines that his family is in the car with him.

Creative ways to motivate yourself to do things right.

69. When everything seems to go against you, remember that the plane takes off against the wind, not with it.

Resistance does not have to stop us from moving forward.

70. A bore is a person who opens his mouth and puts his exploits in it.

He who can only talk about past deeds does not have much to contribute.

71. History is more or less nonsense.

Distancing oneself from history helps one not to feel subject to uncontrollable forces.

72. You will find men who want to be carried on the shoulders of others, who think that the world owes them a living. They do not see that we must all rise together.

One of Henry Ford's phrases that speak about the social fabric in which human beings live.

73. Whatever you have, you must use it or lose it.

We must take advantage of the potential of what we have at hand.

74. Real progress is that which makes technology available to all.

Technological progress can be democratizing.

75. Superficial men believe in luck and circumstances. The strong believe in causes and their effects.

Attributing what happens around us to something outside our control hinders us.

76. Life is a series of experiences, each of which makes it greater, although it is sometimes difficult to realize that.

A conception of existence based on a chain of events experienced in the first person.

77. Mediocrity is the worst enemy of prosperity.

Conformity leads to stagnation.

78. The world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and afflictions we cause help us.

In everything bad there is the potential to learn from adversity.

79. It is evident that the people of the nation do not understand the monetary and banking system, because if they did, I believe there would be a revolution tomorrow morning.

About the general ignorance about the workings of the economy.

80. A company absolutely dedicated to service will only have a concern about profits.

In the business environment there are many factors to take into account, and not all of them have to do with what is offered to the customer.