Quotes from Henry Ford

The genius of the United States of America is Christian in the broadest sense, and its destiny is to remain Christian. This carries no sectarian meaning with it, but relates to a basic principle which differs from other principles in that it provides for liberty with morality, and pledges society to a code of relations based on fundamental Christian conceptions of human rights and duties.

The highest use of capital is not to make more money, but to make money do more service for the betterment of life.

If you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right.

Increasingly better product at an ever?decreasing price.

Every time you can so arrange that one man will do the work of two, you so add to the wealth of the country that there will be a new and better job for the man who is displaced.

If you make what they need, and sell it at a price which makes possession a help and not a hardship, then you will do business as long as there is business to do. People buy what helps them just as naturally as they drink water.

We abolished every order blank and every form of statistics that did not directly aid in the production of a car. We had been collecting tons of statistics because they were interesting. But statistics will not construct automobiles—so out they went.

I think that unless we know more about machines and their use, unless we better understand the mechanical portion of life; we are not able to enjoy the trees, the birds, the flowers, the green fields, the sky and the nature to the fullest (~a little edited *_^*).

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

Wars do not end wars any more than an extraordinarily large conflagration does away with the fire hazard.

Every advance begins in a small way and with the individual.

Abbiamo bisogno di persone brave, non solo di brave persone.

I think that unless we know more about machines and their use, unless we better understand the mechanical portion of life; we are not able to enjoy the trees, the birds, the flowers, the sky and the nature to the fullest (~a little edited *_^*).

The moment one gets into the "expert" state of mind a great number of things become impossible. I refuse to recognize that there are impossibilities. I cannot discover that any one knows enough about anything on this earth definitely to say what is and what is not possible.

The man who does not get a certain satisfaction out of his day's work is losing the best part of his pay.

For the day's work is a great thing—a very great thing! It is at the very foundation of the world; it is the basis of our self-respect.

Therefore in 1909 I announced one morning, without any previous warning, that in the future we were going to build only one model, that the model was going to be "Model T," and that the chassis would be exactly the same for all cars, and I remarked: "Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black.

You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do

A man cannot expect to progress without thinking.

It is inevitable that any one who can borrow freely to cover errors of management will borrow rather than correct the errors.

There had been observed in this country certain streams of influence which were causing a marked deterioration in our literature, amusements, and social conduct; business was departing from its old-time substantial soundness; a general letting down of standards was felt everywhere.

It is easy to give; it is harder to make giving unnecessary.

The healthy business, the business that is always making more and more opportunities for men to earn an honourable and ample living, is the business in which every man does a day's work of which he is proud. And the country that stands most securely is the country in which men work honestly and do not play tricks with the means of production. We cannot play fast and loose with economic laws, because if we do they handle us in very hard ways.

We learn extra from our failures than from our successes.