Quotes from Herb Kelleher

I think my greatest moment in business was when the first Southwest airplane arrived after four years of litigation, and I walked up to it and I kissed that baby on the lips and I cried.

My suggestion is that if you need someone outside your company to prepare a mission statement for you, then you really don't know what your mission is, and you probably don't have one.

You can have parties without spending enormous sums of money.

I've found that many of the greatest ideas surface in bars because that's where many people cultivate inspiration.

I'm here to tell you that I am proud of a couple of things. First, I am very good at projectile vomiting. Second, I've never had a really serious venereal disease.

The important thing is to take the bricklayer and make him understand that he's building a home, not just laying bricks.

Think small and act small, and we'll get bigger. Think big and act big, and we'll get smaller.

You have to treat your employees like your customers. When you treat them right they will treat your outside customers right.

What's important is that a customer should get off the airplane feeling, 'I didn't just get from A to B. I had one of the most pleasant experiences I ever had, and I'll be back for that reason.'

Power should be reserved for weightlifting and boats, and leadership really involves responsibility.

Anybody who seeks wealth as an end in itself is always going to be disappointed. What you really should be doing is seeking excellence in achievement.

When I started working on Southwest Airlines, I kid you not, only people flying on business and very wealthy people ever flew.

Fight hierarchy and bureaucracy as hard as you possibly can. Don't ever let it become the master; always remember it's the servant.

Nothing kills your company's culture like layoffs.

I learned it by doing it, and I was scared to death.

Wild Turkey whiskey and Philip Morris cigarettes are essential to the maintenance of human life!

I don't really have any peeves, and I fly other carriers a good bit. My experience has been good in terms of getting on the airplane expeditiously and getting to my destination as need be, on time, with my bags - which I carry on.

I tell my employees that we're in the service business, and it's incidental that we fly airplanes.

I think flying is kind of an emotional experience.

Southwest isn't a 'This is my job, that's your job' kind of company. Being successful is our job, and we're willing to do whatever it takes to achieve that.

I want to see Texas remain an entrepreneurial powerhouse in the United States.

As far as value is concerned, the principal reason that I moved to Texas from New Jersey many, many years ago was because I recognized that Texas was a much more entrepreneurial state than New Jersey, that the opportunities to start things were greater in Texas. And my vision was fortunately fulfilled.

You have to have the service mentality in the sense that you subjugate your own ego, and you subjugate a large part of your own life to really helping other people, being successful on their behalf.

We've always operated on the thesis that a company can have a personality, that people can be themselves, and be very successful in business at the same time.