Inspirational Quotes by Henry Ford (American Businessperson)

Inspirational Quotations by Henry Ford (American Businessperson)

Henry Ford (1863–1947) was an American automobile industrialist and pioneer of large-scale mass production. He had a profound influence on the widespread use of motor vehicles. One of his key innovations, the moving assembly line, is the epitome of modern manufacturing.

Born on a farm near Dearborn, Michigan, Ford initially worked as a machine-shop apprentice, traction car operator, and engineer for the Edison Illuminating Company. He developed a gas-engine car in 1892, founded Ford Motor Company in 1903, and designed the Model T in 1908.

Inspired by Chicago’s meat-processing industry, Ford introduced a moving assembly line in 1913. It revolutionized industrial mass production. Ford then raised the minimum wage to $5 a day and reduced the workday to eight hours. Ford’s innovations ushered not just the automobile but also a wide variety of consumer goods to the mass market, opening the door to modern consumer culture.

Ford became infamous for his virulent anti-Semitic outlook, which he disseminated through his newspaper, The Dearborn Independent. His leadership style was increasingly domineering; his anti-unionism caused labor violence at Ford plants during the Great Depression.

In later life, Ford withdrew from the day-to-day leadership of the Ford Motor Company and lived reclusively on his 2,000-acre Dearborn estate. He pursued many philanthropic projects, including Detroit’s Henry Ford Hospital and the Ford Foundation.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Henry Ford

My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.
—Henry Ford
Topics: Friendship, Best, Friend

I cannot discover that anyone knows enough to say definitely what is and what is not possible.
—Henry Ford
Topics: Health, Possibilities, Optimism, Positive Attitudes, Potential

Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right.
—Henry Ford
Topics: Confidence, Beliefs

You will find men who want to be carried on the shoulders of others, who think that the world owes them a living. They don’t seem to see that we must all lift together and pull together.
—Henry Ford

History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.
—Henry Ford
Topics: History, Historians

There are no big problems, there are just a lot of little problems.
—Henry Ford
Topics: Problems

Don’t find fault. Find a remedy.
—Henry Ford
Topics: Problem-solving, Mistakes, Faults, Action

Law never does anything constructive. We have had enough of legislators promising to do that which laws can not do.
—Henry Ford
Topics: Law

For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks, disappointments and griefs which we endure help us in our marching onward
—Henry Ford
Topics: Character, Experience

Nobody can think straight who does not work. Idleness warps the mind. Thinking without constructive action becomes a disease.
—Henry Ford
Topics: Idleness, Work

You can’t learn in school what the world is going to do next year.
—Henry Ford
Topics: School

The highest use of capital is not to make more money, but to make money do more for the betterment of life.
—Henry Ford
Topics: Money

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

One who fears failure limits his activities. Failure is only the opportunity more intelligently to begin again.
—Henry Ford
Topics: Failures, Opportunity, Failure, Mistakes

The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability.
—Henry Ford

A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.
—Henry Ford
Topics: Service, Miscellaneous, Worry

Too many of us, when we accomplish what we set out to do, exclaim, “See what I have done!” instead of saying, “See where I have been led”.
—Henry Ford

Business is never so healthy as when, like a chicken, it must do a certain amount of scratching around for what it gets.
—Henry Ford
Topics: Business

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
Topics: Religion, Worry, God

A dollar put into a book and a book mastered might change the whole course of a boy’s life. It might easily be the beginning of the development of leadership that would carry the boy far in service to his fellow men.
—Henry Ford
Topics: Books

You can do anything if you have enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is the yeast that makes your hopes rise to the stars. With it, there is accomplishment. Without it there are only alibis.
—Henry Ford
Topics: Attitude, Determination, Enthusiasm

You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do.
—Henry Ford
Topics: Character, Action, Ambition, Execution, Reputation

Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.
—Henry Ford
Topics: Problems

It is not the employer who pays the wages. He only handles the money. It is the product that pays the wages.
—Henry Ford
Topics: Business, Work, Customers

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.
—Henry Ford
Topics: One liners, Learning, Education

One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn’t do.
—Henry Ford
Topics: Fear, Discovery

Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success.
—Henry Ford
Topics: Teams, Beginnings, Miscellaneous, Teamwork, Togetherness

The best we can do is size up the chances, calculate the risks involved, estimate our ability to deal with them, and then make our plans with confidence.
—Henry Ford
Topics: Chance, Decisions, Excellence

Integrity is crucial for business success – once you can fake that, you’ve got it made.
—Henry Ford
Topics: Honor

If you think of standardization as the best that you know today, but which is to be improved tomorrow, you get somewhere.
—Henry Ford
Topics: Quality, Morals

The man who will use 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, is bound to succeed.
—Henry Ford

There are two ways of making yourself stand out from the crowd. One is by having a job so big you can go home before the bell rings if you want to. The other is by finding so much to do that you must stay after the others have gone. The one who enjoys the former once took advantage of the latter.
—Henry Ford
Topics: Work

What we call evil, it seems to me, is simply ignorance bumping its head in the dark.
—Henry Ford
Topics: Evil

If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.
—Henry Ford
Topics: Teamwork

A man given to pride is usually proud of the wrong thing.
—Henry Ford
Topics: Pride

The high wage begins down in the shop. If it is not created there it cannot get into pay envelopes. There will never be a system invented which will do away with the necessity for work.
—Henry Ford
Topics: Money

If there is any great secret of success in life, it lies in the ability to put yourself in the other person’s place and to see things from his point of view—as well as your own.
—Henry Ford
Topics: Success

I now know that wars do not end wars.
—Henry Ford
Topics: War

Capital punishment is as fundamentally wrong as a cure for crime as charity is wrong as a cure for poverty.
—Henry Ford
Topics: Crime, Justice

A market is never saturated with a good product, but it is very quickly saturated with a bad one.
—Henry Ford