Henry Ford Quotes

320 Henry Ford Quotes

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I thought that it was up to me as the designer to make the car so completely simple that no one could fail to understand it.
Henry Ford

I will build a motor car for the great multitude… [To which he was told ‘If Ford does that he will be out of business in six months.’]
Henry Ford

If a device would save in time just 10 percent or increase results 10 percent, then its absence is always a 10 percent tax.
Henry Ford

If the owner of a skyscraper could increase his income 10 percent, he would willingly pay half the increase just to know how.
Henry Ford

A building thirty stories high needs no more ground space than one five stories high.
Henry Ford

We will rip out anything once we discover a better way, but we have to know absolutely that the new way is going to be better than the old before we do anything drastic…
Henry Ford

I am not particularly anxious for the men to remember what someone else has tried to do in the past, for then we might quickly accumulate far too many things that could not be done.
Henry Ford

If you keep on recording all of your failures you will shortly have a list showing that there is nothing left for you to try – whereas it by no means follows because one man has failed in a certain method that another man will not succeed.
Henry Ford

A man who knows a job sees so much to be done than he has done, that he is always pressing forward and never gives up an instant of thought of how good and how efficient he is.
Henry Ford

One has to fight hardest against… excess organization and consequent red tape.
Henry Ford



A business… is not a machine. It is a collection of people who are brought together to do work and not to write letters to one another.
Henry Ford

When we are at work we ought to be at work. When we are at play we ought to be at play. There is no use trying to mix the two.
Henry Ford

[On business titles] A title is very peculiar. It has been used too much as a sign of emancipation from work. It is almost equivalent to a badge bearing the legend: ‘This man has nothing to do but regard himself as important and all others as inferior.’
Henry Ford

I never met a man who was thoroughly bad. There is always some good in him – if he gets a chance.
Henry Ford

We do not hire a man’s history, we hire the man.
Henry Ford

Every man’s future rests solely with himself.
Henry Ford

The difficulty is not to discover men to advance, but [to discover] men who are willing to be advanced.
Henry Ford

The mere fact that all waste is not a dead loss is no excuse for permitting waste.
Henry Ford

It was a hit-or-miss operation. The wonder is that he hit so often.
Henry Ford

We leave nothing to luck, and we have yet to build a machine that will not do the work for which it was designed.
Henry Ford



The jobs where it is necessary to put in mind as well as muscle have very few takers – we always need men who like a job because it is difficult.
Henry Ford

The average worker, I am sorry to say, wants a job in which he does not have to put forth much physical exertion – above all, he wants a job in which he does not have to think.
Henry Ford

There will never be a dearth of places for skilled people, but we have to recognize that the will to be skilled is not general.
Henry Ford

One cannot become skilled by mere wishing.
Henry Ford

There are far too many assumptions about what human nature ought to be and not enough research into what it is.
Henry Ford

No reason exists why factory work should be dangerous.
Henry Ford

Industry needs not exact a human toll.
Henry Ford

Every business that employs more than one man is a kind of partnership.
Henry Ford

No man is independent as long as he has to depend on another man to help him.
Henry Ford

If an employer urges men to do their best, and the men learn after a while that their best does not bring any reward, then they naturally drop back into ‘getting by.’ But if they see the fruits of hard work in their pay envelope – proof that harder work means higher pay – then also they begin to learn that they are a part of the business, and that its success depends on them and their success depends on it.
Henry Ford



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.
Henry Ford

No business can stand outgo[ings] that exceeds its income.
Henry Ford

When you pump water out of a well at a faster rate than the water flows in, the well goes dry.
Henry Ford

Idle hands and minds were never intended for any one of us.
Henry Ford

The man who contributes much should take away much.
Henry Ford

[To President Woodrow Wilson on why a man had asked to be buried with his Model T Ford] Because it had gotten him out of every hole he’d ever been in.
Henry Ford

I refuse to recognize that there are impossibilities.
Henry Ford

It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste time.
Henry Ford

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

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.
Henry Ford



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