Soichiro Honda Quotes
101 Soichiro Honda Quotes
1 2 3
Henceforth I went to school every morning, and in the evening when I came home I would practise what I’d learned in my little studio. I forced myself to be enthusiastic. But I had no choice, and when you place yourself in situations where there are no alternatives, a kind of freedom is born in you, the freedom that comes from a decision you made from which there is no turning back. A thousand reasons to persevere filled my mind. Friends had placed their confidence in me, and my father too, as well as all the men who worked with me. I no longer had the right to go back, and only school could get me what I wanted – to become an engineer, to be able to theorize my technological intuition and assure production. I solemnly said to myself: If I give up now, everyone will die of hunger. And I imagined the pathetic state of all those people who were depending on me.
Soichiro Honda
The sound of the machine was my first music. From the veranda of our wooden house, I could see the blue smoke it emitted. One day I asked my grandfather to take me there. It became a habit. I always loved the smell of oil permeating everything, the noise of the combustion motors, the smoke… and I stayed there for hours, watching the machine while my grandfather tried to talk me into going back.
Soichiro Honda
What I retained most about this man [Napoleon] was a kind of moral philosophy which guided all his future orientation; that of the little student from a poor family, who was able to scoff at kings, proclaim a revolution and dominate the entire Western world. And I too, one day, would be like Napoleon, small and famous. Napoleon, my dear Napoleon, the model for all my childish ambitions, since we all have the right to our crazy dreams.
Soichiro Honda
The laboratory of a factory is the best place to learn about failure! Actually, all researchers worth their salt know that in the lab, 99 percent of the people are working on lost causes. The modest percentage of success, nevertheless, serves to compensate for all the rest of the effort. Finally, I don’t regret the thousands of times I came home empty-handed, having lost all my ammunition and bait. When the days get as gloomy as that, then you know you will soon find the treasure. And the flash of light, the sudden soaring hope, makes you forget all the difficult hours.
Soichiro Honda
When people saw me working in the laboratory, some would say that the commander is wearing his field uniform. However, God knows I never went to the lab with a tragic or military attitude. I went for the simple reason that I enjoy working, and it isn’t because I’m president that I would deprive myself of that pleasure! Why should a man, just because he is the director of a company, spend his days seated behind a desk, twiddling his thumbs to pass the time? Of course, there are other ways to keep busy, I don’t want to be difficult, and I accept the fact that other directors are more interested in numbers and charts than in getting their hands dirty in the workshop. But there it is… it would be hard for an engineer like myself to enjoy accounting, especially when we have highly skilled experts to do it for us. I assume that being president is not a punishment. If it were, I’m sure one of my faithful friends would have warned me!
Soichiro Honda
I never went to the lab with a tragic or military attitude. I went for the simple reason that I enjoy working…
Soichiro Honda
It would be hard for an engineer like myself to enjoy accounting…
Soichiro Honda
We do not make something because the demand, the market, is there. With our technology we can create demand, we can create the market. Supply creates its own demand.
Soichiro Honda
[On seeing his first automobile at the age of eight – a Ford passing through his village spewing oil from its crankcase] I was enchanted by the smell of that oil. I leaned over a spot of oil on the ground and put my nose right up to it, and rubbed my hands in the residue. From that moment on, I only had one fixed idea, and that was to be involved with engines, to invent machines, and to get greasy with machine oil and lubricant.
Soichiro Honda
The students’ attitude surprised me. They didn’t really try to understand anything. Instead, they just took their notes and learned all the theories by heart without drawing any conclusions or verifying the theories with the aid of experiments.
Soichiro Honda
[On going to university but having no desire of getting a diploma or doing any exams] The only thing that interested me was acquiring knowledge that I lacked as quickly as possible.
Soichiro Honda
A degree, is worth less than a ticket to a movie…A degree is a piece of paper that confirms that, during his or her youth, the student was diligent, disciplined, and probably quite detached from real life.
Soichiro Honda
Had I been obliged to manage my company alone, I would have been ruined very quickly. But my friend [Takeo] Fujisawa was there, I owe it to him that the company developed in the way that it did.
Soichiro Honda
My wife was going out on her bicycle to buy black market rice. But she couldn’t find any in the area. She got mad and said to me, ‘For once, you try going out and buying the rice.’ No way did I want to do that, so I picked up a little motor, something the army must have thrown away, and I hooked it up to the bicycle for her. I make it sound simple, but putting that motor on the bike took some doing. To make a gas tank I needed a sheet of steel. But ordinary steel would rust and get into the gasoline, so I really wanted tin plating. But with the controls on the economy, tin-plated steel was hard to come by. So I went to this night market and bought a hot water bottle – the kind you use as a bed warmer – and made it into a gas tank.
Soichiro Honda
[On him stepping down from day-to-day management in 1973 when 66 years old and Honda was riding high] I lost my sex power. I don’t say I have lost all my sex power, but I must admit frequency of doing and recovery has not been the same as when I was young. Great leaders love sex, and I am not a great leader anymore. I can’t drink anymore. Two cups of sake is enough. For entertaining customers and employees, presidents should be able to drink more. I know what I can’t do. I have no willingness to learn new technology anymore. Without sex power, drinking habits, and work desire, I should quit the life of an entrepreneur.
Soichiro Honda
Every human being has the desire to improve.
Soichiro Honda
It is not in my nature to spend money sparingly when I am having a good time.
Soichiro Honda
I felt that a victory by technology, by brainpower, would surely bring great hope to the Japanese people, especially to younger Japanese.
Soichiro Honda
I am not impressed by diplomas. They don’t do the work. My marks were not as good as those of others, and I didn’t take the final examination. The principal called me in and said I should leave. I told him that I didn’t want a diploma – it had less value than a cinema ticket. A ticket at least guaranteed you would get in. A diploma guaranteed nothing.
Soichiro Honda
[On becoming the first Japanese auto maker to build cars in the United States] I found doing business here much easier than in Japan. Our company in Ohio has been so well accepted that I believe it is an American company in substance.
Soichiro Honda
If it’s something a person can do, then it’s something I can do. What is there that a person can do that I can’t do? That’s what I always said.
Soichiro Honda
There were about 200 companies. They were all making copies of European or American bikes. I thought about making copies once, too, but I’d sooner die than imitate other people, so we did things in our own ways. That’s why we had to work so hard! Because we didn’t imitate.
Soichiro Honda
[On whether any of the copycat companies exist today] None… there aren’t any left now.
Soichiro Honda
People thought you were supposed to do what the officials told you to do. I said, let the foreign bikes in. If you didn’t let the bikes in, you wouldn’t know what you were up against…
Soichiro Honda
[On others wanting to block foreign bike imports and him wanting to let them in] To try to get ahead, feeling our way left and right without any samples: I was saying that’s a stupid way to do things.
Soichiro Honda
I consider making motorcycles to be my mission in life, and this, if nothing else, I want to do by creating an absolute beauty of form that is not inferior to what comes out of any other country. I always feel the desire to make this happen, no matter what.
Soichiro Honda
Each individual should work for himself – that’s important.
Soichiro Honda
People will not sacrifice themselves for the company. They come to work at the company to enjoy themselves. That feeling will lead to innovation.
Soichiro Honda
Think young and quest for the ‘three joys’: creating, buying and selling.
Soichiro Honda
When I drive, I almost feel like a god. It is always difficult for me to comprehend that half the world is not yet even in the bicycle stage and most of the other half is just entering the motorcycle stage.
Soichiro Honda
I’m fascinated by speed. But I don’t go to Europe anymore to watch my cars race. It tears my guts out to watch other drivers race. I get much too nervous, and anyway I would probably make a big nuisance of myself.
Soichiro Honda
A few years ago I was told that I would have to wear striped pants in order to receive an award from the emperor. I told them I didn’t own a suit. Finally I had to go out and borrow somebody else’s.
Soichiro Honda
I don’t require my engineers to have diplomas. When I was going to school before the war, the principal told me I had failed because even thought I was Number 1 in the class, I hadn’t taken the final. I told him, ‘I don’t give a damn for the diploma. What I want is the knowledge.’
Soichiro Honda
My biggest thrill is when I plan something and it fails. My mind is then filled with ideas on how I can improve it. There is nothing for me in my life but my work. I think so much about it I sometimes have to take a sleeping pill if I have something important to do the next day so I can be well rested.
Soichiro Honda
[On putting himself into a self-designed device to stretch his back torture-rack style while he watches English language lessons on an overhead TV set - To] Keep me from getting short and stooped.
Soichiro Honda
It leaked oil, and I got down on my hands and knees to smell it. It was like perfume.
Soichiro Honda
I wanted to be Number 1 in the world, not just Japan.
Soichiro Honda
[In 1967 on diversifying into lawn mowers, generators and other industrial engines but avoiding the wide-ranging diversification of many Japanese firms] If it doesn’t have a motor, I don’t want to build it.
Soichiro Honda
[On thinking of a concept and saying to himself] I’d like a motorcycle like that. And if I’d like one, I bet the other bike nuts would too.
Soichiro Honda
Yourself first, the company second.
Soichiro Honda
1 2 3
Return from Soichiro Honda Quotes to
Quoteswise.com