Henry Ford Quotations Because of his immense popularity during his lifetime and since, numerous sayings have been ascribed to Henry Ford. However, many of these quotes are difficult to properly verify or attribute. Work on collecting and authenticating Henry Ford quotations was begun at Ford Motor Company, possibly as early as the mid-1920s. Staff, interns, and volunteers of the Benson Ford Research Center at The Henry Ford have continued this work, resulting in the following listing. THF25146 Henry Ford making radio address in support of Herbert Hoovers Presidential Campaign, October 1932 The list includes quotations that have been traced to a primary source or a reliable secondary source. Examples of reliable secondary sources would be a published interview with or other direct quotations of Henry Ford in newspapers contemporary to him, including but in no way limited to house organs such as the Ford Times and Ford News, or a book whose ghostwriting or collaboration was authorized by Henry Ford. If you are searching for a quote and do not see it here, it means that staff was not able to trace it to a reliable source. Quotations in the main listing that you see here are generally in an excerpted or pithy form. Also included as an Excel file are the longer originals. Exerpt Date Source Subject That man is best educated who knows the greatest number of things that are so, and who can do the greatest number of things to help and heal the world. 1/1/1924 Ford News, p.2 Education; Teaching Education is preeminently a matter of quality, not amount 1/1/1924 Ford News, p.2 Education; Teaching Any man can learn anything he will, but no man can teach except to those who want to learn. 1/1/1924 Ford News, p.2 Education; Teaching The short successes that can be gained in a brief time and without difficulty, are not worth much. 1/1/1922 Ford News, p.2 Technology; Advancement; Success Nothing can be made except by makers, nothing can be managed except by managers. Money cannot make anything and money cannot manage anything. 1/15/1922 Ford News, p.2 Business/ Monopoly/Trusts We are entering an era when we shall create resources which shall be so constantly renewed that the only loss will be not to use them. There will be such a plenteous supply of heat, light and power, that it will be a sin not to use all we want. This era is coming now. And it is coming by way of Water 2/1/1922 Ford News, p.2 Natural Resources/ Water/ Technology Two classes of people lose money; those who are too weak to guard what they have; those who win money by trick. They both lose in the end. 4/1/1922 Ford News, p. 2. Investment; Money; Knowledge of finances When people are stung in false investment schemes there are three causes; greed of something for nothing; sheer inability to know their mind; or infantile trustfulness. 4/1/1922 Ford News, p. 2. Investment; Money; Knowledge of finances What right have you, save service to the world, to think that other mens labor should contribute to your gains? 4/1/1922 Ford News, p. 2. Investment; Money; Knowledge of finances The remains of the old must be decently laid away; the path of the new prepared. That is the difference between Revolution and Progress. 5/15/1922 Ford News, p. 2. Progress Most people think that faith means believing something; oftener it means trying something, giving it a chance to prove itself 6/1/1922 Ford News, p. 2. Tradition/Faith/ Ethics; Practicing old ideas It is regrettable that people think about our monetary system, and of our economic structure, only in times of depression. 6/15/1922 Ford News, p. 2. Economics; money; politics The only prosperity the people can afford to be satisfied with is the kind that lasts 6/15/1922 Ford News, p. 2. Economics; money; politics The gifted man bears his gifts into the world, not for his own benefit, but for the people among whom he is placed; for the gifts are not his, he himself is a gift to the community. 7/1/1922 Ford News, p. 2. Gifted People; Obligation of Talents; Service to Others People are never so likely to be wrong as when they are organized. And they never have so little freedom. Perhaps that is why the people at large keep their freedom. People can be manipulated only when they are organized. 9/15/1922 Ford News, p. 2. Organizations; Unions The most closely organized groups and movements in the world are those which have been the least friendly to the peoples progress and liberty. 9/15/1922 Ford News, p. 2. Organizations; Unions With all the wealth of the world at hand, there are human beings who hunger, whole nations who suffer cold. The judgment for this condition, for misusing Natures gifts, is the judgment upon mans failure, mans unsteadiness. Leadership is the thing. 10/1/1922 Ford News, p. 2. Leadership Profits made out of the distress of the people are always much smaller than profits made out of the most lavish service of the people at the lowest prices that competent management can make possible 10/15/1922 Ford News, p. 2. Business; Profit Our modern industrialism, changed to motives of public service, will provide means to remove every injustice that gives soil for prejudice 11/1/1922 Ford News, p. 2. Race; Injustice Many people are busy trying to find better ways of doing things that should not have to be done at all. There is no progress in merely finding a better way to do a useless thing. 11/15/1922 Ford News, p. 2. Problem-Solving Politics in the true sense, have to do with the prosperity, peace and security of the people. 12/15/1922 Ford News, p. 2. Politics If a young man wants to fit himself for the Politics of tomorrow, let him fit himself into essential industry for the purpose of learning how best to conduct it for the whole public good. 12/15/1922 Ford News, p. 2. Politics Be ready to revise any system, scrap any method, abandon any theory, if the success of the job requires it. 1/15/1923 Ford News, p. 2. Pride We are here for experience, and experience is a preparation to know the Truth when we meet it. 2/1/1923 Ford News, p. 2. Truth & Character; Experience Competition whose motive is merely to compete, to drive some other fellow out, never carries very far. 2/15/1923 Ford News, p. 2. Business; Competition The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all but goes on making his own business better all the time. 2/15/1923 Ford News, p. 2. Business; Competition Businesses that grow by development and improvement do not die. 2/15/1923 Ford News, p. 2. Business; Competition There is no failure except failure to serve ones purpose. 3/15/1923 Ford News, p. 2. Government; Progressive Government Thinking calls for facts; facts are found by digging; but he who has gathered this wealth is well equipped for life. 4/1/1923 Ford News, p. 2. Education; Ideas; Experience is the harvest of life, and every harvest is the result of a sowing. The experience which young people must crave is that of success in some service for which they are naturally fitted. 4/15/1923 Ford News, p. 2. Education; Experience; Learning There is safety in small beginnings and there is unlimited capital in the experience gained by growing. 5/1/1923 Ford News, p. 2. Business; Progress Progress is a new season and the rule of progress is everything in its season. 5/15/1923 Ford News, p. 2. Progress; Change We live in an era of tremendous facts. And the facts are facts. They are also unpleasant facts, which does not decrease their factual percentage one bit. Our job is to understand them, to recognize their presence, to learn if we can what they signify and not to fall into the error of minimizing facts because they have a bitter flavor. 6/15/1923 Ford News, p. 2. Truth Of all the follies the elder generation falls victim to this is the most foolish, namely, the constant criticism of the younger element who will not be and cannot be like ourselves because we and they are different tribes produced of different elements in the great spirit of Time. 7/15/1923 Ford News, p. 2. Youth; Time; Change; Children ..The philosophy of life indicates that our principal business on this planet is the gaining of experience. 8/1/1923 Ford News, p. 2. Living/Life; Philosophy; Truth If the people really set their minds on anything it is impossible to prevent their getting what they want. 8/15/1923 Ford News, p.2. Politics; Change ..Yet if today has no meaning, the past was a Blank and the future is a Chaos. 10/15/1923 Ford News, p. 2. History; Past; Today; Present Work mixed with management becomes not only easier but more profitable. The time is past when anyone can boast about hard work without having a corresponding result to show for it. 12/1/1923 Ford News, p. 2. Work; Labor Christmas stands for the human factor which makes life tolerable midst the hurry of commerce and production. All of us need the annealing effect of Christs example to relieve the hardening we get in the daily struggle for material success. 12/15/1923 Ford News, p. 1. Christmas Greeting Life; Religion; Christmas The world is held together by the mass of honest folk who do their daily tasks, tend their own spot in the world, and have faith that at last the Right will come fully into its own. 1/15/1924 Ford News, p. 2. Honesty; Morality I do not believe that material accumulation is the whole of success, and on the other hand I do not believe that true success ever excludes a sufficient possession of wealth-but wealth as a means, not as an end. 1/15/1924 The article What is Success? is from Coleman Cox Success; Wealth; Self- sufficiency; Work One needs to be successful in the conventional way to learn just how far away from success it may be. 1/15/1924 The article What is Success? is from Coleman Cox Success; Wealth; Self- sufficiency; Work I will build a motor car for the great multitude...constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise...so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one-and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in Gods great open spaces. 6/6/1913 Burlingame, Henry Ford, p. 62. The precise year in which Ford issued the multitude statement is not known. Earliest source 6/6/13 Ford Times. Probably said 1903-1906, when expressed same views to associates. Multitude; Automobile; Youth should not be slandered. Boy nature and girl nature are less repressed and therefore more wholesome today than before. If they at times seem unimpressed by their elders, it is probably because we make a matter of authority what should be a matter of conference. These young people are new people sent to this scene by Destiny to take our places. They come with new visions to fulfill, new powers to exploit. 2/1/1924 Ford News, p. 2. Youth; Future; Change; Learning; Children An imitation may be quite successful in its own way, but imitation can never be Success. Success is a first-hand creation. 3/15/1924 Ford News, p. 2. Originality; Success; Innovation The most dangerous notion a young man can acquire is that there is no more room for originality. There is no large room for anything else. 3/15/1924 Ford News, p. 2. Originality; Success; Innovation Little difficulties are made to swell until they fill our horizon while the real big blessings of life are dwindled down to nothing. 5/1/1924 Ford News, p. 2. Troubles; Difficulties Nations are great as they are prosperous as they are industrious as they are just. 6/15/1924 Ford News, p. 2. Americanization; America, Nationalism There is nothing ever wrong with ability, ambition, achievement; but they can easily be wronged by being used to bad ends. 8/1/1924 Ford News, p. 2. Human Nature; Success; Achievement To be good is not enough; a man must be good for something 8/1/1924 Ford News, p. 2. Human Nature; Success; Achievement The sense of injustice, more than the unjust condition itself, is what wears on mens minds. 8/15/1924 Ford News, p. 2. Justice; Money The partnership of mind and matter is one which has existed since the beginning of time and cannot be dissolved. 9/1/1924 Ford News, p. 2. Intelligence; Brain and Brawn The only true test of values, either of men or of things, is that of their ability to make the world a better place in which to live. 10/1/1924 Ford News, p. 2. Values; Morals; Success The satisfaction that arises from honest accomplishment is of far more value in the promotion of human happiness than the thrill that comes with the realization of materialistic aspirations. 10/1/1924 Ford News, p. 2. Values; Morals; Success As members of the Ford Motor organization we are engaged in the production of an article of use for the people of all countries. Our principle is to make our work as profitable for the buyer as for the seller. 12/15/1924 Ford News, p. 1. Christmas & New Years Day message Inflation; Christmas; New Years Much depends on people knowing what opportunity means; it doesnt mean a silver platter, it oftener means a spade. Self-help means something sterner than help yourself--reach over and take it. 1/15/1925 Ford News, p. 2. Opportunity; Success; Self- Sufficiency The genius of the American people is Self-Reliance. 2/1/1925 Ford News, p. 2. Self-Sufficiency; Opportunity; Success The difference between a good govt. system and its poor administration is easily explained; the chief administrators are not Bosses in the best sense. 3/1/1925 Ford News, p. 2. Government; Politics A happy & contented nation is an example to the whole world. Where there is contentment there must be peace. 4/1/1925 Ford News, p. 2. Ambition; Happiness; Success We are always seeking for those things which are in the clouds, not for those that lie at our feet. 4/15/1925 Ford News, p. 2. Natural Resources; America Whatever it is, people who have more spare time than people ever had before get the sense of whirlwind pressure,& repeat the common criticism that we are going too fast. Yet the people live longer than ever before, live with less effort, live on a higher plane. Is it possible that this common saying about our rapid pace is just another thoughtless mob suggestion? 5/1/1925 Ford News, p. 2. Society; Leisure To resent efficiency is a mark of inefficiency. 6/1/1925 Ford News, p. 2. Efficiency People who are capable of and fit for freedom liberate themselves from physical thralldom by substituting mind for muscle. 8/1/1925 Ford News, p. 2. Machines; Slavery; Industrialism Man minus the Machine is a slave; Man plus the Machine is a freeman. 8/1/1925 Ford News, p. 2. Machines; Slavery; Industrialism Every success is the mother of countless others. 8/15/1925 Ford News, p. 2. Business; Opportunity; Independence; Self-Sufficiency Whatever your goal in life, the beginning is knowledge and experience- or, briefly work. 9/1/1925 Ford News, p. 2. Business; Employment; Knowledge Getting permanent value out of a job means purpose and fitting means to ends. 9/15/1925 Ford News, p. 2. Business; Education Man is a comparative being. Substandard things must go before super-standard things can come. 10/1/1925 Ford News, p. 2. Standardization; Progress; All life is experience, and one level is exchanged for another only when its lesson is learned. 11/15/1925 Ford News, p. 2. Experience; Learning; Knowledge War is not a matter for the professional pacifist or militarist. It is for the unprofessional people. They finance and fight it, they bear its losses. Therefore, they should have the deciding voice concerning it. To do this, they require all the information upon which decisions are made. They should know in a difference, whether it is soluble by rational intelligence, or inevitable by force. Not once in a thousand instances would our people (this may not be true of all peoples, however) approve an offensive war. Never would they be lax in defensive action. For this is their country. However, most of their enemies are within it. 12/1/1925 Ford News, p. 2. War Hard knocks have a place and value, but hard thinking goes farther in less time. 1/15/1926 Ford News, p. 2. Knowledge; Wisdom; As betting at the race ring adds neither strength nor speed to the horse, so the exchange of shares in the stock market adds no capital to business, no increase in the production and no purchasing power to the market. 2/1/1926 Ford News, p. 2. Finance A peaceful nation is one that has the means to make war and restrains. 2/15/1926 Ford News, p.2 War & Peace; America; History; Foreign Affairs But to do for the world more than the world does for you--that is Success. 3/1/1926 Ford News, p. 2. Success; Opportunity The industrial value of leisure as a promoter of the consumption of goods,& thus as a stimulant to business have been proved. 4/1/1926 Ford News, p. 2. Economics; Leisure; consumerism Suppression of progress plays into the hands of the social enemy. Every advance in social justice establishes the nation. 4/15/1926 Ford News, p. 2. Progress; Social Justice; Politics The country is ready for the five- day week, says Mr. Ford. It is bound to come through all industry. Without it the country will not be able to absorb its production & stay prosperous. The industry of this country could not long exist if factories generally went back to the ten-hour day, because people would not have the leisure, the desire, or the means to consume the goods produced...Just as the eight-hour day opened our way to prosperity in America, so the five- day week will open our way to still greater prosperity. Of course there is a humanitarian side to the shorter day & the shorter week, but dwelling on that side is likely to lead one astray, for leisure may be put before work instead of after it- where it belongs. Twenty years ago, introducing the eight-hour day generally would have made for poverty & not for wealth. Five years ago, introducing the five day week would have had the same result. The hours of labor are regulated by the organization of work and by nothing else. It is the rise of the great corporation with its ability to use power, to use accurately designed machinery, & generally to lessen the wastes in time, material & human energy that made it possible to bring in the eight hour day. Further progress along the same lines has made it possible to bring in the five day week...It is high time to rid ourselves of the notion that leisure for workmen is either lost time or a class privilege. This is not to say that leisure may not be dangerous. Everything good may also be dangerous-if mishandled. When we put our $5 minimum wage for an eight-hour day into effect in 1913, we had to watch many of our men to see what use they made of their spare time & money. We found a few men taking on extra jobs-- some worked the dayshift with us & the night shift in another factory. Some of the men squandered their extra pay. Others banked the surplus money & went on living just as they had lived before. But in a few years all adjusted themselves & our supervision was less needed. There is, of course, a profound difference between leisure & idleness. Nor must we confound leisure with shiftlessness. Our people are perfectly capable of using to good advantage the time that they have off, after work. That has already been demonstrated to us by our experiments during the last several years. We find that the men come back after a two-day holiday so fresh & keen that they are able to put their minds as well as their hands to work. We are not of those who claim to be able to tell people how to use their spare time. We think that, given the chance, people will become more expert in the effective use of their leisure time. & they are being given the chance. The influence of leisure on consumption makes the short day & the short week necessary. The people who consume the bulk of goods are the people who make them...With the decrease of the length of the working day in the United States an increase of production has come because better methods of disposing of mens time have been accompanied by better methods of disposing of their energy. Thus one good has brought another...Of positive industrial value is leisure because it increases consumption. Where people work longest & with least leisure they buy the fewest goods. Businesses the exchange of goods. Goods are bought only as they meet needs. Needs are filled only as they are felt. They make themselves felt largely in leisure hours. The man who worked fifteen & sixteen hours a day desired only a corner to lie in &, now & then, a bit of food. He had no time to cultivate new needs, hence he had only the most primitive. When, in American industry, women were released from the necessity of factory work & became buyers for their families, business began to expand. The American housewife, as household purchasing agent, has both leisure & money, & the former has been just as important as the latter in the development of American business. The five day week simply carries this further. The people who work only five days a week will consume more goods than the people who work six days a week. People who have more leisure must have more clothes. The eat a greater variety of food. They require more transportation facilities. This increased consumption will require greater production an we now have. Instead of business being allowed up because people are off work, it will be speeded up because people consume more in their leisure than in their working time. This will lead to more work. & this to more work. & this to more wages. Thus the result of more leisure is the exact opposite of what most people might suppose. Management must keep pace with this new demand--& it will. It is the introduction of power and machinery by manufacturers that has med the shorter day & the shorter week possible. That is a fact which working men must not forget. The eight-hour day was not the ultimate, & neither is the five day week. It is enough, however, to manage what we are equipped to manage and to let the future take care of itself. It will anyway. That is its habit. But probably the next move will come in the direction of shortening the day rather than the week. 10/15/1926 Ford News, p.2. Mr. Ford Explains the Five-Day Week Labor; Industry; Prosperity; Wealth The Model T car was a pioneer. There was no conscious public need of motor cars when we first made it. There were few good roads. This car blazed the way for the motor industry & started the movement for good roads everywhere. It is still the pioneer car in many parts of the world which are just beginning to be motorized. But conditions in this country have so greatly changed that further refinement in motor car construction is now desirable & our new model is a recognition of this. Besides the Model T itself another revolutionary element which the Ford Motor Company introduced twenty years ago was the idea of service. Some of the early manufacturers proceeded on the theory that once they had induced a man to buy a car they had him at their mercy; they charged him the highest possible price for necessary replacements. Our company adopted the opposite theory. We believed that when a man bought one of our cars we should keep it running for him as long as we could & at the lowest upkeep cost. That was the origin of Ford Service. The Model T was one of the largest factors in creating the conditions which now make the new model Ford possible. The world-wide influence of the Ford car in the building of good roads & in teaching the people the use & value of mechanical power is conceded. Nowadays everybody runs some kind of motor power but twenty years ago only the adventurous few could be induced to try an automobile. It had a harder time winning public confidence than the airplane has now. The Model T was a great educator in this respect. It had stamina & power. It was the car that ran before there were good roads to run on. It broke down the barriers of distance in rural sections, brought people of these sections closer together & placed education within the reach of everyone. We are still proud of the Model T Ford car. If we were not we could not have continued to manufacture it for so long. With the new Ford we propose to continue in the light-car field which we created on the same basis of quantity production we have always worked, giving high quality, low price, & constant service. We began work on this new model several years ago. In fact, the idea of a new car has been in my mind much longer than that. But the sale of the Model T continued at such a pace that there never seemed to be an opportunity to get the new car started. Even now the business is so brisk that we are up against the proposition of keeping the factory going on one model while we tool up for another. I am glad of this because it will not necessitate a total shutdown. Only a comparatively few men will be out at a time while their departments are being tooled up for the new product. At one time it looked as if 70,000 men might be laid off temporarily but we have now scaled that down to less than 25,000 at a time. The lay-off will be brief because we need the men & we have no time to waste. At present I can only say this about the new model--it has speed, style, flexibility, & control in traffic. There is nothing quite like it in quality & price. The new car will cost more to manufacture but it will be more economical to operate. 6/1/1927 Ford News, p. 1. New Ford Car Announced Details Forthcoming Soon Model A The Model T blazed the way for the motor industry & started the movement for good roads everywhere. It is still the pioneer car in many parts of the world which are just beginning to be motorized. 10/1/1927 Ford News, p. 4. Model T For a long time now, I have believed that industry & agriculture are natural partners & that they should begin to recognize & practice their partnership. Each of them is suffering from ailments which the other can cure. Agriculture needs a wider &steadier market; industrial workers need more steadier jobs. Can each be made to supply what the other needs? I think so. The link between is Chemistry. In the vicinity of Dearborn we are farming twenty thousand acres for everything from sunflowers to soy beans. We pass the crops through our laboratory to learn how they may be used in the manufacture of motor cars &, thus provide an industrial market for the farmers products. March 1933 Ford News, p. 49: also Ford News, back cover, August 1934 Industry/ Agriculture; Dearborn; Farming Henry Ford in a statement said: No one loses anything by raising wages as soon as he is able. It has always paid us. Low wages are the most costly any employer can pay. It is like using low-grade material--the waste makes it very expensive in the end. There is no economy in cheap labor or cheap material. The hardest thing I ever had to do was to reduce wages. I think we were the last big company to come to it. Now I am mighty glad that wages are climbing again. April 1934 Ford N
Posted on: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 06:59:27 +0000
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