There is no failure except failure to serve one's purpose.
The function of the machine is to liberate man from brute burdens, and release his energies to the building of his intellectual and spiritual powers for conquests in the fields of thought and higher action.
Every depression is a challenge to every manufacturer to put more brains into his business.
Where people work longest and with least leisure, they buy the fewest goods. No towns were so poor as those of England where the people, from children up, worked fifteen and sixteen hours a day. They were poor because these overworked people soon wore out -- they became less and less valuable as workers. Therefore, they earned less and less and could buy less and less.
The most important history is the history we make today.
The farther we get away from the land, the greater our insecurity.
Stopping advertising to save money is like stopping your watch to save time.
The way out of the depression is to start spending and doing things.
Don't find the fault, find the remedy
You can take my factories, burn up my buildings, but give me my people and I'll build the business right back again.
Progress is not made by pulling off a series of stunts. Each step has to be regulated. A man cannot expect to progress without thinking.
The only thing you can give a man without hurting him is an opportunity.
The more you think, the more time you have.
Enthusiasm is the yeast that makes your hopes shine to the stars. Enthusiasm is the sparkle in your eyes, the swing in your gait. The grip of your hand, the irresistible surge of will and energy to execute your ideas.
A man's college and university degrees mean nothing to me until I see what he is able to do with them.
There is joy in work.
An imitation may be quite successful in its own way, but imitation can never be Success. Success is a first-hand creation.
If there is one thing which I would banish from the earth it is fear.
There is no disgrace in honest failure; there is disgrace in fearing to fail
In my mind nothing is more abhorrent than a life of ease. None of us has any right to ease. There is no place in civilization for the idler.
I don’t know much about history, and I wouldn’t give a nickel for all the history in the world. It means nothing to me. 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.
It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.
History doesn't mean dates and wars and textbooks to me; it means the unconquerable pioneer spirit of man.
The true measure of a successful leader is their ability to discover the hidden talent in those they lead and challenge them to achieve greatness. If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you are right.
Nobody can think straight who does not work. Idleness warps the mind.
The workingmen have been exploited all the way up and down the line by employers, landlords, everybody.
We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's dam is the history we make today.
It is regrettable that people think about our monetary system, and of our economic structure, only in times of depression.
Every man starts with all there is. Everything is here-the essence and substance of all there is.
A man given to pride is usually proud of the wrong thing.
Under pressure, the mouth speaks when the brain is disengaged, and, sometimes unwittingly, the gearshift is in reverse when it should be in neutral.
Many persons think that by hoarding money they are gaining safety for themselves. If money is your only hope for independence, you will never have it. The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability. Without these qualities, money is practically useless. The security even of money depends on knowledge, experience, and ability. If productive ideas are displaced by destructive ideas, economic life suffers.
I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can't be done.
The thing to do with money is to put it back into yourself, into your work, into the thing that is important, into whatever you are so much interested in that it is more important than money.
Our country is still young and its potential is still enormous. We should remember, as we look toward the future, that the more fully we believe in and achieve freedom and equal opportunity - not simply for ourselves but for others - the greater our accomplishments as a nation will be.
Anyone who keeps learning stays young.
Who stops learning may be old.
..Yet if today has no meaning, the past was a Blank and the future is a Chaos.
Our clothing, our food, our household furnishings - all could be much simpler than they now are and at the same time be better looking
The human mind is a channel through which things-to-be are coming into the realm of things-that-are .
Business must be run at a profit, else it will die. But when anyone tries to run a business solely for profit, then also the business must die, for it no longer has a reason for existence.
If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.
The most difficult job is the one that you never get started on.
A nation that knows how to work will never suffer.
Two percent of the people think; three percent think they think, and 95 percent would rather die than think.
Merely gathering knowledge may become the most useless work a man can do. What can you do to help and heal the world? That is the educational test.
If I lose a billion dollars, I will have it back in less than five years.
An educated man is not one whose memory is trained to carry a few dates in history - he is one who can accomplish things.
When I can't handle events, I let them handle themselves.
We have always found that, if the principles were right, the area over which they were affected did not matter. Size is only a matter of the multiplication table.
There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.
There is safety in small beginnings and there is unlimited capital in the experience gained by growing.
Be ready to revise any system, scrap any method, abandon any theory, if the success of the job requires it.
A man ought to be able to live on a scale commensurate with the service that he renders.
No one will ever get anywhere in this world unless he becomes a teacher, one who can show others how to do things.
Luck and destiny are the excuses of the world's failures.
Individualism is what makes cooperation worth living.
A manufacturer is not through with his customer when a sale is completed. He has then only started with his customer.
One needs to be successful in the conventional way to learn just how far away from success it may be.
Money is worth what it will help you to produce or buy and no more.
