Industrialist Quotes

“A man ought to be able to live on a scale commensurate with the service that he renders.”

“I see no advantage in these new clocks. They run no faster than the ones made 100 years ago.”

“Records can be destroyed if they do not suit the prejudices of ruling cliques, lost if they become incomprehensible, distorted if a copyist wishes to impose a new meaning upon them, misunderstood if we lack the information to interpret them. The past is like a huge library, mostly fiction.”

“I think that much of the advice given to young men about saving money is wrong. I never saved a cent until I was forty years old. I invested in myself - in study, in mastering my tools, in preparation. Many a man who is putting a few dollars a week into the bank would do much better to put it into himself.”

“One of the most difficult things to do in life is thinking; that's why so few people engage in it.”

“A scatterbrain is one who never has an unspoken thought.”

“If I lose a billion dollars, I will have it back in less than five years.”

“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.”

“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.”

“Business is never so healthy as when, like a chicken, it must do a certain amount of scratching around for what it gets.”

“Failure is the chance to do it better next time.”

“Anyone who stops learning is old — whether this happens at twenty or at eighty. Anyone who keeps on learning not only remains young but becomes constantly more valuable — regardless of physical capacity.”

“Change is not always progress... A fever of newness has everywhere been confused with the spirit of progress.”

“People can have the Model T in any color – so long as it’s black.”

“Working together is success.”

“You can do anything if you have enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is the yeast that makes your hopes rise to the stars. Enthusiasm is the spark in your eye, the swing in your gait, the grip of your hand, the irresistible surge of your will and your energy to execute your ideas. Enthusiasts are fighters, they have fortitude, they have strong qualities. Enthusiasm is at the bottom of all progress. With it there is accomplishment. Without it there are only alibis.”

“A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.”

“To teach that a comparatively few men are responsible for the greatest forward steps of mankind is the worst sort of nonsense.”

“Political parties are like poets, born, not made.”

“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.”

“Greatest thing in life is experience. Even mistakes have value.”

“The depression was just a state of mind. It is over for everyone who has changed his state of mind.”

“If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.”

“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.”

“There is no failure except failure to serve one's purpose.”