Henry Ford was the American founder of the Ford Motor Company and father of modern assembly lines used in mass production. He was a prolific inventor and was awarded 161 U.S. patents. As owner of the Ford Company he became one of the richest and best-known people in the world. He is credited with “Fordism”, that is, the mass production of large numbers of inexpensive automobiles using the assembly line, coupled with high wages for his workers. Ford had a global vision, with consumerism as the key to peace. Ford did not believe in accountants; he amassed one of the world’s largest fortunes without ever having his company audited under his administration. Ford left most of his vast wealth to the Ford Foundation but arranged for his family to control the company permanently.

Here are some of his most memorable quotes, as you strive to achieve your own success.

“If there is any one secret to success it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that angle as well as your own.”

“Whether you believe you can or believe you can’t, you are absolutely right.”

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

“There are three things that grow more precious with age; old wood to burn, old books to read, and old friends to enjoy.”

“There is no man living that cannot do more than he thinks he can.”

“When your worlds come crashing down, You remember the airplane takes off against the wind- not with it,”

“Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success”

“A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.”

“To do more for the world than the world does for you – that is success.”

“I am looking for a lot of men who have and infinite capacity to not know what can’t be done.”

“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.”

“That the Devil finds work for idle hands to do is probably true. But there is a profound difference between leisure and idleness.”

“One who fears failure limits his activities. Failure is only the opportunity to more
intelligently begin again. ”

“One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn’t do.”

“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is a success.”

“New York is a different country. Maybe it ought to have a separate government. Everybody thinks differently, they just don’t know what the hell the rest of the United States is.”

“I invented nothing new. I simply assembled the discoveries of other men behind whom were centuries of work. Had I worked fifty or ten or even five years before, I would have failed. So it is with every new thing. Progress happens when all the factors that make for it are ready, and then it is inevitable. To teach that a comparatively few men are responsible for the greatest forward steps of mankind is the worst sort of nonsense.”

“Those who walk with God, always reach their destination.”

“You don’t have to hold a position in order to be a leader.”

“Whether you think you can do something or not, you’re right”

“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.”

“If you think you can do it, or if you think you cannot do it, you will always be right”

“You can have the Model T Ford in any color — So long as its black.”

“There isn’t a person anywhere who isn’t capable of doing more than he thinks he can.”

“I’m looking for a lot of men with an infinite capacity for not knowing what can’t be done.”

“As we serve our jobs we serve the world.”

“Some people think they can; some think they can’t. They are probably both right.”

“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t your absolutely right.”

“To see a thing clearly in the mind makes it begin to take form.”

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t–you’re right.”

“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.”

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

“My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.”

“You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.”

“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goals.”

“Don’t find fault, find a remedy; anybody can complain”

“I believe God is managing affairs and that He doesn’t need any advice from me. With God in charge, I believe everything will work out for the best in the end. So what is there to worry about.”

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

“The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.”

“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason so few engage in it.”

“The man who thinks he can and the man who thinks he can’t are both right. Which one are you?”

“It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste”

“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it ….”

“Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs”

“Chop your own wood and it will warm you twice”

“You say I started out with practically nothing, but that isn’t correct. We all start with all there is, it’s how we use it that makes things possible.”

“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.”

“Coming together is the beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”

“Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.”

“Vision without execution is just hallucination.”

“One of the greatest discoveries a person makes, one of their great surprises, is to find they can do what they were afraid they couldn’t do.”

“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.”

“Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.”

“The whole secret of a successful life is to find out what is one’s destiny to do, and then do it.”

“You can’t learn in school what the world is going to do next year.”

“When Henry Ford decided to produce his famous V-8 motor, he chose to build an engine with the entire eight cylinders cast in one block, and instructed his engineers to produce a design for the engine. The design was placed on paper, but the engineers agreed, to a man, that it was simply impossible to cast an eight-cylinder engine-block in one piece. Ford replied, ‘Produce it anyway.”

“If money is your 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.”

“If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get to other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.”

“Life is a series of experiences, each of which makes us bigger, even though it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and grief’s which we endure help us in our marching onward.”

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

“Money doesn’t make us anyway it just unmasks us.”

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

“There is joy in work. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something.”

“Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement”.”

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

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

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t–either way, you are right.”

“Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.”

“Success is 99% failure”

“None of our men are ‘experts.’ We have most unfortunately found it necessary to get rid of a man as soon as he thinks himself an expert because no one ever considers himself expert if he really knows his job. A man who knows a job sees so much more to be done than he has done, that he is always pressing forward and never gives up an instant of thought to how good and how efficient he is. Thinking always ahead, thinking always of trying to do more, brings a state of mind in which nothing is impossible. The moment one gets into the ‘expert’ state of mind a great number of things become impossible.”

“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.”

“Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.”

“We try to pay a man what he is worth and we are not inclined to keep a man who is not worth more than the minimum wage.”

“An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous.”

“The way to learn to do things is to do things. The way to learn a trade is to work at it. Success teaches how to succeed. Begin with the determination to succeed, and the work is half done already.”

“I cannot discover that anyone knows enough to say definitely what is and what is not possible.”

“If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.”

“Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement.”

“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.”