Famed as the man who founded the Ford Motor Company, it was Henry Ford who made the automobile accessible to millions. He did this by developing the process known as mass production. His years of experience, keen observation, and intelligent approach to problems has made him a rich source of inspirational quotes. Before reading Henry Ford’s quotes, let’s learn a little about his life, work and principles.
If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own. – Henry Ford
In 1863, Henry Ford was born on a Dearborn, Michigan, farm. At age 16, he went to Detroit and became an apprentice machinist. Then, after a spell back on the family farm, he married and worked running a sawmill. Returning to Detroit, he began working for Thomas Edison at the newly founded Edison Illuminating Company, where he rose to be chief engineer.
Ford believed that the horseless carriage was the vehicle of the future. It led him to found his company to produce a popular passenger-carrying car. In 1903 the Model A car appeared to be followed by the Model T in 1908. Ford introduced the basic principles of mass production at his factory – the use of standardized parts and assembly lines. Later he adopted the principles of vertical integration, providing everything needed to produce a car on one vast site.
Ford’s business philosophy was simple. Invent it. Make it. Sell it. He believed the customer knew what he wanted. It was the industrialist’s job to give the customer the choices. According to Ford, the best quality at the lowest cost was the key. Success would follow, and workers would then be able to earn the highest possible wages. Happy workers and satisfied customers always lead to a successful business.
Coming together is the beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success. – Henry Ford
Henry Ford held firm to the belief that nothing was impossible. He was not interested in being told about problems; he just needed the solutions to those problems. Ford took risks because he believed that he had the vision and work ethic to achieve the goal. He surrounded himself with employees who felt the same way. He enjoyed high self-confidence and urged others to believe in their abilities and not waste them in idleness.
Being prepared was a core part of Ford’s approach. He often stated that before undertaking any enterprise, it was necessary to be well-prepared. Success in an enterprise would not follow if the preparations were not total.
Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal. – Henry Ford
Ford’s experiences teach us that we need to grow our self-confidence and believe in ourselves. Whatever we undertake, prepare well before starting. Learn from our mistakes, so we do not repeat them. Learning through life keeps us young.
His long life – he died in 1947 at the age of 83 – and the wealth of experience that he garnered in that time has made him a source of many motivational and inspirational quotes. Some of the best and most well-known are listed here.
There is much wisdom to be found in these Henry Ford quotes, and it is still just as relevant in the twenty-first century as it was in the nineteenth and twentieth.
60 Famous Motivational Henry Ford Quotes:
- Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t–you’re right. – Henry Ford
- Failure is only the opportunity more intelligently to begin again. – Henry Ford
- I cannot discover that anyone knows enough to say what is and what is definitely not possible. – Henry Ford
- A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large. – Henry Ford
- Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success. – Henry Ford
- Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. – Henry Ford
- The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing. – Henry Ford
- 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. – Henry Ford
- Competition is the keen cutting edge of business, always shaving away at costs. – Henry Ford
Don’t find fault, find a remedy; anybody can complain. – Henry Ford
- There is joy in work. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something. – Henry Ford
- You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do. – Henry Ford
- If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own. – Henry Ford
- Employers only handle the money – it is the customer who pays the wages. – Henry Ford
- Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason so few engage in it. – Henry Ford
- Enthusiasm is the yeast that makes your hopes shine to the stars. – Henry Ford
- Quality means doing it right when no one is looking. – Henry Ford
- Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black. – Henry Ford
- 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. – Henry Ford
- Chop your own wood and it will warm you twice. – Henry Ford
- An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous. – Henry Ford
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. – Henry Ford
- Coming together is the beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success. – Henry Ford
- When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it. – Henry Ford
- To do more for the world than the world does for you – that is success. – Henry Ford
- Vision without execution is just hallucination. – Henry Ford
- There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: make the best quality goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible. – Henry Ford
- Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success. – Henry Ford
- Don’t find fault, find a remedy. – Henry Ford
- The highest use of capital is not to make more money, but to make money do more for the betterment of life. – Henry Ford
- There is no man living who isn’t capable of doing more than he thinks he can do. – Henry Ford
- The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability. – Henry Ford
- A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business. – Henry Ford
- You can’t learn in school what the world is going to do next year. – Henry Ford
- I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can’t be done. – Henry Ford
The whole secret of a successful life is to find out what is one’s destiny to do, and then do it. – Henry Ford
- There is no man living who isn’t capable of doing more than he thinks he can do. – Henry Ford
- You can’t learn in school what the world is going to do next year. – Henry Ford
- If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own. – Henry Ford
- A market is never saturated with a good product, but it is very quickly saturated with a bad one. – Henry Ford
- Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right. – Henry Ford
- The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed. – Henry Ford
- You don’t have to hold a position in order to be a leader. – Henry Ford
- Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently. – Henry Ford
- As we advance in life we learn the limits of our abilities. – Henry Ford
- If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right. – Henry Ford
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. – Henry Ford
- 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. – Henry Ford
- It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste. – Henry Ford
- If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said ‘faster horses. – Henry Ford
- I do not believe a man can ever leave his business. He ought to think of it by day and dream of it by night. – Henry Ford
- Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them. – Henry Ford
- If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got. – Henry Ford
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. – Henry Ford
- You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do. – Henry Ford
- 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. – Henry Ford
- If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself. – Henry Ford
- It is well that the people of the nation do not understand our banking system, for if they did. I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning. – Henry Ford
Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success. – Henry Ford
- Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right. – Henry Ford
