“Kaizen means ongoing improvement involving everybody, without spending much money.”
“I think metaphysics is good if it improves everyday life; otherwise forget it.”
Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 20
Gemba Kaizen: A Commonsense, Low-Cost Approach to Management (ed. McGraw Hill Professional, 1997), ISBN 9780071368162
“Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves.”
Source: As a Man Thinketh
“Improvement makes straight roads; but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius.”
Source: 1790s, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790–1793), Proverbs of Hell, Line 66
Speech to the World Federation of Taiwanese Associations, March 17, 2002
Pet Phrases, 2002
“Nothing really improves us. Whatever improves one person will disimprove another.”
Salon interview (1996)
Context: Nothing really improves us. Whatever improves one person will disimprove another. Some people are paralyzed by the consciousness of death, other people live with it. … The fatwa certainly made me think about it a lot more than I ever had. I guess I know I'm going to die, but then, so are you. And one of the things that I thought a lot about at the time of the fatwa and ever since is that quite a few of the people I really care about died during this period, all about the same age as I am, and they were not under a death sentence. They just died, of lung cancer, AIDS, whatever. It occurred to me that you don't need a fatwa, it can happen anytime.
Gemba Kaizen: A Commonsense Approach to a Continuous Improvement Strategy, Second Edition (ed. McGraw Hill Professional, 2012), ISBN 9780071790352
“After I improved our foreign affairs, I shall improve the economy in Taiwan.”
CKS Airport, June, 5, 2001
Pet Phrases, 2001
