Quotes from book
My Life and Work
The lessons of Henry Ford, one of America's greatest business innovators, are as fresh and vital today as they were in 1922, when this extraordinary book was first published. Though the title suggests the autobiographical, this is in fact a bible of business philosophy from the man many considered "insane" for the very innovations we hail as visionary today: the assembly line, reduced working hours, a minimum wage, the five-day work week. Ford explains: . how his experiences as an employee influenced his philosophies as an employer . why saving money isn't always a good thing . the absolute worst time to approach a bank for a loan . why lowering prices below production costs can be a smart move . and much more. It's easy to see that much of Ford's wisdom has been forgotten today-and that individual entrepreneurs and global corporations alike would do well to take another look. American entrepreneur, inventor, and philanthropist HENRY FORD (1863-1947) was born in Michigan and trained as a machinist and engineer before founding, in 1903, the Ford Motor Company.
“Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.”
Source: My Life and Work (1922), p. 72. Chapter IV, : Remark about the Model T in 1909; this has often been paraphrased, e.g.: "You can have any color as long as it's black."
“Money is only a tool in business.”
Source: My Life and Work (1922), p. 157
Context: Money is only a tool in business. It is just a part of the machinery. You might as well borrow 100,000 lathes as $100,000 if the trouble is inside your business. More lathes will not cure it; neither will more money. Only heavier doses of brains and thought and wise courage can cure. A business that misuses what it has will continue to misuse what it can get.
Source: My Life and Work (1922), p. 73. Chapter IV.
“There is no disgrace in honest failure; there is disgrace in fearing to fail”
Source: My Life and Work (1922), pp. 19–20. Quoted in Samuel Crowther, "Henry Ford's Problem," The Magazine of Business, vol. 52 (1927), p. 182
Source: My Life And Work
Context: Failure is only the opportunity more intelligently to begin again. There is no disgrace in honest failure; there is disgrace in fearing to fail.
Source: My Life and Work (1922), p. 1; as cited in: William A. Levinson, Henry Ford, Samuel Crowther. The Expanded and Annotated My Life and Work: Henry Ford's Universal Code for World-Class Success. CRC Press, 2013. p. xxvii
Source: My Life and Work (1922), p. 10
“The man who has the largest capacity for work and thought is the man who is bound to succeed.”
My Life and Work (1922)
Source: My Life and Work (1922), p. 2
“The economic fundamental is labour.”
Source: My Life and Work (1922), p. 9
Context: The economic fundamental is labour. Labour is the human element which makes the fruitful seasons of the earth useful to men. It is men 's labour that makes the harvest what it is. That is the economic fundamental: every one of us is working with material which we did not and could not create, but which was presented to us by Nature.
Source: My Life and Work (1922), p. 110. Chapter XII.
Source: My Life and Work (1922), Chapter XII, Money - Master or Servant
“Bankers play far too great a part in the conduct of industry...”
Source: My Life and Work (1922), Chapter XII, Money - Master or Servant
Source: 1920s, My Life and Work (1922), pp. 19–20. Quoted in Samuel Crowther, "Henry Ford's Problem," The Magazine of Business, vol. 52 (1927), p. 182
