Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're right!
The question Who ought to be boss? is like as Who ought to be the tenor in the quartet? Obviously, the man who can sing tenor.
It is all one to me if a man comes from Sing Sing Prison or Harvard. We hire a man, not his history.
Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we endure help us in our marching onward.
He can who thinks he can, and he can't who thinks he can't. This is an inexorable, indisputable law.
A bore is a person who opens his mouth and puts his feats in it.
Business is never so healthy as when, like a chicken, it must do a certain amount of scratching around for what it gets.
A business that makes nothing but money is a poor kind of business.
It is not the employer who pays wages -- he only handles the money. It is the product who pays the wages.
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.
It doesn't matter to me if a man is from Harvard or Sing Sing. We hire the man, not his history.
Never complain. Never explain.
Chop your own wood, and it will warm you twice.
Enthusiasm is the yeast that makes your hopes shine to the stars. Enthusiasm is the sparkle in your eyes, the swing in your gait. The grip of your hand, the irresistible surge of will and energy to execute your ideas.
The best we can do is size up the chances, calculate the risks involved, estimate our ability to deal with them, and then make our plans with confidence.
Exercise is bunk. If you are healthy you don't need it. If you are sick you shouldn't take it.
If you take all the experience and judgment of men over fifty out of the world, there wouldn't be enough left to run it.
Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.
Don't find fault, find a remedy.
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.
There are two fools in this world. One is the millionaire who thinks that by hoarding money he can somehow accumulate real power, and the other is the penniless reformer who thinks that if only he can take the money from one class and give it to another, all the world's ills will be cured.
My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.
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.
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.
History is more or less bunk.
An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous.
Time and money spent in helping men to do more for themselves is far better than mere giving.
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.
Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement.
The highest use of capital is not to make more money, but to make money do to more for the betterment of life.
Money is like an arm or leg -- use it or lose it.
I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can't be done.
I cannot discover that anyone knows enough to say definitely what is and what is not possible.
There is no such thing as no chance.
There is no man living who isn't capable of doing more than he thinks he can do.
What's right about America is that although we have a mess of problems, we have great capacity, intellect and resources -- to do something about them.
There are no big problems, there are just a lot of little problems.
Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.
When I can't handle events, I let them handle themselves.
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.
If you think of standardization as the best that you know today, but which is to be improved tomorrow; you get somewhere.
You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do.
You will find men who want to be carried on the shoulders of others, who think that the world owes them a living. They don't seem to see that we must all lift together and pull together.
Competition is the keen cutting edge of business, always shaving away at costs.
Many people think that by hoarding money they are gaining safety for themselves. if money is your ONLY hope for independence, you will never have it. The only real security that a person can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability. Without these qualities, money is practically useless.
A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.
Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.
Speculation is only a word covering the making of money out of the manipulation of prices, instead of supplying goods and services.
Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success.
It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.
The high wage begins down in the shop. If it is not created there it cannot get into pay envelopes. There will never be a system invented which will do away with the necessity for work.
Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason so few engage in it.
The object of living is work, experience, and happiness. There is joy in work. All that money can do is buy us someone else's work in exchange for our own. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something.