Great Throughts Treasury

"The real secret of success is enthusiasm. Yes, more than enthusiasm, I would say excitement. I like to see man get excited. When they get excited they make a success of their lives."

"The reason so many people never get anywhere in life is because when opportunity knocks they are out in the backyard looking for four-leaf clovers."

"I feel sorry for the person who can't get genuinely excited about his work. Not only will he never be satisfied, but he will never achieve anything worthwhile."

"It devolves upon the United States to help motorize the world."

"To me every hour of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle."

"Every new development, highway, railroad, steamship line, building operation, whether it be a drainage project in old Greece or a new water system in Peru, means an added use of the automobile."

"Whenever there is a hard job to be done I assign it to a lazy man; he is sure to find an easy way of doing it."

"I like to build things. I like to do things."

"All my training, instincts and aptitudes have combined to make me want to penetrate the workings of any machines I see."

"All territories are operated on a quota basis, the quotas being set at the home office. We base the establishment of the quota on the actual volume of automobile sales of all makes in the past in that territory, and then figure our percentage to the total sales. Quotas are often unfair, for they are not set on actual conditions. Past sales are a reality and you are not unfair to a man when you ask him to sell a share of what is being sold. We feel this system is just, because if general business in a given territory falls off we are not expecting unreasonable things of our representatives. Often an injustice is very apparent to the men, whereas the organization is perfectly ignorant that it is expecting any more of them than it should. Where sales fall off in a given territory we send our sales expert there immediately and he gives the dealer the benefit of his expert advice."

"Although we were not in the show, we stole it! From morning until late at night a crowd was densely packed around us?"

"Ancestors? I got millions of 'em!"

"Any great industrial corporation lives and grows only through the devoted services of many who pool their intelligence and energy in a common effort."

"As I visualized its future, it far outran railway development, which in a sense had reached its zenith, because the automobile provided flexible, economical, individual transportation which could be utilized for either business or pleasure. It knew not limits except a right-of-way, it was bounded by no greater restrictions than individual effort and will. To me it was the transportation of the future and as such I wanted to be a part of it. That was where I saw opportunity."

"A few hundred yards ahead, I saw a cow emerging from behind an osage hedge that bordered a lane. She was headed for the road. I bulbed the horn until it had made its gooselike cry four or five times, but the cow, a poor rack of bones draped with yellow hide, kept right on her course and never changed her pace; nor did I change the pace of the automobile. I could not; all that I could do was to grip the wheel and steer, biting on my cigar until my teeth met inside of it. Well, I missed the cow, though I was close enough to touch her? [On driving his first car for the first time]"

"A sculptor trying to release in marble some shape of beauty that is captive in his mind can give no more loving care and craftsmanship to what he does than was done by me as I created that locomotive model."

"As the depression became worse, as people became more gloomy, we grew bolder in our research."

"Bad management sometimes means a lot of things I would not wish to discuss."

"Being a machinist, I have always wanted to know how things work."

"Della, I've bought an automobile? I had spent our cash reserve and gone in hock for more money than I would make in a year. She did not scold me, but it did seem to me that when she closed the kitchen door, it made a little more noise than usual; maybe she slammed it. [On telling his wife he had purchased his first car for $5,000.00]"

"Every minute of my time we were figuring out further ways to adapt carriage-craft operations to automobile building. With just those changes in operation we succeeded in improving production from forty-five cars a day to seventy-five, practically in the same space and with a most impressive saving. We knew we could do better, though, if we just kept on hunting out all kinds of waste."

"Expenses of the Chrysler Corporation had to be cut during 1931, 1932 and 1933. We had to cut salaries, reduce operations, retrench in almost every way. There were bleak months when the plants, for lack of orders, were operating down to forty per cent of capacity. But no matter how gloomy the outlook, I never cut one single penny from the budget of our research department."

"Henry Ford, after we developed our line, went to work and figured out a chain conveyor. His was the first. Thereafter we all used them. Instead of pushing the cars along the line by hand, they rode on an endless-chain conveyor operated by a motor."

"Highly paid workmen should be busy with accomplishment, not useless motion."

"Hopelessly infatuated with the car I twisted logic and mustered feeble facts to buttress my case? [On buying his first car]"

"How strange it is that most of us pass through some of our years thinking that youth is a handicap."

"I always want to know how things work. Had I been Aladdin, I am certain that after just one wish or two, I?d have taken that old lamp apart to see if I could make another, better lamp."

"I am a machinist. Trained from my boyhood to penetrate the workings of machines. I find myself now excited by the thought of exploring my own mechanism, for it is in keeping with my character that I should seek to discover what makes me, this man I am, tick and go. I always want to know how things work. Had I been Aladdin, I am certain that after just one wish or two, I?d have taken that old lamp apart to see if I could make another, better lamp."

"I am concerned first of all with executives, because if their principles are not right it is useless to look for results from the men."

"I believe in keeping people out of temptation, for many of them cannot resist it."

"I believed we were expanding too fast by far? Buick was making about half the money, but the corporation was spending much faster than we could earn. So I quit - this time for keeps? [On quitting General Motors in 1919]"

"I cannot hope to find words to express the charm of the man. He has the most winning personality of anyone I've ever known. He could coax a bird right down out of a tree, I think. [On William C Durant]"

"I did not simply want a car to ride in; I wanted the machine so I could learn all about it. [On the reason for buying his first car]"

"I do not believe in idle machines or idle men."

"I do not believe in idle machines or idle men. Outside of the idle investment involved, it is bad policy. If a man is working next to an idle machine it not only has a bad effect on him mentally, but he takes less care of his own machine because he thinks he has a ready substitute. I believe in keeping people out of temptation, for many of them cannot resist it."

"I don't care how raw the ability is, that can be developed through experience. But unless a man is loyal and honest, I don't want him associated with me."

"I gauge them through my intuition and experience. Then, too, these cuts in the organization give me a big opportunity to learn something about my man power. I find out how might fight the men have in them and learn about their individual force. By cutting to the quick I get rapid contacts and am able to measure up my men?s resourcefulness under emergency conditions without delay."

"I got my start in overalls?"

"I had put a price of $995 on the redesigned car; that showed a profit of only $5? I'm liquidating an inventory."

"I have the floor space measured and estimate the amount of its productive capacity and then check up to see whether it is overcrowded or is running under its capacity, also whether the plant is over-manned. If it is over manned and we are over-producing, I reduce the force arbitrarily."

"I knew three things about him: He was honest; he was loyal; he had ability. That is all I ask from any man. I don't care how raw the ability is; that can be developed through experience. But unless a man is loyal and honest, I don't want him associated with me."

"I never want to get to the place where I so dominate the job that no one under me dares to make suggestions."

"I proceed to get the organization into shape by cutting out every unnecessary expense and wasteful practice the minute I discover it. Some forms of non-productive effort are necessary in every organization, because all forms of service ware not productive in themselves; even though they contribute to the general plan; but to allow wasteful practices to continue after they have been analyzed and proved wasteful is to sap the energy of your organization at its source."

"I put the car in the barn, and it stayed in there so long that she despaired of ever getting a ride. Sometimes she sat in it when I cranked up and let the engine run. Night after night, I worked in the barn until it was time to go to bed, and some nights I did not leave the automobile until it was long past my bedtime. Saturday afternoons and all day on Sundays I worked on that car. I read automobile catalogues, I studied sketches and made still other sketches of my own. Most of the time, the innards were spread upon newspapers on the barn floor. There was no single function I did not study over and over. Finally, I proved to myself that I knew and understood it, because I had put it all together, had the engine tuned so that it was running like a watch?"

"I think I never hired a man away from Buick? many of them came to see me and asked for jobs."

"I was in the enterprise with all my heart and soul. It was already determined that the new car on which our hopes were founded would be called the Chrysler?"

"I worked ten hours a day, and for that the railroad paid me one dollar."

"If we just kept on hunting out all kinds of waste?"

"If you could deliver automobiles you could sell them. [On selling cars right after World War I]"

"I was a good worker. I always tried to please the man I worked for; even though I was a good mechanic, if I was asked to sweep the floor, I'd sweep it. However, I had my mind made up. I went to see the master mechanic?"