Henry Ford Quotations

"That man is best educated who knows the greatest number of things that are so, and who can do the greatest number of things to help and heal the world."

Subject: Education; Teaching
Source: Ford News, p.2
Date: 1/1/1922

"Education is preeminently a matter of quality, not amount"

Subject: Education; Teaching
Source: Ford News, p.2
Date: 1/1/1924

"Any man can learn anything he will, but no man can teach except to those who want to learn."

Subject: Education; Teaching
Source: Ford News, p.2
Date: 1/1/1924

"The short successes that can be gained in a brief time and without difficulty, are not worth much."

Subject: Technology; Advancement; Success
Source: Ford News, p.2
Date: 1/1/1922

"Nothing can be made except by makers, nothing can be managed except by managers. Money cannot make anything and money cannot manage anything."

Subject: Business/Monopoly/Trusts
Source: Ford News, p.2
Date: 1/15/1922

"We are entering an era when we shall create resources which shall be so constantly renewed that the only loss will be not to use them. There will be such a plenteous supply of heat, light and power, that it will be a sin not to use all we want. This era is coming now. And it is coming by way of Water"

Subject: Natural Resources/Water/Technology
Source: Ford News, p.2
Date: 2/1/1922

"Two classes of people lose money; those who are too weak to guard what they have; those who win money by trick. They both lose in the end."

Subject: Investment; Money; Knowledge of finances
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 4/1/1922

"When people are 'stung' in false investment schemes there are three causes; greed of something for nothing; sheer inability to know their mind; or infantile trustfulness."

Subject: Investment; Money; Knowledge of finances
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 4/1/1922

"What right have you, save service to the world, to think that other men's labor should contribute to your gains?"

Subject: Investment; Money; Knowledge of finances
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 4/1/1922

"The remains of the old must be decently laid away; the path of the new prepared. That is the difference between Revolution and Progress."

Subject: Progress
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 5/15/1922

"Most people think that faith means believing something; oftener it means trying something, giving it a chance to prove itself"

Subject: Tradition/Faith/Ethics; Practicing old ideas
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 6/1/1922

"It is regrettable that people think about our monetary system, and of our economic structure, only in times of depression."

Subject: Economics; money; politics
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 6/15/1922

"The only prosperity the people can afford to be satisfied with is the kind that lasts"

Subject: Economics; money; politics
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 6/15/1922

"The gifted man bears his gifts into the world, not for his own benefit, but for the people among whom he is placed; for the gifts are not his, he himself is a gift to the community."

Subject: Gifted People; Obligation of Talents; Service to Others
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 7/1/1922

"People are never so likely to be wrong as when they are organized. And they never have so little freedom. Perhaps that is why the people at large keep their freedom. People can be manipulated only when they are organized."

Subject: Organizations; Unions
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 9/15/1922

"The most closely organized groups and movements in the world are those which have been the least friendly to the people's progress and liberty."

Subject: Organizations; Unions
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 9/15/1922

"With all the wealth of the world at hand, there are human beings who hunger, whole nations who suffer cold. The judgment for this condition, for misusing Nature's gifts, is the judgment upon man's failure, man's unsteadiness. Leadership is the thing."

Subject: Leadership
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 10/1/1922

"Profits made out of the distress of the people are always much smaller than profits made out of the most lavish service of the people at the lowest prices that competent management can make possible"

Subject: Business; Profit
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 10/15/1922

"Our modern industrialism, changed to motives of public service, will provide means to remove every injustice that gives soil for prejudice"

Subject: Race; Injustice
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 11/1/1922

"Many people are busy trying to find better ways of doing things that should not have to be done at all. There is no progress in merely finding a better way to do a useless thing."

Subject: Problem-Solving
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 11/15/1922

"Politics in the true sense, have to do with the prosperity, peace and security of the people."

Subject: Politics
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 12/15/1922

"If a young man wants to fit himself for the Politics of tomorrow, let him fit himself into essential industry for the purpose of learning how best to conduct it for the whole public good."

Subject: Politics
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 12/15/1922

"Be ready to revise any system, scrap any method, abandon any theory, if the success of the job requires it."

Subject: Pride
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 1/15/1923

"We are here for experience, and experience is a preparation to know the Truth when we meet it."

Subject: Truth & Character; Experience
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 2/1/1923

"Competition whose motive is merely to compete, to drive some other fellow out, never carries very far."

Subject: Business; Competition
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 2/15/1923

"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."

Subject: Business; Competition
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 2/15/1923

"Businesses that grow by development and improvement do not die."

Subject: Business; Competition
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 2/15/1923

"There is no failure except failure to serve one's purpose."

Subject: Government; Progressive Government
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 3/15/1923

"Thinking calls for facts; facts are found by digging; but he who has gathered this wealth is well equipped for life."

Subject: Education; Ideas;
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 4/1/1923

"Experience is the harvest of life, and every harvest is the result of a sowing. The experience which young people must crave is that of success in some service for which they are naturally fitted."

Subject: Education; Experience; Learning
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 4/15/1923

"There is safety in small beginnings and there is unlimited capital in the experience gained by growing."

Subject: Business; Progress
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 5/1/1923

"Progress is a new season and the rule of progress is everything in its season."

Subject: Progress; Change
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 5/15/1923

"We live in an era of tremendous facts. And the facts are facts. They are also unpleasant facts, which does not decrease their factual percentage one bit. Our job is to understand them, to recognize their presence, to learn if we can what they signify and not to fall into the error of minimizing facts because they have a bitter flavor."

Subject: Truth
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 6/15/1923

"Of all the follies the elder generation falls victim to this is the most foolish, namely, the constant criticism of the younger element who will not be and cannot be like ourselves because we and they are different tribes produced of different elements in the great spirit of Time."

Subject: Youth; Time; Change; Children
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 7/15/1923

"..The philosophy of life indicates that our principal business on this planet is the gaining of experience."

Subject: Living/Life; Philosophy; Truth
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 8/1/1923

"If the people really set their minds on anything it is impossible to prevent their getting what they want."

Subject: Politics; Change
Source: Ford News, p.2.
Date: 8/15/1923

"..Yet if today has no meaning, the past was a Blank and the future is a Chaos."

Subject: History; Past; Today; Present
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 10/15/1923

"Work mixed with management becomes not only easier but more profitable. The time is past when anyone can boast about 'hard work' without having a corresponding result to show for it."

Subject: Work; Labor
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 12/1/1923

"Christmas stands for the human factor which makes life tolerable midst the hurry of commerce and production. All of us need the annealing effect of Christ's example to relieve the hardening we get in the daily struggle for material success."

Subject: Life; Religion; Christmas
Source: Ford News, p. 1. Christmas Greeting
Date: 12/15/1923

"The world is held together by the mass of honest folk who do their daily tasks, tend their own spot in the world, and have faith that at last the Right will come fully into its own. "

Subject: Honesty; Morality
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 1/15/1924

"I do not believe that material accumulation is the whole of success, and on the other hand I do not believe that true success ever excludes a sufficient possession of wealth-but wealth as a means, not as an end."

Subject: Success; Wealth; Self-sufficiency; Work
Source: The article "What is Success?" is from Coleman Cox
Date: 1/15/1924

"One needs to be successful in the conventional way to learn just how far away from success it may be."

Subject: Success; Wealth; Self-sufficiency; Work
Source: The article "What is Success?" is from Coleman Cox
Date: 1/15/1924

"I will build a motor car for the great multitude...constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise...so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one-and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God's great open spaces."

Subject: Multitude; Automobile;
Source: Burlingame, "Henry Ford", p. 62. The precise year in which Ford issued the "multitude" statement is not known. Earliest source 6/6/13 Ford Times. Probably said 1903-1906, when expressed same views to associates.
Date: 6/6/1913

"Youth should not be slandered. Boy nature and girl nature are less repressed and therefore more wholesome today than before. If they at times seem unimpressed by their elders, it is probably because we make a matter of authority what should be a matter of conference. These young people are new people sent to this scene by Destiny to take our places. They come with new visions to fulfill, new powers to exploit."

Subject: Youth; Future; Change; Learning; Children
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 2/1/1924

"An imitation may be quite successful in its own way, but imitation can never be Success. Success is a first-hand creation."

Subject: Originality; Success; Innovation
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 3/15/1924

"The most dangerous notion a young man can acquire is that there is no more room for originality. There is no large room for anything else."

Subject: Originality; Success; Innovation
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 3/15/1924

"Little difficulties are made to swell until they fill our horizon while the real big blessings of life are dwindled down to nothing."

Subject: Troubles; Difficulties
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 5/1/1924

"Nations are great as they are prosperous as they are industrious as they are just."

Subject: Americanization; America, Nationalism
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 6/15/1924

"There is nothing ever wrong with ability, ambition, achievement; but they can easily be wronged by being used to bad ends."

Subject: Human Nature; Success; Achievement
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 8/1/1924

"To be good is not enough; a man must be good for something"

Subject: Human Nature; Success; Achievement
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 8/1/1924

"The sense of injustice, more than the unjust condition itself, is what wears on men's minds."

Subject: Justice; Money
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 8/15/1924

"The partnership of mind and matter is one which has existed since the beginning of time and cannot be dissolved."

Subject: Intelligence; Brain and Brawn
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 9/1/1924

"The only true test of values, either of men or of things, is that of their ability to make the world a better place in which to live."

Subject: Values; Morals; Success
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 10/1/1924

"The satisfaction that arises from honest accomplishment is of far more value in the promotion of human happiness than the thrill that comes with the realization of materialistic aspirations."

Subject: Values; Morals; Success
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 10/1/1924

"As members of the Ford Motor organization we are engaged in the production of an article of use for the people of all countries. Our principle is to make our work as profitable for the buyer as for the seller."

Subject: Inflation; Christmas; New Years
Source: Ford News, p. 1. Christmas & New Year's Day message
Date: 12/15/1924

"Much depends on people knowing what opportunity means; it doesn't mean a silver platter, it oftener means a spade. Self-help means something sterner than 'help yourself'--reach over and take it."

Subject: Opportunity; Success; Self-Sufficiency
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 1/15/1925

"The genius of the American people is Self-Reliance."

Subject: Self-Sufficiency; Opportunity; Success
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 2/1/1925

"The difference between a good govt. system and its poor administration is easily explained; the chief administrators are not Bosses in the best sense."

Subject: Government; Politics
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 3/1/1925

"A happy & contented nation is an example to the whole world. Where there is contentment there must be peace."

Subject: Ambition; Happiness; Success
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 4/1/1925

"We are always seeking for those things which are in the clouds, not for those that lie at our feet."

Subject: Natural Resources; America
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 4/15/1925

"Whatever it is, people who have more spare time than people ever had before get the sense of whirlwind pressure,& repeat the common criticism that 'we are going too fast.' Yet the people live longer than ever before, live with less effort, live on a higher plane. Is it possible that this common saying about our rapid pace is just another thoughtless mob suggestion?"

Subject: Society; Leisure
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 5/1/1925

"To resent efficiency is a mark of inefficiency."

Subject: Efficiency
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 6/1/1925

"People who are capable of and fit for freedom liberate themselves from physical thralldom by substituting mind for muscle."

Subject: Machines; Slavery; Industrialism
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 8/1/1925

"Man minus the Machine is a slave; Man plus the Machine is a freeman."

Subject: Machines; Slavery; Industrialism
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 8/1/1925

"Every success is the mother of countless others."

Subject: Business; Opportunity; Independence; Self-Sufficiency
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 8/15/1925

"Whatever your goal in life, the beginning is knowledge and experience- or, briefly work."

Subject: Business; Employment; Knowledge
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 9/1/1925

"Getting permanent value out of a job means purpose and fitting means to ends."

Subject: Business; Education
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 9/15/1925

"Man is a comparative being. Substandard things must go before super-standard things can come."

Subject: Standardization; Progress;
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 10/1/1925

"All life is experience, and one level is exchanged for another only when its lesson is learned."

Subject: Experience; Learning; Knowledge
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 11/15/1925

"War is not a matter for the professional pacifist or militarist. It is for the unprofessional people. They finance and fight it, they bear its losses. Therefore, they should have the deciding voice concerning it. To do this, they require all the information upon which decisions are made. They should know in a difference, whether it is soluble by rational intelligence, or inevitable by force. Not once in a thousand instances would our people (this may not be true of all peoples, however) approve an offensive war. Never would they be lax in defensive action. For this is their country. However, most of their enemies are within it."

Subject: War
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 12/1/1925

"Hard knocks have a place and value, but hard thinking goes farther in less time."

Subject: Knowledge; Wisdom;
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 1/15/1926

"As betting at the race ring adds neither strength nor speed to the horse, so the exchange of shares in the stock market adds no capital to business, no increase in the production and no purchasing power to the market."

Subject: Finance
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 2/1/1926

"A peaceful nation is one that has the means to make war and restrains."

Subject: War & Peace; America; History; Foreign Affairs
Source: Ford News, p.2
Date: 2/15/1926

"But to do for the world more than the world does for you--that is Success."

Subject: Success; Opportunity
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 3/1/1926

"The industrial value of leisure as a promoter of the consumption of goods,& thus as a stimulant to business have been proved."

Subject: Economics; Leisure; consumerism
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 4/1/1926

"Suppression of progress plays into the hands of the social enemy. Every advance in social justice establishes the nation."

Subject: Progress; Social Justice; Politics
Source: Ford News, p. 2.
Date: 4/15/1926

"'The country is ready for the five-day week,' says Mr. Ford. 'It is bound to come through all industry. Without it the country will not be able to absorb its production & stay prosperous. The industry of this country could not long exist if factories generally went back to the ten-hour day, because people would not have the leisure, the desire, or the means to consume the goods produced...Just as the eight-hour day opened our way to prosperity in America, so the five-day week will open our way to still greater prosperity.

Of course there is a humanitarian side to the shorter day & the shorter week, but dwelling on that side is likely to lead one astray, for leisure may be put before work instead of after it-where it belongs. Twenty years ago, introducing the eight-hour day generally would have made for poverty & not for wealth. Five years ago, introducing the five day week would have had the same result. The hours of labor are regulated by the organization of work and by nothing else. It is the rise of the great corporation with its ability to use power, to use accurately designed machinery, & generally to lessen the wastes in time, material & human energy that made it possible to bring in the eight hour day. Further progress along the same lines has made it possible to bring in the five day week...

It is high time to rid ourselves of the notion that leisure for workmen is either 'lost time' or a class privilege. This is not to say that leisure may not be dangerous. Everything good may also be dangerous-if mishandled. When we put our $5 minimum wage for an eight-hour day into effect in 1913, we had to watch many of our men to see what use they made of their spare time & money. We found a few men taking on extra jobs--some worked the dayshift with us & the night shift in another factory. Some of the men squandered their extra pay. Others banked the surplus money & went on living just as they had lived before. But in a few years all adjusted themselves & our supervision was less needed.

There is, of course, a profound difference between leisure & idleness. Nor must we confound leisure with shiftlessness. Our people are perfectly capable of using to good advantage the time that they have off, after work. That has already been demonstrated to us by our experiments during the last several years. We find that the men come back after a two-day holiday so fresh & keen that they are able to put their minds as well as their hands to work. We are not of those who claim to be able to tell people how to use their spare time. We think that, given the chance, people will become more expert in the effective use of their leisure time. & they are being given the chance.

The influence of leisure on consumption makes the short day & the short week necessary. The people who consume the bulk of goods are the people who make them...With the decrease of the length of the working day in the United States an increase of production has come because better methods of disposing of men's time have been accompanied by better methods of disposing of their energy. Thus one good has brought another...

Of positive industrial value is leisure because it increases consumption. Where people work longest & with least leisure they buy the fewest goods. Businesses the exchange of goods. Goods are bought only as they meet needs. Needs are filled only as they are felt. They make themselves felt largely in leisure hours. The man who worked fifteen & sixteen hours a day desired only a corner to lie in &, now & then, a bit of food. He had no time to cultivate new needs, hence he had only the most primitive.

When, in American industry, women were released from the necessity of factory work & became buyers for their families, business began to expand. The American housewife, as household purchasing agent, has both leisure & money, & the former has been just as important as the latter in the development of American business. The five day week simply carries this further. The people who work only five days a week will consume more goods than the people who work six days a week. People who have more leisure must have more clothes. They eat a greater variety of food. They require more transportation facilities. This increased consumption will require greater production an we now have. Instead of business being allowed up because people are 'off work', it will be speeded up because people consume more in their leisure than in their working time. This will lead to more work. & this to more work. & this to more wages.

Thus the result of more leisure is the exact opposite of what most people might suppose. Management must keep pace with this new demand--& it will. It is the introduction of power and machinery by manufacturers that has med the shorter day & the shorter week possible. That is a fact which working men must not forget. The eight-hour day was not the ultimate, & neither is the five day week. It is enough, however, to manage what we are equipped to manage and to let the future take care of itself. It will anyway. That is its habit. But probably the next move will come in the direction of shortening the day rather than the week."

Subject: Labor; Industry; Prosperity; Wealth
Source: Ford News, p.2. "Mr. Ford Explains the Five-Day Week"
Date: 10/15/1926

"The Model T car was a pioneer. There was no conscious public need of motor cars when we first made it. There were few good roads. This car blazed the way for the motor industry & started the movement for good roads everywhere. It is still the pioneer car in many parts of the world which are just beginning to be motorized. But conditions in this country have so greatly changed that further refinement in motor car construction is now desirable & our new model is a recognition of this.

Besides the Model T itself another revolutionary element which the Ford Motor Company introduced twenty years ago was the idea of service. Some of the early manufacturers proceeded on the theory that once they had induced a man to buy a car they had him at their mercy; they charged him the highest possible price for necessary replacements. Our company adopted the opposite theory. We believed that when a man bought one of our cars we should keep it running for him as long as we could & at the lowest upkeep cost. That was the origin of Ford Service.

The Model T was one of the largest factors in creating the conditions which now make the new model Ford possible. The world-wide influence of the Ford car in the building of good roads & in teaching the people the use & value of mechanical power is conceded. Nowadays everybody runs some kind of motor power but twenty years ago only the adventurous few could be induced to try an automobile. It had a harder time winning public confidence than the airplane has now. The Model T was a great educator in this respect. It had stamina & power. It was the car that ran before there were good roads to run on. It broke down the barriers of distance in rural sections, brought people of these sections closer together & placed education within the reach of everyone.

We are still proud of the Model T Ford car. If we were not we could not have continued to manufacture it for so long. With the new Ford we propose to continue in the light-car field which we created on the same basis of quantity production we have always worked, giving high quality, low price, & constant service. We began work on this new model several years ago. In fact, the idea of a new car has been in my mind much longer than that. But the sale of the Model T continued at such a pace that there never seemed to be an opportunity to get the new car started.

Even now the business is so brisk that we are up against the proposition of keeping the factory going on one model while we tool up for another. I am glad of this because it will not necessitate a total shutdown. Only a comparatively few men will be out at a time while their departments are being tooled up for the new product. At one time it looked as if 70,000 men might be laid off temporarily but we have now scaled that down to less than 25,000 at a time. The lay-off will be brief because we need the men & we have no time to waste. At present I can only say this about the new model--it has speed, style, flexibility, & control in traffic. There is nothing quite like it in quality & price. The new car will cost more to manufacture but it will be more economical to operate."

Subject: Model A
Source: Ford News, p. 1. "New Ford Car Announced Details Forthcoming Soon"
Date: 6/1/1927

"The Model T blazed the way for the motor industry & started the movement for good roads everywhere. It is still the pioneer car in many parts of the world which are just beginning to be motorized."

Subject: Model T
Source: Ford News, p. 4.
Date: 10/1/1927

"For a long time now, I have believed that industry & agriculture are natural partners & that they should begin to recognize & practice their partnership. Each of them is suffering from ailments which the other can cure. Agriculture needs a wider &steadier market; industrial workers need more steadier jobs. Can each be made to supply what the other needs? I think so. The link between is Chemistry. In the vicinity of Dearborn we are farming twenty thousand acres for everything from sunflowers to soy beans. We pass the crops through our laboratory to learn how they may be used in the manufacture of motor cars &, thus provide an industrial market for the farmers' products."

Subject: Industry/Agriculture; Dearborn; Farming
Source: Ford News, p. 49: also Ford News, back cover, August 1934
Date: March 1933

"Henry Ford in a statement said: 'No one loses anything by raising wages as soon as he is able. It has always paid us. Low wages are the most costly any employer can pay. It is like using low-grade material--the waste makes it very expensive in the end. There is no economy in cheap labor or cheap material. The hardest thing I ever had to do was to reduce wages. I think we were the last big company to come to it. Now I am mighty glad that wages are climbing again."

Subject: Labor; Wages; Ford Motor Co
Source: Ford News, p. 43
Date: April 1934

"The depression was just a state of mind. It is over for everyone who has changed his state of mind."

Subject: Depression; Automobile industry; Ford Motor Co
Source: Ford News, back cover
Date: April 1934

"Individualism is what makes cooperation worth living."

Subject: Miscellaneous; American Spirit; Industry;
Source: Ford News, back cover. Around the wall of the Rotunda of the Ford Exposition Building at the Century of Progress, between a series of photographic murals done on a colossal scale is a series of terse epigrammatic sayings of Henry Ford.
Date: October 1934

"Many people seem to believe that Greenfield Village & the Edison Institute & Museum at Dearborn, with their specimens of earlier type of American life & industry, are just a kind of antiquarian hobby of mine. I do not deny that they have given me a great deal of interest & pleasure. But the project is vastly more than a hobby. It has very definite purposes, & I hope will have results lasting down the years. One purpose is to remind the public who visit it & sometimes there are thousands a day--of how far& how fast we have come in technical progress in the last century or so. If we have come so far & so fast, is it likely that we shall stop now?"

Subject: HFM&GV; Progress; Edison Institute
Source: Ford News, back cover
Date: November 1934

"We wish all users of Ford cars to know what they are entitled to."

Subject: Customer Service; Ford Motor Co;
Source: Ford News, inside back cover
Date: March 1935

"See what a 25-cent raise will do to us," said Mr. Ford. So they figured the daily & monthly cost of a 25-cent increase. "Put on another quarter & see what that will cost," he said. And so they went on,25 cents a step...Finally the wage of $2.34 stood at $4.75--more than 100 percent increase. One of the associates--a good financial head--remarked rather sarcastically that if they were going to be fools, why not be first-class fools & make it $5..."All right," said Mr. Ford, "let's make it $5."

Subject: $5 Day; Wages
Source: Ford News, p. 124
Date: July 1935

"I foresee the time when industry shall no longer denude the forests which require generations to mature, nor use up the mines which were ages in making, but shall draw its raw material largely from the annual produce of the fields. I am convinced that we shall be able to get out of yearly crops most of the basic materials which we now get from forest and mine."

Subject: Industry & Agriculture; Farming
Source: Ford News, p. 125
Date: July 1935

"What I greatly hope for these children everywhere, is a new attitude toward life--free from the gullibility which thinks we can get something for nothing; free from the greed which thinks any permanent good can come of overreaching others; and, above all, expectant of change, so that when life gives them a jolt they will be fully prepared to push on eagerly along new lines."

Subject: Education; Greenfield Village; Teaching; Progress
Source: Ford News, back cover, "From...'Things I've Been Thinking About.' American Magazine, February
Date: March 1936

"Fairs and public displays", Henry Ford has said, "are the best means we have yet found of showing large numbers of people the real methods of industry."

Subject: Industry; Public Display
Source: Ford News, p. 5.
Date: January 1937

"No unemployment insurance can be compared to an alliance between a man and a plot of land. With one foot in the land, human society is firmly balanced against most economic uncertainties. With a job to supply him with cash, and a plot of land to guarantee him support, the individual is doubly secure. Stocks may fail, but seedtime and harvest do not fail."

Subject: Industry & Agriculture; Self-Sufficiency; Economics
Source: Ford News, inside front cover
Date: April 1937

"An educated person, I think, is one who not only knows a lot, but knows how to do a lot of things."

Subject: Education; Experience; Religion
Source: Ford News, back cover, "From an interview with Mr. Henry Ford"
Date: September 1937

"We have had just one main purpose during these years, and that is to give the people transportation of the most dependable quality at the lowest possible cost. Our car was called the "Universal Car" thirty years ago, because it fulfilled so many needs; it is "The Universal Car" today for the same reason."

Subject: Customer Service; Model T; Ford Motor Co; Transportation
Source: Ford News, back cover
Date: October 1938

"History is more or less bunk."

Subject: History is Bunk
Source: Chicago Tribune
Date: 5/25/1916

" I don't know anybody so old he can't do something useful. Just give them a chance and see."

Source: Age; Hard Work
Source: Hartford Courant, interview with Fred C. Kelly
Date: 10/27/1935

"America is not a land of money but of wealth-not a land of rich people, but of successful workers."

Subject: America; Success; Wealth
Source: Forbes Magazine
Date: 7/15/1943

"The basically simple things are best, whether it's automobiles or diets or philosophy."

Subject: Automobiles; Simplicity
Source: N.Y World-Telegram
Date: 3/18/1943

"The young people got me interested in aviation. It is part of the motor age. Development is dependent on power."

Subject: Aviation; Youth
Source: N.Y American, Geo. Sylvester Vierick interview
Date: 8/5/1928

"What America needs most is aviation."

Subject: Aviation; America
Source: Florida Times Union, Robert Barry interview
Date: 1/6/1929

"I can visualize the time when almost every family will have a small plane in their back yard."

Subject: Aviation; American Life
Source: Detroit Times
Date: 9/12/1941

"When bankers get into business they usually destroy it.

Subject: Banks and Bankers; Business; the Depression
Source: N.Y Times
Date: 1/31/1933

"The Bible does not need advertising by me, but I wish more people could be persuaded to read it. Perhaps if they had been, we should not have this war on our hands. For greed and idleness brought it on."

Subject: Bible, Idleness, Greed, World War II
Source: N.Y Times Magazine, interview by S. J. Woolf
Date: 7/25/1943

"Whenever you get the idea that you are 'fixed' or that anything is 'fixed' for life, you'd better get ready for a sudden change."

Subject: Change; Life
Source: N.Y World-Telegram
Date: 7/26/1933

"Greatest thing we can produce is character. Everything else can be taken from us, but not our character."

Subject: Character
Source: Cincinnati Times Star, Beckman interview
Date: 11/11/1937

"Look beyond the individual to the cause of his misery."

Subject: Charity and Welfare; Philanthropy
Source: Cosmopolitan Magazine, Crowther quoting Mr. Ford
Date: March 1932

"If we had more justice there would be less need of charity."

Subject: Charity and Welfare; Justice
Source: New Orleans Times Picayune, Meigs Frost interview
Date: 7/22/1934

"The only thing you can give a man without hurting him is an opportunity."

Subject: Charity and Welfare; Opportunity
Source: New Orleans Times Picayune, Meigs Frost interview
Date: 7/22/1934

"You've got to teach youngsters the difference between right and wrong, but you shouldn't try to poke it down their throats. Let them ask the questions and then give them the answers."

Subject: Children; Youth
Source: Think magazine
Date: March 1934

"Children have helped me a lot."

Subject: Children; Youth
Source: True Story, Wm. L. Stidger interview
Date: April 1935

"Trouble with the world today is people don't go to children enough. I don't like old people. I stay away from them."

Subject: Children; Adults; Youth
Source: Detroit Times, Paul Gallico interview
Date: 1/11/1938

"There should be rivalry between men and between business."

Subject: Competition
Source: American Magazine, Wm. S. Dutton interview
Date: March 1928

"Competition is the lifeblood of industry."

Subject: Competition; Industry
Source: Detroit News
Date: 7/30/1941

"As far as competition is concerned, that must continue. But we must learn what competition really is. It is a striving to attain the best. To throttle it would mean to stop all progress. Certain men do not need to compete. They are pioneers."

Subject: Competition
Source: Rotarian, S.J Woolf interview
Date: June 1936

I'd like to devote about three years to the elimination of the cow. There's not reason in the world why the chemist can't discover the cow's secret of converting vegetation into dairy products. And there's less reason why the chemist can't do a better job of it after he learns how."

Subject: Cows; Science; Farming; Livestock
Source: Detroit Free Press
Date: 7/16/1936

"The present method of producing milk is too laborious. I believe that we can make milk by scientific process, eliminating the cow."

Subject: Cows; Science; Farming; Livestock
Source: N.Y American, George Sylvester Viereck interview
Date: 8/5/1928

"..we do not hire a man's history, we hire the man"

Subject: Criminals; Opportunity
Source: My Life and Work, p. 95
Date: n/a

"The way out of the depression is to start spending and doing things."

Subject: Depression and Prosperity
Source: Detroit Times
Date: 5/16/1934

"Depressions aren't acts of God; like wars, they are the work of a small group of men who profit by them."

Subject: Depression and Prosperity; Wars
Source: New Orleans Times Picayune, Meigs Frost interview
Date: 7/22/1934

"Mr. Edison was comfortably well off-he was not a money maker."

Subject: Thomas Edison
Source: Detroit News, interview by A M Smith
Date: 10/20/1931

"Without doubt, Thomas Edison is my greatest contemporary."

Subject: Thomas Edison
Source: N.Y American, interview by George Sylvester Vierick
Date: 8/5/1928

"Edison, to a greater extent than has ever been recognized, is the father of American industrial methods."

Subject: Thomas Edison
Source: N.Y American, interview by George Sylvester Vierick
Date: 8/5/1928

"Although Mr. Edison was called 'The Wizard' of the electrical world and everyone thought that electricity was the coming thing, he actually encouraged me to go with my second car."

Subject: Thomas Edison
Source: True Story magazine, Wm. Stidger interview
Date: April 1935

"What is life but education, anyway?"

Subject: Education; Life
Source: Detroit Times
Date: 7/30/1943

"I believe in 100% Theory and 100% Practice. Theory without practical application is futile."

Subject: Education; Practice
Source: N.Y American, George Sylvester Vierick interview
Date: 8/5/1928

"A man's college and university degrees mean nothing to me until I see what he is able to do with them."

Subject: Education
Source: New Orleans Times Picayune
Date: 7/22/1934

"Teach children not to be gullible."

Subject: Education; Children
Source: American Magazine
Date: October 1934

"A nation that knows how to work will never suffer."

Subject: Labor; Work
Source: Saturday Evening Post, Samuel Crowther interview
Date: 2/1/1936

"In teaching the children at Greenfield Village, we are trying to get back some of the solid McGuffey qualities."

Subject: Education; Greenfield Village; McGuffey
Source: American Magazine
Date: October 1934

"Greatest thing in life is experience. Even mistakes have value."

Subject: Experience; Failure; Life
Source: American Magazine, Beverly Smith interview
Date: October 1934

"..That is what we are put in the world for, to get experience and to help others get it. It is the one thing no one can take away from us."

Subject: Experience
Source: New York Times Magazine, S. J Woolf
Date: 7/24/1938

"Faith is one of the most effective tools in the human equipment. I believe that faith works."

Subject: Faith
Source: American Magazine-also in Ford News March 1941
Date: February 1941

"The greatest day of my life was the day I married Mrs. Ford."

Subject: Clara Bryant Ford; Wife
Source: N.Y Times Magazine, S.J Woolf interview
Date: 7/24/1938

"I attribute whatever I may have been able to accomplish in life far more to my wife than to anything else and to everything else put together. But I cannot flatter myself that I found her because I was a 'good picker', I believe profoundly that we are guided, led, in such momentous matters."

Subject: Clara Bryant Ford; Marriage; Success; Wife
Source: Forbes Magazine
Date: 3/1/1940

"There can be no bosses in our country except the people. The job of the government is to serve, not to dominate."

Subject: Government
Source: Detroit Times
Date: 11/5/1944

"If governments would only understand that if people are left alone they'll work out their own salvation."

Subject: Government; Future
Source: The Passing Show, Valentine Williams
Date: 2/2/1935

"Most of the sickness in the world is caused by eating too much."

Subject: Health; Diet
Source: N.Y Times Magazine, interview by S.J Woolf
Date: 7/25/1943

"Every one knows that insufficient rest and gorging are not good for anyone, either physically or mentally."

Subject: Health; Diet
Source: N.Y Times Magazine, interview by S.J Woolf
Date: 7/24/1938

"The time is coming when man will be able to determine the length of his lifespan by controlling his diet."

Subject: Health; Diet
Source: Detroit News, David J. Wilkie interview
Date: 7/28/1944

"History doesn't mean dates and wars and textbooks to me; it means the unconquerable pioneer spirit of man."

Subject: History is Bunk
Source: New Orleans Times Picayune, Meigs Frost interview
Date: 7/22/1934

"When I went to our American history books to learn how our forefathers harrowed the land, I discovered that the historians knew nothing about harrows. Yet our country has depended more on harrows than on guns or speeches. I thought that a history which excluded harrows, and all the rest of daily life, was bunk. And I think so yet."

Subject: History is Bunk
Source: American Legion Magazine, Arthur Van Vlissingen J.r Interview
Date: October 1932

"President Hoover has done everything any one could do to bring about improvement in business and industry. Everything President Hoover has advised or tried to put into effect has been sound."

Subject: Herbert Hoover, Depression
Source: Washington Evening Star, David J. Wilkie
Date: 5/28/1930

"The unhappiest man on earth is the one who has nothing to do."

Subject: Idleness; Happiness
Source: Detroit Free Press, N.Y Times-Dave Wilkie interview
Date: 5/28/1944

"Idleness is the reason for many of our troubles."

Subject: Idleness
Source: Detroit Times
Date: 11/5/1944

"A monopoly of jobs in this country is just as bad as a monopoly of bread!"

Subject: Labor Unions; Monopoly
Source: "Fordisms" from 'Ford Gives Viewpoint on Labor"-A.M Smith
Date: 4/29/1937

"This group (the union organizers) is asking us to sit still while it sells our men the jobs that have always been free."

Subject: Labor Unions;
Source: 'Fordisms' from 'Ford Gives Viewpoint on Labor -A.M Smith
Date: 4/29/1937

"The great need of the world has always been for leaders. With more leaders we could have more industry. More industry, more employment and comfort for all."

Subject: Leadership; Industry
Source: Barron's, Fred C. Kelly interview
Date: 1/26/1931

"Life, as I see it, is not a location, but a journey. Life flows."

Subject: Life
Source: My Life and Work-p. 43
Date: n/a

"Machines were devised not to do a man out of a job, but to take the heavy labor from man's back and place it on the broad back of the machine."

Subject: Machinery
Source: Detroit Free Press, Dave Wilkie interview
Date: 5/29/1930

"Machinery was invented by labor for labor-serving purposes. The wheel is the basis of the machine."

Subject: Machinery; The wheel
Source: The Rotarian, S.J Woolf
Date: June 1936

"Four women have helped me: mother, sister, mother-in-law and wife."

Subject: Family; Success; Women; Mother; Wife
Source: True Story, William L. Stidger
Date: April 1935

"Music and song are, in my opinion, so fine and necessary a part of life that without them we cannot be said really to live at all."

Subject: Music, Song
Source: Detroit Public Schools, Dept. of Music Education Bulletin No. 1, Volume No. IV
Date: Nov-Dec 1937

"Poetry without music may be beautiful, but music gives poetry wings and elevates it into song. That may be the reason for our love of song-it has wings and lifts us; with proper songs, it is a nourishing spiritual exercise."

Subject: Song, Music, Poetry
Source: Detroit Public Schools, Dept. of Music Education Bulletin No. 1, Volume No. IV
Date: Nov-Dec 1937

"Life is neither old or new, ancient or modern, but simply more or less vivid-any song or musical composition will live that expresses or reproduces this vividness of life.-From this you will see that I believe that music fills a great place. The teaching of it goes far to restore the balance and richness of life, and-I might add- the unit of life also."

Subject: Music, Song, Dance, Education
Source: Detroit Public Schools, Dept. of Music Education Bulletin No. 1, Volume No. IV
Date: Nov-Dec 1937

"I haven't put a pencil to a piece of paper, working out a problem, in years; I do it in my head."

Subject: Paper Work, Problem Solving
Source: New Orleans Times Picayune, Meigs Frost interview
Date: 7/22/1934

"'Every man is entitled to make a darn fool of himself at least once in a lifetime.' -Regarding Great War Peace Ship"

Subject: Peace Ship, Great War, Life
Source: B.C Forbes column, Detroit Times
Date: 5/18/1942

"Public officials are all right if they stay in their proper sphere and perform their proper functions but when they get greedy for wider scope and more power and money they lose their value and become parasites."

Subject: Politicians, Politics, Public Officials
Source: Detroit Times, interview with John C. Manning
Date: 1/31/1943

"People didn't want war..we were forced in it..how fast we finish it depends on how free a hand our generals and admirals have. The less interference they get from the politicians the quicker they'll end it."

Subject: Politicians, War, World War II
Source: Detroit Times
Date: 1/31/1943

"I wouldn't have the Presidency or any political office-don't want anything to do with it nor have politics have anything to do with me."

Subject: Politics, Presidency
Source: Detroit Times, Bob Rose interview
Date: 9/19/1935

"When prices go up, business goes down."

Subject: Prices, Business
Source: Wall Street Journal-Gronseth
Date: 4/4/1934

"You can't tell me you can make any system or country work with low wages and high prices, and high wages with high prices don't mean anything when the prices eat up the wages and don't leave anything over."

Subject: Prices, Wages
Source: Detroit Times, Paul Gallico
Date: 1/12/1938

"Profits are not financial-they're social. Everybody profits from industry. Politicians don't understand profits because they can pay bills out of taxation."

Subject: Profits; Industry; Politicians
Source: Wall Street Journal
Date: 2/6/1936

"Three most deleterious things of modern life in their present order of importance are: tobacco, alcohol and intemperate eating. Both alcohol and tobacco are taboo in plants."

Subject: Prohibition; Tobacco
Source: New York American, Sylvester Vierick interview
Date: 8/5/1928

"I adopted the theory of reincarnation when I was 26. I got the idea from a book by Orlando Smith. Until I discovered this theory I was unsettled and dissatisfied-without a compass, so to speak. When I discovered reincarnation it was as if I had found a universal plan. I realized that there was a chance to work out my ideas. Time was no longer limited. I was no longer a slave to the hands of the clock. There was time enough to plan and to create. I wouldn't give five cents for seeing all the world, because I feel there is nothing in the five continents and on the five seas that I have not somehow seen. Somewhere is a master mind sending brain wave messages to us. There is a Great Spirit. I never did anything by my own volition. I was pushed by invisible forces within and without me. We inherit a native knowledge from a previous existence. Gospel of reincarnation is essence of all knowledge. I do not know where we come from or go to but we accumulate experience. Someday it will be possible to measure the soul. We all retain memories of past lives."

Subject: Reincarnation; Experience; Time
Source: Detroit Times, Geo. Sylvester Viereck interview
Date: 8/26/1928

"(Instinct is) 'Probably the essence of past experience and knowledge stored up for later use. There are many, you know, who think that this life journey through the world is not the first one we have made. Haven't you ever come across children who knew things that it was impossible for them to have learned? Have you ever gone to a place for the first time and felt sure that you had been there before? That's one of the reasons I do not travel much."

Subject: Reincarnation; Children; Youth
Source: New York Times Magazine, S. J Woolf interview
Date: 7/24/1938

"If we could get all religions together on a common purpose-the elimination of jealousies and the things that make men covet another's belongings, we would be a long way toward the goal of outmoding war, depression and poverty."

Subject: Religion; Depression; War; Poverty
Source: Detroit Free Press, Dave Wilkie interview
Date: 5/28/1944

"In the Ford Motor Company we emphasize service equally with sales."

Subject: Customer Service; Ford Motor Company
Source: (taken from Ford Service Manual, loose-leaf type) Ford Motor Co. Library
Date: n/a

"A manufacturer is not through with his customer when a sale is completed. He has then only started with his customer. In the case of an automobile the sale of the machine is only something in the nature of an introduction. If the machine does not give service, then it is better for the manufacturer if he never had the introduction, for he will have the worst of all advertisements-a dissatisfied customer."

Subject: Customer Service
Source: My Life and Work, p. 41
Date: n/a

"From the start I had my own ideas about how the business should run. I wanted it to benefit everybody who contributed to its success-stockholders, labor and the American public."

Subject: Stockholders; Ford Motor Company
Source: Henry Ford Talks About War, Defense, Stockholders by B.C Forbes, Forbes Magazine
Date: 9/1/1941

"A big business never becomes big by being a narrow society looking after only the interests of its organization and stockholders."

Subject: Stockholders; Business
Source: Moving Forward by Henry Ford and Samuel Crowther, p. 64
Date: n/a

"Stock market never made business-business makes the stock market."

Subject: Business; Stockholders; Stock Market
Source: Detroit Free Press
Date: 5/23/1933

"Stock in the Ford Motor Company would increase the cost of the car. I am only interested in reducing the price of our car."

Subject: Stockholders; Stock; Ford Motor Company; Prices
Source: Detroit Times, Bob Ross
Date: 9/19/1935

" I believe that any stock that is sold should have real value as automobile or bushel of potatoes, and stock market should be run as a vegetable market."

Subject: Stockholders
Source: Hartford Courant, Fred C. Kelly
Date: 10/27/1935

"No American ought to be compelled to strike for his rights. He ought to receive them naturally, easily, as a matter of course."

Subject: Strikes; Rights
Source: Mr. Ford's Own Page, Dearborn Independent
Date: 11/22/1919

"Anything that is not right, whether it temporarily favors the employees or the employers, cannot last-because it is not right."

Subject: Strikes; Rights
Source: Mr. Ford's Own Page, Dearborn Independent
Date: 3/13/1920

"Trees are among the most useful things grown."

Subject: Trees
Source: Detroit News
Date: 11/24/1940

"Paying good wages is not charity at all-it is the best kind of business."

Subject: Wages; Business
Source: Mr. Ford's Own Page, Dearborn Independent
Date: 1/18/1919

"If the boss stands in the way of men getting what they earn, he is not fit to be boss."

Subject: Wages; Business
Source: Mr. Ford's Own Page, Dearborn Independent
Date: 11/22/1919

"A low wage business is always insecure."

Subject: Business; Wages
Source: My Life and Work, p. 126-127
Date: n/a

"Cutting wages is not the way to recovery. Raise wages and improve the product."

Subject: Wages; Depression
Source: Chicago Tribune, Arthur Evans interview
Date: 2/7/1934

"No one ever wins a war."

Subject: War
Source: Detroit News and Times
Date: 7/30/1942

"Wars are necessary to teach us lessons we seem unable to learn any other way."

Subject: War
Source: New York Herald-Tribune
Date: 7/29/1941

"Money will ruin the life of any man who treats it like anything but a tool with which to work."

Subject: Wealth; Money
Source: New Orleans Times Picayune, Meigs Frost interview
Date: 7/22/1934

"I don't expect to retire. Every man must work, that's his natural destiny."

Subject: Work; Retirement
Source: N.Y World-Telegram, Willis Thornton
Date: 7/24/1933

"Only one thing makes prosperity, and that is work."

Subject: Work; Prosperity
Source: Detroit Free Press, Bill Richards
Date: 6/21/1931

"The basis of peace should be a world federation."

Subject: World Federation; Peace
Source: New York World Telegram
Date: 3/18/1943

"Worry is the most wasteful thing in the world."

Subject: Worry
Source: American Magazine
Date: February 1936

"No one can be helped unless he can be put in the way of helping himself."

Subject: Charity; Opportunity
Source: New York American interview with Geo. Sylvester Vierick
Date: 8/5/1928

"People will try to fix world but world will fix people."

Subject: Depression; Prosperity World
Source: Detroit News A. M Smith interview
Date: 6/16/1933

"Efficient industry is the sole key to prosperity"

Subject: Industry; Prosperity
Source: Photostatted message written for American Magazine by W.M S Dutton
Date: 2/21/1928

"Education not just preparation for life, but part if life itself-a continuous art."

Subject: Education; Life
Source: Good Housekeeping p. 20
Date: October 1934

"Anyone who does anything useful will not go unpaid."

Subject: Experience
Source: New York Times Magazine p. 2
Date: 7/24/1938

"Mark my word: A combination airplane and motor car is coming.."

Subject: Invention; Modernization
Source: Forbes Magazine
Date: 3/1/1940

"Should a man quit at 40 he is failure-Retire at that age is sorry failure."

Subject: Retirement
Source: Photostatted message of William S Dutton
Date: 2/21/1928

"There should be no unemployment. There is large percentage of labor now which cannot make a living because wages are not high enough. That is industry's 2nd job. 1st job is to make good product. 2nd pay a good wage."

Subject: Unemployment; Wages; Youth; Education
Source: Detroit Times, W Champlin interview
Date: 7/28/1936

"Most fashionable commodity in US is going to be old-fashioned common sense & work."

Subject: Work; Common Sense; Labor
Source: Detroit Free Press
Date: 5/23/1933

"..the home of tomorrow will make women free for work..free to work as they like, not as they are bound to do by the past..work is the only real happiness..industry itself has been modernized so that almost any job in industry may be taken over by a woman."

Subject: Women; Work; Labor
Source: Toronto Star, Gregory Clark interview
Date: 1/9/1943

"There can be no lasting peace where hatred exists. Hatreds will continue to arise as long as the causes of war are not rooted out and exposed."

Subject: War; Peace; Hatred
Source: Detroit News
Date: 8/11/1944

"(On collecting): "I have been at it ten years. I collect them so that they will not be lost to America..We have no Egyptian mummies here, nor any relics of the Battle of Waterloo..nor any curios from Pompeii. It is strictly American.."

Subject: Collecting; Edison Institute; Greenfield Village; The Henry Ford Museum; America
Source: Ford Explains His 'Curio Shop' of America-Detroit Times. William L. Stidger interview, p.1
Date: 2/26/1928

"[At Edison Institute] We shall reproduce the life of the country in its every age."

Subject: Collecting; Edison Institute; Greenfield Village; The Henry Ford Museum; America
Source: Ford: Expansion and Challenge-Allan Nevins and Frank Ernest Hill (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York) p. 500
Date: 1915-1933; 1957

"The farther you look back, the farther you can look ahead."

Subject: The Past; Edison Institute; Greenfield Village; The Henry Ford Museum
Source: Henry Ford and Greenfield Village"- William A. Simonds (Frederick A. Stokes Co, New York) p.14
Date: 1938

"When you once get an idea in which you believe with all your heart, work it out."

Subject: Ideas
Source: Ford Explains His 'Curio Shop' of America -Detroit Times. William L. Stidger interview, p.1
Date: 2/26/1928

"We want to reproduce all those instruments which were prepared and used in America once upon a time."

Subject: Collecting; Edison Institute; Greenfield Village; The Henry Ford Museum; America
Source: Ford's Historical Museum-American Russian Falcon-Homestead, Pennsylvania-M. Vladimirov
Date: 6/28/1932

"When we are through, we shall have reproduced American life as lived; and that, I think, is the best way of preserving at least a part of our history and tradition."

Subject: Greenfield Village; Henry Ford Museum; Learning; Education; America; Tradition
Source: Henry Ford and Greenfield Village -William A. Simonds (Frederick A. Stokes), New York p.117
Date: 1928

"We ought to know more about the families who founded this nation, and how they lived. One way to do this is to reconstruct as nearly as possible the conditions under which they lived.."

Subject: Greenfield Village; Henry Ford Museum; Learning; Education; America, Tradition
Source: The Ford Museum-The American Historical Review vol XXXVI, no. 4- J.G DeRoulhae Hamilton
Date: July 1931

"I don't read history. That's in the past. I'm thinking of the future."

Subject: History; The Past; The Future
Source: Henry Ford-America's Don Quixote-Louis P. Lochner (International Publishers-New York) p.18
Date: 1925

"Work is our sanity, our self-respect, our salvation. The day's work is the center of everything."

Subject: Work
Source: Commercialism made this War! Marshall Edward, New York Times
Date: April 11, 1915

"We now know that anything which is economically right is also morally right. There can be no conflict between good economics and good morals."

Subject: Morality, Economics
Source: "Moving Forward" p. 280-Ford
Date: n/a

"I don't like to read books. They muss up my mind."

Subject: Books; Reading
Source: Benson-"The New Henry Ford" p. 330
Date: n/a

"I wouldn't give five cents for all the art in the world."

Subject: Art
Source: Detroit the Dynamic - Street p. 27
Date: n/a

"That's the way to study history-by noting evolutionary processes."

Subject: History; Evolution
Source: They Told Barron"-Barron p. 123-124
Date: n/a

"If you find out what men want and give them that, you are pleasing them. If you find out what is good for them and give them that, you are performing a service. That's what we are trying to do."

Subject: Charity; Self-Help
Source: Henry Ford's Experiment in Good-Will - Everybody's Magazine, XXX-Garet Garret p. 470
Date: April 1914

"No one will ever get anywhere in this world unless he becomes a teacher, one who can show others how to do things."

Subject: Education; Teaching
Source: New York Times
Date: December 14, 1928

"This is the only reason Greenfield Village exists-to give us a sense of unity with our people through the generations, and to convey the inspiration of American genius to our young men. As a nation we have not depended so much on rare or occasional genius as on the general resourcefulness of our people. That is our true genius, and I am hoping that Greenfield Village will serve that."

Subject: Greenfield Village; Edison Institute; America; Growth; Education
Source: The Idea Behind Greenfield Village - American Legion Monthly; Henry Ford as told to Arthur Van Vlissingen Jr.
Date: October 1932

"We want to have something of everything-we have types of every sort of wagon and carriage ever used in this country, from the covered wagon of the pioneer to the last style of buggy. We have nearly every type of agricultural instrument, every type of musical instrument, we have all kinds and sorts of furniture and household effects. One of these days the collection will have its own museum at Dearborn, and there we shall reproduce the life of the country in its every age."

Subject: Edison Institute; America
Source: n/a
Date: n/a

"Every business is a monarchy with, not a man, but an idea as king."

Subject: Business; Ideas
Source: Electrical World
Date: February 16, 1929

"When we are through, we shall have reproduced American life as lived; and that, I think is the best way of preserving at least a part of our history and tradition."

Subject: America; History; Tradition; Greenfield Village
Source: Henry Ford and Greenfield Village - William A. Simands (Frederick A. Stokes); New York, p. 117
Date: 1928

"Improvements have been coming so quickly that the past is being lost to the rising generation, and it can be preserved only by putting it in a form where it may be seen and felt. That is the reason behind this collection."

Subject: Edison Institute; Preservation of the Past; Greenfield Village
Source: The Ford Museum, The American Historical Review, Vol. XXXVI, No. 4-J.G De Roulhac Hamilton
Date: July 1931

"We have enough in our country to let us deep into the springs of human life if we only cherished what we have."

Subject: America; Edison Institute; Greenfield Village
Source: Ford Explains His 'Curio Shop' of America, Detroit Times-William L. Stidger p.1
Date: February 26, 1928

"If you go into a union, they have got you, but what have you got?"

Subject: Unions
Source: Ford Gives Viewpoint on Labor: Cautions Workers on Organization Detroit News & North American Newspaper Alliance-A.M Smith
Date: April 29, 1937

"The best way to make money in business is not to think too much about making it."

Subject: Money; Profit
Source: The Wild Wheel -Garet Garret p. 116
Date: n/a

"We have only started with the development of our country-we have not as yet, with all our talk of wonderful progress, done more than scratch the surface."

Subject: Development; Progress
Source: My Life and Work p. 1
Date: 1922

"Any man can learn anything he will, but no man can teach except to those who want to learn. Education is preeminently a matter of quality, not amount"

Subject: Education; Teaching
Subject: Ford News, p.2
Date: 1/1/1924

"Mass production is craftsmanship with the drudgery taken out of it."

Subject: Production
Source: Ford News. Back cover
Date: June, 1937

"In the long run people are going to buy the cheapest and the best article no matter where it is made."

Subject: Business
Source: Ford News, Back cover
Date: June, 1937

"Burdening people with debt is an old deal not a new deal."

Subject: Debt
Source: Ford News, back cover
Date: June, 1937

"The South has a future which it can shape for itself, and avoid the mistakes which the more populous parts of the country have made."

Subject: America; South
Source: Ford News, back cover
Date: June, 1937

"The best way is always the simplest. The attics of the world are cluttered up with complicated failures."

Subject: Simplicity
Source: Ford News, back cover
Date: June, 1937

"Money will ruin the life of any man who treats it like anything but a tool with which to work."

Subject: Money
Source: Ford News, back cover
Date: June, 1937