Henry Ford Quotes (1863-1947)

“The average man won't really do a day's work unless he is caught and cannot get out of it. There is plenty of work to do if people would do it.”

“There's enough alcohol in one year's yield of an acre of potatoes to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the fields for one hundred years.”

“There's enough alcohol in one year's yield of an acre of potatoes to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the fields for one hundred years.”

“The people must be helped to think naturally about money. They must be told what it is, and what makes it money, and what are the possible tricks of the present system which put nations and peoples under control of the few.”

“I don't know much about history, and I wouldn't give a nickel for all the history in the world. It means nothing to me. History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history we make today.”

“Touch the conservative capitalist who is a Jew, and the red communist who is also a Jew will spring to his defense. It may be that sometimes they love each other less, but altogether they hate non-Jews more, and that is their common bond. The Kehillah is an alliance, more offensive than defensive, against the "Gentiles."”

“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.”

“We are not against borrowing money and we are not against bankers. We are against trying to make borrowed money take the place of work. We are against the kind of banker who regards a business as a melon to be cut. The thing is to keep money and borrowing and finance generally in their proper place, and in order to do that one has to consider exactly for what the money is needed and how it is going to be paid off.”

“Edison definitely ended the distinction between the theoretical man of science and the practical man of science, so that today we think of scientific discoveries in connection with their possible present or future application to the needs of man. He took the old rule-of-thumb methods out of industry and substituted exact scientific knowledge, while, on the other hand, he directed scientific research into useful channels.”

“So, while the people are indeed supreme over the written Constitution, the spiritual constitution is supreme over them. The French Revolutionists wrote constitutions too—every drunken writer among them tossed off a constitution. Where are they? All vanished. Why? Because they were not in harmony with the constitution of the universe. The power of the Constitution is not dependent on any Government, but on its inherent rightness and practicability.”

“So, while the people are indeed supreme over the written Constitution, the spiritual constitution is supreme over them. The French Revolutionists wrote constitutions too—every drunken writer among them tossed off a constitution. Where are they? All vanished. Why? Because they were not in harmony with the constitution of the universe. The power of the Constitution is not dependent on any Government, but on its inherent rightness and practicability.”

“Parts and summaries of the plan have been published from time to time during the centuries as the secrets of the Elders have leaked out. The claim of the Jews that the Protocols are forgeries is in itself an admission of their genuineness, for they never attempt to answer the facts corresponding to the threats which the Protocols contain, and, indeed, the correspondence between prophecy and fulfilment is too glaring to be set aside or obscured. This the Jews well know and therefore evade.”

“The making of things to a high measure of accuracy is not just a test of workmanship. It is a fundamental to service production. In such production there can be no fitting of parts in assemblies or in repairs. Every crankshaft must be exactly like any other crankshaft. Of course no two parts are ever absolutely alike, except by accident, for it does not pay to try for accuracy beyond a certain point. But any kind of a machine which has moving parts must be accurately made or there will be an amount of vibration through play that will shorten the life of the machine and also decrease its running efficiency.”

“Frivolity, sensuality, indecency, appalling illiteracy and endless platitude are the marks of the degenerate American Theater under Jewish control. [...] it is quite possible that many who read this are not interested in the theater, and are, in fact, convinced. that the theater and cinema are a menace. But, what principally makes these things a menace? This-that the stage and cinema today represent the principal cultural element of 90 percent of the people. What the average young person absorbs as to good form, proper deportment, refinement as contrasted with coarseness, correctness of speech or choice of words, customs and feelings of other nations, fashion of clothes, ideas of religion and law, are derived from what is seen at the cinema and theater. The masses' sole idea of home and life of the rich is derived from the stage and the movies.”

“So the Buddhist teachings of rebirth does have some scientific evidence to support it. It is logically consistent and it goes a long way in answering questions what the theistic and the materialistic theories fail to. It is also very comforting. What can be worse than a theory of life that gives you no second chance, no opportunity to amend the mistakes you have made in this life and no time to further develop the skills and abilities you have nurtured in this life.... According to the Buddha, if you fail to attain Nirvana in this life, you will have the opportunity to try again next time. If you have made mistakes in this life, you will be able to correct yourself in the next life. You will truly be able to learn from your mistakes. Things you were unable to do or achieve in this life may well become possible in the next life. What a wonderful teaching!”

“I adopted the theory of Reincarnation when I was twenty six. Religion offered nothing to the point. Even work could not give me complete satisfaction. Work is futile if we cannot utilise the experience we collect in one life in the next. When I discovered Reincarnation it was as if I had found a universal plan I realised 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. Genius is experience. Some seem to think that it is a gift or talent, but it is the fruit of long experience in many lives. Some are older souls than others, and so they know more. The discovery of Reincarnation put my mind at ease. If you preserve a record of this conversation, write it so that it puts men’s minds at ease. I would like to communicate to others the calmness that the long view of life gives to us.”

“Jews agitate in many cities against Bible reading, Christmas celebrations or carols. In Philadelphia, Cincinnati, St. Paul and New York the Jewish opposition to the carols is met with strong counter-movements. . Jewish Community at Tamaqua, Pennsylvania, defeats resolution providing daily Bible Reading in the schools.--Jews attempting same compulsion in New Jersey are met with decision that pupils may absent themselves from devotional exercises. ... On demand of Jews the school board of Bridgeport, Pennsylvania votes to discontinue the recitation of the Lord's Prayer in the schools.--In Kentucky State Senate, Jews defeat the Tichenor Bill making the Bible a book eligible for the schools. .... Upon the urgence of two Jews the Hartford, Connecticut, school board votes on the question of abolishing all religious exercises in the schools. The motion is lost by 5 to 4. ... A Jewish delegate to the Ohio Constitutional Convention suggests that the constitution be made to forbid religious references in the schools. ... Bill introduced into Pennsylvania legislature providing for Bible reading in schools and the discharge of teachers omitting to do so. Jewish rabbis protest against bill. Jewish Kehillah of Philadelphia sends telegram to governor urging him to veto bill. Governor approves bill.”

“There has been a great reaching out by bankers in the last fifteen or twenty years--and especially since the war--and the Federal Reserve System for a time put into their hands an almost limitless supply of credit. The banker is, as I have noted, by training and because of his position, totally unsuited to the conduct of industry. If, therefore, the controllers of credit have lately acquired this very large power, is it not to be taken as a sign that there is something wrong with the financial system that gives to finance instead of to service the predominant power in industry? It was not the industrial acumen of the bankers that brought them into the management of industry. Everyone will admit that. They were pushed there, willy-nilly, by the system itself. Therefore, I personally want to discover whether we are operating under the best financial system. Now, let me say at once that my objection to bankers has nothing to do with personalities. I am not against bankers as such. We stand very much in need of thoughtful men, skilled in finance. The world cannot go on without banking facilities. We have to have money. We have to have credit. Otherwise the fruits of production could not be exchanged. We have to have capital. Without it there could be no production. But whether we have based our banking and our credit on the right foundation is quite another matter.”

“Through all the years that I have been in business I have never yet found our business bad as a result of any outside force. It has always been due to some defect in our own company, and whenever we located and repaired that defect our business became good again - regardless of what anyone else might be doing. And it will always be found that this country has nationally bad business when business men are drifting, and that business is good when men take hold of their own affairs, put leadership into them, and push forward in spite of obstacles. Only disaster can result when the fundamental principles of business are disregarded and what looks like the easiest way is taken. These fundamentals, as I see them, are: (1) To make an ever increasingly large quantity of goods of the best possible quality, to make them in the best and most economical fashion, and to force them out onto the market. (2) To strive always for higher quality and lower prices as well as lower costs. (3) To raise wages gradually but continuously B and never to cut them. (4) To get the goods to the consumer in the most economical manner so that the benefits of low cost production may reach him. These fundamentals are all summed up in the single word 'service'... The service starts with discovering what people need and then supplying that need according to the principles that have just been given.”

“The model for us rich guys should be Henry Ford. When Ford famously introduced the $5 day, which was twice the prevailing wage at the time, he didn't just increase the productivity of his factories, he converted exploited autoworkers who were poor into a thriving middle class who could now afford to buy the products that they made. Ford intuited what we now know is true, that an economy is best understood as an ecosystem and characterized by the same kinds of feedback loops you find in a natural ecosystem, a feedback loop between customers and businesses. Raising wages increases demand, which increases hiring, which in turn increases wages and demand and profits, and that virtuous cycle of increasing prosperity is precisely what is missing from today's economic...”

“In 1932 Dearborn police had fired into a crowd of 4,000 seeking entrance to the Ford plant to protest against mass lay-offs, and had killed four men and wounded many others. Ever since Henry Ford announced a $5-a-day minimum wage for unskilled labor in 1913, the automobile industry had had the reputation of paying "fat" wages. But the auto workers received less than an average of $1,300 a year in 1925, when times were good, and less than $1,000 in 1935. A report to the NRA (by the Henderson committee) showed that 45 per cent of these workers were paid less than $1,000 in 1934. In one plant three-fifths of the employees received less than $800, while a third got less than $400. UAW aggressiveness in 1936 evidently was felt by the car manufacturers. With the exception of Henry Ford, always an independent, they acted in concert in most matters affecting the industry.”

“Every year Jews make more and more the controlling masters of the producers in a nation of one hundred and twenty millions; only a single great man, Ford, to their fury still maintains full independence.”

“"Progress" is for the convinced ochlocrats a consoling Utopia of madly increased comfort and technicism. This charming but dull vision was always the pseudoreligious consolation of millions of ecstatic believers in ochlocracy and in the relative perfection and wisdom of Mr. and Mrs. Averageman. Utopias in general are surrogates for heaven; they give a meager solace to the individual that his sufferings and endeavors may enable future generations to enter the chiliastic paradise. Communism works in a similar way. Its millennium is almost the same as that of ochlocracy. The Millennium of Lenin, the Millennium of Bellamy, the Millennium as represented in H. G. Wells's, [The Shape] Of Things to Come, the Millennium of Adolf Hitler and Henry Ford — they are all basically the same; they often differ in their means to attain it but they all agree in the point of technical perfection and the classless or at least totally homogeneous society without grudge or envy.”

“It will take a hundred years to tell whether he helped us or hurt us, but he certainly didn't leave us where he found us.”