I invented nothing new. I simply assembled the discoveries of other men behind whom were centuries of work. Had I worked fifty or ten or even five years before, I would have failed. So it is with every new thing. Progress happens when all the factors that make for it are ready, and then it is inevitable. To teach that a comparatively few men are responsible for the greatest forward steps of mankind is the worst sort of nonsense.

Luck and destiny are the excuses of the world's failures.

This company doesn't pay anybody. Only customers can do that. The company merely handles the money.

Mr Edison gave America just what was needed at that moment in history. They say that when people think of me, they think of my assembly line. Mr. Edison, you built an assembly line which brought together the genius of invention, science and industry.

Business is never as healthy as when, like a chicken, it must do a certain amount of scratching for what it gets.

We have always found that, if the principles were right, the area over which they were affected did not matter. Size is only a matter of the multiplication table.

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.