Wisdom of Life

Henry Ford: On the Wisdom of Life and Success

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

 

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Life, as I see it, is not a location, but a journey. Even the man who most feels himself “settled” is not settled—he is probably sagging back. Everything is in flux, and was meant to be. Life flows. We may live at the same number of the street, but it is never the same man who lives there.

Life is a series of experiences, each of which makes us bigger, even though it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and griefs which we endure help us in our marching onward. The natural thing to do is to work—to recognize that prosperity and happiness can be obtained only through honest effort.

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.

To do more for the world than the world does for you — that is success

The whole secret of a successful life is to find out what is one’s destiny to do, and then do it. If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.

Vision without execution is just hallucination.

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason so few engage in it. Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs. One of the greatest discoveries a person makes, one of their great surprises, is to find they can do what they were afraid they couldn’t do. Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t—you’re right. There is no man living who isn’t capable of doing more than he thinks he can do.

Failure is the opportunity to begin again, only more intelligently. The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.

Don’t find fault, find a remedy; anybody can complain. Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them. Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goals.

If money is your hope for independence, you will never have it. The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability.

***

~Henry Ford was an American captain of industry and a business magnate, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and the sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production.

©Excellence Reporter 2019

Categories: Wisdom of Life

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