Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
It's easy to have principles when you're rich. The important thing is to have principles when you're poor.
When times are bad is when you want to build! Why wait for things to pick up so everything will cost more?
I didn't know what we would be selling in the year 2000 but whatever it was we would be selling the most of it.
The key to success is being in the right place at the right time, recognizing that you are there, and taking action!
That's the name of the game ... pleasing the customer. If we ever lose sight of that fact, we've lost the ball game.
While formal schooling is an important advantage, it is not a guarantee of success nor is its absence a fatal handicap.
I wasn't prepared for this big room with clattering typewriters and teletype printers. You could hardly hear yourself think.
Perfection is very difficult to achieve, and perfection was what I wanted in McDonald's. Everything else was secondary for me.
I guess to be an entrepreneur you have to have a large ego, enormous pride and an ability to inspire others to follow your lead.
Our aim was to insure repeat business based on the system's reputation rather than on the quality of a single store or operator.
McDonald's is a people business, and that smile on that counter girl's face when she takes your order is a vital part of our image.
No self-respecting pitcher throws the same way to every batter and no self-respecting salesman makes the same pitch to every client.
Speaking of competition in the fast-food industry. This is rat eat rat, dog eat dog. I'll kill 'em, and I'm going to kill 'em before they kill me.
The two most important requirements for major success are: first, being in the right place at the right time, and second, doing something about it.
If I had a brick for every time I’ve repeated the phrase Quality, Service, Cleanliness and Value, I think I’d probably be able to bridge the Atlantic Ocean with them.
Visions of McDonald's restaurants dotting crossroads all over the country paraded through my brain. I don't believe in saturation. We're thinking and talking worldwide.
I was 52 years old. I had diabetes and incipient arthritis. I had lost my gall bladder and most of my thyroid gland in earlier campaigns, but I was convinced the best was ahead of me.
There is absolutely nothing special about walking on a rope stretched along the ground. Where there is no risk, there can be no pride in a deed accomplished, and therefore no happiness.
I was never much of a reader when I was a boy. Books bored me. I liked action. But I spent a lot of time thinking about things. I'd imagine all kinds of situations and how I would handle them.
I never considered my dreams wasted energy; they were invariably linked to some form of action. When I dreamed about having a lemonade stand, for example, it wasn't long before I set up a lemonade stand.
If you do it first class and you don't compromise values, and you don't compromise quality, and you don't compromise service, and you don't compromise cleanliness, then everybody else who is the competitor has got to play catch-up.
The McDonald brothers were simply not on my wavelength at all. I was obsessed with the idea of making McDonald's the biggest and the best. They were content with what they had; they didn't want to be bothered with more risks and more demands.
It requires a certain kind of mind to see beauty in a hamburger bun. Yet is it any more unusual to find grace in the texture and softly carved silhouette of a bun than to reflect lovingly on the hackles of a fishing fly? Or the arrangements and textures on a butterfly's wing? Not if you are a McDonalds's man.
If any of my competitors were drowning, I'd stick a hose in their mouth and turn on the water. It is ridiculous to call this an industry. This is not. This is rat eat rat, dog eat dog. I'll kill 'em, and I'm going to kill 'em before they kill me. You're talking about the American way - of survival of the fittest.
Achievement must be made against the possibility of failure, against the risk of defeat. It is no achievement to walk a tightrope laid flat on the floor. Where there is no risk, there can be no pride in achievement and, consequently, no happiness. The only way we can advance is by going forward, individually and collectively, in the spirit of the pioneer. We must take the risks involved in our free enterprise system. This is the only way in the world to economic freedom. There is no other way.
