Lee Iacocca Quotes
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Your legacy should be that you made it better than it was when you got it.
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That's the American way. If little kids don't aspire to make money like I did, what the hell good is this country?
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The trick is to make sure you don't die waiting for prosperity to come.
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If you own up to your mistakes, you don't suffer as much. But that's a tough lesson to learn.
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To solve big problems you have to be willing to do unpopular things.
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Over the years, many executives have said to me with pride: 'Boy, I worked so hard last year that I didn't take any vacation.' I always feel like responding, "You dummy. You mean to tell me you can take responsibility for an eighty-million-dollar project and you can't plan two weeks out of the year to have some fun?
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I forgot to shake hands and be friendly. It was an important lesson about leadership.
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I was stunned. It was a complete takeover. Chrysler had $12 billion in cash and was stronger at the time and should have bought Daimler.
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When future historians look back on our way of curing inflation they'll probably compare it to bloodletting in the Middle Ages.
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In a corporation, there can only be one guy in the end: the CEO.
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The primary skill of a manager consists of knowing how to make assignments and picking the right people to carry out those assignments
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I gotta tell ya, with our $2.4 billion in profits last year, they gave me a great big bonus. Really, it's almost obscene.
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Decisiveness is the one word that makes a good manager.
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I'm sometimes described as a flamboyant leader and a hip-shooter, a fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants operator. But if that were true, I could never have been successful in this business.
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Most people are looking for security, a nice, safe, prosperous future. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's called the American Dream.
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Any supervisor worth his salt would rather deal with people who attempt too much than with those who try too little.
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We believe the combination of these two companies will produce very powerful synergies and puts us on a solid platform from which we should be able to realize our full growth potential.
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I guess I invented extended warranties, because that's all we had to sell at Chrysler in those days.
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I have always found that if I move with seventy-five percent or more of the facts that I usually never regret it. It's the guys who wait to have everything perfect that drive you crazy.
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Start with good people, lay out the rules, communicate with your employees, motivate them and reward them. If you do all those things effectively, you can't miss.
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He was eccentric. He was no prince in his social attitudes and his politics. But Henry Ford's mark in history is almost unbelievable.
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The great issues facing us today are not Republican issues or Democratic issues. The political parties can debate the means, but both parties must embrace the end objective, which is to make America great again.
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There are times when even the best manager is like the little boy with the big dog, waiting to see where the dog wants to go so he can take him there.
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Every little kid wants to grow up to be a cowboy, and I did.