“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.”

Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get.

You’ll learn more about a road by traveling it than by consulting all the maps in the world.

Look after the customer and the business will take care of itself.

In my experience, good executives don’t make mistakes.

If my competitor were drowning I’d stick a hose in his mouth and turn on the water.

Perfection is very difficult to achieve, and perfection was what I wanted in McDonald’s. Everything else was secondary for me.

The organization cannot trust the individual; the individual must trust the organization.

There are things money can’t buy and hard work can’t win. One of them is happiness.

To an old leader will be born an idiot heir, weak both in knowledge and in war.

After there is great trouble among mankind, a greater one is prepared. The great mover of the universe will renew time, rain, blood, thirst, famine, steel weapons and disease. In the heavens, a fire seen.

It’s easy to have principles when you’re rich. The important thing is to have principles when you’re poor.

Creativity is a highfalutin’ word for the work I have to do between now and Tuesday.

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.

When times are bad is when you want to build! Why wait for things to pick up so everything will cost more?

You’re only as good as the people you hire.

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.

Without loyalty, you won’t accomplish anything.

We wrote this so that the leadership lessons can continue to impact teams beyond the battlefield in all leadership situations—any company, team, or organization in which a group of people strives to achieve a goal and accomplish a mission.

As we work along our various ways, there takes shape within us, in some sort, an ideal – something we are to become – some work to be done. This, I think, is denied to very few, and we begin really to live only when the thrill of this ideality moves us in what we will to accomplish.

All elements within the greater team are crucial and must work together to accomplish the mission, mutually supporting one another for that singular purpose.

In order to convince and inspire others to follow and accomplish a mission, a leader must be a true believer in the mission.

Good generalship is a realization that you’ve got to try and figure out how to accomplish your mission with a minimum loss of human life.

Nothing great in the world was accomplished without passion.

We may affirm absolutely that nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion.