“If you go through life convinced that your way is always best, all the new ideas in the world will pass you by.”

(Japanese Government believes that if you have a big laboratory with all the latest equipment and good funding it will automatically lead to creativity. It doesn’t work that way.

It has run consistently about 6 percent of sales at Sony – and in service.

Americans make money by playing `money games,’ namely mergers, acquisitions, by simply moving money back and forth … instead of creating and producing goods with some actual value.

Our plan is to lead the public with new products rather than ask them what kind of products they want.

Executives of the company must have the necessary qualities to direct the personnel by showing them the way to do things.

Curiosity is the key to creativity.

You can be totally rational with a machine.

Employees are not guilty; why should they suffer?

I feel it is my fault because I made the decision to hire him.

If we face recession, we should not lay off employees; the company should sacrifice a profit. It’s management’s risk and management’s responsibility.

I often say to my assistants, “Never trust anybody,” but what I mean is that you should never trust someone else to do a job exactly the way you would want it done.

There is no secret ingredient or hidden formula responsible for the success of the best Japanese companies.

We want everybody to have the best facilities in which to work, but we do not believe in posh and impressive private offices.

If management take the risk of hiring them, we have to take the responsibility for them.

The “patron saint” of Japanese quality control, ironically, is an American named W. Edwards Deming, who was virtually unknown in his own country until his ideas of quality control began to make such a big impact on Japanese companies.

We don’t believe in market research for a new product unknown to the public. So we never do any.

If you want the best the world has to offer, offer the world your best.

Enthusiasm is a heightened state of consciousness, and it’s one of the best feelings there is to feel.

Wine, madam, is God’s next best gift to man.

The best advice I have been given is to live in the moment, as cliché as that sounds. It’s crazy.

The best use of life is love. The best expression of love is time. The best time to love is now.

The only thing I can do is wipe my arse, brush my teeth, turn up and do the best work I can.

Surrender is not the best way to live; it is the only way to live. Nothing else works.

In the long run, the world is going to have the best, and any difference in race, religion, or previous history will not keep the world from what it wants.