“America looks 10 minutes ahead; Japan looks 10 years.”

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.

My solution to the problem of unleashing creativity is always to set up a target.

If we do our best and make efforts, a peaceful and great future will become ours without fail.

I believe it is a big mistake to think that money is the only way to compensate a person for his work.

A company will get nowhere if all of the thinking is left to management.

We want to keep the company healthy and its employees happy, and we want to keep them on the job and productive.

To have any one of these without the others is self defeating in business.

Amenities are not of great concern to management in Japan.

Don’t let ambition get so far ahead that it loses sight of the job at hand.

I want to go ahead of Father Time with a scythe of my own.

When a car’s ahead of you, as long as you can see it, you get a tow, just like the draft in NASCAR.

You’ll never get ahead of anyone as long as you try to get even with him.

A lifetime contract for a coach means if you’re ahead in the third quarter and moving the ball, they can’t fire you.

The great person is ahead of their time, the smart make something out of it, and the blockhead, sets themselves against it.

Every time there has been an effort by the Haitian people to overcome the misery and poverty that comes from 200 years of bitter attacks, really bitter, the U.S. steps in and blocks it.

A simple life, a good life. And think about moving the whole human race ahead a step, or a few steps.