Top 50 H. Ross Perot Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Most people give up just when they’re about to achieve success. They quit on the one yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game one foot from a winning touchdown.”

— H. Ross Perot

Featured in: Dedication Quotes, Resilience Quotes, Giving Up Quotes, Victory Quotes, Epic Quotes

2. “Life is never more fun than when you’re the underdog competing against the giants.”

— H. Ross Perot

3. “When building a team, I always search first for people who love to win. If I can’t find any of those, I look for people who hate to lose.”

— H. Ross Perot

4. “My role in life is that of the grain of sand to the oyster-it irritates the oyster and out comes a pearl.”

— H. Ross Perot

5. “Lead and inspire people. Don’t try to manage and manipulate people. Inventories can be managed but people must be led.”

— H. Ross Perot

Featured in: Leadership Quotes, Positive Motivation Quotes, Positive Work Quotes

6. “The activist is not the man who says the river is dirty. The activist is the man who cleans up the river.”

— H. Ross Perot

7. “The debt is like a crazy aunt we keep down in the basement. All the neighbors know she’s there, but nobody wants to talk about her.”

— H. Ross Perot

8. “We have to succeed, so we will.”

— H. Ross Perot

9. “Talk is cheap. Words are plentiful. Deeds are precious.”

— H. Ross Perot

10. “If you see a snake, just kill it – don’t appoint a committee on snakes.”

— H. Ross Perot

11. “The first EDSer to see a snake kills it. At GM, first thing you do is organize a committee on snakes. Then you bring in a consultant who knows a lot about snakes. Third thing you do is talk about it for a year.”

— H. Ross Perot

12. “Spend a lot of time talking to customers face to face. You’d be amazed how many companies don’t listen to their customers.”

— H. Ross Perot

13. “Don’t run your life by what’s legal or illegal. Run your life based on what’s right or wrong...”

— H. Ross Perot

14. “War has rules, mud wrestling has rules – politics has no rules.”

— H. Ross Perot

15. “This planet is our home. If we destroy the planet, we’ve destroyed our home, so it is fundamentally important.”

— H. Ross Perot

16. “Failures are like skinned knees, painful but superficial.”

— H. Ross Perot

17. “Inventories can be managed, but people must be led.”

— H. Ross Perot

18. “Business is not just doing deals; business is having great products, doing great engineering, and providing tremendous service to customers. Finally, business is a cobweb of human relationships.”

— H. Ross Perot

19. “One voice is tiny, and alone it cannot be heard above the din of politics as usual. The peoples voice, when it cries as one, is a great roar.”

— H. Ross Perot

20. “So many people spend their lives chasing money and end up as the richest men in the cemetery. I don’t want to be like that.”

— H. Ross Perot

21. “Something in human nature causes us to start slacking off at our moment of greatest accomplishment. As you become successful, you will need a great deal of self-discipline not to lose your sense of balance, humility and commitment.”

— H. Ross Perot

22. “I came from an environment where if you see a snake, you kill it. At General motors, if you see a snake, the first thing you do is to hire a consultant on snakes.”

— H. Ross Perot

23. “Success is like Halley’s comet, you know. Every now and then it just comes around.”

— H. Ross Perot

24. “You don’t have to be the biggest to beat the biggest.”

— H. Ross Perot

25. “A weak currency is the sign of a weak economy, and a weak economy leads to a weak nation.”

— H. Ross Perot

26. “Most people give up just when they’re about to achieve success.”

— H. Ross Perot

27. “The budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled, the public debt should be reduced and the arrogance of public officials should be controlled.”

— H. Ross Perot

28. “Written reports stifle creativity.”

— H. Ross Perot

29. “Revitalizing General Motors is like teaching an elephant to tap dance. You find the sensitive spot and start poking.”

— H. Ross Perot

30. “Life is like a cobweb, not an organization chart.”

— H. Ross Perot

31. “Punishing honest mistakes stifles creativity. I want people moving and shaking the earth and they’re going to make mistakes.”

— H. Ross Perot

32. “It is the individual’s ability to deal with the unexpected that characterizes the difference between success and failure.”

— H. Ross Perot

33. “The American dream. Those three short, simple words encompass the hopes and aspirations of all the peoples on earth. The words are not only short and simple. They are also fragile.”

— H. Ross Perot

34. “You make more making computer chips than potato chips.”

— H. Ross Perot

35. “If we decide to take this level of business creating ability nationwide, we’ll all be plucking chickens for a living.”

— H. Ross Perot

36. “Anything that is excellent or praiseworthy stands moment by moment on the cutting edge and must be constantly fought for. Well placed priorities always sit on the edge.”

— H. Ross Perot

37. “If we really want to know who is responsible for the mess we’re in, all we have to do is look in the mirror. You and I own this country, and we are responsible for what happens to it.”

— H. Ross Perot

38. “In plain Texas talk, it’s ‘do the right thing’”

— H. Ross Perot

39. “If someone as blessed as I am is not willing to clean out the barn, who will?”

— H. Ross Perot

40. “Anybody can cut prices, but it takes brains to produce a better article.”

— H. Ross Perot

41. “There is no accountability in the public school system – except for coaches. You know what happens to a losing coach. You fire him. A losing teacher can go on losing for 30 years and then go to glory.”

— H. Ross Perot

42. “Big is not beautiful. Big is inefficient.”

— H. Ross Perot

43. “The most successful people in the world aren’t usually the brightest. They are the ones who persevere.”

— H. Ross Perot

44. “If you can’t stand a little sacrifice and you can’t stand a trip across the desert with limited water, we’re never going to straighten this country out.”

— H. Ross Perot

45. “Action is greater than writing. A good man is a nobler object of contemplation than a great author. There are but two things worth living for: to do what is worthy of being written; and to write what is worthy of being read.”

— H. Ross Perot

46. “Generosity is something we learn, from our parents, schools and community.”

— H. Ross Perot

47. “The best way to make money is not to have money as your primary goal. I’ve seen great people come into the business world primarily motivated to make money. Almost without exception they failed.”

— H. Ross Perot

48. “Modern politics has become little more than shirking responsibility and blaming somebody else.”

— H. Ross Perot

49. “In business, people are held accountable. In Washington, nobody is held accountable. In business, people are judged on results. In Washington, people are measured by their ability to get reelected.”

— H. Ross Perot

50. “I honestly believe I’d make one of the worst elected officials in the history of this country.”

— H. Ross Perot