Top 100 Lee Iacocca Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “The speed of the boss is the speed of the team.”

— Lee Iacocca

Featured in: Inspirational Quotes for Work, Boss Quotes

2. “Business, after all, is nothing more than a bunch of human relationships.”

— Lee Iacocca

Featured in: Friday Quotes for Work, Collaboration Quotes

3. “You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can’t get them across, your ideas won’t get you anywhere.”

— Lee Iacocca

4. “The right decision is the wrong decision if it’s made too late.”

— Lee Iacocca

5. “So what do we do? Anything. Something. So long as we just don’t sit there. If we screw it up, start over. Try something else. If we wait until we’ve satisfied all the uncertainties, it may be too late.”

— Lee Iacocca

Featured in: Procrastination Quotes

6. “In a completely rational society, the best of us would aspire to be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something less, because passing civilization along from one generation to the next ought to be the highest honor and the highest responsibility anyone could have.”

— Lee Iacocca

7. “If you want to make good use of your time, you’ve got to know what’s most important and then give it all you’ve got.”

— Lee Iacocca

8. “No matter what you’ve done for yourself or for humanity, if you can’t look back on having given love and attention to your own family, what have you really accomplished?”

— Lee Iacocca

Featured in: Wise Quotes, Quotes About Humanity, Family Quotes, Work-Life Balance Quotes, Father's Day Quotes

9. “In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words: people, product, and profits.”

— Lee Iacocca

10. “Don’t just stand there; make something happen.”

— Lee Iacocca

11. “Management is nothing more than motivating other people.”

— Lee Iacocca

12. “If you set a good example you need not worry about setting rules.”

— Lee Iacocca

13. “The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen.”

— Lee Iacocca

14. “In times of great stress or adversity, it’s always best to keep busy, to plow your anger and your energy into something positive.”

— Lee Iacocca

15. “Motivation is everything. You can do the work of two people, but you can’t be two people. Instead, you have to inspire the next guy down the line and get him to inspire his people.”

— Lee Iacocca

16. “Apply yourself. Get all the education you can, but then, by God, do something. Don’t just stand there, make it happen.”

— Lee Iacocca

17. “Your legacy should be that you made it better than it was when you got it.”

— Lee Iacocca

18. “If we wait until we’ve satisfied all the uncertainties, it may be too late.”

— Lee Iacocca

Featured in: Procrastination Quotes

19. “Mistakes are a part of life; you can’t avoid them. All you can hope is that they won’t be too expensive and that you don’t make the same mistake twice.”

— Lee Iacocca

20. “I hire people brighter than me and then I get out of their way.”

— Lee Iacocca

21. “The ability to concentrate and to use your time well is everything if you want to succeed in business – or almost anywhere else for that matter.”

— Lee Iacocca

22. “When the product is right, you don’t have to be a great marketer.”

— Lee Iacocca

23. “The only rock I know that stays steady, the only institution I know that works, is the family.”

— Lee Iacocca

24. “Be creative. Use unconventional thinking. And have the guts to carry it out.”

— Lee Iacocca

25. “Leadership means setting an example. When you find yourself in a position of leadership, people follow your every move.”

— Lee Iacocca

26. “There’s no great mystery to satisfying your customers. Build them a quality product and treat them with respect. It’s that simple.”

— Lee Iacocca

27. “To solve big problems you have to be willing to do unpopular things.”

— Lee Iacocca

28. “The ability to concentrate and to use time well is everything.”

— Lee Iacocca

29. “If you own up to your mistakes, you don’t suffer as much. But that’s a tough lesson to learn.”

— Lee Iacocca

30. “The one word that makes a good manager – decisiveness.”

— Lee Iacocca

31. “A major reason capable people fail to advance is that they don’t work well with their colleagues.”

— Lee Iacocca

32. “The thing that lies at the foundation of positive change, the way I see it, is service to a fellow human being.”

— Lee Iacocca

33. “To succeed today, you have to set priorities, decide what you stand for.”

— Lee Iacocca

34. “The most successful businessman is the man who holds onto the old just as long as it is good, and grabs the new just as soon as it is better.”

— Lee Iacocca

35. “The affections are like lightning: you cannot tell where they will strike till they have fallen.”

— Lee Iacocca

36. “Listening can make the difference between a mediocre organization and a great one.”

— Lee Iacocca

37. “I learned about the strength you can get from a close family life. I learned to keep going, even in bad times. I learned not to despair, even when my world was falling apart. I learned that there are no free lunches. And I learned the value of hard work.”

— Lee Iacocca

38. “Any supervisor worth his salt would rather deal with people who attempt too much than with those who try too little.”

— Lee Iacocca

39. “If we screw it up, start over. Try something else.”

— Lee Iacocca

40. “In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words: people, product, and profits. People come first. Unless you’ve got a good team, you can’t do much with the other two.”

— Lee Iacocca

41. “There’s a world of difference between a strong ego, which is essential, and a large ego-which can be destructive.”

— Lee Iacocca

Featured in: Strong Quotes

42. “Formal learning can teach you a great deal, but many of the essential skills in life are the ones you have to develop on your own.”

— Lee Iacocca

43. “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.”

— Lee Iacocca

44. “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.”

— Lee Iacocca

45. “There is no substitute for accurate knowledge. Know yourself, know your business, know your men.”

— Lee Iacocca

46. “I only wish I could find an institute that teaches people how to listen. Business people need to listen at least as much as they need to talk. Too many people fail to realize that real communication goes in both directions.”

— Lee Iacocca

47. “Every business and every product has risks. You can’t get around it.”

— Lee Iacocca

48. “My father used to say, ‘You can spend a lot of time making money. The tough time comes when you have to give it away properly.’ How to give something back, that’s the tough part in life.”

— Lee Iacocca

49. “I forgot to shake hands and be friendly. It was an important lesson about leadership.”

— Lee Iacocca

50. “In a corporation, there can only be one guy in the end: the CEO.”

— Lee Iacocca