Top 100 Lee Iacocca Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “MBAs know everything but understand nothing.”

— Lee Iacocca

52. “I’m still not sure what is meant by good fortune and success. I know fame and power are for the birds. But then life suddenly comes into focus for me. And, ah, there stand my kids.”

— Lee Iacocca

53. “We’ve got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need?”

— Lee Iacocca

54. “A country’s competitiveness starts not on the factory floor or in the engineering lab. It starts in the classroom.”

— Lee Iacocca

55. “Life can be difficult for kids born with a gold spoon in their mouth, because they never really get to find out if they’re able to work hard and make it on their own.”

— Lee Iacocca

56. “There are times when even the best manager is like the little boy with the big dog, waiting to see where the dog wants to go so he can take him there.”

— Lee Iacocca

57. “As you go through life, there are thousands of little forks in the road, and there are a few really big forks-those moments of reckoning, moments of truth.”

— Lee Iacocca

58. “You, my friend, alone are equal to a hundred of such friends. Happy Birthday to you.”

— Lee Iacocca

59. “I always go back to Harry Truman: Should we drop an atomic bomb to save 100,000 lives? That’s a hell of a decision to make. Did he make that decision by himself? No, he had advisers.”

— Lee Iacocca

60. “Never rest on your oars as a boss. If you do, the whole company starts sinking.”

— Lee Iacocca

61. “I have found that being honest is the best technique I can use. Right up front, tell people what you’re trying to accomplish and what you’re willing to sacrifice to accomplish it.”

— Lee Iacocca

62. “If I Had To Sum Up In One Word The Qualities That Make Up A Good Manager, I’d Say Decisiveness.”

— Lee Iacocca

63. “Here’s what management is about: Pick good people and set the right priorities.”

— Lee Iacocca

64. “If a guy is over 25 percent jerk, he’s in trouble. And Henry was 95 percent.”

— Lee Iacocca

65. “In the old days, if a neighbors apples fell into your yard, you worked it out over the back fence or picked them up and made pies. Today, you sue.”

— Lee Iacocca

66. “People want economy, and they’ll pay any price to get it.”

— Lee Iacocca

67. “That’s the American way. If little kids don’t aspire to make money like I did, what the hell good is this country?”

— Lee Iacocca

68. “The kind of people I look for to fill top management spots are the eager beavers, the mavericks. These are the guys who try to do more than they’re expected to do – they always reach.”

— Lee Iacocca

69. “I don’t need a $100 million mistake. Try to make a $5 million mistake if you have to make one.”

— Lee Iacocca

70. “I’d really love to meet the guy I’m supposed to be. I’d hire him in a second.”

— Lee Iacocca

71. “Why is our free-enterprise system so strong?- Not because it stands still, frozen in the past, but because it has always adapted to changing realities.”

— Lee Iacocca

72. “I guess that’s one achievement I’m really proud of. Saving Chrysler was more than jobs, more than shareholder value. Saving Chrysler was a good idea for the whole country.”

— Lee Iacocca

73. “What is it that you like doing? If you don’t like it, get out of it, because you’ll be lousy at it.”

— Lee Iacocca

74. “We load up on oat bran in the morning so we’ll live forever. Then we spend the rest of the day living like there’s no tomorrow.”

— Lee Iacocca

75. “Thanks to properly selecting the clients you will not be unnecessarily wasting time.”

— Lee Iacocca

76. “Incompetency begets incompetency. The last thing a guy who isn’t sure of himself wants is a guy backing him up who is sure of himself.”

— Lee Iacocca

77. “Bad times are indelible. They stay with you forever.”

— Lee Iacocca

78. “I was at Ford for 32 years. I went to Chrysler in 1978, four or five months after I got canned by Henry Ford.”

— Lee Iacocca

79. “Are we going to be a services power? The double-cheeseburger-hold-the-mayo kings of the world?”

— Lee Iacocca

80. “If I had to sum up in a word what makes a good manager, I’d say decisiveness. You can use the fanciest computers to gather the numbers, but in the end you have to set a timetable and act.”

— Lee Iacocca

81. “In the great undertakings, there is glory, even in failure.”

— Lee Iacocca

82. “Most people are looking for security, a nice, safe, prosperous future. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s called the American Dream.”

— Lee Iacocca

83. “You can’t have a country or a city or a state that’s worth a damn unluss you govern within yourself in your day-to-day life.”

— Lee Iacocca

84. “I was fortunate to get a scholarship when I went to Lehigh University and Princeton. They were both wonderful schools. Somebody was kind enough to spend their money to educate people that they would never get to know. That’s what I think philanthropy is about.”

— Lee Iacocca

85. “They’ve got about as many lawyers as we have sumo-wrestlers.”

— Lee Iacocca

86. “If you make believe that ten guys in pin-striped suits are back in a kindergarten class playing with building blocks, you’ll get a rough picture of what life in a corporation is like.”

— Lee Iacocca

87. “Styling cars sells cars and safety does not.”

— Lee Iacocca

88. “The only mistake I ever made was not listening to my gut.”

— Lee Iacocca

89. “I’ve got to get stop getting fired like this. People will start to think I’m a drifter.”

— Lee Iacocca

90. “Greenmail, in case you’re wondering, is when a company pays a raider a premium for his holdings-if he’ll go away. What I think it really is is blackmail in a pin-striped suit.”

— Lee Iacocca

91. “A guy named Charlie Beacham was my first mentor at Ford. He taught me the importance of the dealers, and he rubbed my nose in the retail business.”

— Lee Iacocca

92. “The cement in our whole democracy today is the worker who makes $ 15 an hour. He’s the guy who will buy a house and a car and a refrigerator. He’s the oil in the engine.”

— Lee Iacocca

93. “Every little kid wants to grow up to be a cowboy, and I did.”

— Lee Iacocca

94. “I was good friends with Frank Sinatra, I heard Steve Kaufman painting his portrait, so I asked Steve to paint my portrait.”

— Lee Iacocca

95. “In business, I loved cars. I couldn’t wait to get to work in the morning. Only in America can you decide to get a good education and pursue what you like.”

— Lee Iacocca

96. “I have always found that if I move with seventy-five percent or more of the facts that I usually never regret it. It’s the guys who wait to have everything perfect that drive you crazy.”

— Lee Iacocca

97. “The primary skill of a manager consists of knowing how to make assignments and picking the right people to carry out those assignments.”

— Lee Iacocca

98. “I learned that monthly payments are the cornerstone of everything in the automobile business.”

— Lee Iacocca

99. “Here’s what we should be doing. We’ve got to get off fossil fuels.”

— Lee Iacocca

100. “I’m sometimes described as a flamboyant leader and a hip-shooter, a fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants operator. But if that were true, I could never have been successful in this business.”

— Lee Iacocca