There’s a world of difference between a strong ego, which is essential, and a large ego — which can be destructive. The guy with a strong ego knows h… - Lee Iacocca

But engineering no longer interested me. The day I’d arrived, they had me designing a clutch spring. It had taken me an entire day to make a detailed drawing of it, and I said to myself: “What on earth am I doing? Is this how I want to be spending the rest of my life?” I wanted to stay at Ford, but not in engineering. I was eager to be where the real action was — marketing or sales. I liked working with people more than machines.

In a completely rational society, the best of us would 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.

I discovered that people accept a lot of pain if everybody’s going through the chute together. If everybody is suffering equally, you can move a mountain. But the first time you find someone goofing off or not carrying his share of the load, the whole thing can come unraveled. I call this equality of sacrifice. When I started to sacrifice, I saw other people do whatever was necessary.