Ray Kroc Quotes

#1. Perfection is very difficult to achieve, and perfection was what I wanted in McDonald's. Everything else was secondary for me.

Ray Kroc

#2. You must perfect every fundamental of your business if you expect it to perform well.

Ray Kroc

#3. If my competitor were drowning I'd stick a hose in his mouth and turn on the water.

Ray Kroc

#4. Its easy to have principles when you're rich. The important thing is to have principles when you're poor.

Ray Kroc

#5. There's a lot more future in hamburgers than in baseball.

Ray Kroc

#6. The McDonald brothers were simply not on my wavelength at all. I was obsessed with the idea of making McDonald's the biggest and the best. They were content with what they had; they didn't want to be bothered with more risks and more demands.

Ray Kroc

#7. Look after the customer and the business will take care of itself

Ray Kroc

#8. If you do it first class and you don't compromise values, and you don't compromise quality, and you don't compromise service, and you don't compromise cleanliness, then everybody else who is the competitor has got to play catch-up.

Ray Kroc

#9. As long as you're green, you're growing. As soon as you're ripe, you start to rot.

Ray Kroc

#10. McDonald's is a people business, and that smile on that counter girl's face when she takes your order is a vital part of our image.

Ray Kroc

#11. If you believe in it, and you believe in it hard, it is impossible to fail.

Ray Kroc

#12. Are you green and growing or ripe and rotting?

Ray Kroc

#13. Too many salesmen, I found, would make a good presentation and convince the client, but they couldn't recognize that critical moment when they should have stopped talking. If

Ray Kroc

#14. I never considered my dreams wasted energy; they were invariably linked to some form of action. When I dreamed about having a lemonade stand, for example, it wasn't long before I set up a lemonade stand.

Ray Kroc

#15. The first dollar is the most you will get if you don't love what you are doing.

Ray Kroc

#16. This is rat eat rat, dog eat dog. I'll kill 'em, and I'm going to kill 'em before they kill me. Speaking of competition in the fast-food industry.

Ray Kroc

#17. The two most important requirements for major success are: first, being in the right place at the right time, and second, doing something about it.

Ray Kroc

#18. Visions of McDonald's restaurants dotting crossroads all over the country paraded through my brain. I don't believe in saturation. We're thinking and talking worldwide.

Ray Kroc

#19. One of my suppliers told me, "Ray, you know you aren't in the hamburger business at all. You're in the french-fry business. I don't know how the livin' hell you do it, but you've got the best french fries in town, and that's what's selling folks on your place.

Ray Kroc

#20. You're only as good as the people you hire.

Ray Kroc

#21. I wasn't prepared for this big room with clattering typewriters and teletype printers. You could hardly hear yourself think.

Ray Kroc

#22. Our aim was to insure repeat business based on the system's reputation rather than on the quality of a single store or operator.

Ray Kroc

#23. Luck is a dividend of sweat.

Ray Kroc

#24. The french fry is my canvas.

Ray Kroc

#25. In my experience, good executives don't make mistakes.

Ray Kroc

#26. I was 52 years old. I had diabetes and incipient arthritis. I had lost my gall bladder and most of my thyroid gland in earlier campaigns, but I was convinced the best was ahead of me.

Ray Kroc

#27. There are things money can't buy and hard work can't win. One of them is happiness.

Ray Kroc

#28. When you're green, your growing. When you're ripe, you rot.

Ray Kroc

#29. I was never much of a reader when I was a boy. Books bored me. I liked action. But I spent a lot of time thinking about things. I'd imagine all kinds of situations and how I would handle them.

Ray Kroc

#30. No self-respecting pitcher throws the same way to every batter and no self-respecting salesman makes the same pitch to every client.

Ray Kroc

#31. When times are bad is when you want to build! Why wait for things to pick up so everything will cost more?

Ray Kroc

#32. If you're not a risk taker, you should get the hell out of business.

Ray Kroc

#33. I didn't know what we would be selling in the year 2000 but whatever it was we would be selling the most of it.

Ray Kroc

#34. None of Us is as Good as All of Us.

Ray Kroc

#35. No one of us is more important than the rest of us.

Ray Kroc

#36. I suffer with you. I've never seen such stupid ballplaying in all my life!

Ray Kroc

#37. Creativity is a highfalutin word for the work I have to do between now and Tuesday.

Ray Kroc

#38. We have an obligation to give something back to the community that gives so much to us.

Ray Kroc

#39. I like to get people fired up, fill them with zeal for McDonald's, and watch the results in their work.

Ray Kroc

#40. In business for yourself, but not by yourself.

Ray Kroc

#41. We provide food that customers love, day after day after day. People just want more of it.

Ray Kroc

#42. The organization cannot trust the individual; the individual must trust the organization.

Ray Kroc

#43. The more I help others to succeed, the more I succeed.

Ray Kroc

#44. I believe in God, family, and McDonald's. And in the office, that order is reversed.

Ray Kroc

#45. Happiness is not a tangible thing, it's a byproduct - a byproduct of achievement.

Ray Kroc

#46. That's the name of the game ... pleasing the customer. If we ever lose sight of that fact, we've lost the ball game.

Ray Kroc

#47. I guess to be an entrepreneur you have to have a large ego, enormous pride and an ability to inspire others to follow your lead,

Ray Kroc

#48. The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.

Ray Kroc

#49. I saw opportunity appear in an ugly six-spindle shake machine ... and grabbed it.

Ray Kroc

#50. It is no achievement to walk a tightrope laid flat on the floor.

Ray Kroc

#51. The key to success is being in the right place at the right time, recognizing that you are there, and taking action!

Ray Kroc

#52. There is absolutely nothing special about walking on a rope stretched along the ground. Where there is no risk, there can be no pride in a deed accomplished, and therefore no happiness.

Ray Kroc

#53. If you have time to lean, you have time to clean ...

Ray Kroc

#54. All money means to me is a pride in accomplishment.

Ray Kroc

#55. It requires a certain kind of mind to see beauty in a hamburger bun,

Ray Kroc

#56. I HAVE ALWAYS believed that each man makes his own happiness and is responsible for his own problems.

Ray Kroc

#57. Adversity can strengthen you if you have the will to grind it out.

Ray Kroc

#58. If I had a brick for every time I've repeated the phrase Quality, Service, Cleanliness and Value, I think I'd probably be able to bridge the Atlantic Ocean with them.

Ray Kroc

#59. Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get.

Ray Kroc

#60. Take calculated risks. Act boldly and thoughtfully. Be an agile company.

Ray Kroc

#61. I was an overnight success all right, but 30 years is a long, long night.

Ray Kroc

#62. I put the hamburger on the assembly line.

Ray Kroc

#63. To be successful, you must be daring, be first and be different.

Ray Kroc

#64. We take the hamburger business more seriously than anyone else.

Ray Kroc

#65. If you've got time to lean, you've got time to clean.

Ray Kroc

#66. If you work just for money, you'll never make it, but if you love what you're doing and you always put the customer first, success will be yours.

Ray Kroc

#67. While formal schooling is an important advantage, it is not a guarantee of success nor is its absence a fatal handicap.

Ray Kroc

#68. The definition of salesmanship is the gentle art of letting the customer have it your way.

Ray Kroc

#69. Customers tend to avoid a restaurant that's going aswamp in its own sludge.

Ray Kroc