Ray Kroc Quotations

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

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

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

We take the hamburger business more seriously than anyone else.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Are you green and growing or ripe and rotting?

All money means to me is a pride in accomplishment.

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

None of Us is as Good as All of Us.

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

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

If any of my competitors were drowning, I'd stick a hose in their mouth

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

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

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.

Achievement must be made against the possibility of failure, against the risk of defeat. It is no achievement to walk a tightrope laid flat on the floor. Where there is no risk, there can be no pride in achievement and, consequently, no happiness. The only way we can advance is by going forward, individually and collectively, in the spirit of the pioneer. We must take the risks involved in our free enterprise system. This is the only way in the world to economic freedom. There is no other way.

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

Look after the customer and the business will take care of itself

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

In business for yourself, but not by yourself.

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

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,

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

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.

Luck is a dividend of sweat.

The french fry is my canvas.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

It's easy to have principles when you're rich. The important thing is to have principles when you're poor.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

I don't believe in saturation. We're thinking and talking worldwide.

There’s almost nothing you can’t accomplish if you set your mind to it.

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

I put the hamburger on the assembly line.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

If any of my competitors were drowning, I'd stick a hose in their mouth and turn on the water. It is ridiculous to call this an industry. This is not. This is rat eat rat, dog eat dog. I'll kill 'em, and I'm going to kill 'em before they kill me. You're talking about the American way - of survival of the fittest.

It requires a certain kind of mind to see beauty in a hamburger bun. Yet is it any more unusual to find grace in the texture and softly carved silhouette of a bun than to reflect lovingly on the hackles of a fishing fly? Or the arrangements and textures on a butterfly's wing? Not if you are a McDonalds's man.

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

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