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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

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Lee Iacocca
Age: 94 †
Born: 1924
Born: October 15
Died: 2019
Died: July 2
Autobiographer
Businessman
Businessperson
Diarist
Allentown
Pennsylvania
Lido Anthony Iacocca
True
Seat
Sometimes
Described
Never
Seats
Pants
Hips
Operator
Leader
Shooter
Successful
Flamboyant
Business
Operators

More quotes by Lee Iacocca

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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.
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Thanks to properly selecting the clients you will not be unnecessarily wasting time.
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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.
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I was good friends with Frank Sinatra, I heard Steve Kaufman painting his portrait, so I asked Steve to paint my portrait.
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Your legacy should be that you made it better than it was when you got it.
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Never rest on your oars as a boss. If you do, the whole company starts sinking.
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To solve big problems you have to be willing to do unpopular things.
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What is it that you like doing? If you don't like it, get out of it, because you'll be lousy at it. You don't have to stay with a job for the rest of your life, because if you don't like it you'll never be successful in it.
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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.
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In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something else.
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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.
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Every little kid wants to grow up to be a cowboy, and I did.
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The trick is to make sure you don't die waiting for prosperity to come.
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When the product is right, you don't have to be a great marketer.
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If I Had To Sum Up In One Word The Qualities That Make Up A Good Manager, I'd Say Decisiveness.
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The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen.
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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.
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Apply yourself. Get all the education you can, but then, by God, do something. Don't just stand there, make it happen.
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Every business and every product has risks. You can't get around it.
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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.
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