Every great man of business has got somewhere a touch of the idealist in him.

People have marveled at the fact that I didn't start McDonalds until I was fifty-two years old and then I became a success overnight. But I was just like a lot of show business personalities who work away quietly at their craft for years, and then, suddenly, they get the right break and make it big. I was an overnight success all right, but thirty years is a long, long night.

When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable.

There is only one valid definition of a business purpose: to create a customer.

If you give people tools, and they use their natural abilities and their curiosity, they will develop things in ways that will surprise you very much beyond what you might have expected.

I really had a lot of dreams when I was a kid, and I think a great deal of that grew out of the fact that I had a chance to read a lot.