Herb Kelleher

“We have a strategic plan. It's called doing things.”

“Your employees come first. And if you treat your employees right, guess what? Your customers come back, and that makes your shareholders happy.”

“The business of business is people – yesterday, today and forever.”

“A company is stronger if it is bound by love rather than by fear.”

“Power is when you have every justification, every right, and every means to get somebody, but you don't.”

“We are not in the airline business. We are in the customer service business, and we happen to fly airplanes.”

“Think small and act small, and we'll get bigger. Think big and act big, and we'll get smaller.”

“You have to treat your employees like customers.”

“It is my practice to try to understand how valuable something is by trying to imagine myself without it.”

“Culture is what people do when no one is looking.”

“If you don't have a good attitude, we don't want you, no matter how skilled you are. We can change skill levels through training. We can't change attitude.”

“You can't have a mid-life crisis in the airline industry because every day is a crisis.”

“The essential difference in service is not machines or things. The essential difference is minds, hearts, spirits, and souls.”