W. Edwards Deming

United States
14 Oct 1900 // 20 Dec 1993
Management Consultant

Quotes



Profit in business comes from repeat customers; customers that boast about your product and service, and that bring friends with them.

Out of the Crisis (1984)
Management today is reactive behavior. You put your hand on a hot stove and yank it off. A cat would know to do as much.

BusinessWeek (1994)
Innovation comes from the producer - not from the customer.
Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company.

Quality, Productivity, and Competitive Position (1982)
People all over the world think that it is the factory worker that causes problems. He is not your problem... he is not allowed to do it because the management wants figures, more products, and never mind the quality.

Lecture (1983)
Don't just make it and try to sell it. But redesign it and then bring the process under control with ever-increasing quality.

Out of the Crisis (1992)
Quality is characteristic of a product or service that helps somebody and which has a market.

Out of the Crisis (1992)
Quality is pride of workmanship.
You can only raise individual performance by elevating that of the entire system.

In Search of European Excellence (1997)
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On Anger: "For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind."
Essays
On Destiny: "Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature: it is our future that lays down the law of our today."
Human, All Too Human
On Friendship: "A crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love."
Essays