Herb Kelleher Quotes

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

Keep costs low and spirits high, and the people of Southwest Airlines will keep LUV in the air.

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. Start with employees and the rest follows from that.

You don't hire for skills, you hire for attitude. You can always teach skills.

If you're crazy enough to do what you love for a living, then you're bound to create a life that matters.

I'm here to tell you that I am proud of a couple of things. First, I am very good at projectile vomiting. Second, I've never had a really serious venereal disease.

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

The important thing is to take the bricklayer and make him understand that he’s building a home, not just laying bricks.

Leading an organization is as much about soul as it is about systems. Effective leadership finds its source in understanding

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

Treat your employees like customers.

I've found that many of the greatest ideas surface in bars because that's where many people cultivate inspiration.

If the Wright brother were alive today Wilbur would have to fire Orville to reduce costs.

I learned it by doing it, and I was scared to death.

I forgive all personal weaknesses except egomania and pretension.

If employees aren't satisfied, they won't promote the product we need.

Power should be reserved for weightlifting and boats, and leadership really involves responsibility.

Wild Turkey whiskey and Philip Morris cigarettes are essential to the maintenance of human life!

I've always been able to make erroneous decisions very quickly.

Hire for attitude, train for skill.

Succession planning has been a major priority at Southwest for quite some time. We think we have come up with a winning combination of talent for our company reorganization.

You have to treat your employees like customers

One piece of advice that always stuck in my mind is that people should be respected and trusted as people, not because of their position or title.

If you don't treat your own people well, they won't treat other people well.

You [the employees] are involved in a crusade.

The tragedy of our time is that we've got it backwards, we've learned to love techniques and use people.

I think my greatest moment in business was when the first Southwest airplane arrived after four years of litigation and I walked up to it and I kissed that baby on the lips and I cried.

It takes nerves of steel to stay neurotic.

The business of business is people.

The clear, unmistakable sign of a bureaucrat is somebody who worries about whether he has a window.

Sometimes you need a little courage too just to buck popular opinion.

Your people come first, and if you treat them right, they'll treat the customers right.

The more time I spend with our people, the more I find out about our business.

You have to have the service mentality in the sense that you subjugate your own ego, and you subjugate a large part of your own life to really helping other people, being successful on their behalf.

The people of Southwest have always been my pride, my joy and my love. Their indomitable dedication and esprit de corps have taken Southwest from a three-airplane dream to a 500-airplane reality.

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

People with different personalities, different approaches, different values succeed not because one set of values or priorities is superior but because their values and practices are genuine.

To be an excellent leader, you have to be a superb follower.

You have to treat your employees like your customers. When you treat them right they will treat your outside customers right.

I tell my employees that we're in the service business, and it's incidental that we fly airplanes.