Frederick W. Smith Quotes

My four years in the Marine Corps left me with an indelible understanding of the value of leadership skills.

Fear of failure must never be a reason not to try something.

It is impossible to manage the health care requirements of tens of millions of American citizens at the federal level. It is impossible to manage all of the permutations of people's economic aspirations and lives through a complex tax code. It is impossible to try to second-guess the market. It is impossible, from a managerial standpoint, for the federal government to do the things it is trying to do today.

I’m not afraid to take a swing and miss.

There is no free market for oil. It's controlled by a cartel, OPEC.

Leadership is simply the ability of an individual to coalesce the efforts of other individuals toward achieving common goals. It boils down to looking after your people and ensuring that, from top to bottom, everyone feels part of the team.

A Yale University management professor in response to student Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service: The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C', the idea must be feasible.

A good Christian is a velvet-covered brick.

Only electricity can give the transport sector the flexibility to switch fuels when one or more become too expensive.

Leaders get out in front and stay there by raising the standards by which they judge themselves - and by which they are willing to be judged.

I do not believe I could have built FedEx without the skills I learned from the Marine Corps.

My innovation involved taking an idea from the telecommunications and banking industries, and applying that idea to transportation business.

A lot of the economy is indeed being supplied by goods that are produced offshore. And much of the reason for that is societal.

Beginning in 1973 and then acts in '77, '78, 1980, 1994 and then into the 21st century in the international arena, governments have steadily gotten out of the transportation business.

If you look historically, what creates growth and wealth is innovation and investment, and increase in scale - more customers.

I am not someone who tends to advocate for increased government involvement in the private sector.

I paid every effort to seek deregulation throughout FEDEX's start-up and expansion periods, because the biggest impediment to our growth was the government regulations that restricted new entry into the air cargo market.

The tax rate of 35 percent is impossible to provide an incentive to the large corporations, that have $1.7 trillion offshore, to put their money back in the United States.

The United States tax system today is very prejudiced towards financialization, leverage, and lack of investment.