"A happy soul is everything to a man. It is the strong engine of the physical body, it is the inspiration of the mind." Tomáš Baťa
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The perfect guide to a meaningful life and a prosperous, healthy society invented.
Everybody's responsibility for everything is nobody's responsibility for nothing - Let's do the most insignificant thing, but let's do it the best in the world - Don't look for the easy way. So many people are already looking for them that you can't get anywhere by taking them - Relationships are never to blame for anything. It's always the people who are to blame - We can give knowledge to others, but we must redeem our experience with our own sweat, our own calluses - It's a long road through the rules. Short and hearty through examples - Finding the right balance between caution and courage is the highest art - No business will grow to greatness unless it invents a way to turn hopefuls into directors - Our experience so far teaches us, that it's harder to teach people to think for themselves than it is to teach them to listen - No one will be hired on principle who wants to work only in an office, but no one who wants to remain a worker and has no higher goals - Do you want to be the leader of the work of many co-workers? If you want to build a plant with them, build yourself first - Danger? Most people die in bed when they stop moving. If you stop moving, you're dead. And if you slow down, you're half dead. The world was, is and always will be dangerous. Life is movement. Immobility is death.
There are men who have been overcome neither by failure nor by enemies, but who have succumbed to success. Only constant self-control builds character. Let us not fear men, but ourselves.
Don't chase money. Those who chase money will never catch up. Serve! If you serve to the best of your ability, you will not be able to escape money.
No one will shake the throne of your work, no matter how big or small, if you do your work in the spirit of service to man, in the spirit of service to the public.
In our economic and public life there has not yet been a single currency. It is called honour. Many people are convinced that one can get everything for money. That is not true. Much more can be got for honour.
Every human activity must eventually be reflected in numbers.
There are businessmen who go to great lengths to increase their profits. They would have much more success if they also exerted themselves in thinking how to increase the profits of their business friends and make money with them. A trade that benefits only us will eventually turn out to be a loss for us.
The point is to make business and commerce a lifetime occupation, not just an opportunity to peel people off in it for a few years and then retire.
It was a desire to create, to provide an ever-increasing number of people to participate in the benefits that our plant provided, both to employees and customers. If you serve this great idea, then you will be in harmony with the laws of nature and man. But as soon as you each remember yourselves, as soon as you cease to serve the general by your race, you will become useless and will inevitably fall.
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MY DEAR - COMMUNAL SAINTS
A citizen's duty is to govern - not to govern. Just as I want every man in our factory to be his own manager. I wish every citizen of our village was his own mayor.
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Bata was the largest Czechoslovak company, seventh in the world. In 1926, it produced the most shoes in the world. When will a film be made about Tomáš Baťa and his still relevant message to man and today? It would help restore to the world the values it has lost and which are so much needed today. Miloš Forman will no longer make a film about him... Who will accept this challenge of the times?!
I believe that the books published by the Tomáš Bat'a Foundation this year, "Bat'a 99 Observations" and "Bat'a Inspiration" by Gabriela Končitíková, will soon be expanded and translated into world languages!
Jan Šinágl, 11.4.2022
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"Don't save the world. The world does not need you to save it. Save yourself. By saving yourself, you will save the world, because the world will not have to save you." - "Fear of men is cowardice. It is an affront to trust in man and human dignity in general. If we do our work so honestly and purposefully that it benefits everyone, knowing this good work gives us the strength to fear no one and nothing. Fear is the enemy of life, and works built in fear damage life. Useful works grow out of trust." - "Thought is everything! It produces desire, and it guides mind and body!"
Tomáš Baťa
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