Don’t find fault. Find remedy. Anyone can complain.

This maxim is commonly attributed to Henry Ford in the context of his managerial philosophy at the Ford Motor Company, where he emphasized practical problem-solving, efficiency, and continuous improvement over blame or idle criticism. It aligns with the culture Ford promoted on the factory floor and in engineering work: identify what is wrong, then immediately move toward a fix that can be tested and implemented. However, despite its frequent appearance in collections of “Ford quotes” and business aphorisms, a definitive contemporaneous instance (e.g., a dated speech, interview, or Ford-authored text) is difficult to pin down with high certainty.

The quote contrasts two responses to failure or imperfection: fault-finding (assigning blame, dwelling on shortcomings) and remedy-finding (diagnosing causes, proposing fixes, taking responsibility for improvement). By adding “Anyone can complain,” it frames complaint as easy and unproductive, while implying that constructive solutions require discipline, ingenuity, and leadership. In a business context, it encourages a culture of continuous improvement and accountability—redirecting energy from criticism toward actionable change. More broadly, it functions as a moral injunction: the value of judgment lies in what it enables (repair, reform, progress), not in the satisfaction of pointing out what is wrong.