Almost up through the Ds in researching quote citations for my WIST site. I was going through quotes by Will Durant, the historian, of which I have several.
I discovered, to my dismay, that there was also a William Durant, industrialist and entrepreneur (founder of GM) who was the one who’d actually said,
Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you’re going to do now and do it.
I’d cited the wrong Durant, and, in fact, didn’t even have the auto maker in there.
Of course, I suppose that’s better than this.
Anyone who thinks quotation collections are straightforward and logical constructs has never tried to put one together …
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William Crapo Durant (no I’m not kidding, it was his mother’s maiden name) was a really interesting guy. He wasn’t an engineer, but a salesman. Started building carriages, helped develop Buick, created GM, lost control when the company hit financial troubles, left and started Chevrolet, became so influencial that he got GM back, lost GM again when the market crashed after WWI, started a new multi-car corp where he built the Durant car, filed for bankrupcy in 1933 and died poor in 1947, the same year as Henry Ford.
As famous as Ford is for his comtributions to the autmotive world, Durant is overlooked which is a shame since much of what we take for granted today came from the mind of Durant. He belived in a car for every level of purchasing power, and the idea of trading up – Chevy to Olds to Buick to Cadillac. He believed that loaning money to prospective buyers was a good deal. In fact, giving credit to average citizens (rather than the wealthy) can be directly tied to car loans – a Durant idea.