102 Quotes by John Mackey

My dad for a long time was an accounting professor at Rice University. And then he went out on his own, and he got hired by a client. He ended up being CEO of a hospital management company before he retired, called Lifemark.

More than once in the history of Whole Foods Market, the company was unable to collectively evolve until I myself was able to evolve - in other words, I was holding the company back. My personal growth enabled the company to evolve.

One of the sad things about retiring is that you just become increasingly irrelevant. The world flows around you, and you don't seem to be impacting it any longer.

One of the most important things we do is we've organized our stores and our workforce into teams.

I'm a huge NBA fan and watch many games each year. Following any sport is kind of bringing us back to our tribal roots.

Free-enterprise capitalism is the most powerful system for social cooperation and human progress ever conceived. It is one of the most compelling ideas we humans have ever had. But we can aspire to something even greater.

Free enterprise capitalism has been the most powerful creative system of social cooperation and human progress ever conceived, but its perception and its role in society have been distorted.

I always like to say that our brand or our philosophy has always been kind of this marriage between the 'food as indulgence,' and it's also been about 'food as health,' that food is vitality.

What I know is that we no longer have free enterprise capitalism in health care; it's not a system any longer where people are able to innovate. It's not based on voluntary exchange. The government is directing it.