With the lasting motto “Only the best is good enough,” Ole Kirk Christiansen (1891–1958) was a master carpenter in the village of Billund, Denmark. He transformed a Great Depression slump into the creation of wooden toys that he named LEGO, from the Danish “leg godt,” meaning “play well,” and echoing the joy of putting pieces together.

About success, poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once said, “Heights by great men reached and kept were not obtained by sudden flight but, while their companions slept, they were toiling upward in the night.”

To build his company, Christiansen toiled long and hard into the night. With a strong work ethic, he never skimped on quality. By 1949, the company had produced around 200 different plastic and wooden toys. LEGO toys were first sold in the United States in 1961.

Voted “toy of the century” by Fortune magazine, the interlocking plastic brick continues to be a celebration of creative play and the imagination that Albert Einstein said was “more important than knowledge.” With Ole Kirk’s grandson, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, as CEO, the company continued to help children build imagination throughout the world.

“Children are our role models,” Kristiansen said. “They embrace discovery and wonder. They are natural learners. These are precious qualities that should be nurtured and stimulated throughout our lives.”