Inspiring Business Quotes: A Powerful Collection to Motivate Your Success

"It’s fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure."

- Bill Gates

"When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it."

- Henry Ford

"Success is not final; failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."

- Winston Churchill

"We need to accept that we won’t always make the right decisions, that we’ll screw up royally sometimes—understanding that failure is not the opposite of success, it’s part of success."

- Arianna Huffington

"Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently."

- Henry Ford

"I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work."

- Thomas Edison

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."

- Confucius

"Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen."

- Michael Jordan

"Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can."

- Arthur Ashe

"What do you need to start a business? Three simple things: know your product better than anyone. Know your customer, and have a burning desire to succeed."

- Dave Thomas

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do."

- Steve Jobs

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work."

- Steve Jobs

"I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying."

- Jeff Bezos

"Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts."

- Winston Churchill

"Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm."

- Winston Churchill

"Every time you state what you want or believe, you’re the first to hear it. It’s a message to both you and others about what you think is possible. Don’t put a ceiling on yourself"

- Oprah Winfrey

"Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve."

- Mary Kay Ash

"Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."

- Steve Jobs

"It’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen."

- Scott Belsky

"The ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."

- Steve Jobs

"Whether you think you can, or think you can’t – you’re right."

- Henry Ford

"The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me."

- Ayn Rand

"Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success."

- Dale Carnegie

"Every strike brings me closer to the next home run."

- Babe Ruth

"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."

- Calvin Coolidge

"The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won’t. It’s whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere."

- Barack Obama

"Everything you’ve ever wanted is sitting on the other side of fear."

- George Addair

"Hustle beats talent when talent doesn’t hustle."

- Ross Simmonds

"I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it."

- Thomas Jefferson

"The only thing worse than starting something and failing… is not starting something."

- Seth Godin

"Some people dream of success, while other people get up every morning and make it happen."

- Wayne Huizenga

"Ideas are commodity. Execution of them is not."

- Michael Dell

"Chase the vision, not the money. The money will end up following you."

- Tony Hsieh

"What do you need to start a business? Three simple things: Know your product better than anyone, know your customer, and have a burning desire to succeed"

- Dave Thomas

"Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard."

- Guy Kawasaki

"I never dreamed about success. I worked for it."

- Estée Lauder

"There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work and learning from failure."

- Colin Powell

"If you are working on something that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you."

- Steve Jobs

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it."

- Steve Jobs

"Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway."

- Earl Nightingale

"For the great doesn’t happen through impulse alone, and is a succession of little things that are brought together."

- Vincent van Gogh

"Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work in hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus."

- Alexander Graham Bell

"Either you run the day or the day runs you."

- Jim Rohn

"When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too."

- Paulo Coelho

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."

- Thomas Edison

"Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible."

- Tony Robbins

"As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives."

- Henry David Thoreau

"The secret to successful hiring is this: look for the people who want to change the world."

- Marc Benioff

"Make your product easier to buy than your competition, or you will find your customers buying from them, not you."

- Mark Cuban

"Leadership is the ability to guide others without force into a direction or decision that leaves them still feeling empowered and accomplished."

- Lisa Cash Hanson

"I was once afraid of people saying, ‘Who does she think she is?’ Now, I have the courage to stand and say, ‘This is who I am.'”"

- Oprah Winfrey

"It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness."

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

"Don’t take too much advice. Most people who have a lot of advice to give – with a few exceptions – generalize whatever they did. Don’t over-analyze everything. I myself have been guilty of over-thinking problems. Just build things and find out if they work."

- Ben Silbermann

"I had to make my own living and my own opportunity. But I made it! Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them."

- Madam C.J. Walker

"To have a successful career, you have to approach it as an entrepreneur, even if you are working for someone else. Your career is your own private business. You have to market yourself and your abilities and knowledge just as you would a product or service."

- Earl G. Graves, Sr.

"Ideation without execution is delusion."

- Robin Sharma

"Build something you’re passionate about. As an entrepreneur, you have to have the passion and drive to stay the course."

- Alexandra Chong

"Openly share and talk to people about your idea. Use their lack of interest or doubt to fuel your motivation to make it happen."

- Todd Garland

"Every day that we spent not improving our products was a wasted day."

- Joel Spolsky

"Focus on your vision. Forget everything else – the naysayers, the doubters, challenges, or setbacks."

- Neeti Mehta

"If you want to be an entrepreneur, it’s not a job. It’s a lifestyle. It defines you. Forget about vacations, about going home at 6 p.m. – last thing at night you’ll send emails, first thing in the morning you’ll read emails, and you wake up in the middle of the night. But it’s hugely rewarding as you’re fulfilling something for yourself."

- Niklas Zennstrom

"When you’re dishonest with yourself, you’re disconnected from reality. You’re going to make poor decisions. You’re going to drop out of the moment, and you’re going to be less happy, and you’re going to be wrong."

- Naval Ravikant

"Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right!"

- Henry Ford

"It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently."

- Warren Buffett

"If you look to lead, invest at least 40% of your time managing yourself – your ethics, character, principles, purpose, motivation, and conduct. Invest at least 30% managing those with authority over you and 15% managing your peers."

- Dee Hock

"Leave your ego at the door every morning, and just do some truly great work. Few things will make you feel better than a job brilliantly done."

- Robin Sharma

"If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late."

- Reid Hoffman

"Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value."

- Albert Einstein

"Your employees come first. And if you treat your employees right, guess what? Your customers come back, and that makes your shareholders happy. Start with employees and the rest follows from that."

- Herb Kelleher

"You cannot always control what goes on outside. But you can always control what goes on inside."

- Wayne Dyer

"Entrepreneur is someone who has a vision for something and a want to create."

- David Karp

"The secret to successful hiring is this: Look for the people who want to change the world."

- Marc Benioff

"A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others. He does not set out to be a leader but becomes one by the equality of his actions and the integrity of his intent."

- Douglas MacArthur

"Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get."

- Dale Carnegie

"Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers."

- Stephen R. Covey

"You don’t need to be a genius or a visionary or even a college graduate to be successful. You just need a framework and a dream."

- Michael Dell

"Timing, perseverance, and ten years of trying will eventually make you look like an overnight success."

- Biz Stone

"If what you are doing is not moving you towards your goals, then it’s moving you away from your goals."

- Brian Tracy

"Every problem is a gift—without problems we would not grow."

- Anthony Robbins

"You only have to do a few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong."

- Warren Buffett

"There’s no shortage of remarkable ideas, what’s missing is the will to execute them."

- Seth Godin

"I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been given a no, only to find that a better, brighter, bigger yes was right around the corner."

- Arlan Hamilton

"I don’t know the word ‘quit.’ Either I never did, or I have abolished it."

- Susan Butcher

"Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing."

- Theodore Roosevelt

"Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there."

- Will Rogers

"Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you’re going to do now and do it."

- William Durant

"Make your team feel respected, empowered, and genuinely excited about the company’s mission."

- Tim Westergen

"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired and success achieved."

- Helen Keller

"It’s not the will to win that matters—everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters."

- Paul Bryant

"The reason I’ve been able to be so financially successful is my focus has never, ever for one minute been money."

- Oprah Winfrey

"Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."

- Thomas Edison

"Don’t rest on your laurels. There’s always going to be someone behind you who’s going to be better than you. So you need to get out there and keep working."

- Sheila Johnson

"If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."

- Wayne Dyer

"The only way around is through."

- Robert Frost

"Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement."

- Golda Meir

"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved."

- Helen Keller

"Always think outside the box and embrace opportunities that appear, wherever they might be."

- Lakshmi Mittal

"An entrepreneur is someone who has a vision for something and a want to create."

- David Karp

"Anything that is measured and watched improves."

- Bob Parsons

"Timing, perseverance, and 10 years of trying will eventually make you look like an overnight success."

- Biz Stone

"Human beings have an innate inner drive to be autonomous, self-determined, and connected to one another. And when that drive is liberated, people achieve more and live richer lives."

- Daniel Pink

"No more romanticizing about how cool it is to be an entrepreneur. It’s a struggle to save your company’s life—and your own skin—every day of the week."

- Spencer Fry

"A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business."

- Henry Ford

"All humans are entrepreneurs, not because they should start companies but because the will to create is encoded in human DNA."

- Reid Hoffman

"Ask yourself, what would I do if I weren’t afraid? And then go do it."

- Sheryl Sandberg

"Step out of the history that is holding you back. Step into the new story you are willing to create."

- Oprah Winfrey

"You can’t ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new."

- Steve Jobs

"If you don’t risk anything, you risk even more."

- Erica Jong

"Don’t count the days, make the days count."

- Muhammad Ali

"A year from now you may wish you had started today."

- Karen Lamb

"Courage is the most important of all the virtues because, without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently."

- Maya Angelou

"The two most important days in your life are the day you’re born and the day you find out why."

- Mark Twain

"Make each day your masterpiece."

- John Wooden

"Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work."

- Aristotle

"If you’re interested in the living heart of what you do, focus on building things rather than talking about them."

- Ryan Freitas

"Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable."

- John Wooden

"The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary."

- Vidal Sassoon

"The best way to predict the future is to create it."

- Peter Drucker

"You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take."

- Wayne Gretzky

"The purpose of our lives is to add value to the people of this generation and those that follow."

- Buckminster Fuller

"In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity."

- Albert Einstein

"Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't quit."

- Conrad Hilton

"There's no shortage of remarkable ideas, what's missing is the will to execute them."

- Seth Godin

"Risk more than others think is safe. Dream more than others think is practical."

- Howard Schultz

"Business opportunities are like buses, there's always another one coming."

- Richard Branson

"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower."

- Steve Jobs

"The secret of business is to know something that nobody else knows."

- Aristotle

"Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning."

- Bill Gates

"To succeed in business, to reach the top, an individual must know all it is possible to know about that business."

- J. Paul Getty

"The golden rule for every businessman is this: Put yourself in your customer's place."

- Orison Swett Marden

"To be successful, you have to have your heart in your business, and your business in your heart."

- Thomas Watson

"It's not about ideas. It's about making ideas happen."

- Scott Belsky

"There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure."

- Colin Powell

"Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again."

- Richard Branson

"Success is not how high you have climbed, but how you make a positive difference to the world."

- Roy T. Bennett

"Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right."

- Henry Ford

"Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision."

- Peter F. Drucker

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started."

- Mark Twain

"In order to succeed. We must first believe that we can."

- Nikos Kazantzakis

"To be successful, you have to have your heart in your business and your business in your heart."

- Thomas J. Watson

"One way to keep momentum going is to have constantly greater goals."

- Michael Korda

"Action is the foundational key to all success."

- Pablo Picasso

"The man who has confidence in himself gains the confidence of others."

- Hasidic Proverb

"The most dangerous poison is the feeling of achievement. The antidote is to every evening think what can be done better tomorrow."

- Ingvar Kamprad

"Opportunities don't happen. You create them."

- Chris Grosser

"The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing."

- Walt Disney

"Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great."

- John D. Rockefeller

"If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time."

- Steve Jobs

"Success is not in what you have, but who you are."

- Bo Bennett

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"The biggest risk is not taking any risk. In a world that's changing quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks."

- Sheryl Sandberg

"The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same."

- Colin R. Davis

"To be successful, you must accept all challenges that come your way. You can't just accept the ones you like."

- Mike Gafka

"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful."

- Albert Pujols

"The fastest way to change yourself is to hang out with people who are already the way you want to be."

- Reid Hoffman

"In the end, a vision without the ability to execute it is probably a hallucination."

- Steve Case

"Embrace what you don’t know, especially in the beginning, because what you don’t know can become your greatest asset. It ensures that you will absolutely be doing things different from everybody else."

- Sara Blakely

"No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy, if you’re playing a solo game, you’ll always lose out to a team."

- Reid Hoffman

"Fearlessness is like a muscle. I know from my own life that the more I exercise it the more natural it becomes to not let my fears run me."

- Arianna Huffington

"You shouldn’t focus on why you can’t do something, which is what most people do. You should focus on why perhaps you can, and be one of the exceptions."

- Steve Case

"A person who is quietly confident makes the best leader."

- Fred Wilson

"Always deliver more than expected."

- Larry Page

"You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing and falling over."

- Richard Branson

"I never took a day off in my twenties. Not one."

- Bill Gates

"You jump off a cliff and you assemble an airplane on the way down."

- Reid Hoffman

"Don’t be afraid to assert yourself, have confidence in your abilities and don’t let the bastards get you down."

- Michael Bloomberg

"I made a resolve then that I was going to amount to something if I could. And no hours, nor amount of labor, nor amount of money would deter me from giving the best that there was in me. And I have done that ever since, and I win by it. I know."

- Harlan Sanders

"So often people are working hard at the wrong thing. Working on the right thing is probably more important than working hard."

- Caterina Fake

"There’s lots of bad reasons to start a company. But there’s only one good, legitimate reason, and I think you know what it is: it’s to change the world."

- Phil Libin

"If you’re not a risk taker, you should get the hell out of business."

- Ray Kroc

"Sustaining a successful business is a hell of a lot of work, and staying hungry is half the battle."

- Wendy Tan White

"If you just work on stuff that you like and you’re passionate about, you don’t have to have a master plan with how things will play out."

- Mark Zuckerberg

"If you’re passionate about something and you work hard, then I think you will be successful."

- Pierre Omidyar

"When you find an idea that you just can’t stop thinking about, that’s probably a good one to pursue."

- Josh James

"Your reputation is more important than your paycheck, and your integrity is worth more than your career."

- Ryan Freitas

"Be undeniably good. No marketing effort or social media buzzword can be a substitute for that."

- Anthony Volodkin

"Chase the vision, not the money, the money will end up following you."

- Tony Hsieh

"The value of an idea lies in the using of it."

- Thomas Edison

"Make every detail perfect and limit the number of details to perfect."

- Jack Dorsey

"Don’t worry about failure; you only have to be right once."

- Drew Houston

"Nothing works better than just improving your product."

- Joel Spolsky

"First, forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won’t. Habit is persistence in practice."

- Octavia Butler

"The best way out is always through."

- Robert Frost

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress."

- Frederick Douglass

"Someone will declare, ‘I am the leader!’ and expect everyone to get in line and follow him or her to the gates of heaven or hell. My experience is that it doesn’t happen that way. Others follow you based on the quality of your actions rather than the magnitude of your declarations."

- Bill Walsh

"Courage is like a muscle. We strengthen it by use."

- Ruth Gordon

"You’ll never get bored when you try something new. There’s really no limit to what you can do."

- Dr. Seuss

"If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one."

- Dolly Parton

"What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make."

- Jane Goodall

"A surplus of effort could overcome a deficit of confidence."

- Sonia Sotomayor

"No one changes the world who isn’t obsessed."

- Billie Jean King

"I learned a long time ago that there is something worse than missing the goal, and that’s not pulling the trigger."

- Mia Hamm

"Theory is splendid but until put into practice, it is valueless."

- James Cash Penney

"You can never leave footprints that last if you are always walking on tiptoe."

- Leymah Gbowee

"Even if you don’t have the perfect idea to begin with, you can likely adapt."

- Victoria Ransom

"Don’t take too much advice. Most people who have a lot of advice to give — with a few exceptions — generalize whatever they did. Don’t over-analyze everything.  I myself have been guilty of over-thinking problems. Just build things and find out if they work."

- Ben Silbermann

"You just have to pay attention to what people need and what has not been done."

- Russell Simmons

"Don't watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going."

- Sam Levenson

"Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking."

- William Butler Yeats

"We can see through others only when we can see through ourselves."

- Bruce Lee

"If it makes you nervous, you’re doing it right."

- Childish Gambino

"Trust your instincts."

- Estee Lauder

"Doubt is a killer. You just have to know who you are and what you stand for."

- Jennifer Lopez

"The battles that count aren’t the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself—the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us—that’s where it’s at."

- Jesse Owens

"I choose to make the rest of my life the best of my life."

- Louise Hay

"You don't need to be a genius or a visionary or even a college graduate to be successful. You just need a framework and a dream."

- Michael Dell

"In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different."

- Coco Chanel

"Wonder what your customer really wants? Ask. Don’t tell."

- Lisa Stone

"Get a mentor in the applicable field if you’re at all unsure of what you’re looking for."

- Kyle Bragger

"Relentlessly prune bullshit, don’t wait to do things that matter, and savor the time you have. That’s what you do when life is short."

- Paul Graham

"More is lost by indecision than wrong decision."

- Marcus Tullius Cicero

"If the highest aim of a captain were to preserve his ship, he would keep it in port forever."

- Thomas Aquinas

"If you can’t feed a team with two pizzas, it’s too large."

- Jeff Bezos

"Keep a little fire burning; however small, however hidden."

- Cormac McCarthy

"Data beats emotions."

- Sean Rad

"Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming."

- Richard Branson

"You don’t need to have a 100-person company to develop that idea."

- Larry Page

"All humans are entrepreneurs not because they should start companies but because the will to create is encoded in human DNA."

- Reid Hoffman

"I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars — I look for 1-foot bars that I can step over."

- Warren Buffett

"Don’t be cocky. Don’t be flashy. There’s always someone better than you."

- Tony Hsieh

"Don't be distracted by criticism. Remember, the only taste of success some people have is when they take a bite out of you."

- Zig Ziglar

"The best way to do it, is to do it."

- Amelia Earhart

"Always look for the fool in the deal. If you don’t find one, it’s you."

- Mark Cuban

"As long as you’re going to be thinking anyway, think big."

- Donald Trump

"Time, energy, and talent can be more important than budget."

- Steve Jobs

"The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old but on building the new."

- Socrates

"Diligence is the mother of good luck."

- Benjamin Franklin

"There’s nothing wrong with staying small. You can do big things with a small team."

- Jason Fried

"Get five or six of your smartest friends in a room and ask them to rate your idea."

- Mark Pincus

"If there’s something you want to build, but the tech isn’t there yet, just find the closest possible way to make it happen."

- Dennis Crowley

"It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation."

- Herman Melville

"Don’t try to be original, just try to be good."

- Paul Rand

"It’s hard to do a really good job on anything you don’t think about in the shower."

- Paul Graham

"Best startups generally come from somebody needing to scratch an itch."

- Michael Arrington

"The last 10% it takes to launch something takes as much energy as the first 90%."

- Rob Kalin

"Stay self-funded as long as possible."

- Garrett Camp

"When I’m old and dying, I plan to look back on my life and say ‘wow, that was an adventure,’ not ‘wow, I sure felt safe.’ "

- Tom Preston-Werner

"Turn a perceived risk into an asset."

- Aaron Patzer

"Anything that is measured and watched, improves."

- Bob Parsons

"No more romanticizing about how cool it is to be an entrepreneur. It’s a struggle to save your company’s life – and your own skin – every day of the week."

- Spencer Fry

"See things in the present, even if they are in the future."

- Larry Ellison

"You can’t make anything viral, but you can make something good."

- Peter Shankman

"It’s more effective to do something valuable than to hope a logo or name will say it for you."

- Jason Cohen

"Show me a person who never made a mistake, and I will show you a person who never did anything."

- William Rosenberg

"Our fear of the unknown and our fear of making mistakes trick us into focusing on what we don’t know or can’t do. When we give ourselves the freedom to be uncertain and less than perfect, then we can start thinking, ‘What do I know? What can I do?’ That’s when the adventure starts – learning, thriving, conquering, failing, recouping, and having a ton of fun."

- Kristin Smith

"Failure is not about insecurity, it’s about lack of execution."

- Jeffrey Gitomer

"Hire character. Train skill."

- Peter Schutz

"So if you’re firm on what your beliefs are, you get a great foundation to go make a market."

- Ginni Rometty

"To love what you do and feel like it matters – how could anything be more fun?"

- Katharine Graham

"It’s almost always harder to raise capital than you thought it would be, and it always takes longer. So plan for that."

- Richard Harroch

"The things we fear the most in organizations – fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances – are the primary sources of creativity."

- Margaret Wheatley

"Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know."

- Jim Rohn

"All humans are entrepreneurs – not because they should start companies but because the will to create is encoded in human DNA."

- Reid Hoffman

"Nobody talks about entrepreneurship as survival, but that’s exactly what it is and what nurtures creative thinking. Running that first shop taught me business is not financial science; it’s about trading: buying and selling."

- Anita Roddick

"But as an entrepreneur, you have to feel like you can jump out of an airplane because you’re confident that you’ll catch a bird flying by. It’s an act of stupidity, and most entrepreneurs go splat because the bird doesn’t come by, but a few times it does."

- Reed Hastings

"Opportunities, the good ones, they’re messy and confusing and hard to recognize. They’re risky. They challenge you."

- Susan Wojcicki

"Associate yourself with people of good quality, for it is better to be alone than in bad company"

- Booker T. Washington

"How you climb a mountain is more important than reaching the top."

- Yvon Chouinard

"Success depends on employees. For me, knowing and connecting with my employees is very important."

- Divine Ndhlukula

"When people are financially invested, they want a return. When people are emotionally invested, they want to contribute."

- Simon Sinek

"All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Take time to appreciate employees and they will reciprocate in a thousand ways."

- Bob Nelson

"People may take a job for more money, but they often leave it for more recognition."

- Bob Nelson

"The real competitive advantage in any business is one word only, which is ‘people.’"

- Komil Toume

"If you don’t create a great, rewarding place for people to work, they won’t do great work."

- Ari Weinzweig

"Employees aren't just workers, they're the backbone of business and that makes them more important than the boss any day of the week. Good Employees = Good Business."

- Kilroy J. Oldster

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

- Anaïs Nin

"Almost everything worthwhile carries with it some sort of risk, whether it’s starting a new business, whether it’s leaving home, whether it’s getting married, or whether it’s flying into space."

- Chris Hadfield

"Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions."

- Albert Einstein

"Success is often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable."

- Coco Chanel

"I feel that luck is preparation meeting opportunity."

- Oprah Winfrey

"Great customer service is a critical competitive advantage for a business."

- Steve Benson

"Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo Da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein."

- H. Jackson Brown Jr.

"What we fear of doing most is usually what we most need to do."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"It’s not that we need new ideas, but we need to stop having old ideas."

- Edwin Land

"There are three ways to ultimate success: The first way is to be kind. The second way is to be kind. The third way is to be kind."

- Mister Rogers

"Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get."

- W. P. Kinsella

"I will not lose, for even in defeat, there’s a valuable lesson learned, so it evens up for me."

- Jay-Z

"I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself."

- Arianna Huffington

"Never let success get to your head, and never let failure get to your heart."

- Drake

"Make sure your worst enemy doesn’t live between your own two ears."

- Laird Hamilton

"Don’t play games that you don’t understand, even if you see lots of other people making money from them."

- Tony Hsieh

"I don’t think an economic slump will hurt good ideas."

- Rob Kalin

"The more I want to get something done ,the less I call it work."

- Richard Bach

"Fortunes are built during the down market and collected in the upmarket."

- Jason Calacanis

"Get big quietly so you don’t tip off potential competitors."

- Chris Dixon

"Yesterday’s home runs don’t win today’s games."

- Babe Ruth

"If you’re going to put your product in beta – put your business model in beta with it."

- Joe Kraus

"Get big quietly, so you don’t tip off potential competitors."

- Chris Dixon

"I try not to make any decisions that I’m not excited about."

- Jake Nickell

"Fortunes are built during the down market and collected in the up market."

- Jason Calacanis

"If we take care of the moments, the years will take care of themselves."

- Maria Edgeworth

"I doubt I’ll ever go back to corporate work. Once you see the light, there is no turning back."

- Magnus Jepson

"Someday is not a day of the week."

- Janet Dailey

"The first one gets the oyster, the second gets the shell."

- Andrew Carnegie

"Play by the rules, but be ferocious."

- Phil Knight

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."

- Abraham Lincoln

"People want to know they matter, and they want to be treated as people. That’s the new talent contract."

- Pamela Stroko

"Everyone wants to be appreciated, so if you appreciate someone, don’t keep it a secret."

- Mary Kay Ash

"Motivating employees to work at their full potential is the main premise of successful management."

- Eraldo Banovac

"Connect the dots between individual roles and the goals of the organization. When people see that connection, they get a lot of energy out of work. They feel the importance, dignity and meaning in their job."

- Scott and Kelly Blanchard

"Don’t worry about funding if you don’t need it. Today, it’s cheaper to start a business than ever."

- Noah Everett

"Don’t worry about funding if you don’t need it. Today it’s cheaper to start a business than ever."

- Noah Everett

"You carry the passport to your own happiness."

- Diane von Furstenberg

"I like to pride myself on thinking pretty long term, but not that long term."

- Mark Zuckerberg

"Don’t worry about people stealing your design work. Worry about the day they stop."

- Jeffrey Zeldman

"Nothing ever goes away until it teaches us what we need to know."

- Pema Chodron

"I think it’s intoxicating when somebody is so unapologetically who they are."

- Don Cheadle

"Anything can make me stop and look and wonder, and sometimes learn."

- Kurt Vonnegut

"Behold the turtle, he makes progress only when he sticks his neck out."

- Bruce Levin

"If you define yourself by how you differ from the competition, you’re probably in trouble."

- Omar Hamoui

"We are really competing against ourselves, we have no control over how other people perform."

- Pete Cashmore

"Before dreaming about the future or marking plans, you need to articulate what you already have going for you – as entrepreneurs do."

- Reid Hoffman

"Money is like gasoline during a road trip. You don’t want to run out of gas on your trip, but you’re not doing a tour of gas stations."

- Tim O’Reilly

"A ‘startup’ is a company that is confused about – 1. What its product is. 2. Who its customers are. 3. How to make money."

- Dave McClure

"People’s passion and desire for authenticity is strong."

- Constance Wu

"I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite."

- G. K. Chesterton

"The employer generally gets the employees he deserves."

- J. Paul Getty

"The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind the scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel."

- Steven Furtick

"We must reach out our hand in friendship and dignity, both to those who would befriend us and those who would be our enemy."

- Arthur Ashe

"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known."

- Carl Sagan

"You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, and there’s still going to be somebody who hates peaches."

- Dita von Teese

"I never look back, darling. It distracts from the now."

- Edna Mode

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."

"I never dreamed about success, I worked for it."

"Success is not just about making money. It's about making a difference."

"Don't let the fear of losing be greater than the excitement of winning."

"I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have."

"Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day-in and day-out."

"Fail often so you can succeed sooner."

"High expectations are the key to everything."

"Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it."

"The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment in which you first find yourself."

"True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less."