Inspiring Entrepreneur Quotes to Ignite Your Passion

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

- Scott Belsky

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

- Seth Godin

"My biggest motivation? Just to keep challenging myself. I see life almost like one long University education that I never had – every day I’m learning something new."

- Richard Branson

"Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

- Steve Jobs

"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

"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

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

- Warren Buffett

"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

"No matter how many customers you have, each is an individual. The day you start thinking of them as this amorphous ‘collection’ and stop thinking of them as people is the day you start going out of business."

- Dharmesh Shah

"Your ability to attract, evaluate, and forge strong working relationships with co-founders, early employees, and investors often mean the difference between failure and success."

- Clara Shih

"If you’re starting something on your own, you better have a passion for it, because this is hard work."

- Sallie Krawcheck

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

- Brian Tracy

"I can name dozens of failures that we had over the years. Yet, with all these failures, we still managed to build Appster into one of the largest, and best companies in our industry. So, remember every time you fail, remind yourself these words: ‘Life won’t always go my way, but I will always find a way'."

- Josiah Humphrey

"If something is important enough, or you believe something is important enough, even if you are scared, you will keep going."

- Elon Musk

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

- Steve Jobs

"If you have a dream, you can spend a lifetime studying, planning, and getting ready for it. What you should be doing is getting started."

- Drew Houston

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

- Jeffrey Gitomer

"I dream, I test my dreams against my beliefs, I dare to take risks, and I execute my vision to make those dreams come true."

- Walt Disney

"Five days a week, I read my goals before I go to sleep and when I wake up. There are 10 goals around health, family and business with expiration dates, and I update them every six months."

- Daymond John

"There is no royal flower-strewn path to success. And if there is, I have not found it, for whatever success I have attained has been the result of much hard work and many sleepless nights."

- Madam C.J. Walker

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

- Henry Ford

"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

"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

"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

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

- Tim Westergen

"The greatest accomplishment is not in never falling, but in rising again after you fall."

- Vince Lombardi

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

- Thomas Edison

"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

"I’ve come to believe that each of us has a personal calling that’s as unique as a fingerprint—and that the best way to succeed is to discover what you love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of service, working hard, and also allowing the energy of the universe to lead you."

- Oprah Winfrey

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

- Winston Churchill

"I don’t like to lose — at anything — yet, I’ve grown most not from victories, but setbacks."

- Serena Williams

"The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand."

- Vince Lombardi

"When I was younger, there was something in me. I had passion. I may not have known what I was going to do with that passion, but there was something and I still feel it. It’s this little engine that roars inside of me, and I just want to keep going and going."

- Sheila Johnson

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

- Oprah Winfrey

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

- Walt Disney

"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

"Always deliver more than expected."

- Larry Page

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

- Sheryl Sandberg

"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

"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

"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

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

- Michael Bloomberg

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

- Katharine Graham

"There are 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

"Do what you love, and success will follow. Passion is the fuel behind a successful career."

- Meg Whitman

"The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. Remember, the greatest failure is to not try. Once you find something you love to do, be the best at doing it."

- Debbi Fields

"Keep going, no matter what."

- Reginald F. Lewis

"If you approach 100 people for seed capital, 99 of them may say no. You just need that one."

- Dr. William F. Pickard

"I built a conglomerate and emerged the richest black man in the world in 2008, but it didn’t happen overnight. It took me 30 years to get to where I am today. Youths of today aspire to be like me, but they want to achieve it overnight. It’s not going to work. To build a business successfully, you must start small and dream big. In the journey of entrepreneurship, tenacity of purpose is supreme."

- Aliko Dangote

"I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance."

- Steve Jobs

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

- Pierre Omidyar

"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

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

- Reid Hoffman

"Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard."

- Guy Kawasaki

"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.

"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

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

- Bill Gates

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

- Alexandra Chong

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

- Steve Jobs

"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

"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

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

- Thomas Edison

"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

"Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful."

- Albert Schweitzer

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

- Drew Houston

"Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune."

- Jim Rohn

"A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way."

- John C. Maxwell

"The most valuable thing you can make is a mistake – you can’t learn anything from being perfect."

- Adam Osborne

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started."

- Mark Twain

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

- Winston Churchill

"Your time is limited, don't waste it living someone else's life."

- Steve Jobs

"The only way to do great work is to love what you do."

- Steve Jobs

"If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

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

- Winston Churchill

"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

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

- Chris Grosser

"The key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but on significance – and then even the small steps and little victories along your path will take on greater meaning."

- Oprah Winfrey

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

- Peter Drucker

"I’ve learned that mistakes can often be as good a teacher as success."

- Jack Welch

"Don’t let others convince you that the idea is good when your gut tells you it’s bad."

- Kevin Rose

"I got lucky because I never gave up the search. Are you quitting too soon? Or are you willing to pursue luck with a vengeance, too?"

- Jill Konrath

"Don’t assume that borrowing lots of money can make your startup fly. There are many things to the business other than investors, and it’s possible to succeed with your startup without breaking the bank."

- Barnaby Lashbrooke

"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

"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader."

- John Quincy Adams

"Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle."

- Napoleon Hill

"Start as small as you can. When I started SkinnyMe Tea, I had $24 in the bank, and I was entirely self-funded. If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product; you’ve launched too late."

- Gretta Rose van Riel

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

- Tony Robbins

"We learned many things while building FourSquare. One of the most important lessons is to be clear to investors about what the company will and will not do. And be open about the priorities of the things that have to be done."

- Dennis Crowley

"The biggest failure you can have in life is not trying at all."

- Emil Motycka

"If you tune it so that you have zero chance of failure, you usually also have zero chance of success. The key is to look at ways for when you get to your failure checkpoint, you know to stop."

- Reid Hoffman

"Some days you're smiling and thinking you're going to make this thing rock. Then the next day a pipe breaks and your costs look too high. You have to learn to keep your eyes on an ultimate goal. If you lose sight of that goal, you have to get out."

- Hamdi Ulukaya

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

- Colin R. Davis

"If you start thinking you are good at something, that's often the day you stop trying to be better and open the back door for someone to come after you. That's why we always aim higher. We never feel like we're done."

- Drew Houston

"When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor."

- Elon Musk

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

- Bo Bennett

"If you’re changing the world, you’re working on important things. You’re excited to get up in the morning."

- Larry Page

"Don’t start a business unless it’s an obsession and something you love. If you have an exit strategy, it’s not an obsession."

- Mark Cuban

"My advice is to focus on the importance of forging a long-term relationship, whether with colleagues, partners, or customers. It is often easy to get caught up in short-term decisions."

- Sheila Lirio Marcelo

"Life-fulfilling work is never about the money⁠—when you feel true passion for something, you instinctively find ways to nurture it."

- Eileen Fisher

"[Don’t] let anyone convince you that your dream, your vision to be an entrepreneur, is something that you shouldn’t do. What often happens is that people who are well meaning, who really care for us, are afraid for us and talk us out of it."

- Cathy Hughes

"When you cease to dream, you cease to live."

- Malcolm Forbes

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

- Thomas Edison

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

- Biz Stone

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

- Estée Lauder

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

- Richard Branson

"Being a woman in business doesn’t come without challenges. My advice? Surround yourself with other supportive women that encourage you, share ideas, and get you motivated."

- Jessica Alba

"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

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

- Vidal Sassoon

"The thing that motivates me is a very common form of motivation. And that is, with other folks counting on me, it’s so easy to be motivated."

- Jeff Bezos

"If you're not willing to risk the unusual, you'll have to settle for the ordinary."

- Jim Rohn

"In a world that’s changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks."

- Mark Zuckerberg

"It doesn’t matter how many times you have failed. You only have to be right once."

- Mark Cuban

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

- Steve Jobs

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

- Bill Gates

"Challenges are gifts that force us to search for a new center of gravity. Don’t fight them. Just find a new way to stand."

- Oprah Winfrey

"Don't be pushed around by the fears in your mind. Be led by the dreams in your heart."

- Roy T. Bennett

"I learned to always take on things I’d never done before. Growth and comfort do not coexist."

- Ginni Rometty

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

- John D. Rockefeller

"My advice for anyone thinking of starting their own business is, above all, don’t wait. If you get an idea in the shower in the morning, try to make it the next day."

- Harley Finkelstein

"Too many people measure how successful they are by how much money they make or the people that they associate with. In my opinion, true success should be measured by how happy you are."

- Richard Branson

"Starting a company extracts so much energy and conviction that not having a clear-cut goal and meaningful mission can hamper your success. This is why, at Virta, our mission was clearly defined: reverse early type-2 diabetes in 100 million people by 2025."

- Sami Inkinen

"In the world of business, the people who are most successful are those who are doing what they love."

- Warren Buffett

"Fearlessness is not the absence of fear. It's the mastery of fear. It's about getting up one more time than we fall down."

- Arianna Huffington

"Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals."

- Jim Rohn

"When you cease to dream you cease to live."

- Malcolm Forbes

"Failures are life’s way of nudging you and letting you know you are off course. Trying new things and not being afraid to fail along the way are more important than what you learn in school."

- Sara Blakely

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

- Divine Ndhlukula

"Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you."

- Oprah Winfrey

"There’s a silly notion that failure’s not an option at NASA. Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough."

- Elon Musk

"If you know too much before the start, then you will get overwhelmed. Come up with an original idea, and don’t copy because there will be no passion. You need that otherworldly passion. Just start."

- Jeni Britton Bauer

"The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers."

- Ralph Nader

"Don’t get distracted. Never tell yourself that you need to be the biggest brand in the whole world. Start by working on what you need at the present moment and then what you need to do tomorrow. So, set yourself manageable targets."

- Jas Bagniewski

"Don’t try to do everything by yourself, but try to connect with people and resources. Having that discipline and perseverance is really important."

- Chieu Cao

"Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything."

- Napoleon Hill

"If we tried to think of a good idea, we wouldn’t have been able to think of a good idea. You just have to find the solution for a problem in your own life."

- Brian Chesky

"One of the greatest skills of leadership is being unflappable. Anytime you do anything in the world; there’s going to be criticism."

- Arianna Huffington

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

- John D. Rockefeller

"When you are building a startup, it’s difficult. Particularly, a startup that is expanding at the rate of Tinder. You have to give 100%, and you have to be committed. Solving the problem has to be personal or else you’re going to disintegrate."

- Sean Rad

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

- Thomas A. Edison

"Selling is not a pushy, winner-takes-all, macho act. It is an empathy-led, process-driven, and knowledge-intensive discipline. Because, in the end, people buy from people."

- Subroto Bagchi

"The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today."

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Ignore the hype of the startups that you see in the press. Mostly, it’s a pack of lies. Half of these startups will be dead in a year. So, focus on building your business so you can be the one left standing."

- Jules Pieri

"Passion, creativity, and resilience are the most crucial skills in business. If you’ve got those, you’re ready to embark on the journey."

- Jo Malone

"I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse."

- Florence Nightingale

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

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"Today, not starting is far, far worse than being wrong. If you start, you’ve got a shot at evolving and adjusting to turn your wrong into a right. But if you don’t start, you never get a chance."

- Seth Godin

"It’s important to realize that brand is much more than a logo and slogan. A brand is who your company is: how you function and make decisions."

- Joanna McFarland

"The harder I work, the luckier I get."

- Gary Player

"Do not focus on numbers. Focus on doing what you do best. It’s about building a community who want to visit your site every day because you create value and offer expertise."

- Cassey Ho

"Your positive action combined with positive thinking results in success."

- Shiv Khera

"When in doubt, bootstrap. Using your own personal resources is the easiest way to start a business. You don’t have to convince investors about the merits of your idea. You just have to convince yourself."

- Ryan Holmes

"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

"It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop."

- Confucius

"I always did something I was a little not ready to do. I think that’s how you grow. When there’s that moment of ‘Wow, I’m not really sure I can do this,’ and you push through those moments, that’s when you have a breakthrough."

- Marissa Mayer

"The biggest risk is not taking any risk."

- Mark Zuckerberg

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

- Jim Rohn

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

- Josh James

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

- David Karp

"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

"Empower yourself and realize the importance of contributing to the world by living your talent. Work on what you love. You are responsible for the talent that has been entrusted to you."

- Catharina Bruns

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

- Jack Dorsey

"It is always the start that requires the greatest effort."

- James Cash Penney

"Have the end in mind, and every day make sure you’re working towards it."

- Ryan Allis

"Fail faster to succeed."

- David M. Kelley

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

- William Rosenberg

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

- Marc Benioff

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

- Dale Carnegie

"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

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

- Richard Branson

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

- Lisa Stone

"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

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

- Chris Dixon

"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

"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

"Stay self-funded as long as possible."

- Garrett Camp

"Turn a perceived risk into an asset."

- Aaron Patzer

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

- Jason Cohen

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

- Noah Everett

"Data beats emotions."

- Sean Rad

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

- Anthony Volodkin

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

- Tony Hsieh

"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

"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

"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

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

- Susan Wojcicki

"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

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

- Ryan Freitas

"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

"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

"What is not started will never get finished."

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"The most valuable thing you can make is a mistake- you can’t learn anything from being perfect."

- Adam Osborne

"Choose a job that you like, and you will never have to work a day in your life."

- Confucius

"Only the paranoid survive."

- Andy Grove

"You have to see failure as the beginning and the middle, but never entertain it as an end."

- Jessica Herrin

"If you can offer a free tier that provides a lot of value, it will naturally help your product to spread much more rapidly."

- Melanie Perkins

"It’s necessary to find a mentor who can invest time to know your personal capabilities and business model."

- Nigel Davies

"You have to get good at ceding control and not taking things personally. Even seasoned entrepreneurs have struggled with that. I think it’s about not taking failures personally and also not taking successes personally."

- Leila Janah

"Be nicer to your customers than your competitors."

- Richard Reed

"If you are working on a product that’s going to be consumer-facing, then feedback is invaluable. You should be out there being brave and talking to people and asking for feedback as much as possible."

- Emily Brooke

"As a founder, lay all the possible scenarios -- from best to worst -- in front of you, so you don’t get surprised when something happens."

- Brian Wong

"I'm always tweaking, always trying to make it better, constantly moving the levers and dials."

- Steve Ells

"If you are not getting traction on your idea, you try few things. You try pushing harder, cleaning up something, building up to something aggressively -- but if it doesn’t get traction, then don’t bother."

- Vijay Sharma

"People don’t take opportunities because the timing is bad, the financial side unsecure. Too many people are overanalyzing. Sometimes you just have to go for it."

- Michelle Zatlyn

"Whatever you do, be different—that was the advice my mother gave me, and I can’t think of better advice for an entrepreneur. If you’re different, you will stand out."

- Anita Roddick

"Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going."

- Jim Ryun

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

- Bill Gates

"Success in the knowledge economy comes to those who know themselves—their strengths, their values, and how they best perform."

- Peter Drucker

"Success is empty if you arrive at the finish line alone. The best reward is to get there surrounded by winners."

- Howard Schultz

"We think, mistakenly, that success is the result of the amount of time we put in at work, instead of the quality of time we put in."

- Arianna Huffington

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

- Richard Branson

"Management is about human beings. Its task is to make people capable of joint performance, to make their strengths effective and their weaknesses irrelevant."

- Peter Drucker

"And I’d say one of the great lessons I’ve learned over the past couple of decades, from a management perspective, is that really, when you come down to it, it really is all about people and all about leadership."

- Steve Case

"Whatever you do, don’t play it safe. Don’t do things the way they’ve always been done. Don't try to fit the system. If you do what's expected of you, you’ll never accomplish more than others expect."

- Howard Schultz

"You are where you are today because you stand on somebody’s shoulders. And wherever you are heading, you cannot get there by yourself. If you stand on the shoulders of others, you have a reciprocal responsibility to live your life so that others may stand on your shoulders. It’s the quid pro quo of life. We exist temporarily through what we take, but we live forever through what we give."

- Vernon Jordan

"If people haven’t laughed at your dreams, then you aren’t dreaming big enough. Just keep pushing forward."

- Daymond John

"The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud."

- Coco Chanel

"I think it is often easier to make progress on mega-ambitious dreams. Since no one else is crazy enough to do it, you have little competition."

- Larry Page

"If you don't love what you do, you won’t do it with much conviction or passion."

- Mia Hamm

"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."

- Winston S. Churchill

"Don’t pass up something that’s attractive today because you think you will find something better tomorrow."

- Warren Buffett

"People think innovation is just having a good idea, but a lot of it is just moving quickly and trying a lot of things."

- Mark Zuckerberg

"Be passionate and move forward with gusto every single hour of every single day, until you reach your goal."

- Ava DuVernay

"When you build technology it’s not just a matter of 'what.' In most cases the success ends up determined by 'how' you build it—which foundations you used, how simple and scalable it is."

- Tobi Lütke

"It is not the genius at the top giving directions that makes people great. It is great people that make the guy at the top look like a genius."

- Simon Sinek

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

- Divine Ndhlukula

"Making the decision to not follow a system or someone else’s rules has allowed me to really dig into what my own strengths and gifts are without spending time feeling jaded or wasteful."

- Ishita Gupta

"Don’t try to have it all. Aim for what matters most and what you’re willing to consistently work for. Don’t judge yourself and don’t judge others. Help other women lift each other up."

- Jessica Herrin

"As a leader, it’s a major responsibility on your shoulders to practice the behavior you want others to follow."

- Himanshu Bhatia

"In the age of transparency, honesty, and generosity, even in the form of an apology, generate goodwill."

- Alexander Asseily

"Never be limited by other people’s limited imaginations."

- Dr. Mae Jemison

"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving."

- Albert Einstein

"Everything in life has some risk, and what you have to actually learn to do is how to navigate it."

- Reid Hoffman

"You can and should set your own limits and clearly articulate them. This takes courage, but it is also liberating and empowering, and often earns you new respect."

- Rosalind Brewer

"An idea can only become a reality once it is broken down into organized, actionable elements."

- Scott Belsky

"The man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds."

- Mark Twain

"There’s this joy that comes from sitting down to solve a problem and standing up when it’s done and good. Building a company or managing people is never just done."

- Drew Houston

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

- Henry David Thoreau

"Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young."

- Henry Ford

"There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world: those who are afraid to try and those who are afraid you will succeed."

- Ray Goforth

"There is no better measure of your values than how you spend your time."

- Scott Belsky

"The best customer service is if the customer doesn’t need to call you, doesn't need to talk to you. It just works."

- Jeff Bezos

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

- Caterina Fake

"It’s important to be willing to make mistakes. The worst thing that can happen is you become memorable."

- Sara Blakely

"As a CEO, I am finding that I have to become a learning CEO. I have to go to school all the time because I am learning new skills that I need to run this company and I am realizing that I am not equipped to just coast. I have to constantly renew my skills."

- Indra Nooyi

"If you wake up deciding what you want to give versus what you’re going to get, you become a more successful person. In other words, if you want to make money, you have to help someone else make money."

- Russell Simmons

"Trust yourself. Think for yourself. Act for yourself. Speak for yourself. Be yourself. Imitation is suicide."

- Marva Collins

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

- Reid Hoffman

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

- Ingvar Kamprad

"I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."

- Albert Einstein

"It’s very important for entrepreneurs to look for people in the company who are not afraid of failures, for example, intrapreneurs. They make a business more successful by thinking like an entrepreneur -- but within a company."

- Chirag Kulkarni

"Importantly, in a great team, you argue about ideas totally independent of ego. In great teams, the success of your idea is independent from your success. Just helping to find the best idea matters."

- Tobi Lütke

"There is something artificial when everyone is agreeing with each other. It's useful to indulge people who don't agree, and see their viewpoint or force yourself to explain things better."

- David Sack

"Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from."

- Seth Godin

"Most of us want to tell our coworkers or friends, or husbands or wives, our ideas. For what reason? We want validation. But I feel ideas are most vulnerable in their infancy. Out of love and concern, friends and family give all the reasons or objections on why [you] shouldn't do it. I didn't want to risk that."

- Sara Blakely

"It's stunning to me what kind of an impact even one person can have if they have the right passion, perspective, and are able to align the interest of a great team."

- Steve Case

"One of the things I tend to do is open myself up to a variety of voices. I try to expose myself to the kind of culture shock that occurs when you talk to people who speak a different language."

- Pierre Omidyar

"Remain self-funded as long as possible."

- Garrett Camp

"One of the huge mistakes people make is that they try to force an interest on themselves. You don’t choose your passions; your passions choose you."

- Jeff Bezos

"Fundraising is much easier now because of crowdfunding. Take advantage of that."

- Constantin Bisanz

"Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow."

- Anthony J. D'Angelo

"You are on the eve of a complete victory. You can’t go wrong. The world is behind you."

- Josephine Baker

"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious."

- Albert Einstein

"If you broke a lot of rules as a kid, you’d probably make a great entrepreneur."

- Harley Finkelstein

"It’s time for you to move, realizing that the thing you are seeking is also seeking you."

- Iyanla Vanzant

"If we are going to be part of the solution, we have to engage the problems."

- Majora Carter

"Vision without action is a daydream."

- Karthik Shankar

"It starts with not having a hangover with the way things used to be."

- Kevin Plank

"I definitely see a correlation between how many things a company gets right and how fast a company grows."

- Garrett Camp

"Startups are the truest passion projects."

- Vinay Kanchan

"People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing—that’s why we recommend it daily."

- Zig Ziglar

"Aspiring entrepreneurs have to actually do something that they feel strongly passionate about, and in most cases they should seek inspiration from their own experience. … If you had a terrible experience, you should despise the experience to the extent that you are continuously seeking a solution for it."

- Best Ayiorwoth

"No matter what, expect the unexpected. And whenever possible, be the unexpected."

- Lynda Barry

"Sometimes, it doesn’t hurt to ask. I have been in the news many times just by calling on the news channel and asking them about featuring my business."

- Lori Cheek

"Life is short, and it’s up to you to make it sweet."

- Sadie Delany

"Entrepreneurship is the last refuge of the trouble-making individual."

- Natalie Clifford Barney

"A full belly is little worth where the mind is starved."

- Mark Twain

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

"The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus."

"High expectations are the key to everything."

"Don't wait for the perfect moment. Take the moment and make it perfect."

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

"Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won't, so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can't."