50 Inspiring Small Business Quotes to Motivate Your Entrepreneurial Journey

"If you don’t understand the details of your business you are going to fail."

- Jeff Bezos

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

- Thomas J. Watson

"You don’t build a business. You build people and people build the business."

- Zig Ziglar

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

- John D. Rockefeller

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started."

- Mark Twain

"Dream big, start small, but most of all, start."

- Simon Sinek

"All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them."

- Walt Disney

"The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer."

- Peter Drucker

"Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves."

- Steve Jobs

"Dream big. Start small. But most of all, start."

- Simon Sinek

"Know what your customer want most and what your company does best. Focus on where those two meet."

- Kevin Stirtz

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

- Tony Robbins

"If you can dream it, you can do it."

- Walt Disney

"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower."

- Steve Jobs

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

- Winston Churchill

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

- Walt Disney

"Every company’s greatest assets are its customers because without customers there is no company."

- Michael LeBoeuf

"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal."

- Henry Ford

"A goal is not always meant to be reached; it often serves simply as something to aim at."

- Bruce Lee

"If you build a great customer experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful."

- Jeff Bezos

"Customer service is the new marketing, it’s what differentiates one business from another."

- Jay Baer

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

- Steve Jobs

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

- Estée Lauder

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

- Muhammad Ali

"Don’t give up, the beginning is always the hardest."

- Kemmy Nola

"A winner never stops trying."

- Tom Landry

"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

"Great things in business are never done by one person. They're done by a team of people."

- Steve Jobs

"Commit to your business. Believe it more than anybody else."

- Sam Walton

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

- Wayne Huizenga

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

- Henry Ford

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that. But the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."

- Mark Twain

"I didn’t get there by wishing for it or hoping for it, but by working for it."

- Estée Lauder

"If I had to run a company on three measures, those measures would be customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, and cash flow."

- Jack Welch

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

- Jim Rohn

"You need to spend all of your time and energy on creating something that actually brings value to the people you’re asking for money."

- Gary Vaynerchuk

"A goal without a plan is just a wish."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

"Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars."

- Norman Vincent Peale

"Plan for what it is difficult while it is easy, Do what is great while it is small."

- Sun Tzu

"The well-satisfied customer will bring the repeat sale that counts."

- James Cash Penney

"The heart and soul of a company is creativity and innovation."

- Robert Iger

"The goal as a company is to have customer service that is not just the best but legendary."

- Sam Walton

"Tough times never last, but tough people do."

- Robert Schuller

"Every contact we have with a customer influences whether or not they’ll come back. We have to be great every time or we’ll lose them."

- Kevin Stirtz

"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

"Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts."

- Winston Churchill

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

- Confucius

"My best advice to entrepreneurs is this: forget about making mistakes, just do it."

- Ajaero Tony Martins

"Don’t worry about being successful but work toward being significant and the success will naturally follow."

- Oprah Winfrey

"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

"Starting a successful business is not tricky. Starting a successful business does not require above average intelligence. Starting a successful business does require having a pig-headed, purpose-driven tenacity about achieving your life goals and fulfilling your life’s vision through providing products and services that offer uncompromising quality in a scalable and duplicatable way."

- Clay Clark, The Wheel of Wealth

"You are the master of your destiny. You can influence, direct and control your own environment. You can make your life what you want it to be."

- Napoleon Hill

"A business absolutely devoted to service will have one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large."

- Henry Ford

"You need to spend all of your time and energy on creating something that actually brings value to the people you’re asking for money!"

- Gary Vaynerchuk

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

- Drew Houston

"Risk is essential. There is not growth of inspiration in staying within what is safe and comfortable. Once you find out what you do best, why not try something else?"

- Alex Noble

"How many people are completely successful in every department of life? Not one. The most successful people are the ones who learn from their mistakes and turn their failures into opportunities."

- Zig Ziglar

"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

"What would you do if you weren’t afraid?"

- Sheryl Sandberg

"Keep on going, and the chances are that you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I never heard of anyone ever stumbling on something sitting down."

- Charles F. Kettering

"One of the marks of successful people is they are action oriented. One of the marks of average people is they are talk oriented."

- Brian Tracy

"By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail."

- Benjamin Franklin

"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."

- Abraham Lincoln

"I don’t believe in luck, I believe in preparation."

- Bobby Knight

"The elevator to success is out of order. You’ll have to use the stairs… one step at a time."

- Joe Girard

"I wake up every morning and think to myself, 'How far can I push the company forward in the next 24 hours?'"

- Leah Busque

"Focus on being productive instead of busy."

- Tim Ferriss

"Strength doesn’t come from what you can do. It comes from overcoming the things you once thought you couldn’t."

- Rikki Rogers

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

- Scott Belsky

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

- Bill Gates

"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

"Success doesn’t come from what you do occasionally, it comes from what you do consistently."

- Marie Forleo

"Don't be intimidated by what you don't know. That can be your greatest strength and ensure that you do things differently from everyone else."

- Sara Blakely

"In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity."

- Albert Einstein

"Always give your best effort even when the odds are against you."

- Arnold Palmer

"If you are not taking care of your customer, your competitor will."

- Bob Hooey

"When you serve the customer better, they always return on your investment."

- Kara Parlin

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

- Michael Korda

"Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough."

- Og Mandino

"Never ever give up! Constant effort is the key to success."

- Xavier Davis

"Your Customer doesn’t care how much you know until they know how much you care."

- Damon Richards

"There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: The fear of failure."

- Paulo Coelho

"What you do today can improve all your tomorrows."

- Ralph Marston

"Action is the foundational key to all success."

- Pablo Picasso

"Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny."

- C.S. Lewis

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

- Hasidic Proverb

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

- Thomas Jefferson

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

- Chris Grosser

"Keep your face always toward the sunshine and shadows will fall behind you."

- Walt Whitman

"Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor."

- Truman Capote

"The successful man is the one who finds out what is the matter with his business before his competitors do."

- Roy L. Smith

"There’s no luck in business. There’s only drive, determination and more drive."

- Sophie Kinsella

"If your business is not on the internet then your business will be out of business."

- Bill Gates

"All you have in business is your reputation – So it’s very important that you keep your work."

- Richard Branson

"Business has only two functions – marketing and Innovation."

- Peter Drucker

"In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: cash and experience. Take the experience first; the cash will come later."

- Harold Geneen

"The greatest ability in business is to get along with others and to influence their actions."

- John Hancock

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

- Henry Ford

"The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It's as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer."

- Nolan Bushnell

"If you're going through hell, keep going."

- Winston Churchill

"I hated every minute of training, but I said, 'Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'"

- Muhammad Ali

"Believe you can and you're halfway there."

- Theodore Roosevelt

"Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential."

- Winston S. Churchill

"Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th."

- Julie Andrews

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

- Henry Ford

"Adaptability is about the powerful difference between adapting to cope and adapting to win."

- Max McKeown

"People do not buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories, and magic."

- Seth Godin

"You don’t build a business, you build people, then people build the business."

- Zig Ziglar

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

- Peter Drucker

"If you don’t build your dream, someone else will hire you to help them build theirs."

- Dhirubhai Ambani

"Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What’s important is action. You don’t have to wait to be confident. Just do it, and eventually, the confidence will follow."

- Carrie Fisher

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

- Seth Godin

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

- Jason Fried

"Dreams do not come true just because you dream them. It’s hard work that makes things happen. It’s hard work that creates change."

- Shonda Rhimes

"To be successful, you must act big, think big and talk big."

- Aristotle Onassis

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

- Drew Houston

"My best successes came on the heels of failure."

- Barbara Corcoran

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

- Thomas Edison

"In my experience, each failure contains the seeds of your next success, if you are willing to learn from it."

- Paul Allen

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

- Winston Churchill

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

- Bill Gates

"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

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

- Thomas Edison

"The moment when you feel like giving up is right before your breakthrough."

- Victoria Arlen

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

- Henry Ford

"Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time."

- Thomas A. Edison

"Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But it’s not. It takes patience, it takes commitment, and it comes with plenty of failure along the way."

- Barack Obama

"The difference between success and failure is not giving up."

- steven redhead

"Winners never quit and quitters never win."

- Vince Lombardi

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

- Anthony Robbins

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

- Vidal Sassoon

"If people like you, they’ll listen to you. But if they trust you, they’ll do business with you."

- Zig Ziglar

"There will be two types of businesses in the next 5 years, those that are on the Internet, and those that are out of business."

- Bill Gates

"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

"Don’t worry about being successful, but work toward being significant and the rest will naturally follow."

- Oprah Winfrey

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

- Henry David Thoreau

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

- Colin Powell

"Make a customer, not a sale."

- Katherine Barchetti

"There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else."

- Sam Walton

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

- Tony Hsieh

"Everything starts with the customer."

- Lou Gerstner

"Customer don’t expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong."

- Donald Porter

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

- Steve Benson

"Don’t find fault. Find a remedy."

- Henry Ford

"Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much."

- Helen Keller

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step."

- Lao Tzu

"In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield."

- Warren Buffett

"Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later."

- Og Mandino

"You have to work on the business first before it works for you."

- Idowu Koyenikan

"The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time."

- Henry Ford

"You can’t be successful in business without taking risks. It’s really that simple."

- Adena Friedman

"There is no force more powerful than a woman determined to rise."

- W.E.B. Du Bois

"The most successful entrepreneurs I know are optimistic. It's part of the job description."

- Caterina Fake

"Growth is never by mere chance; it is the result of forces working together."

- James Cash Penney

"If you hear a voice within you saying ‘you are not a painter’ then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced."

- Vincent van Gogh

"Always give your best effort, even when the odds are against you."

- Arnold Palmer

"An obstacle is often a stepping stone."

- William Prescott

"Don’t worry about failure: You only have to be right once."

- Drew Houston

"You are the master of your destiny. You can influence, direct, and control your own environment. You can make your life what you want it to be."

- Napoleon Hill

"There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure."

- Paulo Coelho

"Preparation doesn’t assure victory, it assures confidence."

- Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Worlds

"Luck is what you have leftover after you give 100%."

- Langston Coleman

"The key to success is not through achievement, but through enthusiasm."

- Malcolm Forbes

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

- Thomas Watson

"You build on failure. Use it as a stepping stone and close the door on the past. Don’t try to forget the mistakes, but don’t dwell on it."

- Johnny Cash

"Business is not just doing deals; business is having great products, doing great engineering and providing tremendous service to customers. Finally, business is a cobweb of human relationship."

- Henry Ross Perot

"Here is the simple but powerful rule… always give people more than they expect to get."

- Nelson Boswell

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

- Zig Ziglar

"You must not only aim right but draw the bow with all your might."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Small opportunities are often beginning of great achievements."

- Demosthenes

"Study successful people and businesses, then do what they did to become successful while making slight modifications to fit your lifestyle, your values, your business model & your goals."

- Clay Clark

"Courteous treatment will make a customer a walking advertisement."

- J. C. Penney

"There are people who have money, and there are people who are rich."

- Coco Chanel

"A small business is an amazing way to serve and leave an impact on the world you live in."

- Nicole Snow

"Leap, and the net will appear."

- John Burroughs

"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."

- Albert Einstein

"The best way out is always through."

- Robert Frost

"Go big or go home. Because it's true. What do you have to lose?"

- Eliza Dushku

"Press forward. Do not stop, do not linger in your journey, but strive for the mark set before you."

- George Whitefield

"The secret of success in any field is redefining what success means to you."

- RuPaul

"You can't hire someone else to do your push-ups for you."

- Jim Rohn

"In a moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing."

- Theodore Roosevelt

"You don't build a business, you build the people, then people build the business."

- Zig Ziglar

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

- Tony Hsieh

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

- Arianna Huffington

"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible."

- Frank Zappa

"Continuous learning is the minimum requirement for success in any field."

- Brian Tracy

"Life is what happens when you’re making other plans."

- John Lennon

"You don't have problems - all you have is opportunity."

- John Chow

"To win without risk is to triumph without glory."

- Pierre Corneille

"The biggest mistake a small business can make is to think like a small business."

- Aruna Bhayana

"There is no such thing as a no-sale call. A sale is made on every call you make. Either you sell the client something or he sells you a reason he can’t buy. Either way, a sale is made, the only question is who is gonna close? You or him? Now be relentless, that’s it, I’m done."

- Boiler Room

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

- Nikos Kazantzakis

"All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure."

- Mark Twain

"If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else."

- Yogi Berra

"There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence, imagination, and wonder."

- Ronald Reagan

"Don't spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door."

- Coco Chanel

"Management is nothing more than motivating other people."

- Lee Iacocca

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

- Marc Benioff

"Earn your leadership every day."

- Michael Jordan

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

- Ralph Nader

"A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others."

- Ayn Rand

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

- Aristotle

"When you need to innovate, collaborate"

- Marissa Mayer

"Can’t forget you only get what you give."

- New Radicals

"I wasn't satisfied just to earn a good living. I was looking to make a statement"

- Donald Trump

"When I hear somebody sigh, ‘life is hard,’ I am always tempted to ask: ‘compared to what?'"

- Sydney Harris

"Don’t ever let someone tell you, You can’t do something. You’ve got a dram, you’ve got to protect it. People can’t do something themselves, they want to tell you you can’t do it. You want something, go get it. Period."

- Pursuit of Happiness

"Sometimes it takes a good fall to really know where you stand"

- Hayley Williams

"Hakuna Matata… it means no worries!"

- Lion King

"I don’t build to have clients. I have clients in order to build."

- The Fountainhead

"If you aren’t first, you’re last."

- Talladega Nights

"Business is more exciting than any game."

- Lord Beaverbrook

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

- Albert Einstein

"What can go wrong, will go wrong."

- Ozzy Osbourne

"Just Do It"

- Nike

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

"If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time."

"Never, never ever give up."

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

"The difference between who you are and who you want to be is what you do."

"In a world of starters, I'm a finisher."

- Unknown

"Small businesses remind us that every giant company started with a single idea and a leap of faith."

"Every small business is a story of risk, resilience, and the belief that something great can grow from something small."

"Your business is never 'too small' to innovate."

"Building a successful business means being able to navigate change and uncertainty without losing focus on your mission."

"Make every customer a brand ambassador by exceeding their expectations at every turn."

"Small business success is fueled by ambition and sustained by persistence."

"When small businesses succeed, communities thrive."

"Small businesses are the heart of a community. They build jobs, opportunities, and local pride."

"A small business is not about the owner, but the value it brings to the community around it."

"Small businesses offer something bigger companies often can’t: personal connection and authenticity."

"Behind every small business, there’s a story worth knowing. All the corner shops in our towns and cities started somewhere."

"To build a strong community, we must support the dreams and growth of our small businesses."

"There is no better way to support your local community than by shopping small and supporting local businesses."

"Building a business is not about being the best at something; it's about being the best at learning and adapting."

"Customers may forget what you said but they’ll never forget how you made them feel."

- Anonymous

"Never give up. Great things take time."

- Unknown

"Don’t deliver a product, deliver an experience."

- Unknown