Here’s a list of my favorite business quotes collected over the years.
- “If you don’t build your dream, someone else will hire you to help them build theirs.” – Dhirubhai Ambani
- “Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them.” Madam C.J. Walker
- “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” – Sheryl Sandberg
- “You have to be burning with an idea, or a problem, or a wrong that you want to right. If you’re not passionate enough from the start, you’ll never stick it out.” – Steve Jobs
- “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
- “Do what you love and success will follow. Passion is the fuel behind a successful career.” – Meg Whitman
- “Don’t worry about failure. You only have to be right once.” – Drew Houston
- “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
- “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” – Walt Disney
- “Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to.” – Richard Branson
- “We entrepreneurs are loners, vagabonds, troublemakers. Success is simply a matter of finding and surrounding ourselves with those open-minded and clever souls who can take our insanity and put it to good use.” – Anita Roddick
- “Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.” – Henry Ford
- “It’s important that leaders are consistent. You can change your mind, but change your mind against a consistent framework.” – Indra Nooyi
- “Too many companies believe people are interchangeable. Truly gifted people never are. They have unique talents. Such people cannot be forced into roles they are not suited for, nor should they be. Effective leaders allow great people to do the work they were born to do.” – Warren G. Bennis
- “You have to believe in yourself when no one else does – that makes you a winner right there.” – Venus Williams
- “To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
- “Dedicate yourself to a core set of values. Without them, you will never be able to find personal fulfillment, and you will never be able to lead effectively.” – Kenneth Chenault
- “Take risks. Failure is a stepping stone to success.” – Arianna Huffington
- “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.” – Henry Ford
- “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” – Bill Gates
- “If you want to grow you have to do something different from the majority of people.” – Lakshmi Mittal
- “Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.” – John D. Rockefeller
- “The road to success is always under construction.” – Lily Tomlin
- “If you push through that feeling of being scared, that feeling of taking risk, really amazing things can happen.” – Marissa Mayer
- “In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.” – Warren Buffett
- “When you undervalue what you do, the world will undervalue who you are.” – Oprah Winfrey
- “Days are expensive. When you spend a day you have one less day to spend. So make sure you spend each one wisely.” – Jim Rohn
- “In the journey of entrepreneurship, tenacity of purpose is supreme.” – Aliko Dangote
- “Remain a lifelong student. Don’t lose that curiosity.” – Indra Nooyi
- “I never dreamed about success, I worked for it.” – Estée Lauder
- “It always seems impossible, until it is done.” – Nelson Mandela
- “Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.” – Zig Ziglar
- “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas Edison
- “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” – Michael Jordan
- “The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” – Winston Churchill
- “Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.” – Albert Einstein
- “You don’t need to have a 100-person company to develop that idea.” – Larry Page
- “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
- “Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.” – Henry David Thoreau
- “There’s nothing wrong with staying small. You can do big things with a small team.” – Jason Fried
- “It’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen.” – Scott Belsky
- “Success comes from the inside out. In order to change what is on the outside, you must first change what is on the inside.” – Idowu Koyenikan
- “You never achieve real success unless you like what you are doing.” – Dale Carnegie
- “You can’t be successful in business without taking risks. It’s really that simple.” – Adena Friedman
- “It’s not about Total Addressable Market TAM, it’s about Total Imaginable Market TIM.” – James Vincent
- “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
- “Make something people want includes making a company that people want to work for.” – Sahil Lavingia
- “When you find an idea that you just can’t stop thinking about, that’s probably a good one to pursue.” – Josh James
- “The most successful entrepreneurs I know are optimistic. It’s part of the job description.” – Caterina Fake
- “Find a great mentor, someone who has already been through the many challenges of being an entrepreneur” – Jodi Levine
- “Bringing great people onto your team is about demonstrating that size really doesn’t matter, people do.” – Jess Campbell
- “A goal without a plan is just a wish.” – Antoine De Saint-Exupéry
- “The secret to successful hiring is this: look for the people who want to change the world.” – Marc Benioff
- “A big business starts small.” – Richard Branson
- “Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.” – Peter F. Drucker
- “Where do you put the fear when you choose to innovate? The fear is there, but you have to find a place to put it.” – Seth Godin
- “I don’t believe in luck, I believe in preparation.” – Bobby Knight
- “Winning is great, sure, but if you are really going to do something in life, the secret is learning how to lose. Nobody goes undefeated all the time. If you can pick up after a crushing defeat, and go on to win again, you are going to be a champion someday.” – Wilma Rudolph
- “The secret of success in any field is redefining what success means to you.” – RuPaul
- “One way to keep momentum going is to have constantly greater goals.” – Michael Korda
- “Don’t be afraid to assert yourself, have confidence in your abilities and don’t let the bastards get you down.” – Michael Bloomberg
- “Never ever give up! Constant effort is the key to success.” – Xavier Davis
- “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
- “Keep your face always toward the sunshine and shadows will fall behind you.” – Walt Whitman
- “If we did all the things we were capable of, we would astound ourselves.” – Thomas Edison
- “We are really competing against ourselves, we have no control over how other people perform.” – Pete Cashmore
- “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou
- “Great customer service is a critical competitive advantage for a business.” – Steve Benson
- “Customer service is an opportunity to exceed your customer’s expectations.” – John Jantsch
- “Business is the salt of life.” – Voltaire
- “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” – Albert Einstein
- “Never let success get to your head and never let failure get to your heart.” – Drake
- “It’s not whether you are right or wrong that’s important, but how much you make when you’re right and how much you lose when you’re wrong.” George Soros.
- John D. Rockefeller was a recluse, he let everybody else talk. When asked about his silence in a meeting he recited a poem:
- A wise old owl lived in an oak,
- The more he saw, the less he spoke,
- The less he spoke, the more he heard,
- Why aren’t we all like the wise old bird?.