300 Entrepreneur Quotes to Inspire Motivation and Success – Quote.cc (2024)

Last Updated: November 6, 2022 by Quote.cc Team

An entrepreneur is an entity that has the ability to find and act upon opportunities to translate inventions or technologies into products and services. The entrepreneur is commonly seen as an innovator, a source of new ideas, goods, services, and business/or procedures. While definitions of entrepreneurship typically focus on the launching and running of businesses, due to the high risks involved in launching a startup, a significant proportion of startup businesses have to close due to “lack of funding, bad business decisions, government policies, and economic crisis, lack of market demand, or a combination of all of these.” The nature of being an entrepreneur means that you fully embrace ambiguity and are comfortable with being challenged regularly.

Entrepreneurship can be a tough path–and a long, grueling one, not just on the practical grind but also financially and mentally. Running a successful business requires a lot of work, and some days you might feel like you won’t see the fruits of your labor. Starting your business is like planting a sapling. First, you have to invest your time and money. Then, you must take care of it while expecting nothing in return. But when your startup blossoms, it makes all the patience and hard work worthwhile.

Entrepreneurs often feel as if they carry the weight of an entire organization on their backs and could always use a little extra motivation. A good quote can give you a lens through which to view a difficult situation or provide a ray of light in a dark time. Here are 300 pieces of quotes from seasoned entrepreneurs to help you propel your businesses in the right direction and stay motivated when you need it the most. The experience of a seasoned entrepreneur is precious — and no matter how many theoretical models you study, you simply can’t replace the experience they’ve gained through actually doing the work, failing, and succeeding. We hope you can draw inspiration from these quotes as you continue to build and grow your business.

Read. Re-read. Reflect. Apply.

Here are 300 Inspirational Entrepreneurs Quotes to Motivate You for Greatness

Table of Contents

Top 10 Entrepreneur Quotes

“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 other’s 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

“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” – Walt Disney

“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

“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

“You don’t need to have a 100-person company to develop that idea.” – Larry Page

“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently… A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.” – Henry Ford

“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

“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’ve been blessed to find people who are smarter than I am, and they help me to execute the vision I have.” – Russell Simmons

“It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.” – Bill Gates

Related: 300 Business Quotes to Motivate Entrepreneurs for Greatness

300 Entrepreneur Quotes to Inspire Motivation and Success – Quote.cc (1)

What is an Entrepreneur?

Go to table of contents

An entrepreneur is an individual who creates a new business, bearing most of the risks and enjoying most of the rewards. The entrepreneur can recognize the commercial potential of the invention and organize the capital, talent, and other resources that turn an invention into a commercially viable innovation.

Entrepreneurs play a key role in any economy, using the skills and initiative necessary to anticipate needs and bring good new ideas to market. Entrepreneurs who prove to be successful in taking on the risks of a startup are rewarded with profits, fame, and continued growth opportunities—those who fail to suffer losses and become less prevalent in the markets.

“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” – John C. Maxwell

“A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.” – Charles Darwin

“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” – Albert Einstein

“A person who is quietly confident makes the best leader.” – Fred Wilson

“Accept responsibility for your life. Know that it is you who will get you where you want to go, no one else.” – Les Brown

“After a while, you learn to ignore the names people call you and just trust who you are.” – Shrek

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

“An entrepreneur is someone who has a vision for something and a want to create.” – David Karp

“An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew hoping he’ll quickly learn how to chew it.” – Roy Ash

“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

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

“Entrepreneur is someone who has a vision for something and a want to create.” – David Karp

“Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won’t so you can spend the rest of your life like most people cant.” – Warren G. Tracy’s student

“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 pm – 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

“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

“The entrepreneur is essentially a visualizer and actualizer. He can visualize something, and when he visualizes it he sees exactly how to make it happen.” – Robert L. Schwartz

“When times are bad is when the real entrepreneurs emerge.” – Robert Kiyosaki

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” – John Quincy Adams

300 Entrepreneur Quotes to Inspire Motivation and Success – Quote.cc (2)

Best Entrepreneur Quotes

Go to table of contents

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” – Peter Drucker

“Play by the rules, but be ferocious.” – Phil Knight

“I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.” – Thomas Jefferson

“Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.” – Aristotle

“Remember, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.” – Dale Carnegie

“Remain self-funded as long as possible.” – Garrett Camp

“Chase the vision, not the money; the money will end up following you.” – Tony Hsieh

“Choose a job that you like, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” – Confucius

“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

“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

“Find the smartest people you can and surround yourself with them.” – Marissa Meyer

“Get big quietly, so you don’t tip off potential competitors.” – Chris Dixon

“Great men are not born great, they grow great.” – Vito Corleone

“Hire character. Train skill.” – Peter Schultz

“High expectations are the key to everything.” – Sam Walton

“I try not to make any decisions that I’m not excited about.” – Jake Nickell

“If people like you, they’ll listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.” – Zig Ziglar

“If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.” – Napoleon Hill

“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

“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

“Knowledge without action is meaningless” – Abu Bakr

“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

“My best advice to entrepreneurs is this: Forget about making mistakes, just do it.” – Ajaero Tony Martins

“One of the most important things I have learned is that businesses don’t fail, entrepreneurs give up. Now sometimes, giving up is the right decision. But usually you just need to dig in and figure out how to make things better. Remember: Every day is a new opportunity to get up and do it better than yesterday!” – Adda Birnir

“People who succeed have momentum. The more they succeed, the more they want to succeed, and the more they find a way to succeed. Similarly, when someone is failing, the tendency is to get on a downward spiral that can even become a self-fulfilling prophecy.” – Tony Robbins

“Show me a person who never made a mistake, and I will show you a person who never did anything.” – William Rosenberg

“So often people are working hard at the wrong thing. Working on the right thing is probably more important than working hard.” – Caterina Fake

“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 fastest way to change yourself is to hang out with people who are already the way you want to be.” – Reid Hoffman

“The only thing that overcomes hard luck is hard work.” – Harry Golden

“The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” – Winston Churchill

“The things we fear the most in organizations- fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances – are the primary sources of creativity.” – Margaret Wheatley

“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” – Walt Disney

“The value of an idea lies in the using of it.” – Thomas Edison

“We are really competing against ourselves, we have no control over how other people perform.” – Pete Cashmore

“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

“You just have to pay attention to what people need and what has not been done.” – Russell Simmons

“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

300 Entrepreneur Quotes to Inspire Motivation and Success – Quote.cc (3)

Famous Entrepreneur Quotes

Go to table of contents

“Only the paranoid survive.” – Andy Grove

“Because, you know, resilience – if you think of it in terms of the Gold Rush, then you’d be pretty depressed right now because the last nugget of gold would be gone. But the good thing is, with innovation, there isn’t a last nugget. Every new thing creates two new questions and two new opportunities.” – Jeff Bezos

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” – Steve Jobs

“Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.” – John D. Rockefeller

“Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“Fortunes are built during the down market and collected in the upmarket.” – Jason Calacanis

“I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars — I look for 1-foot bars that I can step over.” – Warren Buffett

“I never took a day off in my twenties. Not one.” – Bill Gates

“Genius is 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration.” – Thomas Edison

“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

“Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard.” – Guy Kawasaki

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” – Henry Ford

“If you are working on something that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.” – Steve Jobs

“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

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” – Thomas Edison

“See things in the present, even if they are in the future.” – Larry Ellison

“Strive for authenticity over perfection.” – Sheryl Sandberg

“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.” – Bill Gates

“The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.” – Henry Ford

“The question I ask myself almost every day is, ‘Am I doing the most important thing I could be doing?’” – Mark Zuckerberg

“The Ultimate Measure Of A Man Is Not Where He Stands In Moments Of Comfort And Convenience, But Where He Stands At Times Of Challenge And Controversy.” – Martin Luther King

“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

“You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing and falling over.” – Richard Branson

“You must learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t possibly live long enough to make them all yourself.” – Sam Levenson

“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

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” – Bill Gates

“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

300 Entrepreneur Quotes to Inspire Motivation and Success – Quote.cc (4)

Motivational Entrepreneur Quotes

Go to table of contents

“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.” – Zig Ziglar

“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

“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

“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

“A dream does not become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work.” – Colin Powell

“Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs.” – Farrah Gray

“Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming.” – Richard Branson

“Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.” – Richard Branson

“Failure is just a resting place. It is an opportunity to begin again more intelligently.” – Henry Ford

“However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.” – Stephen Hawking

“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

“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

“It doesn’t matter how many times you fail. It doesn’t matter how many times you almost get it right. No one is going to know or care about your failures, and neither should you. All you have to do is learn from them and those around you because all that matters in business is that you get it right once. Then everyone can tell you how lucky you are.” – Mark Cuban

“Lean forward into your life. Begin each day as if it were on purpose.” – Mary Anne Radmacher

“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

“Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.” – Michael Jordan

“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” – Thomas Edison

“The most dangerous poison is the feeling of achievement. The antidote is to every evening think what can be done better tomorrow.” – Ingvar Kamprad

“The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullsh*t story you keep telling yourself as to why you can’t achieve it.” – Jordan Belfort

“There is nothing more beautiful than someone who goes out of their way to make life beautiful for others.” – Mandy Hale

“We May Encounter Many Defeats But We Must Not Be Defeated.” – Maya Angelou

“What good is an idea if it remains an idea? Try. Experiment. Iterate. Fail. Try again. Change the world.” – Simon Sinek

“Winners never quit and quitters never win.” – Vince Lombardi

“You have to believe in yourself when no one else does — that makes you a winner right there.” – Venus Williams

“You have to believe it before you see it.”

“Nobody is gonna hit as hard as life, but it ain’t how hard you can hit. It’s how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. It’s how much you can take, and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done.” – Rocky

“Don’t worry about failure; you only have to be right once.” – Drew Houston

“It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.” – Jimmy Dugan

300 Entrepreneur Quotes to Inspire Motivation and Success – Quote.cc (5)

Inspirational Entrepreneur Quotes

Go to table of contents

“A ship in the harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” – John A. Shedd

“Before dreaming about the future or making plans, you need to articulate what you already have going for you – as entrepreneurs do.” – Reid Hoffman

“Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.” – Joshua J. Marine

“Diligence is the mother of good luck.” – Benjamin Franklin

“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

“If something is important enough, or you believe something is important enough, even if you are scared, you will keep going.” – Elon Musk

“If you are not willing to risk the usual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.” – Jim Rohn

“If you can dream it, you can do it.” – Walt Disney

“If you can push through that feeling of being scared, that feeling of taking a risk, really amazing things can happen.” – Marissa Mayer

“If you can’t fly then run. If you can’t run, then walk. And, if you can’t walk, then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

“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

“If you’re starting something on your own, you better have a passion for it, because this is hard work.” – Sallie Krawcheck

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill

“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.” – Albert Einstein

“In carrying out e-commerce, the most important thing is to keep doing what you are doing right now with passion, to keep it up.” – Jack Ma

“It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.” – Babe Ruth

“Make your team feel respected, empowered and genuinely excited about the company’s mission.” – Tim Westergen

“Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.” – Earl Nightingale

“No great achiever – even those who made it seem easy – ever succeeded without hard work.” – Jonathan Sacks

“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

“Risk more than others think is safe. Dream more than others think is practical.” – Howard Schultz

“Strength shows not only in the ability to persist, but in the ability to start over.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

“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

“The Team! The Team! The Team!” – Bo Schembechler

“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

“There should be no boundaries to human endeavor. We are all different. However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. While there’s life, there is hope.” – Stephen Hawking

“To win without risk is to triumph without glory.” – Corneille

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

“When you cease to dream you cease to live.” – Malcolm Forbes

“You do what you can for as long as you can, and when you finally can’t, you do the next best thing. You back up but you don’t give up.” – Chuck Yeager

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

300 Entrepreneur Quotes to Inspire Motivation and Success – Quote.cc (6)

Female Entrepreneur Quotes

Go to table of contents

“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

“Build your business success around something that you love — something that is inherently and endlessly interesting to you.” – Martha Stewart

“Don’t worry about being successful but work toward being significant and the success will naturally follow.” – Oprah Winfrey

“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

“Follow your passion — and if you don’t know what it is, realize that one reason for your existence on earth is to find it.” – Oprah Winfrey

“I feel that luck is preparation meeting opportunity.” – Oprah Winfrey

“I wake up every morning and think to myself, ‘How far can I push the company forward in the next 24 hours?’” – Leah Busque

“I want every little girl who’s been told she’s bossy to be told again she has leadership skills.” – Sheryl Sandberg

“If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat! Just get on.” – Sheryl Sandberg

“In whatever you do, you’re not going to stand out unless you think big and have ideas that are truly original. That comes from tapping into your own creativity, not obsessing over what everyone else is doing.” – Sophia Amoruso

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

“Nobody talks about entrepreneurship as a 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

“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

“Step out of the history that is holding you back. Step into the new story you are willing to create.” – Oprah Winfrey

“The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams.” – Oprah Winfrey

“The difference between skill and talent: A skill is something you learn. Talent is what you can’t help doing.” – Caroline Ghosen

300 Entrepreneur Quotes to Inspire Motivation and Success – Quote.cc (7)

Young Entrepreneur Quotes

Go to table of contents

“Screw it, let’s do it.” – Richard Branson

“Remember why you started.”

“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

“Don’t worry about funding if you don’t need it. Today it’s cheaper to start a business than ever.” – Noah Everett

“Get a mentor in the applicable field if you’re at all unsure of what you’re looking for.” – Kyle Bragger

“How you climb a mountain is more important than reaching the top.” – Yvon Chouinard

“If Plan A doesn’t work, the alphabet has 25 more letters.” – Claire Cook

“If what you are doing is not moving you towards your goals, then it’s moving you away from your goals.” – Brian Tracy

“If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.” – Reid Hoffman

“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

“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

“If you’re interested in the living heart of what you do, focus on building things rather than talking about them.” – Ryan Freitas

“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.” – Herman Melville

“It’s necessary to find a mentor who can invest time to know your personal capabilities and business model.” – Nigel Davies

“Make every detail perfect and limit the number of details to perfect.” – Jack Dorsey

“Make your product easier to buy than your competition, or you will find your customers buying from them, not you.” – Mark Cuban

“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

“Nothing works better than just improving your product.” – Joel Spolsky

“What is not started will never get finished” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right!” – Henry Ford

“You can’t make anything viral, but you can make something good.” – Peter Shankman

300 Entrepreneur Quotes to Inspire Motivation and Success – Quote.cc (8)

Funny Entrepreneur Quotes

Go to table of contents

“A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.” – Henry Ford

“Age is something that doesn’t matter, unless you are a cheese.” – Billie Burke

“Always look for the fool in the deal. If you don’t find one, it’s you.” – Mark Cuban

“Best startups generally come from somebody needing to scratch an itch.” – Michael Arrington

“If you can’t feed a team with two pizzas, it’s too large.” – Jeff Bezos

“If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping in a room with a mosquito.” – Lisa Lieberman-Wang

“It’s hard to do a really good job on anything you don’t think about in the shower.” – Paul Graham

“It’s more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy.” – Steve Jobs

“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

“Someday is not a day of the week.” – Janet Dailey

“The first one gets the oyster, the second gets the shell.” – Andrew Carnegie

300 Entrepreneur Quotes to Inspire Motivation and Success – Quote.cc (9)

Entrepreneur Mindset Quotes

Go to table of contents

“There’s no shortage of remarkable ideas, what’s missing is the will to execute them.” – Seth Godin

“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.” – Napoleon Hill

“We all have things we must do that we don’t really care to do and things we must do that we don’t mind doing, then there’s the goofing off.” – Mi Oon

“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

“I stand up on my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things in a different way.” – Robin Williams

“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

“Have the end in mind and every day make sure you’re working towards it.” – Ryan Allis

“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

“Do not let the memories of your past limit the potential of your future. There are no limits to what you can achieve on your journey through life, except in your mind.” – Roy T. Bennett

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.” – Gandalf

“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

“Always think outside the box and embrace opportunities that appear, wherever they might be.” – Lakshmi Mittal

“As long as you’re going to be thinking anyway, think big.” – Donald Trump

“Be nicer to your customers than your competitors.” – Richard Reed

“Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender, it’s holy ground. There’s no greater investment.” – Stephen Covey

“Don’t be afraid to assert yourself, have confidence in your abilities and don’t let the bastards get you down.” – Michael Bloomberg

“Don’t be co*cky. Don’t be flashy. There’s always someone better than you.” – Tony Hsieh

“Don’t play games that you don’t understand, even if you see lots of other people making money from them.” – Tony Hsieh

“Don’t risk more than you can afford to lose!” – The Backroads Bosslady

“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

“Don’t worry about failures, worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try.” – Jack Canfield

“Don’t worry about people stealing your design work. Worry about the day they stop.” – Jeffrey Zeldman

“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

“Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.” – Steve Jobs

“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

“Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you’re going to do now and do it.” – William Durant

“If we are going to be part of the solution, we have to engage the problems.” – Majora Carter

“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

“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

“If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.” – Katharine Hepburn

“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

“I’m always tweaking, always trying to make it better, constantly moving the levers and dials.” – Steve Ells

“It’s more effective to do something valuable than to hope a logo or name will say it for you.” – Jason Cohen

“Listen, smile, agree, and then do whatever you were gonna do anyway.“ – Robert Downey Jr

“Live each day as if your life had just begun.” – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

“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

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” – Maya Angelou

“When you find an idea that you just can’t stop thinking about, that’s probably a good one to pursue.” – Josh James

300 Entrepreneur Quotes to Inspire Motivation and Success – Quote.cc (10)

Entrepreneur Quotes For Success

Go to table of contents

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” – Sally Berger

“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 secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old but on building the new.” – Socrates

“Don’t try to be original, just try to be good.” – Paul Rand

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill

“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

“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

“Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple, really: Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t at all. You can be discouraged by failure or you can learn from it, so go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because remember that’s where you will find success.” – Thomas J. Watson

“What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.” – Bob Dylan

“Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.” – Albert Einstein

“Timing, perseverance, and ten years of trying will eventually make you look like an overnight success.” – Biz Stone

“There is simply no substitute for hard work when it comes to achieving success.” – Heather Bresch

“There is only one success: to be able to spend your life in your own way.” – Christopher Morley

“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

“There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” – Colin Powell

“The secret to successful hiring is this: look for the people who want to change the world.” – Marc Benioff

“The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking spaces.” – Will Rogers

“The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same.” – Colin R. Davis

“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

“The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.” – Vidal Sassoon

“The elevator to success is out of order. You’ll have to use the stairs… one step at a time.” – Joe Girard

“Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do. Don’t wish it were easier; wish you were better.” – Jim Rohn

“Successful and unsuccessful people do not vary greatly in their abilities. They vary in their desires to reach their potential.” – John Maxwell

“Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.” – Henry David Thoreau

“Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.” – William Feather

300 Entrepreneur Quotes to Inspire Motivation and Success – Quote.cc (11)

“Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit.” – Conrad Hilton

“Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill

“Success is the sum of small efforts – repeated day in and day out.” – Robert Collier

“Success is often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable.” – Coco Chanel

“Success is not what you have, but who you are.” – Bo Bennet

“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 Schweitzer

“Success is not in what you have, but who you are.” – Bo Bennett

“Success is not final; failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill

“Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.” – Pele

“Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.” – Dale Carnegie

“Success depends on employees. For me knowing and connecting with my employees is very important.” – Divine Ndhlukula

“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

“Some people dream of success, while other people get up every morning and make it happen.” – Wayne Huizenga

“Most great people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure.” – Napoleon Hill

“Many of life’s failures are experienced by people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” – Thomas Edison

“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

“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

“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

“If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time.” – Steve Jobs

“If hard work is the key to success, most people would rather pick the lock.” – Claude McDonald

“I’ve learned that mistakes can often be as good a teacher as success.” – Jack Welch

“I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.” – Steve Jobs

“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

“I never dreamed about success. I worked for it.” – Estée Lauder

“I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.” – Bill Cosby

“Failure is success if we learn from it.” – Malcolm Forbes

“Failure is so important. We speak about success all the time. It is the ability to resist failure or use failure that often leads to greater success. I’ve met people who don’t want to try for fear of failing.” – J.K. Rowling

“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

“Achievement seems to be connected with action. Successful men and women keep moving. They make mistakes but they don’t quit.” – Conrad Hilton

“A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.” – David Brinkley

300 Entrepreneur Quotes to Inspire Motivation and Success – Quote.cc (12)

300 Entrepreneur Quotes to Inspire Motivation and Success – Quote.cc (2024)

FAQs

What is an inspiring quote for an entrepreneur? ›

An entrepreneur is someone who has a vision for something and a want to create.” 12. “The only thing worse than starting something and failing… is not starting something.”

What is the most powerful motivational quote? ›

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt. President Roosevelt's quote encourages us to shed our doubts and embrace the limitless potential of the future. It reminds us that our doubts are the only true obstacles on the path to progress.

What is a powerful quote for business owners? ›

Success is often achieved by those who don't know that failure is inevitable.” “Whatever you are, be a good one.” “Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.” “Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”

What is your biggest inspiration as an entrepreneur? ›

Here are some common sources of inspiration: 💡 Passion and Purpose: Many entrepreneurs are driven by a deep passion for a particular product, service, or industry. They have a strong desire to make a meaningful impact and contribute their skills and expertise in a way that aligns with their values and personal goals.

What are real success quotes? ›

True success comes from failing repeatedly and as quickly as possible, before your cash or your willpower runs out. 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.

What is a leader quote for entrepreneurs? ›

"Before you are a leader, success is about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is about growing others." -- Jack Welch. "All humans are entrepreneurs not because they should start companies but because the will to create is encoded in human DNA." -- Reid Hoffman.

References

Top Articles
Latest Posts
Article information

Author: Roderick King

Last Updated:

Views: 5891

Rating: 4 / 5 (51 voted)

Reviews: 90% of readers found this page helpful

Author information

Name: Roderick King

Birthday: 1997-10-09

Address: 3782 Madge Knoll, East Dudley, MA 63913

Phone: +2521695290067

Job: Customer Sales Coordinator

Hobby: Gunsmithing, Embroidery, Parkour, Kitesurfing, Rock climbing, Sand art, Beekeeping

Introduction: My name is Roderick King, I am a cute, splendid, excited, perfect, gentle, funny, vivacious person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.