79 Motivational Business Quotes for Entrepreneurs & Business Owner (2024)

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Starting a new business and running your own business can be great fun. But sometimes you just need that little bit of extra motivation to get you through the day. Check out these super motivational business quotes for entrepreneurs, business owners, and freelancers, and let them help you grow even further.

Just in case this list is not enough, head over to my earlier article which gives you “51 Incredibly Inspirational Quotes for Digital Nomads”

Business Quotes for Entrepreneurs

Ready? Be prepared to get a big boost in motivation with these brilliant and motivational entrepreneur quotes.

1. “To any entrepreneur: if you want to do it, do it now. If you don’t, you’re going to regret it.” – Catherine Cook, co-founder of MyYearbook
2. “I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that’s why I succeed.” – Michael Jordan, NBA Hall of Famer
3. “There is only one way to avoid criticism: Do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.” – Aristotle, philosopher
4. “If you’re not a risk taker, you should get the hell out of business.” – Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald’s
5. “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” – Chinese proverb
6. “Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” – Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States
7. “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.” – Amelia Earhart, aviation pioneer
8. “If you live for weekends or vacations, your sh*t is broken.” –Gary Vaynerchuk, entrepreneur
9. “Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.” – Peter F. Drucker, author
10. “Winners never quit and quitters never win.” – Vince Lombardi, football player
    

    

11. “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” – Albert Einstein, physicist
12. “Risk more than others think is safe. Dream more than others think is practical.” – Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks
13. “The hardest part about being an entrepreneur is that you’ll fail ten times for every success.” – Adam Horwitz, creator of Mobile Monopoly
14. “I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.” – Steve Jobs, co-founder and CEO of Apple
15. “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” – Confucius
16. “It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.” – Babe Ruth, Major League Baseball Hall of Famer
17. “For all of the most important things, the timing always sucks. Waiting for a good time to quit your job? The stars will never align and the traffic lights of life will never all be green at the same time. The universe doesn’t conspire against you, but it doesn’t go out of its way to line up the pins either. Conditions are never perfect. “Someday” is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. Pro and con lists are just as bad. If it’s important to you and you want to do it “eventually,” just do it and correct course along the way.”- Timothy Ferriss, author
18. “You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.” Beverly Sills, opera singer
19. “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., humanitarian and Civil Rights leader
20. “Dream big. Start small. But most of all, start.” – Simon Sinek, motivational speaker
    

    

21. “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 can’t.”- A student of Warren G. Tracy
22. “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas Edison, inventor
23. “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, Chairman of AXS TV
24. “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve”. – Napoleon Hill, author
25. “Think big and don’t listen to people who tell you it can’t be done. Life’s too short to think small.” – Timothy Ferriss
26. “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” – Walt Disney, co-founder of the Walt Disney Company
27. “Either you run the day, or the day runs you.” – Jim Rohn, motivational speaker
28. “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” – Anais Nin, writer
29. “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, writer and philosopher
30. “Entrepreneurship is neither a science nor an art. It is a practice.” – Peter Drucker, author
    

    

31. “You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.” – Christopher Columbus, explorer
32. “If you ain’t making waves, you ain’t kickin’ hard enough.” –Unknown
33. “Being an entrepreneur isn’t just a job title, and it isn’t just about starting a company. It’s a state of mind. It’s about seeing connections others can’t, seizing opportunities others won’t, and forging new direction that others haven’t.” – Tory Burch, fashion designer
34. “Working hard for something we don’t care about is called stress; working hard for something we love is called passion.” – Simon Sinek, motivational speaker
35. “Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.” – Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group
36. “Many people dream about being an entrepreneur, starting their own business, working for themselves, and living the good life. Very few, however, will actually take the plunge and put everything they’ve got into being their own boss.” – Fabrizio Moreira, politician and businessman
37. “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’ll wake up in the middle of the night. But it’s hugely rewarding as you’re fulfilling something for yourself.” – Niklas Zennstrom, founder of Skype
38. “Success comes down to hard work plus passion, over time. If you work really, really hard over a long period of time, it will pay off.” – Stanley Tang, entrepreneur
39. “When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company
40. “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” – Peter F. Drucker, author
    

    

41. “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, co-founder and CEO of Apple
42. “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, entrepreneur
43. “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” – Albert Einstein, physicist
44. “Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”- Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister
45. “I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.” Bill Cosby, actor
46. “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, writer
47. “What is not started will never get finished.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, writer
48. “Be nice to geeks, you’ll probably end up working for one.” –Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft
49. “You shouldn’t focus on why you can’t do something, which is what most people do. You should focus on why perhaps you can, and be one of the exceptions.” – Steve Case, co-founder of AOL
50. “A hard thing is done by figuring out how to start.”- Rand Fishkin, founder of Moz
    

    

51. “The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting our aim too low and achieving our mark.” – Michelangelo, artist
52. “Done is better than perfect.” – Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook
53. “Any time is a good time to start a company.” – Ron Conway, startup investor
54. “The longer you’re not taking action the more money you’re losing.” –Carrie Wilkerson, keynote speaker
55. “Go Big, or Go Home.” –Eliza Dushku, actress
56. “Most great people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure.” – Napoleon Hill, author
57. “Have the end in mind and every day make sure you are working towards it.” –Ryan Allis, CEO at Hive
58. “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.” –Derek Bok, lawyer and educator
59. “Associate yourself with people of good quality, for it is better to be alone than in bad company.” –Booker T. Washington, educator, author and advisor
60. “If you are going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister
    

    

61. “One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it is worth watching.” –Mooie
62. “I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse.” – Florence Nightingale, social reformer
63. “You can’t fall if you don’t climb. But there’s no joy in living your whole life on the ground.” Unknown
64. “Rarely have I seen a situation where doing less than the other guy is a good strategy.” – Jimmy Spithill, yachtsman
65. “I am not a product of my circ*mstances. I am a product of my decisions.” – Stephen Covey, author and speaker
66. “Do what you can, where you are, with what you have.” – Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States
67. “Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.” – George Addair, real-estate developer
68. “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, founder of Facebook
69. “The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person who is doing it.” – Chinese proverb
70. “Stick with it, even on the bad days.” – Vivienne Harr, founder of Make A Stand
    

    

71. “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” – Maya Angelou, poet and civil rights activist
72. “Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs.” – Farrah Gray, businessman and investor
73. “The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” – Ayn Rand, novelist
74. “Everything started as nothing.” – Ben Weissenstein, entrepreneur
75. “I think I was very naïve early on, but that also meant I didn’t know what couldn’t be done.”– Matt Mickiewicz, founder of Flippa and 99 Designs
76. “There’s no committee that says, ‘This is the type of person who can change the world – and you can’t.’ Realizing that anyone can do it is the first step. The next step is figuring out how you’re going to do it.” – Adora Svitak, writer and speaker
77. “Never give in-never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.” – Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister
78. “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, founder of Amazon
79. “Every single person I know who is successful at what they do is successful because they love doing it.” – Joe Penna, filmmaker

Motivated? Go!

I am pretty sure these motivational business quotes for entrepreneurs hit the right spot and you are now eager to get started.

For the unlikely case you are still not completely convinced, go and read this book: Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink. As the title says, you will learn the secret to high performance, as well as satisfaction. Definitely a great read!

Here are some other picks, that you might like:

• Top 17 Digital Nomad Books To Boost Your New Lifestyle

What is your favorite quote on entrepreneurship? Do you know any other motivational starting a new business quotes? Let me know in the comment section below!

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