99 Business Quotes to Motivate Aspiring Entrepreneurs and Inspire Businessmen
Business is business! It takes a lot more than hard work just to get started, but that’s a given when you are at the beginning, and it’s the least one thinks of when there’s determination and motivation. This amazing economic activity doesn’t only provide finances, profits and benefits but also a world of stimuli, perseverance, production and more to everyone, from entry level position to the CEO. However, as you and I know, if one is diligent, tireless and keeps his focus, he’s already made progress. It is also the belief of famous entrepreneurs which is why they have generously shared their thoughts.
They also have the experience and have proven their long climb on the ladder of success to inspire and motivate. Read on to find a special selection of quotes by renowned business magnates, authors, CEOs and more that will guide, encourage and aid you. Share these wise words of truth and struggle with colleagues, loved ones and friends to be inspired and don’t procrastinate, but reach for the stars. Time is money.
Table of Contents
- Best Business Quotes
- Business Motivational Quotes
- Inspirational Business Quotes
- Business Success Quotes
- Funny Business Quotes
Best Business Quotes
- Think big. Start small. Seth Godin
- Quality is the best business plan. John Lasseter
- Always deliver more than expected. Larry Page
- A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business. Henry Ford
- Business is a combination of war and sport. Andre Maurois
- A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all. Michael LeBoeuf
- 90% of strategy is execution. 90% of execution is people. Thibaut
- Luck is not a business model. Anthony Bourdain
- Expect the best. Prepare for the worst. Capitalize on what comes. Zig Ziglar
- Great companies are built on great products. Elon Musk
- Business is in itself a power. Garet Garrett
- The business of America is business. Calvin Coolidge
- A company becomes the people it hires, not the plan it makes. Sam Altman
- If you create it for yourself, it’s art. If you create it for others, it’s business. Naval Ravikant
- When times are bad is when the real entrepreneurs emerge. Robert Kiyosaki
- The secret of business is to know something that nobody else knows. Aristotle Onassis
- If you don’t drive your business, you will be driven out of business. B. C. Forbes
- Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. Bill Gates
- Business has only two functions – marketing and innovation. Peter Drucker
- We don’t do business with companies. We do business with people. Simon Sinek
- Go to your business, pleasure, whilst I go to my pleasure, business. William Wycherley
- Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people. Steve Jobs
- No one person leaving a good company kills it, but sometimes one person staying can. Sam Altman
- Every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust. Zig Ziglar
- Prioritizing is the most important thing in business. Noah Kagan
- We must learn what customers really want, not what they say they want or what we think they should want. Eric Ries
- Stopping advertising to save money is like stopping your watch to save time. Henry Ford
Business Motivational Quotes
- Big results require big ambitions. Heraclitus
- Screw it. Let’s do it. Richard Branson
- I want to put a ding in the universe. Steve Jobs
- Escape competition through authenticity. Naval Ravikant
- I never took a day off in my twenties. Not one. Bill Gates
- Failure defeats losers, failure inspires winners. Robert T. Kiyosaki
- Chase the vision, not the money. The money will end up following you. Tony Hsieh
- Don’t find customers for your products, find products for your customers. Seth Godin
- Be undeniably good. No marketing effort or social media buzzword can be a substitute for that. Anthony Volodkin
- You can worry about the competition…or you can focus on what’s ahead of you and drive fast. Jack Dorsey
- Don’t try to beat the competitors at their own game. You have to invent a new game — and master it. Reid Hoffman
- In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: cash and experience. Take the experience first; the cash will come later. Harold S. Geneen
- Do more than is required. What is the distance between someone who achieves their goals consistently and those who spend their lives and careers merely following? The extra mile. Gary Ryan Blair
- Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from their neck saying, ‘Make me feel important.’ Never forget this message when working with people. Mary Kay Ash
- My rules of business: Build shit people want, never give up, avoid a**holes, question assumptions, learn new ideas and always reward ambition. Anthony Pompliano
- Start with good people, lay out the rules, communicate with your employees, motivate them and reward them. If you do all those things effectively, you can’t miss. Lee Iacocca
Inspirational Business Quotes
- All business depends upon men fulfilling their responsibilities. Mahatma Gandhi
- Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming. Richard Branson
- It’s easy to make a buck. It’s a lot tougher to make a difference. Tom Brokaw
- Don’t worry about people stealing your design work. Worry about the day they stop. Jeffrey Zeldman
- If people like you, they’ll listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you. Zig Ziglar
- If you are willing to work hard and ask lots of questions, you can learn business pretty fast. Steve Jobs
- It’s not what you pay a man, but what he costs you that counts. Will Rogers
- First-rate people hire first-rate people; second-rate people hire third-rate people. Leo Rosten
- As a small businessperson, you have no greater leverage than the truth. John Greenleaf Whittier
- I believe you have to be willing to be misunderstood if you’re going to innovate. Jeff Bezos
- For the merchant, even honesty is a financial speculation. Charles Baudelaire
- The common question that gets asked in business is, ‘why?’ That’s a good question, but an equally valid question is, ‘why not?’ Jeff Bezos
- If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late. Reid Hoffman
- There is no skill called “business.” Avoid business magazines and business classes. Naval Ravikant
- No one on his deathbed ever said, I wish I had spent more time on my business. Paul Tsongas
- When Henry Ford made cheap, reliable cars people said, ‘Nah, what’s wrong with a horse?’ That was a huge bet he made, and it worked. Elon Musk
- A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well. Jeff Bezos
- The invisible hand of the market always moves faster and better than the heavy hand of government. Mitt Romney
- Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art. Andy Warhol
- No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy, if you’re playing a solo game, you’ll always lose out to a team. Reid Hoffman
- You can’t ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new. Steve Jobs
- 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
- All humans are entrepreneurs not because they should start companies but because the will to create is encoded in human DNA. Reid Hoffman
- Every moment in business happens only once. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. And the next Mark Zuckerberg won’t create a social network. If you are copying these guys, you aren’t learning from them. Peter Thiel
Business Success Quotes
- To be successful, you have to have your heart in your business, and your business in your heart. Thomas Watson Sr.
- I never dreamed about success. I worked for it. Estée Lauder
- Failure is success if we learn from it. Malcolm Forbes
- Get big quietly, so you don’t tip off potential competitors. Chris Dixon
- If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time. Steve Jobs
- Paying attention to simple little things that most men neglect makes a few men rich. Henry Ford
- Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can. Paul Tournier
- When you combine extreme focus and great teams, magic happens. Sam Altman
- The companies that succeed are mistake fixing machines. Brian Norgard
- Today’s “best practices” lead to dead ends; the best paths are new and untried. Peter Thiel
- I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance. Steve Jobs
- It takes more than capital to swing business. You’ve got to have the A. I. D. degree to get by – Advertising, Initiative, and Dynamics. Isaac Asimov
- The fastest way to succeed is to look as if you’re playing by somebody else’s rules, while quietly playing by your own. Michael Korda
- Whenever an individual or a business decides that success has been attained, progress stops. Thomas J. Watson
- Once you have figured out what to do, be unstoppable about getting your small handful of priorities accomplished quickly. I have yet to meet a slow-moving person who is very successful. Sam Altman
- Profit in business comes from repeat customers, customers that boast about your project or service, and that bring friends with them. W. Edwards Deming
- So often people are working hard at the wrong thing. Working on the right thing is probably more important than working hard. Caterina Fake
- Career advice: Don’t sell shit you don’t want to buy. Don’t work for people you don’t want to become. Create win-win relationships for all. Shane Parrish
Funny Business Quotes
- Business, that’s easily defined – it’s other people’s money. Peter Drucker
- Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done. Peter Drucker
- Always look for the fool in the deal. If you don’t find one, it’s you. Mark Cuban
- Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility. Ambrose Bierce
- My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions. Peter Drucker
- Anyone who likes meetings should be banned from attending meetings. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room. Jeff Bezos
- If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be meetings. Dave Barry
- Ask five economists and you’ll get five different answers – six if one went to Harvard. Edgar Fiedler
- Remind people that profit is the difference between revenue and expense. This makes you look smart. Scott Adams
- The quickest way to ruin the productivity of a small company is to have it adopt the practices of a large company. David Heinemeir Hansson
- Employees make the best dates. You don’t have to pick them up and they’re always tax-deductible. Andy Warhol
- The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling. Ambrose Bierce
- You can be certain that the head of a corporation has a lot to worry about when he announces publicly that “there is nothing to worry about”. Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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