- Alexander Belsey
50 Inspirational Quotes From Some Of The Best Entrepreneurs In History
Sometimes, being an entrepreneur is hard, even if you're one of the best at what you do. Dedicating long hours and sacrificing evenings and weekends to work on your business can drain your energy, and even your motivation. If you're lucky, your efforts will yield a reward, and you'll make the kind of profit which makes it all worthwhile, but as every entrepreneur knows, sometimes, despite your best efforts, you'll fail, and that's okay. The key is to keep going, and to learn from your mistakes.
With all this in mind, I've collected 50 of the most inspiring quotes from some of the best entrepreneurs, athletes, inventors and philosophers in history, which I'm hoping will help you through the tough times, and maybe even give you a few pearls of wisdom to help you make your ventures even more successful.
And just remember that everyone on this list has experienced disappointment or failure at some point during their careers, and then recovered from it to become successful again. The lesson then, is to just keep going.
Take care, friend.
1)
'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
2)
'I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game's winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that's why I succeed.'
- Michael Jordan
3)
'The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.'
- Chinese Proverb
4)
'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
5)
'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
6)
'When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.'
- Henry Ford
7)
'Waiting for perfect is never as smart as making progress.'
- Seth Godin
8)
'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 safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, Dream, Discover.'
- Mark Twain
9)
'A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.'
- Albert Einstein
10)
'I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.'
- Steve Jobs
11)
'Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.'
- Richard Branson
12)
'It's hard to beat a person who never gives up.'
- Babe Ruth
13)
'Fail often so you can succeed sooner.'
- Tom Kelley
14)
'Timing, perseverance, and ten years of trying will eventually make you look like an overnight success.'
- Biz Stone, Co-Founder of Twitter
15)
'You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.'
- Beverly Sills
16)
'Don’t worry about funding if you don’t need it. Today it’s cheaper to start a business than ever.'
- Noah Everett
17)
'I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.'
- Thomas Edison
18)
'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
19)
'Success is how high you bounce after you hit bottom.'
- General George Patton
20)
'I’m not afraid of dying, I’m afraid of not trying.'
- Jay Z
21)
'I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I cannot accept not trying.'
- Michael Jordan
22)
'Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender, it’s holy ground. There’s no greater investment.'
- Steven Covey
23)
'Achievement seems to be connected with action. Successful men and women keep moving. They make mistakes but they don’t quit.'
- Conrad Hilton
24)
'Continuous learning is the minimum requirement for success in any field.'
- Dennis Waitley
25)
'Failure is just a resting place. It is an opportunity to begin again more intelligently.'
- Henry Ford
26)
'The greatest discovery of my generation is that people can alter their lives by altering their attitudes.'
- William James
27)
'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
28)
'Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected'
- Steve Jobs
29)
'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
30)
'Things happen because you make them happen. Stop sketching and start building.'
- Dennis Crowley
31)
'If you're going through hell, keep going.'
- Winston Churchill
32)
'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
33)
'When I’m old and dying, I plan to look back on my life and say ‘wow, that was an adventure,’ not ‘wow, I sure felt safe.'
- Tom Preston-Werner
34)
'Winners never quit and quitters never win.'
- Vince Lombardi
35)
'It’s not about money or connections. It’s the willingness to outwork and outlearn everyone when it comes to your business. And if it fails, you learn from what happened and do a better job next time.'
- Mark Cuban
36)
'The price of inaction is far greater than then cost of a mistake.'
- Meg Whitman
37)
'If Plan A doesn’t work, the alphabet has 25 more letters.'
- Claire Cook
38)
'Many of life’s failures are people who did not realise how close they were to success when they gave up.'
- Thomas Edison
39)
'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
40)
'You can have everything you want in life if you just help enough people get what they want.'
- Zig Zaglar
41)
'That which does not kill us makes us stronger.'
- Friedrich Nietzsche
42)
'There is only one way to avoid criticism: Do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.'
- Aristotle
43)
'Today I will do what others won’t, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can’t.'
- Jerry Rice
44)
'The big secret in life is that there is no big secret. Whatever your goal, you can get there if you’re willing to work.'
- Oprah Winfrey
45)
'Be so good they can’t ignore you.'
- Steve Martin
46)
'People want to do business with you because you help them get what they want. They don’t do business with you to help you get what you want.'
- Don Crowther
47)
'You must be very patient, very persistent. The world isn’t going to shower gold coins on you just because you have a good idea. You’re going to have to work like crazy to bring that idea to the attention of people. They’re not going to buy it unless they know about it.'
- Herb Kelleher
48)
'There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.'
- Colin Powell
49)
'Don’t worry about failure; you only have to be right once.'
- Drew Houston
50)
'Don’t be afraid to assert yourself, have confidence in your abilities, and don’t let the bastards get you down.'
- Michael Bloomberg
