Hello! We’re here again with couple of inspirational quotes about entrepreneurship from business icons, and world leaders, that will inspire you to keep grinding.
Starting a business is not something you just wake up one day and start doing – a process is required.
Engaging in Entrepreneurship requires a lot of thinking, planning and investing – time, money and labour.
Entrepreneurship is the art or science of innovation and risk-taking with the sole aim of making profit.
To be a successful entrepreneur, you must be highly motivated so that you can achieve your dreams, maximize profit, expand, and keep growing.
In this quick article on quotes about entrepreneurship, we hope you’ll get inspired and motivated, especially when you read these sayings from business leaders.
Having successful mentors to look up to can help you keep your concentration and focus on being a better entrepreneur by learning from their mistakes and improving on their skills.
120 Inspirational Quotes About Entrepreneurship And Business Growth
Here are over 100 quotes by successful entrepreneurs to help you get motivated and propel your businesses in the right direction.
1. “It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.” – Bill Gates quotes
2. “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 quotes about entrepreneurship
3. “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
4. “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas Edison
5. “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
6. “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 quotes about entrepreneurship
7. “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 quotes
8. “My biggest motivation? Just to keep challenging myself. I see life almost like one long University education that I never had — everyday I’m learning something new.” – Richard Branson
9. “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
10. “Whether you think you can, or think you can’t — you’re right.” – Henry Ford quotes about entrepreneurship
11. “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
12. “You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing and falling over.” – Richard Branson
13. “When you find an idea that you just can’t stop thinking about, that’s probably a good one to pursue.” – Josh James
14. “If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time.” – Steve Jobs
15. “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 quotes about entrepreneurship
16. “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
17. – “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
18. “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
19. “When you are building a startup, it’s difficult. Particularly, a startup that is expanding at the rate of Tinder. You have to give 100%, and you have to be committed. Solving the problem has to be personal or else you’re going to disintegrate.” – Sean Rad
20. “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.” – Napoleon Hill quotes about entrepreneurship
21. “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
22. “The most valuable thing you can make is a mistake- you can’t learn anything from being perfect.” – Adam Osborne
23. “Failure is just a resting place. It is an opportunity to begin again more intelligently.” – Henry Ford
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25. “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
26. “It’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen.” – Scott Belsky quotes about entrepreneurship
27. “Entrepreneur is someone who has a vision for something and a want to create.” – David Kar
28. “The only thing worse than starting something and failing… is not starting something.” – Seth Godin
29. “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
30. “The fastest way to change yourself is to hang out with people who are already the way you want to be.” – Reid Hoffman
31. “I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars — I look for 1-foot bars that I can step over.” – Warren Buffett quotes
32. “In the end, a vision without the ability to execute it is probably a hallucination.” – Steve Case quotes about entrepreneurship
33. “Fearlessness is like a muscle. I know from my own life that the more I exercise it the more natural it becomes to not let my fears run me.” – Arianna Huffington
34. “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
35. “It’s important to realize that brand is much more than a logo and slogan. A brand is who your company is: how you function and make decisions.” – Joanna McFarland
36. “Do not focus on numbers. Focus on doing what you do best. It’s about building a community who want to visit your site every day because you create value and offer expertise.”- Cassey Ho quotes about entrepreneurship
37. “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
38. “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” – Walt Disney
39. “High expectations are the key to everything.” – Sam Walton
40. “Don’t be afraid to assert yourself, have confidence in your abilities and don’t let the bastards get you down.” – Michael Bloomberg
41. “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
42. “Success depends on employees. For me knowing and connecting with my employees is very important.” – Divine Ndhlukula
43. “Don’t let others convince you that the idea is good when your gut tells you it’s bad.” – Kevin Rose
44. “Don’t get distracted. Never tell yourself that you need to be the biggest brand in the whole world. Start by working on what you need at the present moment and then what you need to do tomorrow. So, set yourself manageable targets.” – Jas Bagniewski
45. “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 quotes about entrepreneurship
46. “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
47. “Everything started as nothing.” – Ben Weissenstein
48. – “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
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 quotes about entrepreneurship
50. “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
51. “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
52. “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
53. “Fundraising is much easier now because of crowd-funding. Take advantage of that.” – Constantin Bisanz
54. “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
55. “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 quotes about entrepreneurship
56. “It’s necessary to find a mentor who can invest time to know your personal capabilities and business model.” – Nigel Davies
57. “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
58. “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
59. “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
60. “In the age of transparency, honesty, and generosity, even in the form of an apology, generate goodwill.” – Alexander Asseily
61. “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 quotes about entrepreneurship
62. “If you’re starting something on your own, you better have a passion for it, because this is hard work.” – Sallie Krawcheck
63. “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
64. “If something is important enough, or you believe something is important enough, even if you are scared, you will keep going.” – Elon Musk
65. “One of the things I tend to do is open myself up to a variety of voices. I try to expose myself to the kind of culture shock that occurs when you talk to people who speak a different language.” – Pierre Omidyar quotes about entrepreneurship
66. “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
67. “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
68. “I’m always tweaking, always trying to make it better, constantly moving the levers and dials.” – Steve Ells
69. “Be nicer to your customers than your competitors.” – Richard Reed
70. “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
71. “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 quotes about entrepreneurship
72. “It starts with not having a hangover with the way things used to be.” – Kevin Plank
73. “There is something artificial when everyone is agreeing with each other. It’s useful to indulge people who don’t agree, and see their viewpoint or force yourself to explain things better.” – David Sack
74. “Success is not final; failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill
75. “Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming.” – Richard Branson
76. “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
77. “Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.” – Jim Rohn
78. “If we are going to be part of the solution, we have to engage the problems.” – Majora Carter quotes about entrepreneurship
79. “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
80. “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
81. “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
82. “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” – John C. Maxwell
83. “The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” – Ralph Nader quotes about entrepreneurship
84. “Choose a job that you like, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” – Confucius
85. “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
86. “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” – Sally Berger
87. “Achievement seems to be connected with action. Successful men and women keep moving. They make mistakes but they don’t quit.” – Conrad Hilton
88. “My best advice to entrepreneurs is this: Forget about making mistakes, just do it.” – Ajaero Tony Martins
89. “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” – Bill Gates
90. “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” – Albert Einstein quotes about entrepreneurship
91. “As long as you’re going to be thinking anyway, think big.” – Donald Trump
92. “Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill
93. “Genius is 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration.” – Thomas Edison
95. “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 quotes about entrepreneurship
96. “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
97. “If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.” – Napoleon Hill
98. “I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.” – Bill Cosby
99. “Success is not what you have, but who you are.” – Bo Bennet
100. “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.” – Warren G. Tracy’s student quotes about entrepreneurship
101. “To win without risk is to triumph without glory.” – Corneille
102. “There is only one success- to be able to spend your life in your own way.” – Christopher Morley
103. “If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.” – Katharine Hepburn
104. “It’s not about money or connections. It’s the willingness to outwork and outlearn everyone when it comes to your business.” – Mark Cuban
105. “If Plan A doesn’t work, the alphabet has 25 more letters.” – Claire Cook
106. “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 quotes about entrepreneurship
107. “Don’t compromise yourself. You are all you’ve got.” – Janis Joplin
108. “If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping in a room with a mosquito.” – Lisa Lieberman-Wang
109. “You have to see failure as the beginning and the middle, but never entertain it as an end.” – Jessica Herrin
110. “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
111. “Risk more than others think is safe. Dream more than others think is practical.” – Howard Schultz
112. “There’s no shortage of remarkable ideas, what’s missing is the will to execute them.” – Seth Godin
113. “I don’t know the word ‘quit.’ Either I never did, or I have abolished it.” – Susan Butcher quotes about entrepreneurship
114. “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
115. “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
116. “What is not started will never get finished” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
117. “When you cease to dream you cease to live.” – Malcolm Forbes“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
118. “Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you’re going to do now and do it.” – William Durant
119. “We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.” – Maya Angelou
120. “If you are afraid of failure, you don’t deserve to be successful.” – Charles Barkley
121. “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
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Summary of Quotes About Entrepreneurship
From every angle, entrepreneurship isn’t easy and mistakes can’t be avoided. In fact, the job of entrepreneurs is to make mistakes as they explore opportunities to provide value.
The dream to grow can be hindered by challenges but if you quit, it means you don’t want it as badly as you should in the first place.
These inspirational quotes about entrepreneurship that we’ve brought to you will help you see from the binoculars of successful entrepreneurs and their powerful mindset.
Did you find this to be helpful? Let’s have your comments about any of the quotes that resonate well with you.
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