Starting and running a company is not an easy task. In addition to material and financial resources, it demands a significant amount of emotional energy.

Having some good words to soothe oneself amid uncertain, difficult, and exhausting times can make a big difference.

These 200 inspiring and motivating business quotations will provide you with the drive and support you need to keep going.

When you need a pick-me-up, take a moment to centre yourself and let these inspirational quotes to direct and inspire you along your professional path.

Best Business Quotes of All Time

1. “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” – Peter Drucker
2. “Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.” – Henry David Thoreau
3. “Opportunities don’t happen, you create them.” – Chris Grosser
4. “Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.” – John D. Rockefeller
5. “I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.” – Thomas Jefferson
6. “If you are not willing to risk the usual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.” – Jim Rohn
7. “The only limit to our realization of tomorrow is our doubts of today.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
8. “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” – Walt Disney
9. “The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.” – Bruce Lee
10. “Fall seven times and stand up eight.” – Japanese Proverb

Quotes About Work

1. “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” – Confucius
2. “It’s not what you achieve, it’s what you overcome. That’s what defines your career.” – Carlton Fisk
3. “Work hard, be kind, and amazing things will happen.” – Conan O’Brien
4. “Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.” – Aristotle
5. “Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.” – Henry David Thoreau
6. “Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” – Theodore Roosevelt
7. “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” – Tim Notke
8. “There is no substitute for hard work.” – Thomas Edison
9. “The only way to do great work is to love what you do.” – Steve Jobs
10. “Work like there is someone working 24 hours a day to take it away from you.” – Mark Cuban

Inspirational Quotes About Success

1. “Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill
2. “The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same.” – Colin R. Davis
3. “Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.” – Henry David Thoreau
4. “Don’t be distracted by criticism. Remember—the only taste of success some people get is to take a bite out of you.” – Zig Ziglar
5. “Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill
6. “The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.” – Vidal Sassoon
7. “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” – Walt Disney
8. “The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.” – Bruce Lee
9. “Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes but they don’t quit.” – Conrad Hilton
10. “If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time.” – Steve Jobs

Quotes About Not Giving Up

1. “Winners never quit, and quitters never win.” – Vince Lombardi
2. “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” – Confucius
3. “You just can’t beat the person who never gives up.” – Babe Ruth
4. “Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” – Confucius
5. “Never give up on something that you can’t go a day without thinking about.” – Winston Churchill
6. “How long should you try? Until.” – Jim Rohn
7. “Success is not the absence of failure; it’s the persistence through failure.” – Aisha Tyler
8. “Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.” – James A. Michener
9. “Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.” – Harriet Beecher Stowe
10. “When you feel like quitting, think about why you started.” – Anonymous

Quotes About Working Hard

1. “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” – Colin Powell
2. “The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.” – Vidal Sassoon
3. “I’m a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.” – Thomas Jefferson
4. “Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.” – Oprah Winfrey
5. “If people knew how hard I worked to achieve my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful after all.” – Michelangelo
6. “Men die of boredom, psychological conflict and disease. They do not die of hard work.” – David Ogilvy
7. “What comes easy won’t last long, and what lasts long won’t come easy.” – Anonymous
8. “The harder the conflict, the greater the triumph.” – George Washington
9. “Without hustle, talent will only carry you so far.” – Gary Vaynerchuk
10. “Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.” – Peter Drucker

Quotes About Challenges

1. “Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.” – Joshua J. Marine
2. “The bigger the challenge, the bigger the opportunity for growth.” – Anonymous
3. “A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
4. “The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” – Thomas Paine
5. “Don’t limit your challenges. Challenge your limits.” – Anonymous
6. “Every problem is a gift—without problems we would not grow.” – Anthony Robbins
7. “Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.” – Henry Ford
8. “Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labour does the body.” – Seneca
9. “Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it.” – Charles R. Swindoll
10. “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” – Albert Einstein

Inspirational Quotes About Life

1. “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
2. “In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” – Abraham Lincoln
3. “You have within you right now, everything you need to deal with whatever the world can throw at you.” – Brian Tracy
4. “Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” – Theodore Roosevelt
5. “Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” – Steve Jobs
6. “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” – Chinese Proverb
7. “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky
8. “The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
9. “Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.” – George Addair
10. “Success is not how high you have climbed, but how you make a positive difference to the world.” – Roy T. Bennett

Quotes About Overcoming Failure

1. “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” – Henry Ford
2. “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas Edison
3. “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill
4. “It’s not how far you fall, but how high you bounce that counts.” – Zig Ziglar
5. “Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavour.” – Truman Capote
6. “The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” – Nelson Mandela
7. “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail.” – Confucius
8. “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill
9. “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” – Robert F. Kennedy
10. “The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.” – Henry Ford

Quotes About Vision

1. “Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.” – Japanese Proverb
2. “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” – Helen Keller
3. “Chase the vision, not the money; the money will end up following you.” – Tony Hsieh
4. “Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.” – Jonathan Swift
5. “A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. He inspires the power and energy to get it done.” – Ralph Lauren
6. “To the person who does not know where he wants to go there is no favourable wind.” – Seneca
7. “The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.” – Winston Churchill
8. “The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight but no vision.” – Helen Keller
9. “Create the highest, grandest vision possible for your life, because you become what you believe.” – Oprah Winfrey
10. “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

Quotes About Innovation

1. “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” – Steve Jobs
2. “The heart and soul of the company is creativity and innovation.” – Robert Iger
3. “Innovation is seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.” – Dr. Albert Szent-Györgyi
4. “The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.” – Arthur C. Clarke
5. “Innovation is taking two things that already exist and putting them together in a new way.” – Tom Freston
6. “If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got.” – Albert Einstein
7. “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” – Alan Kay
8. “What is now proved was once only imagined.” – William Blake
9. “Without change there is no innovation, creativity, or incentive for improvement.” – William Pollard
10. “Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard.” – Guy Kawasaki
11. Quotes About Leadership
12. “Leadership is not about being in charge. It is about taking care of those in your charge.” – Simon Sinek
13. “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” – John C. Maxwell
14. “The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” – Ralph Nader
15. “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” – Warren Bennis
16. “The best leaders are those most interested in surrounding themselves with assistants and associates smarter than they are.” – John C. Maxwell
17. “The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision.” – Theodore M. Hesburgh
18. “A leader is a dealer in hope.” – Napoleon Bonaparte
19. “Leadership is the art of giving people a platform for spreading ideas that work.” – Seth Godin
20. “A good leader leads the people from above them. A great leader leads the people from within them.” – M. D. Arnold
21. “The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.” – Ronald Reagan

Quotes About Creativity

1. “Creativity is intelligence having fun.” – Albert Einstein
2. “Creativity is just connecting things.” – Steve Jobs
3. “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” – Maya Angelou
4. “Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.” – Edward de Bono
5. “Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things.” – Theodore Levitt
6. “To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.” – Joseph Chilton Pearce
7. “Creativity is the power to connect the seemingly unconnected.” – William Plomer
8. “Creativity takes courage.” – Henri Matisse
9. “The chief enemy of creativity is good sense.” – Pablo Picasso
10. “Creativity is the greatest rebellion in existence.” – Osho
11. Quotes About Teamwork
12. “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” – Helen Keller
13. “Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success.” – Henry Ford
14. “Teamwork makes the dream work.” – John C. Maxwell
15. “The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.” – Phil Jackson
16. “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” – Harry S. Truman
17. “None of us is as smart as all of us.” – Ken Blanchard
18. “Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision.” – Andrew Carnegie
19. “The way to achieve your own success is to be willing to help somebody else get it first.” – Iyanla Vanzant
20. “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.” – Michael Jordan
21. “The nice thing about teamwork is that you always have others on your side.” – Margaret Carty

Quotes About Change

1. “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” – John F. Kennedy
2. “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” – Winston Churchill
3. “Change your thoughts and you change your world.” – Norman Vincent Peale
4. “Change before you have to.” – Jack Welch
5. “The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.” – Oprah Winfrey
6. “The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress.” – Charles Kettering
7. “The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” – Alan Watts
8. “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” – George Bernard Shaw
9. “The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday’s logic.” – Peter Drucker
10. “Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.” – John C. Maxwell

Quotes About Risk

1. “Do one thing every day that scares you.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
2. “Life is inherently risky. There is only one big risk you should avoid at all costs, and that is the risk of doing nothing.” – Denis Waitley
3. “The biggest risk is not taking any risk.” – Mark Zuckerberg
4. “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” – T.S. Eliot
5. “If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.” – Jim Rohn
6. “Take risks: if you win, you will be happy; if you lose, you will be wise.” – Anonymous
7. “A ship is safe in harbour, but that’s not what ships are for.” – John A. Shedd
8. “Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.” – John D. Rockefeller
9. “He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.” – Muhammad Ali
10. “In the end, we only regret the chances we didn’t take.” – Lewis Carroll

Quotes About Focus

1. “The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.” – Bruce Lee
2. “Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four-hour days.” – Zig Ziglar
3. “Focus on being productive instead of busy.” – Tim Ferriss
4. “Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.” – Alexander Graham Bell
5. “You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” – Mark Twain
6. “Where focus goes, energy flows.” – Tony Robbins
7. “The successful man is the one who finds out what is the matter with his business before his competitors do.” – Roy L. Smith
8. “Do not wait; the time will never be ‘just right.’ Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.” – George Herbert
9. “Focus is the key to achieving your goals.” – Anonymous
10. “The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old but on building the new.” – Socrates

Quotes About Goals

1. “Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.” – Tony Robbins
2. “A goal properly set is halfway reached.” – Zig Ziglar
3. “What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.” – Zig Ziglar
4. “Goals are dreams with deadlines.” – Diana Scharf
5. “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” – C.S. Lewis
6. “If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.” – Zig Ziglar
7. “A goal should scare you a little and excite you a lot.” – Joe Vitale
8. “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky
9. “Dream big. Start small. Act now.” – Robin Sharma
10. “The only limit to our realisation of tomorrow is our doubts of today.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

Quotes About Determination

1. “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
2. “The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person’s determination.” – Tommy Lasorda
3. “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” – Confucius
4. “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill
5. “The only limit to our realisation of tomorrow is our doubts of today.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
6. “You just can’t beat the person who never gives up.” – Babe Ruth
7. “Never give up on something that you can’t go a day without thinking about.” – Winston Churchill
8. “How long should you try? Until.” – Jim Rohn
9. “Success is not the absence of failure; it’s the persistence through failure.” – Aisha Tyler
10. “Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.” – James A. Michener

Funny Quotes to Cheer You Up

1. “I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realise I should have been more specific.” – Lily Tomlin
2. “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.” – Zig Ziglar
3. “I am an early bird and a night owl… so I am wise and I have worms.” – Michael Scott, The Office
4. “The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one.” – Oscar Wilde
5. “If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.” – Dalai Lama
6. “I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.” – Bill Gates
7. “The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking spaces.” – Will Rogers
8. “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill
9. “Age is of no importance unless you’re a cheese.” – Billie Burke
10. “The elevator to success is out of order. You’ll have to use the stairs, one step at a time.” – Joe Girard

Inspirational Movie Quotes

1. “Do, or do not. There is no try.” – Yoda, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
2. “The only thing standing between you and your goal is the story you keep telling yourself as to why you can’t achieve it.” – Jordan Belfort, The Wolf of Wall Street
3. “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky, The Office
4. “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” – Gandalf, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
5. “Life is not the amount of breaths you take, it’s the moments that take your breath away.” – Hitch, Hitch
6. “Great men are not born great, they grow great.” – Mario Puzo, The Godfather
7. “Oh yes, the past can hurt. But you can either run from it, or learn from it.” – Rafiki, The Lion King
8. “It’s not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.” – Batman, Batman Begins
9. “Don’t let anyone ever make you feel like you don’t deserve what you want.” – Heath Ledger, 10 Things I Hate About You
10. “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” – Peter Drucker, Back to the Future

Have you identified the common themes in these quotes?

Themes like:

• Hard work
• Self-belief
• Commitment to quality

Which quote spoke to you the most? Share your thoughts in the comments below!