Entrepreneurship is itself a rollercoaster of ups and downs. Some days, you feel like winning; other days, you feel like nothing and question everything. During those challenging times, the right words can become a guide or wisdom to ignite your inner passion and push you forward to move and to take action once again before it’s too late. In this article, we’ve compiled 100+ powerful quotes for entrepreneurs to stay motivated every day. Let’s dive in!
Quotes on Taking Action
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” – Walt Disney
“An idea is worth nothing if it isn’t followed through with execution.” – Steve Jobs
“Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot, but make it hot by striking.” – William Butler Yeats
“Opportunities don’t just happen. You create them.” – Chris Grosser
“You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” – Zig Ziglar
“The secret to getting ahead is getting started.” – Mark Twain
“Action is the foundational key to all success.” – Pablo Picasso
“Dream big. Start small. Act now.” – Robin Sharma
“Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going.” – Sam Levenson
“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.” – Vincent Van Gogh
“Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.” – George Addair
“If you’re not moving forward, you’re falling behind.” – Sam Waterston
“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” – Arthur Ashe
“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” – William James
“Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned.” – Peter Marshall
“The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.” – Bruce Lee
“A year from now, you may wish you had started today.” – Karen Lamb
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” – Theodore Roosevelt
“Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.” – John Wooden
“Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.” – Arnold Glasow
“Take action! An inch of movement will bring you closer to your goals than a mile of intention.” – Steve Maraboli
Quotes on Overcoming Failure
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas Edison
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill
“Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.” – John D. Rockefeller
“The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.” – Henry Ford
“If you are not willing to risk the usual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.” – Jim Rohn
“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” – Henry Ford
“The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” – Nelson Mandela
“Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.” – Richard Branson
“It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up.” – Vince Lombardi
“Failure is not the opposite of success; it’s part of success.” – Arianna Huffington
“The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.” – Stephen McCranie
“Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.” – Og Mandino
“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill
“Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.” – Napoleon Hill
“Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.” – Elon Musk
“Mistakes are the portals of discovery.” – James Joyce
“Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.” – Truman Capote
“When we give ourselves permission to fail, we, at the same time, give ourselves permission to excel.” – Eloise Ristad
“Success is not built on success. It’s built on failure.” – Sumner Redstone
“Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement.” – C. S. Lewis
Quotes on Perseverance and Resilience
“The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same.” – Colin R. Davis
“Tough times never last, but tough people do.” – Robert H. Schuller
“Fall seven times, stand up eight.” – Japanese Proverb
“The harder the conflict, the greater the triumph.” – George Washington
“Winners never quit, and quitters never win.” – Vince Lombardi
“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’” – Mary Anne Radmacher
“Persistence is what makes the impossible possible, the possible likely, and the likely definite.” – Robert Half
“Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th.” – Julie Andrews
“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” – Confucius
“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated.” – Maya Angelou
“Resilience is knowing that you are the only one who has the power and the responsibility to pick yourself up.” – Mary Holloway
“Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.” – C.S. Lewis
“Tough people are made in tough times.” – Robert T. Kiyosaki
“There is no failure except in no longer trying.” – Elbert Hubbard
“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” – Confucius
“A champion is defined not by their wins but by how they can recover when they fall.” – Serena Williams
“The only limit to our realization of tomorrow is our doubts of today.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
“Never let success get to your head and never let failure get to your heart.” – Anonymous
“Persistence conquers all things.” – Benjamin Franklin
“Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.” – Lance Armstrong
“Do one thing every day that scares you.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.” – Bruce Lee
Quotes on Innovation and Creativity
“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” – Steve Jobs
“Do what you love, and the money will follow.” – Marsha Sinetar
“Creativity is intelligence having fun.” – Albert Einstein
“Everything you can imagine is real.” – Pablo Picasso
“If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old.” – Peter F. Drucker
“Think different.” – Apple Inc.
“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” – Peter Drucker
“Creativity takes courage.” – Henri Matisse
“Do one thing every day that inspires you.” – Anonymous
“There’s a way to do it better—find it.” – Thomas Edison
“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” – Maya Angelou
“The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.” – John Maynard Keynes
“Innovation is seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.” – Dr. Albert Szent-Györgyi
“The riskiest thing we can do is just maintain the status quo.” – Bob Iger
“Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard.” – Guy Kawasaki
“An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail.” – Edwin Land
“Innovation is the ability to see change as an opportunity, not a threat.” – Steve Jobs
“Creative people are curious, flexible, and independent.” – Henry Matisse
“Originality is the best form of rebellion.” – Mike Sasso
“Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.” – Frank Zappa
“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” – John C. Maxwell
“Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.” – Henry David Thoreau
“Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.” – Jim Rohn
“It’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen.” – Scott Belsky
“You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone.” – Johnny Cash
Quotes on Leadership and Vision
“The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” – Ralph Nader
“Leadership is not about being in charge. It is about taking care of those in your charge” – Simon Sinek
“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” – Peter Drucker
“The greatest leaders are those who empower others.” – Bill Gates
“Innovation and leadership are not synonymous, but innovation demands leadership.” – Jeff Bezos
“Management is about arranging and telling. Leadership is about nurturing and enhancing.” – Tom Peters
“A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
“People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.” – John C. Maxwell
“The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” – Ralph Nader
“To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
“A great person attracts great people and knows how to hold them together.” – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
“Leaders don’t force people to follow—they invite them on a journey.” – Charles S. Lauer
“Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” – Warren Bennis
“A great leader’s courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position.” – John C. Maxwell
“The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.” – Ken Blanchard
“The role of a leader is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already.” – John Buchan
“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go but ought to be.” – Rosalynn Carter
“The price of greatness is responsibility.” – Winston Churchill
Quotes on Wealth and Success
“Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill
“Rich people have small TVs and big libraries, and poor people have small libraries and big TVs.” – Zig Ziglar
“Financial freedom is available to those who learn about it and work for it.” – Robert Kiyosaki
“The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.” – Vidal Sassoon
“I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.” – Thomas Jefferson
“Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.” – Henry David Thoreau
“Don’t be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The secret to success is to know something nobody else knows.” – Aristotle Onassis
“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” – Benjamin Franklin
“Success is not in what you have, but who you are.” – Bo Bennett
“The real measure of your wealth is how much you’d be worth if you lost all your money.” – Unknown
“Your income is directly related to your philosophy, not the economy.” – Jim Rohn
“Do not save what is left after spending, but spend what is left after saving.” – Warren Buffett
“You must gain control over your money or the lack of it will forever control you.” – Dave Ramsey
“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” – Confucius
“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
“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” – Lao Tzu
“A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances.” – B. F. Skinner
Final Thoughts
Even though entrepreneurship is a wave of ups and downs, you can keep moving forward with the right words and mindset, persistence, and inspiration. Select and share with someone who’s working hard to become an entrepreneur, or save your favorite to revisit whenever you feel down.
Since you read over 100+ powerful quotes for entrepreneurs to stay motivated, Which quote was your favorite one? Share with us in the comments.
