289 Business quotes

Business opportunities are like buses: there’s always another one coming.

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.

I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying.

In this lifetime, you don’t have to prove nothing to nobody, except yourself. And after what you’ve gone through, if you haven’t done that by now, it ain’t gonna never happen.

Stopping advertising to save money is like stopping your watch to save time.

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.

What do you need to start a business? Three simple things: know your product better than anyone, know your customer, and have a burning desire to succeed.

Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. Thoughts are things! And powerful things at that, when mixed with definiteness of purpose, and burning desire, can be translated into riches.

A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.

Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can.

The secret of business is to know something that nobody else knows.

Don’t be evil

A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.

A man should never neglect his family for business.

All humans are entrepreneurs not because they should start companies but because the will to create is encoded in human DNA.

All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.

All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.

Always deliver more than expected.

Being able to touch so many people through my businesses, and make money while doing it, is a huge blessing.

Diligence is the mother of good luck.

Don’t be addicted to money. Work to learn. don’t work for money. Work for knowledge.

Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.

Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

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.

Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.

I never took a day off in my twenties. Not one.

I wasn’t satisfied just to earn a good living. I was looking to make a statement.

If you are working on something that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.

If you can dream it, you can do it. Always remember this whole thing was started by a mouse.

If you don’t love something, you’re not going to go the extra mile, work the extra weekend, challenge the status quo as much.

If you just work on stuff that you like and you’re passionate about, you don’t have to have a master plan with how things will play out.

If you keep your eye on the profit, you’re going to skimp on the product. But if you focus on making really great products, then the profits will follow.

If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way. If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse.

If you never want to be criticized, for goodness’ sake don’t do anything new.

If you’re competitor-focused, you have to wait until there is a competitor doing something. Being customer-focused allows you to be more pioneering.

In business, I’ve discovered that my purpose is to do my best to my utmost ability every day. That’s my standard. I learned early in my life that I had high standards.

In carrying out e-commerce, the most important thing is to keep doing what you are doing right now with passion, to keep it up.

In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: cash and experience. Take the experience first; the cash will come later.

In the real world, the smartest people are people who make mistakes and learn. In school, the smartest people don’t make mistakes.

It’s through curiosity and looking at opportunities in new ways that we’ve always mapped our path at Dell. There’s always an opportunity to make a difference.

Make every detail perfect and limit the number of details to perfect.

Money is like gasoline during a road trip. You don’t want to run out of gas on your trip, but you’re not doing a tour of gas stations.

Most of our competitors were one-product wonders … They would do their one product, but never get their engineering sorted out.

No enterprise can exist for itself alone. It ministers to some great need, it performs some great service, not for itself, but for others…or failing therein, it ceases to be profitable and ceases to exist.

Often, the more money you make the more money you spend; that’s why more money doesn’t make you rich – assets make you rich.

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.

Paying attention to simple little things that most men neglect makes a few men rich.

Sometimes it is the people who no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.

The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.

The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed.

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.

There is no such thing as failure. Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction.

There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: make the best quality goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.

You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality.

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.

You don’t need to have a -person company to develop that idea.

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.

An entrepreneur is someone who has a vision for something and a want to create.

Don’t play games that you don’t understand, even if you see lots of other people making money from them.

Chase the vision, not the money, the money will end up following you.

Don’t risk more than you can afford to lose!

Don’t worry about failure; you only have to be right once.

Don’t worry about failures, worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try.

Formal education will make you a living; self education will make you a fortune.

Fortunes are built during the down market and collected in the upmarket.

I like thinking big. If you’re going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big.

If you’re interested in the living heart of what you do, focus on building things rather than talking about them.

No more romanticizing about how cool it is to be an entrepreneur. It’s a struggle to save your company’s life – and your own skin – every day of the week.

Nobody is gonna hit as hard as life, but it ain’t how hard you can hit. It’s how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. It’s how much you can take, and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done.

People are definitely a company’s greatest asset. It doesn’t make any difference whether the product is cars or cosmetics. A company is only as good as the people it keeps.

Statistics suggest that when customers complain, business owners and managers ought to get excited about it. The complaining customer represents a huge opportunity for more business.

The absolute fundamental aim is to make money out of satisfying customers.

The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time.

The golden rule for every business man is this: ‘Put yourself in your customer’s place.’

The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving.

The man who does not work for the love of work but only for money is likely to neither make money nor find much fun in life.

The most dangerous poison is the feeling of achievement. The antidote is to every evening think what can be done better tomorrow.

The new source of power is not money in the hands of a few, but information in the hands of many.

There should be no boundaries to human endeavor. We are all different. However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. While there’s life, there is hope.

You can’t make anything viral, but you can make something good.

If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.

All progress takes place outside the comfort zone.

Beware of any enterprise requiring new clothes.

Business is more exciting than any game.

Business in a combination of War and sport.

Data beats emotions.

Every accomplishment starts with a decision to try.

Failure defeats losers, failure inspires winners.

Get big quietly, so you don’t tip off potential competitors.

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.

I feel that luck is preparation meeting opportunity.

Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard.

Ideas are commodity. Execution of them is not.

If you see a bandwagon, it’s too late.

If your ship doesn’t come in, swim out to meet it!

Industry is the soul of business and the keystone of prosperity.

It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.

Make each day your masterpiece.

Opportunities don’t happen. You create them.

Out of your vulnerabilities will come your strength.

People rarely buy what they need. They buy what they want.

Play by the rules, but be ferocious.

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.

Poor people have big TV. Rich people have big library.

Remember, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.

Stay self-funded as long as possible.

Stop chasing the money and start chasing the passion.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

The more I want to get something done the less I call it work.

The noblest search is the search for excellence

The only thing that overcomes hard luck is hard work.

The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.

The value of an idea lies in the using of it.

There is no substitute for hard work.

To win without risk is to triumph without glory.

Today’s Accomplishments Were Yesterday’s Impossibilities.

Tough times never last, but tough people do.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit.

Where there is an open mind, there will always be a frontier.

Why did I want to win? Because I didn’t want to lose!

Wonder what your customer really wants? Ask. Don’t tell.

Yesterday’s home runs don’t win today’s games.

You are not your resume, you are your work.

You get in life what you have the courage to ask for. ― Oprah Winfrey

A dream does not become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work.

Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.

Don’t count the days, make the days count.

Don’t let the fear of losing be greater than the excitement of winning.

Don’t worry about funding if you don’t need it. Today it’s cheaper to start a business than ever.

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.

Find a truly original idea. It is the only way I will ever distinguish myself. It is the only way I will ever matter.

I had to make my own living and my own opportunity! But I made it! Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them!

I try not to make any decisions that I’m not excited about.

If you can push through that feeling of being scared, that feeling of taking a risk, really amazing things can happen.

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.

Leadership is doing what is right when no one is watching.

Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.

Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.

Someone I once knew wrote that we walk away from our dreams afraid that we may fail or worse yet, afraid we may succeed.

Step out of the history that is holding you back. Step into the new story you are willing to create.

Surviving a failure gives you more self–confidence. Failures are great learning tools… but they must be kept to a minimum.

The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams.

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.

The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

There is a powerful driving force inside every human being that, once unleashed, can make any vision, dream, or desire a reality.

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

To succeed… You need to find something to hold on to, something to motivate you, something to inspire you.

People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.

My biggest motivation? Just to keep challenging myself. I see life almost like one long university education that I never had

Motivation is the catalyzing ingredient for every successful innovation.

Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.

Management is nothing more than motivating other people.

I strongly believe that missionaries make better products. They care more. For a missionary, it’s not just about the business. There has to be a business, and the business has to make sense, but that’s not why you do it. You do it because you have something meaningful that motivates you.

Desire is the key to motivation, but it’s determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal

Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.

For all of its faults, it gives most hardworking people a chance to improve themselves economically, even as the deck is stacked in favor of the privileged few. Here are the choices most of us face in such a system: Get bitter or get busy.

I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come indirectly through accident, except the phonograph. No, when I have fully decided that a result is worth getting, I go about it, and make trial after trial, until it comes.

If you are going through hell, keep going.

Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.

Strength shows not only in the ability to persist, but in the ability to start over.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred with dust and sweat; who strives valiantly, who errs and may fall again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming.

Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs.

You have to believe in yourself when no one else does

When you find an idea that you just can’t stop thinking about, that’s probably a good one to pursue.

You must either modify your dreams or magnify your skills.

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.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.

Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.

Your income is directly related to your philosophy, NOT the economy.

You’ve got to say, I think that if I keep working at this and want it badly enough, I can have it. It’s called perseverance.

You reach a point where you don’t work for money.

You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.

You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.

You must remain focused on your journey to greatness.

You must learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t possibly live long enough to make them all yourself.

Advertising is only evil when it advertises evil things

Always look for the fool in the deal. If you don’t find one, it’s you.

An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew hoping he’ll quickly learn how to chew it.

Best startups generally come from somebody needing to scratch an itch.

Creative without strategy is called art. Creative with strategy is called advertising.

If you did not look after today’s business, then you might as well forget about tomorrow.

My son is now an ‘entrepreneur’. That’s what you’re called when you don’t have a job.

The first one gets the oyster the second gets the shell.

The one thing that offends me the most is when I walk by a bank and see ads trying to convince people to take out second mortgages on their home so they can go on vacation. That’s approaching evil.

Well, you know, I was a human being before I became a businessman.

Who likes not his business, his business likes not him.

You can fool all the people all the time if the advertising is right and the budget is big enough.

If you owe the bank $ that’s your problem. If you owe the bank $ million, that’s the bank’s problem.

Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle.

Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it.

Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.

Always think outside the box and embrace opportunities that appear, wherever they might be.

Every day that we spent not improving our products was a wasted day.

The desire of knowledge, like the thirst for riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it.

Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly and get on with improving your other innovations.

Instead of freaking out about these constraints, embrace them. Let them guide you. Constraints drive innovation and force focus. Instead of trying to remove them, use them to your advantage.

Business has only two functions – marketing and innovation.

Because, you know, resilience – if you think of it in terms of the Gold Rush, then you’d be pretty depressed right now because the last nugget of gold would be gone. But the good thing is, with innovation, there isn’t a last nugget. Every new thing creates two new questions and two new opportunities.

Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.

It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.

Live daringly, boldly, fearlessly. Taste the relish to be found in competition – in having put forth the best within you.

Nobody talks about entrepreneurship as survival, but that’s exactly what it is and what nurtures creative thinking. Running that first shop taught me business is not financial science; it’s about trading: buying and selling.

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 in space.

Let’s be honest. There’s not a business anywhere that is without problems. Business is complicated and imperfect. Every business everywhere is staffed with imperfect human beings and exists by providing a product or service to other imperfect human beings.

You must be the change you wish to see in the world.

When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back.

The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old but on building the new.

The ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones that do.

The moment you make passive income and portfolio income a part of your life, your life will change. Those words will become flesh.

The fastest way to change yourself is to hang out with people who are already the way you want to be.

The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.

No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.

If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain.

Change is not a threat, it’s an opportunity. Survival is not the goal, trans-formative success is.

Be the change you wish to see in the world.

Brands mature over time, like a marriage. The bond you feel with your spouse is different than when you first met each other. Excitement and discovery are replaced by comfort and depth.

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something

If people like you, they’ll listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.

I’ve missed more than shots in my career. I’ve lost almost games. Twenty

After a while, you learn to ignore the names people call you and just trust who you are.

You need to be aware of what others are doing, applaud their efforts, acknowledge their successes, and encourage them in their pursuits. When we all help one another, everybody wins.

You know, you don’t have to have money to be a successful businessperson. You don’t need a college degree, you just need a lot of common sense backed up by a willingness to work hard.

You know you are on the road to success if you would do your job, and not be paid for it.

Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple, really: Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t at all. You can be discouraged by failure or you can learn from it, so go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because remember that’s where you will find success.

To waken interest and kindle enthusiasm is the sure way to teach easily and successfully.

To be successful, you have to have your heart in your business, and your business in your heart.

Timing, perseverance, and ten years of trying will eventually make you look like an overnight success.

There is simply no substitute for hard work when it comes to achieving success.

There is no royal, flower-strewn path to success. And if there is, I have not found it. For if I have accomplished anything in life, it is because I have been willing to work hard.

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.

There are a lot of things that go into creating success. I don’t like to do just the things I like to do. I like to do things that cause the company to succeed. I don’t spend a lot of time doing my favorite activities.

The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.

The secret to success is to know something nobody else knows.

The secret of success is to do the common thing uncommonly well.

The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking spaces.

The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same.

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.

The only way you are going to have success is to have lots of failures first.

The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.

The elevator to success is out of order. You’ll have to use the stairs… one step at a time.

Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do. Don’t wish it were easier; wish you were better.

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.

Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.

Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit.

Success isn’t just about what you accomplish in your life; it’s about what you inspire others to do.

Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.

Success is the sum of small efforts – repeated day in and day out.

Success is often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable.

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.

Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.

Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.

Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.

Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.

Success in business requires training and discipline and hard work. But if you’re not frightened by these things, the opportunities are just as great today as they ever were.

Some people dream of success, while other people get up every morning and make it happen.

Most great people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure.

Many of life’s failures are experienced by people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.

In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.

If you’re passionate about something and you work hard, then I think you will be successful.

If you work just for money, you’ll never make it, but if you love what you’re doing and you always put the customer first, success will be yours.

If you really look closely, mos overnight successes took a long time.

I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.

I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.

I never dreamed about success, I worked for it.

I have known not a few men who, after reaching the summits of business success, found themselves miserable on attaining retirement age. They were so exclusively engrossed in their day to day affairs that they had no time for friend making.

I have found no greater satisfaction than achieving success through honest dealing and strict adherence to the view that, for you to gain, those you deal with should gain as well.

I failed my way to success.

I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure–It is: Try to please everybody.

Failure is success if we learn from it.

Failure is so important. We speak about success all the time. It is the ability to resist failure or use failure that often leads to greater success. I’ve met people who don’t want to try for fear of failing.

Eighty percent of success is showing up.

Don’t be distracted by criticism. Remember–the only taste of success some people get is to take a bite out of you.

Don’t worry about being successful but work toward being significant and the success will naturally follow.

Don’t be distracted by criticism. Remember – the only taste of success some people get is to take a bite out of you.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that other throw at him.

Happy employees lead to happy customers, which leads to more profits.

People who succeed have momentum. The more they succeed, the more they want to succeed, and the more they find a way to succeed. Similarly, when someone is failing, the tendency is to get on a downward spiral that can even become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Service is the rent we pay for being. It is the very purpose of life, and not something you do in your spare time.

There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world: those who are afraid to try and those who are afraid you will succeed.

Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best.

An organization, no matter how well designed, is only as good as the people who live and work in it.

There’s nothing wrong with staying small. You can do big things with a small team.

The Team! The Team! The Team!

No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy, if you’re playing a solo game, you’ll always lose out to a team.

If you can’t feed a team with two pizzas, it’s too large.