Starting a small business is never an easy task.
Not only do you need to have a clear vision and a great idea, but you also need to have focus, an intense passion, and be ready to face a few bumps in the road.
Sometimes it helps to listen to the words and wisdom of those who came before you. To help with that, we've assembled some of our favorite quotes for small business owners. Whether you're looking for inspiration, quotes about success, failure, or perseverance, there's something for every small business owner to draw from in this list of small business owner quotes.
We hope you enjoy them!
Quotes to Inspire
Inspiration is one of the most important aspects in pushing yourself to manage your business.
When you're struggling with motivation, or going through a tough time, you have to find something that inspires you in order to power through the tough times.
Whether you are growing, maintaining, or simply running your business ... bogged down with the day-to-day grind -- here are a few quotes to inspire you and summon the resolve to keep going when the going gets tough.
- "You are the master of your destiny. You can influence, direct and control your own environment. You can make your life what you want it to be." -Napoleon Hill
- "Don't worry about being successful but work toward being significant and the success will naturally follow." -Oprah Winfrey
- "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
- "A small business is an amazing way to serve and leave an impact on the world you live in." -Nicole Snow
- "Business is not just doing deals; business is having great products, doing great engineering and providing tremendous service to customers. Finally, business is a cobweb of human relationship." -Henry Ross Perot
- "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." -Dave Thomas
- "Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion." -Jack Welch
- "Keep on going, and the chances are that you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I never heard of anyone ever stumbling on something sitting down." -Charles F. Kettering
- "It's not that we need new ideas, but we need to stop having old ideas." -Edwin Land
- "Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't quit." -Conrad Hilton
- "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
- "You are not your resume, you are your work." -Seth Godin
- "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
- "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
- "Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value." -Albert Einstein
- "Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs." -Farrah Gray
Quotes for Starting a New Business
If you want to start a new business but aren’t quite sure where to begin, take note from others who have created profitable businesses.
Are you scared to take the leap but have a great idea? If you constantly think about starting your own business then these next quotes will motivate you to be persistent and take that leap. Get started!
- “Don’t worry about being successful but work toward being significant and the success will naturally follow.” -Oprah Winfrey
- “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.” -Dave Thomas
- “Starting a successful business is not tricky. Starting a successful business does not require above average intelligence. Starting a successful business does require having a pig-headed, purpose-driven tenacity about achieving your life goals and fulfilling your life’s vision through providing products and services that offer uncompromising quality in a scalable and duplicatable way.” -Clay Clark, The Wheel of Wealth
- “You are the master of your destiny. You can influence, direct and control your own environment. You can make your life what you want it to be.” -Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich
Quotes on Success
What we all strive for in business is success and prosperity, but that doesn’t always come so easily.
It takes hard work in order to see results.
Taking tips from those who have achieved success is a great way to continue on your own path towards it.
- “To be successful, you have to have your heart in your business, and your business in your heart.” -Thomas Watson Sr., chairman, and CEO of International Business Machines
- “I may be over the top on this, but I just don’t want to like my competitors. I want my people to believe that whenever he and our other competitors succeed, we will be less able to do all the things we want to do.” -Phil Knight, chairman emeritus of Nike
- “Most great people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure.” -Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich
- “Some people dream of success, while other people get up every morning and make it happen.” -Wayne Huizenga, owner of the Miami Dolphins
Quotes on Failure
Every business owner and entrepreneur faces failure. It's how you react that will determine what comes next for you and your business.
Realize that every business goes through positive and negative periods.
Stay strong, and take these quotes on failure to heart, recognizing why it’s imperative to keep pressing on even in moments of failure and hardship.
- “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently… A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.” -Henry Ford
- “Don’t worry about failure; you only have to be right once.” -Drew Houston
- “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
-Thomas Edison
- “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
- “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—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” -Steve Jobs
Quotes on Building a Team
One huge difference between success and failure is knowing when to ask for help.
Almost all businesses require some type of team, and you as the business owner will be the one to build it. When building a team, you need to inspire and promote teamwork, but you might not always know how to do so right off the bat.
These quotes will compel you and your team to work together.
- "Individual commitment to a group effort--that is what makes a teamwork, a company work, a society work, a civilization work." -Vince Lombardi
- "Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships." -Michael Jordan
- "Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results." -Andrew Carnegie
- "Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much." -Helen Keller
- "Remember, teamwork begins by building trust. And the only way to do that is to overcome our need for invulnerability." -Patrick Lencioni
- "None of us is as smart as all of us." -Ken Blanchard
- "Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success." -Henry Ford
- "If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself." -Henry Ford
- "The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team." -Phil Jackson
- "Collaboration allows teachers to capture each other's fund of collective intelligence." -Mike Schmoker
- "Unity is strength...when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved." -Mattie Stepanek
- "To me, teamwork is the beauty of our sport, where you have five acting as one. You become selfless." -Mike Krzyzewski
- "The best teamwork comes from men who are working independently toward one goal in unison." -James Cash Penney
Quotes on Motivation & Hard Work
Although both work and motivation are the backbones of a business, sometimes motivation can be lost, and hard work diminished.
If this business was once your heart and soul, it is incredibly important to find this motivation once again and regain who you were when you embarked on this journey.
Recapturing your entrepreneurial spirit when it begins to fade is so important.
- “My biggest motivation? Just to keep challenging myself. I see life almost like one long university education that I never had—every day I’m learning something new.” -Richard Branson
- “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” -Walt Disney
- “Whether you think you can, or think you can’t—you’re right.” -Henry Ford
- “I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.” -Steve Jobs
- “Desire is the key to motivation, but it’s determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal—a commitment to excellence—that will enable you to attain the success you seek.” -Mario Andretti, American race car driver
- “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
Quotes for Growing a Business
Consistency is number one when attempting to grow a business. You always have to be innovating and improving in order to grow.
- “Growth is never by mere chance; it is the result of forces working together.” -James Cash Penney, Founder of JCPenney
- “There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence, imagination, and wonder.” -Ronald Reagan
- “Out of your vulnerabilities will come your strength.” -Sigmund Freud
- “Motivation is the catalyzing ingredient for every successful innovation.” -Clayton Christensen, economist and Harvard professor
- “Every problem is a gift — without problems we would not grow.” -Anthony Robbins
- “Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.” -John F. Kennedy
- “Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it.” -Andy Rooney, journalist
- “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” -Anais Nin
Quotes About Taking Risks
Fearing the unknown is real, and the fear of failure is what holds many back from success.
You should never allow your fear to hold you back ... fortune favors the bold!
- “My best advice to entrepreneurs is this: forget about making mistakes, just do it.” -Ajaero Tony Martins
- “The only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.” -Mark Zuckerberg
- “Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” -Confucius
- “Risk is essential. There is not growth of inspiration in staying within what is safe and comfortable. Once you find out what you do best, why not try something else?” -Alex Noble
- “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”-T.S. Eliot
- “How many people are completely successful in every department of life? Not one. The most successful people are the ones who learn from their mistakes and turn their failures into opportunities.” -Zig Zigla
We Hope You Enjoy These Small Business Owner Quotes
It doesn’t matter whether you are ready to open your new business or are looking to push your small business to the next level, every small business owner will face challenges.
I hope you draw inspiration from some of the small business owner quotes in this list, and invite you to explore more small business resources we've put together: