121 Business Motivational Quotes

In the fast-paced world of business, staying motivated is key to unlocking your potential and achieving your goals. Whether you're an entrepreneur, a leader, or a professional striving for excellence, the right words at the right time can be incredibly powerful. We've assembled a curated collection of the top 121 business motivational quotes to inspire, uplift, and energize you on your journey. Each quote is a nugget of wisdom that can provide fresh perspectives, spark creativity, and encourage resilience. Dive in and let these words of encouragement fuel your drive for success.

1. “... all too often, a successful new business model becomes the business model for companies not creative enough to invent their own.[2002] p.46” - Gary Hamel

2. “The known is finite, the unknown infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability. Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land, to add something to the extent and the solidity of our possessions. And even a cursory glance at the history of the biological sciences during the last quarter of a century is sufficient to justify the assertion, that the most potent instrument for the extension of the realm of natural knowledge which has come into men's hands, since the publication of Newton's ‘Principia’, is Darwin's ‘Origin of Species.” - Thomas Henry Huxley

3. “We have not noticed how fast the rest has risen. Most of the industrialized world--and a good part of the nonindustrialized world as well--has better cell phone service than the United States. Broadband is faster and cheaper across the industrial world, from Canada to France to Japan, and the United States now stands sixteenth in the world in broadband penetration per capita. Americans are constantly told by their politicians that the only thing we have to learn from other countries' health care systems is to be thankful for ours. Most Americans ignore the fact that a third of the country's public schools are totally dysfunctional (because their children go to the other two-thirds). The American litigation system is now routinely referred to as a huge cost to doing business, but no one dares propose any reform of it. Our mortgage deduction for housing costs a staggering $80 billion a year, and we are told it is crucial to support home ownership, except that Margaret Thatcher eliminated it in Britain, and yet that country has the same rate of home ownership as the United States. We rarely look around and notice other options and alternatives, convinced that "we're number one.” - Fareed Zakaria

4. “There's no luck in business. There's only drive, determination, and more drive.” - Sophie Kinsella

5. “sejak bekerja di majalah, kami mengerti Valentine adalah momen dagang....Korbannya tentu remaja-remaja naif, orang-orang melankolis, yang tidak sadar uangnya dirampok siang-siang.” - Syahmedi Dean

6. “A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.” - Henry Ford

7. “Buffett's uncommon urge to chronicle made him a unique character in American life, not only a great capitalist but the Great Explainer of American capitalism. He taught a generation how to think about business, and he showed that securities were not just tokens like the Monopoly flatiron, and that investing need not be a game of chance. It was also a logical, commonsensical enterprise, like the tangible businesses beneath. He stripped Wall Street of its mystery and rejoined it to Main Street -- a mythical or disappearing place, perhaps, but one that is comprehensible to the ordinary American.” - Roger Lowenstein

8. “That's the positive aspect of trade I suppose. The world gets stirred up together. That's about as much as I have to say for it.” - Isabel Hoving

9. “The rock and roll business is pretty absurd, but the world of serious music is much worse.” - Frank Zappa

10. “We had all opted to take City's financial reporting course work, which, in theory, meant we wanted to write about stock prices and corporate takeovers. That, of course, was a joke. No one still in their twenties, and broke, goes into journalism to write about money—a subject in which they still have zero practical experience.” - Chris Ayres

11. “When nations grow old the Arts grow coldAnd commerce settles on every tree” - William Blake

12. “To me, the conclusion that the public has the ultimate responsibility for the behavior of even the biggest businesses is empowering and hopeful, rather than disappointing. My conclusion is not a moralistic one about who is right or wrong, admirable or selfish, a good guy or a bad guy. My conclusion is instead a prediction, based on what I have seen happening in the past. Businesses have changed when the public came to expect and require different behavior, to reward businesses for behavior that the public wanted, and to make things difficult for businesses practicing behaviors that the public didn't want. I predict that in the future, just as in the past, changes in public attitudes will be essential for changes in businesses' environmental practices.” - Jared Diamond

13. “He who gives back at first repulse and without striking the second blow, despairs success, has never been, is not, and never will be, a hero in love, war or business. - Frederick Tudor” - Gavin Weightman

14. “I'm not a businessman, I'm a business, man!” - Jay-Z

15. “Some PR is about getting information about a great product or thingy out to the people who would enjoy it, while other PR is about creating a web of lies that conceals the fact that your company harnesses the energy produced by rape and uses it to make a chemical that kills forests for fun. Either way, you're going to need it.” - Eugene Mirman

16. “People have within their own hands the tools to fashion their own destiny.” - Murray D. Lincoln

17. “Entertainment is business: the business of fucking art in the face.” - Eugene Mirman

18. “If you are deliberately trying to create a future that feels safe, you will willfully ignore the future that is likely.” - Seth Godin

19. “Happiness is a good business these days, more you talk crap about happiness the large number of crowd you will gather.” - Santosh Kalwar

20. “Once poverty is gone, we'll need to build museums to display its horrors to future generations. They'll wonder why poverty continued so long in human society - how a few people could live in luxury while billions dwelt in misery, deprivation and despair.” - Muhammad Yunus

21. “Learn from the past, prepare for the future, and perform in the moment." (Moments: Making Your Life Count For What Matters Most, Mike Van Hoozer)” - Mike Van Hoozer

22. “For every dilemma, find at least three or four possible solutions. The creative process leads to better results.” - Marilyn Suttle

23. “If you take the approach of “earning” your customers’ business every day and treating them well, they’re less likely to try someone else.” - Marilyn Suttle

24. “Get in touch with your passion and put it to work at work.” - Marilyn Suttle

25. “When you depersonalize abrasive behavior and see it as a call for help you become a catalyst for the best kind of change.” - Marilyn Suttle

26. “Look for the positive qualities in your client's negative behavior.” - Marilyn Suttle

27. “Education is what you get from reading the small print; experience iswhat you get from not reading it.” - Common Sense

28. “Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.” - Warren Buffett

29. “I am yet to meet the idiot at whose door success arrived as a direct result of his refusal to invest in the enterprise that made him rich.” - Jonathan Wutawunashe

30. “Cream always rises to the top...so do good leaders".” - John Paul warren

31. “How you think about your customers influences how you respond to them.” - Marilyn Suttle

32. “In looking at waste as an entirely modern, man-made idea, I stopped viewing garbage as garbage and instead slowly started to see it as a commodity.” - Tom Szaky

33. “In my world, people are always plotting. Youhave no idea of all the crimes people in business commit everyday. Like it was nothing. Or there’s a set of special rules for them.Remember when Bush made that whole speech about ‘corporateethics’ last year? What a fraud. You think stuff like Enron orWorldCom is an aberration? It’s only the tip. Business is a religion.Probably the only one practiced all over the world.” - Andrew Vachss

34. “American business at this point is really about developing an idea, making it profitable, selling it while it's profitable and then getting out or diversifying. It's just about sucking everything up. My idea was: Enjoy baking, sell your bread, people like it, sell more. Keep the bakery going because you're making good food and people are happy.” - Ian Mackaye

35. “Into the hands of every individual is given a marvelous power for good or evil---the silent, unconscious, unseen influence of his life. This is simply the radiation of what man really is, not what he pretends to be.” - William George Jordan

36. “A good golfer’s métier is his or her golfing skill.A great golfer’s métier is his or her golfing skill, coupled with the mastery of good sportsmanship, rendering him or her an ambassador for the sport.” - Lorii Myers

37. “This world is a place of business. What an infinite bustle! I am awaked almost every night by the panting of the locomotive. It interrupts my dreams. There is no sabbath. It would be glorious to see mankind at leisure for once. It is nothing but work, work, work. I cannot easily buy a blank-book to write thoughts in; they are commonly ruled for dollars and cents. An Irishman, seeing me making a minute in the fields, took it for granted that I was calculating my wages. If a man was tossed out of a window when an infant, and so made a cripple for life, or scared out of his wits by the Indians, it is regretted chiefly because he was thus incapacitated for—business! I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself, than this incessant business.” - Henry David Thoreau

38. “Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.” - Peter F. Drucker

39. “At the heart of excessive individualism is a broken heart” - Robert Holden

40. “In business, three things are necessary: knowledge, temper, and time.” - Owen Felltham

41. “Listen to your customers, not your competitors.” - Joel Spolsky

42. “Note to the wise: whenever someone insists that he wants to buy something from you, but tells you there’s no real value in it yet, two things are happening: he’s lying, and you’re being taken.” - Michael A. Stackpole

43. “Simply minding one's own business is more offensive than being intrusive. Without ever saying a word one can make a person feel less-than.” - Criss Jami

44. “The real winners in life are the people who look at every situation with an expectation that they can make it work ot make it better.” - Barbra Pletcher

45. “In regards to the price of commodities, the rise of wages operates as simple interest does, the rise of profit operates like compound interest. Our merchants and masters complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price and lessening the sale of goods. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people.” - Adam Smith

46. “Every successful business (1) creates or provides something of value that (2) other people want or need (3) at a price they're willing to pay, in a way that (4) satisfies the purchaser's needs and expectations and (5) provides the business sufficient revenue to make it worthwhile for the owners to continue operation.” - Josh Kaufman

47. “If two men on the same job agree all the time, then one is useless. If they disagree all the time, both are useless.” - Darryl F. Zanuck

48. “The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.” - Phil Jackson

49. “An author who gives a manager or publisher any rights in his work except those immediately and specifically required for its publication or performance is for business purposes an imbecile.” - George Bernard Shaw

50. “We're interested in the mass-merchandising of anything. If there was a market in mass-produced portable nuclear weapons, we'd market them too” - Alan Sugar

51. “...As marriage was woman's business, unmarried women, though doubtless unfortunate, must simply be considered as business failures: harsh, doubtless, but in tune with the sink-or-swim capitalist times.” - Ruth Brandon

52. “And now they were weary and frightened because they had gone against a system they did not understand and it had beaten them. They knew that the team and the wagon were worth much more. They knew the buyer man would get much more, but they didn't know how to do it. Merchandising was a secret to them.” - John Steinbeck

53. “Many companies expect loyal customers without providing loyal service. This has been the visionary failure of countless corporations.” - Steve Maraboli

54. “In business and in politics a man must carve and maul his way through men to get to be King of the Mountain. Once there, he can be great and kind--but he must get there first.” - John Steinbeck

55. “It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly.” - Isaac Asimov

56. “Are you the fruit of redemption? If yes, then make a delightful noise unto Him.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

57. “You may not attain the highest height with one leap but my dear; you will reach your destination.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

58. “God comes down in the evenings to chat with man, enjoy man's company and find out how man faired in the course of the day.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

59. “Man is like a bride unto God. God is jealous when man veers away from Him.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

60. “God rewards every act of obedience to His Will.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

61. “Dare to be different. Represent your maker well and you will forever abide in the beautiful embrace of his loving arms.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

62. “[Clayton] Christensen had seen dozens of companies falter by going for immediate payoffs rather than long-term growth, and he saw people do the same thing. In three hours at work, you could get something substantial accomplished, and if you failed to accomplish it you felt the pain right away. If you spent three hours at home with your family, it felt like you hadn't done a thing, and if you skipped it nothing happened. So you spent more and more time at the office, on high-margin, quick-yield tasks, and you even believed that you were staying away from home for the sake of your family. He had seen many people tell themselves that they could divide their lives into stages, spending the first part pushing forward their careers, and imagining that at some future point they would spend time with their families--only to find that by then their families were gone.” - Larissa MacFarquhar

63. “The choice is yours. Don't let your pronouncements destroy your destiny rather let them build your future up!” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

64. “Haji Ali taught me to...slow down and make building relationships as important as building projects.” - Greg Mortenson

65. “Business is all about solving people's problems - at a profit.” - Paul Marsden

66. “Wer mit den Haien schwimmt, der darf nicht bluten. Aber, mein Freund, Du blutest gerade. Und zwar heftig” - David Gray

67. “The interest of [businessmen] is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public ... The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ... ought never to be adopted, till after having been long and carefully examined ... with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men ... who have generally an interest to deceive and even oppress the public” - Adam Smith

68. “Read an hour every day in your chosen field. This works out to about one book per week, fifty books per year, and will guarantee your success.” - Brian Tracy

69. “One company can serve some of your needs all of the time, or all of your needs some of the time, but never both.” - Abraham Lincoln

70. “What would be the natural thing? A man goes to college. He works as he wants to work, he plays as he wants to play, he exercises for the fun of the game, he makes friends where he wants to make them, he is held in by no fear of criticism above, for the class ahead of him has nothing to do with his standing in his own class. Everything he does has the one vital quality: it is spontaneous. That is the flame of youth itself. Now, what really exists?""...I say our colleges to-day are business colleges—Yale more so, perhaps, because it is more sensitively American. Let's take up any side of our life here. Begin with athletics. What has become of the natural, spontaneous joy of contest? Instead you have one of the most perfectly organized business systems for achieving a required result—success. Football is driving, slavish work; there isn't one man in twenty who gets any real pleasure out of it. Professional baseball is not more rigorously disciplined and driven than our 'amateur' teams. Add the crew and the track. Play, the fun of the thing itself, doesn't exist; and why? Because we have made a business out of it all, and the college is scoured for material, just as drummers are sent out to bring in business."Take another case. A man has a knack at the banjo or guitar, or has a good voice. What is the spontaneous thing? To meet with other kindred spirits in informal gatherings in one another's rooms or at the fence, according to the whim of the moment. Instead what happens? You have our university musical clubs, thoroughly professional organizations. If you are material, you must get out and begin to work for them—coach with a professional coach, make the Apollo clubs, and, working on, some day in junior year reach the varsity organization and go out on a professional tour. Again an organization conceived on business lines."The same is true with the competition for our papers: the struggle for existence outside in a business world is not one whit more intense than the struggle to win out in the News or Lit competition. We are like a beef trust, with every by-product organized, down to the last possibility. You come to Yale—what is said to you? 'Be natural, be spontaneous, revel in a certain freedom, enjoy a leisure you'll never get again, browse around, give your imagination a chance, see every one, rub wits with every one, get to know yourself.'"Is that what's said? No. What are you told, instead? 'Here are twenty great machines that need new bolts and wheels. Get out and work. Work harder than the next man, who is going to try to outwork you. And, in order to succeed, work at only one thing. You don't count—everything for the college.' Regan says the colleges don't represent the nation; I say they don't even represent the individual.” - Owen Johnson

71. “Like any other tool for facilitating the completion of a questionable task, rewards offer a "how" answer to what is really a "why" question.” - Alfie Kohn

72. “A sense of entitlement is a cancerous thought process that is void of gratitude and can be deadly to our relationships.” - Steve Maraboli

73. “The true start-up of a business is what happens before you start-up.” - Michael E. Gerber

74. “If you first take a minute, an hour or a month to let go of feeling annoyed, frustrated or critical of the person or situation that may be driving you crazy, you set yourself up for much greater leadership and personal success.” - John Kuypers

75. “I have discovered there are only a handful of good ideas in the whole world. You already know them. You have heard them your entire life. Here are some of the main keys to being more successful:Take personal responsibility.Things change, so be flexible.Work smart and work hard.Serve others well.Be nice to others.Be optimistic. Have goals; want something big for yourself.Stay focused.Keep learning.Become excellent at what you do.Trust your gut.When in doubt, take action.Earn all you can. Save all you can. Give all you can.Enjoy all you've got.Above all keep it simple.” - Larry Winget

76. “The Tanakh teaches that, “The diligent will rule, while the lazy will be put to forced labor”. Most Jews work for themselves and hire employees instead of being employees.” - H.W. Charles

77. “Companies aren’t families. They’re battlefields in a civil war.” - Charles Duhigg

78. “A confident woman wears a smile and has this air of comfortability and pleasantness about her.” - Agu, Jaachynma N.E.

79. “Patience is a virtue not a vice.” - Agu, Jaachynma N.E.

80. “A woman that is patient has the ability to endure provocation, pain, annoyance etc, with much calm and strength.” - Agu, Jaachynma N.E.

81. “Maturity of a woman is not in her age or size for age is just a number and size is figure.” - Agu, Jaachynma N.E.

82. “A matured woman is therefore a responsible woman irrespective of her age, status and qualification.” - Agu, Jaachynma N.E.

83. “A responsible woman sees and accepts only the best in a given situation.” - Agu, Jaachynma N.E.

84. “A responsible woman guides, controls (albeit subtly), directs with superior knowledge that is higher than that of her contemporaries!” - Agu, Jaachynma N.E.

85. “In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity” - Sun Tzu

86. “Invest in the future because that is where you are going to spend the rest of your life.” - Habeeb Akande

87. “Look at each failure as a deposit made into the account that will help you write the check for your next significant success.” - Bobby Darnell

88. “Don't let your 'bad pride' prevent you from moving forward on an opportunity that will allow you to showcase your 'good pride'.” - Bobby Darnell

89. “Appraisal – the best resources will get the worst result” - Vivek Thangaswamy

90. “Nevertheless a certain class of dishonesty, dishonesty magnificent in its proportions, and climbing into high places, has become at the same time so rampant and so splendid that there seems to be reason for fearing that men and women will be taught to feel that dishonesty, if it can become splendid, will cease to be abominable. If dishonesty can live in a gorgeous palace with pictures on all its walls, and gems in all its cupboards, with marble and ivory in all its corners, and can give Apician dinners, and get into Parliament, and deal in millions, then dishonesty is not disgraceful, and the man dishonest after such a fashion is not a low scoundrel. Instigated, I say, by some such reflections as these, I sat down in my new house to write The Way We Live Now. And as I had ventured to take the whip of the satirist into my hand, I went beyond the iniquities of the great speculator who robs everybody, and made an onslaught also on other vices;--on the intrigues of girls who want to get married, on the luxury of young men who prefer to remain single, and on the puffing propensities of authors who desire to cheat the public into buying their volumes.” - Anthony Trollope

91. “These military devices, leading to victory, must not be divulged beforehand.” - Sun Tzu

92. “He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.” - Sun Tzu

93. “Attack is the secret of defense; defense is the planning of an attack.” - Sun Tzu

94. “We have little choice but to move beyond quality and seek remarkable, connected, and new. Remarkable, as you've already figured out, demands initiative.” - Seth Godin

95. “Done is better than perfect.” - Sheryl Sandberg

96. “Opinions are the cheapest commodities on earth. Everyone has a flock of opinions ready to be wished upon anyone who will accept them. If you are influenced by "opinions" when you reach DECISIONS, you will not succeed in any undertaking.” - Napoleon Hill

97. “For a business to strengthen its position on the market, its managers should become skillful at helping their subordinates to set and achieve specific and measurable goals with realistic deadlines and clear expectations. Managers should also mentor employees through challenges, helping them grow and develop new skills.” - Anna Stevens

98. “Aprendre dels errors està sobrevalorat” - Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson

99. “God takes us through life`s journey. Always nudging our Spirits to go for plus and shun the minus.” - Agu Jaachynma N E

100. “There is a ladder to Success! Choose to climb it.” - Agu Jaachynma N E

101. “It turns out horrendous when you choose the wrong options.” - Agu Jaachynma N E

102. “Decide to be rich! Hate poverty strong.” - Agu Jaachynma N E

103. “Build up your faith while starving the fears.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

104. “Eschew evil and it`s machinations.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

105. “Don`t complain, Don`t compromise.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

106. “Light is life and always wins.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

107. “You are created with a mandate! You have all you need to fulfill it.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

108. “You can ensure the safety of your defense if you only hold positions that cannot be attacked.” - Sun Tzu

109. “We are not fit to lead an army on the march unless we are familiar with the face of the country -- its mountains and forests, its pitfalls and precipices, its marshes and swamps.” - Sun Tzu

110. “Bravery without forethought, causes a man to fight blindly and desperately like a mad bull.  Such an opponent, must not be encountered with brute force, but may be lured into an ambush and slain.” - Sun Tzu

111. “If those who are sent to draw water begin by drinking themselves, the army is suffering from thirst. [One may know the condition of a whole army from the behavior of a single man.]” - Sun Tzu

112. “When the officers are too strong and the common soldiers too weak, the result is COLLAPSE.” - Sun Tzu

113. “mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy” - Sun Tzu

114. “Never venture, never win!” - Sun Tzu

115. “Unhappy is the fate of one who tries to win his battles and succeed in his attacks without cultivating the spirit of enterprise;  for the result is waste of time and   general stagnation.” - Sun Tzu

116. “If you do not take opportunity   to   advance and reward   the   deserving,   your subordinates will not carry out your commands, and disaster will ensue.” - Sun Tzu

117. “Cliché: "The MBA changed my life."What it really means: "A fantastic career, a great social life and a healthy bank balance...three of the things I had before I started the program.” - Sameer Kamat

118. “The best way to kill competition is to partner it” - siddharth joshi

119. “Practice transforms a skill into an art” - siddharth joshi

120. “Anyaele Sam Chiyson Leadership Law of Responsibility: Great leaders greet their geniuses through their greatest power of choice, principle-based living and highest means of expressing their voice.” - Anyaele Sam Chiyson

121. “If you want things to change, you must change. If you want things to get better, you must get better.” - Ted Atoka