Thoughts of Famous Business Quotes in English with Images
Business quotes in English function as potent catalysts for motivation and inspiration, appealing to both seasoned entrepreneurs and emerging professionals across various industries. These succinct expressions crystallize pivotal insights on critical themes such as leadership, perseverance, and innovation, drawn from the experiences and wisdom of prominent industry leaders and influential thinkers. By taking a moment to reflect on these thoughtfully crafted phrases, individuals are afforded the opportunity to gain clarity and a renewed sense of direction in their professional journeys, enabling them to navigate challenges and seize opportunities more effectively.
Here’s a list of some of the most famous business quotes along with their detailed meanings and examples. These quotes highlight key principles and mindsets that drive success, innovation, and resilience in the business world.
1. "The best way to predict the future is to create it." – Peter Drucker
Meaning: This quote emphasizes the power of proactive action in shaping outcomes. Rather than waiting for change, great business leaders take steps to define and influence their future.
Example: Steve Jobs didn’t wait to see what the tech market would bring; he envisioned products like the iPhone and led his team to create them, changing the future of mobile technology.
2. "Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning." – Bill Gates
Meaning: Negative feedback can be a valuable tool. Unhappy customers reveal flaws and weaknesses in a product or service, offering insight for improvement.
Example: After receiving customer complaints about Netflix's DVD rental model, Reed Hastings pivoted the company toward streaming, which ultimately revolutionized the business and led to huge success.
3. "Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts." – Winston Churchill
Meaning: Success should not make one complacent, and failure is rarely the end. Persistence and resilience in the face of ups and downs are what truly define successful people and companies.
Example: Walt Disney experienced multiple business failures and even bankruptcy before finding success with Disney Studios, a now-global entertainment giant.
4. "The only way to do great work is to love what you do." – Steve Jobs
Meaning: Passion is essential for excellence. When you love what you do, you're more likely to put in the effort needed to achieve greatness.
Example: Elon Musk's passion for technology and space exploration drives his work at SpaceX and Tesla, where he’s dedicated to creating revolutionary products.
5. "If you don’t drive your business, you will be driven out of business." – B.C. Forbes
Meaning: This quote underscores the importance of actively managing and innovating within your business. Complacency can lead to failure as competitors seize opportunities you overlook.
Example: Blockbuster failed to adapt to the changing digital landscape and was driven out of business by competitors like Netflix, who embraced streaming.
6. "A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well." – Jeff Bezos
Meaning: Building a reputable brand requires consistent hard work and quality. Like personal reputations, strong brands are earned through effort and reliability.
Example: Amazon earned its reputation by prioritizing customer satisfaction and efficient service, turning it into a trusted global brand.
7. "Opportunities don't happen. You create them." – Chris Grosser
Meaning: Success doesn’t come from waiting for the right opportunity; it comes from taking initiative and creating your own opportunities.
Example: Oprah Winfrey created opportunities by starting her own production company, Harpo Productions, allowing her to control and grow her brand.
8. "Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great." – John D. Rockefeller
Meaning: Sometimes, to reach new levels of success, one must leave behind what is merely good to pursue something better, even if it involves risk.
Example: Richard Branson sold Virgin Records, his successful music company, to invest in the airline industry, eventually building the Virgin Group into a powerful conglomerate.
9. "What gets measured, gets managed." – Peter Drucker
Meaning: Tracking performance and progress is essential to improvement. You can’t manage what you don’t measure, as data provides insights for better decision-making.
Example: In data-driven companies like Google, employee performance, customer satisfaction, and project outcomes are measured and analyzed to ensure continuous improvement.
10. "If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time." – Steve Jobs
Meaning: Behind most "overnight" successes is years of hard work and persistence. Success often involves unseen effort, sacrifice, and gradual progress.
Example: Instagram became a popular app seemingly overnight, but its founders worked on multiple app ideas and iterations for over a year before finding the right concept.
These quotes and examples illustrate various principles of business success, from persistence and resilience to customer focus and proactive innovation. Each quote reflects a different aspect of business wisdom, offering valuable lessons for entrepreneurs and professionals alike.
For instance, the quote "Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success" highlights the significant role that mindset plays in achieving professional aspirations. It underscores the notion that a fulfilling and positive outlook is foundational to realizing tangible success in one's career. Such insights can prompt individuals to reassess their values and priorities, pushing them toward a more holistic approach to their work.
Incorporating business quotes into daily routines and team dynamics can elevate motivation levels, stimulate fresh perspectives, and cultivate a culture of continuous growth and development within organizations. By sharing and discussing these powerful words, team members are encouraged to engage in meaningful conversations about their goals and aspirations, fostering an environment in which collaboration and innovation can thrive. Consequently, the strategic use of business quotes not only inspires personal achievement but also contributes to the overall success and cohesion of teams, reinforcing the idea that shared inspiration can lead to collective progress.
Thought of the day on Business
The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old but on building the new.
- Socrates Thoughts
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. - Bill Gates |
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. - Tony Robbins |
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. - Helen Keller |
Letting your customers set your standards is a dangerous game, because the race to the bottom is pretty easy to win. Setting your own standards - and living up to them - is a better way to profit. Not to mention a better way to make your day worth all the effort you put into it. - Seth Godin |
Don’t take too much advice. Most people who have a lot of advice to give - with a few exceptions - generalize whatever they did. Don’t over-analyze everything. I myself have been guilty of over-thinking problems. Just build things and find out if they work. - Ben Silbermann |
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. - Barack Obama |
In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative original thinker unless you can also sell what you create. Management cannot be expected to recognize a good idea unless it is presented to them by a good salesman. - David M. Ogilvy |
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. - David Rockefeller |
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. - Thomas J. Watson |
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. - Ray Goforth |
Here's my theory about meetings and life; the three things you fake are erections, competence and creativity. That's why meetings become toxic they put uncreative people in a situation in which they have to be something they can never be. And the more effort they put into concealing their inabilities, the more toxic the meeting becomes. One of the most common creativity-faking tactics is when someone puts their hands in prayer position and conceals their mouth while they nod at you and say, 'Mmmmmm. Interesting.' If pressed, they'll add, 'I'll have to get back to you on that.' Then they don't say anything else. - Douglas Coupland |
Business Sayings List in English |
You never really hear the truth from your subordinates until after 10 in the evening. - Jurgen Schrempp |
No one travelling on a business trip would be missed if he failed to arrive. - Thorstein Veblen Quotation |
In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield. - A Quotation From Warren Buffett |
Stop chasing the money and start chasing the passion. - Tony Hsieh |
Business in a combination of War and sport. - Business Quotes in English by Andre Maurois |
Opportunities don't happen. You create them. - Chris Grosser |
If you can dream it, you can do it. - Walt Disney |
I failed my way to success. - Thomas Edison |
The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing. - Walt Disney |
Always deliver more than expected. - Larry Page |
Fall seven times and stand up eight. - Japanese Proverb |
I never dreamed about success, I worked for it. - Estee Lauder |
Don't let the fear of losing be greater than the excitement of winning. - Robert Kiyosaki |
Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts. - Winston S. Churchill |
Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. - Winston Churchill |
The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary. - Vidal Sassoon |
If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time. - Steve Jobs |
It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation. - Herman Melville |
The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same. - Colin R. Davis |
Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it. - Henry David Thoreau |
The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus. - Bruce Lee |
If you are not willing to risk the usual, you will have to settle for the ordinary. - Jim Rohn |
Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great. - John D. Rockefeller |
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. - Franklin D. Roosevelt |
All progress takes place outside the comfort zone. - Michael John Bobak |
In order to succeed, we must first believe that we can. - Nikos Kazantzakis |
Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard. - Guy Kawasaki |
I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have. - Thomas Jefferson |
The secret to success is to know something nobody else knows. - Aristotle |
Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value. - Albert Einstein |
Never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. - Winston Churchill |
The secret of success is to do the common thing uncommonly well. - John D. Rockefeller Jr. |
If you can’t feed a team with two pizzas, it’s too large. - Jeff Bezos |
Every time we launch a feature, people yell at us. - Angelo Sotira, |
The value of an idea lies in the using of it. - Thomas Edison |
Always look for the fool in the deal. If you don’t find one, it’s you. - Mark Cuban |
Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. - Bill Gates |
Yesterday’s home runs don’t win today’s games. - Babe Ruth |
Make every detail perfect and limit the number of details to perfect. - Jack Dorsey |
Wonder what your customer really wants? Ask. Don’t tell. - Lisa Stone |
It’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen. - Scott Belsky |
Nothing works better than just improving your product. - Joel Spolsky |
Chase the vision, not the money, the money will end up following you. - Tony Hsieh |
Get big quietly, so you don’t tip off potential competitors. - Chris Dixon |
Best startups generally come from somebody needing to scratch an itch. - Michael Arrington |
Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works. - Steve Jobs |
Every day that we spent not improving our products was a wasted day. - Joel Spolsky |
There’s nothing wrong with staying small. You can do big things with a small team. - Jason Fried |
Anything that is measured and watched, improves. - Bob Parsons |
Business is more exciting than any game. - Lord Beaverbrook |
Drive your business. Let not your business drive you. - Benjamin Franklin |
All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them. - Walt Disney |
In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure. - Bill Cosby |
If people like you, they’ll listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you. - Zig Ziglar |
You know you are on the road to success if you would do your job, and not be paid for it. - Oprah Winfrey |
Get five or six of your smartest friends in a room and ask them to rate your idea. - Mark Pincus |
A man should never neglect his family for business. - Walt Disney |
'Whom are you?' he asked, for he had attended business college. - George Ade Quotes |
Don’t worry about people stealing your design work. Worry about the day they stop. - Jeffrey Zeldman |
Business opportunities are like buses: there’s always another one coming. - Richard Branson |
Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. - Bill Gates |
Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose. - Bill Gates |
The secret of business is to know something that nobody else knows. - Aristotle |
A real entrepreneur is somebody who has no safety net underneath them. - Henry Kravis |
A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large. - Henry Ford |
If you really want to do something, you'll find a way. If you don't, you'll find an excuse. - Jim Rohn |
Be undeniably good. No marketing effort or social media buzzword can be a substitute for that. - Anthony Volodkin |
The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old but on building the new. - Socrates * |
The golden rule for every business man is this: “Put yourself in your customer’s place. - Orison Swett Marden |
An entrepreneur is someone who has a vision for something and a want to create. - David Karp |
To be successful, you have to have your heart in your business, and your business in your heart. - Thomas Watson, Sr. |
If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late. - Reid Hoffman |
If you define yourself by how you differ from the competition, you’re probably in trouble. - Omar Hamoui |
There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure. - Colin Powell |
Drive the business or it will drive thee. - Benjamin Franklin |
The chief business of the American people is business. - Calvin Coolidge |
Talk of nothing but business, and dispatch that business quickly. - Aldus Manutius |
My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people's. - Oscar Wilde Download or Share |
A dinner lubricates business. - Lord William Stowell Download or Share |
Good design can't fix broken business models. - Jeffrey Veen Download or Share |
There's no business like show business, but there are several business like accounting. - David Letterman Download or Share |
The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as Gambling. - Business Quotes by Ambrose Bierce |
I ran the wrong kind of business, but I did it with integrity. - Sydney Biddle Barrows Quotes |
To succeed as a team is to hold all of the members accountable for their expertise. - Mitchell Caplan Download or Share |
Business Quotation List in English |
A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that other throw at him. - David Brinkley |
Designing your product for monetization first, and people second will probably leave you with neither. - Tara Hunt |
Without ambition no conquests are made, and no business created. Ambition is the root of all achievement. - James Champy |
I find it rather easy to portray a businessman. Being bland, rather cruel and incompetent comes naturally to me. - John Cleese Thoughts |
Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement. - Golda Meir |
When you find an idea that you just can’t stop thinking about, that’s probably a good one to pursue. - Josh James |
The fastest way to change yourself is to hang out with people who are already the way you want to be. - Reid Hoffman |
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. - John Quincy Adams |
Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. - Thomas Edison |
Always think outside the box and embrace opportunities that appear, wherever they might be. - Lakshmi Mittal |
I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure - It is: Try to please everybody. - Herbert Bayard Swope |
A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts. - Richard Branson |
Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do. Don't wish it were easier; wish you were better. - Jim Rohn |
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 |
You can fool all the people all the time if the advertising is right and the budget is big enough. - Joseph E. Levine |
By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day. - Robert Frost |
There is a powerful driving force inside every human being that, once unleashed, can make any vision, dream, or desire a reality. - Anthony Robbins |
If you’re interested in the living heart of what you do, focus on building things rather than talking about them. - Ryan Freitas |
A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large. - Henry Ford |
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 |
I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite. - G. K. Chesterton |
Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't quit. - Conrad Hilton |
Good products can be sold by honest advertising. If you don’t think the product is good, you have no business to be advertising it. - David Ogilvy |
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. - Mark Zuckerberg Thoughts |
Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy. - Norman Schwarzkopf Thought |
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. - Steve Jobs |
In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: cash and experience. Take the experience first; the cash will come later. - Harold Geneen |
The most dangerous poison is the feeling of achievement. The antidote is to every evening think what can be done better tomorrow. - Ingvar Kamprad |
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. - Steve Jobs |
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. - Tim O’Reilly |
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. - Helen Keller |
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 |
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. - David Rockefeller |
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 |
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 |
