41 Entrepreneur Quotes for Inspiration from Business Owners

Entrepreneur quotes shed light on how business leaders harness inspiration and tackle challenges. This might include words of encouragement, inspiration, or advice based on personal experiences from running a business.

They illuminate the entrepreneurial mindset, the solution-oriented frame of mind that helps founders succeed, and provide the motivation you need to start building your own brand.

After all, entrepreneurship can be incredibly fulfilling: In a Shopify survey, 95% of founders said building their business was one of their proudest accomplishments.* 

Here are 41 quotes from successful entrepreneurs on finding passion, working hard, and navigating the world of business to help inspire you throughout your own journey.

Entrepreneur quotes on motivation

• “The thing that motivates me is a very common form of motivation. And that is, with other folks counting on me, it’s so easy to be motivated.” —Jeff Bezos

• “The way to get started was to quit talking and begin doing it.” —Walt Disney

• “People don’t take opportunities—because the timing is bad, the financial side unsecure, or their friends disadvise. Too many people are overanalyzing. Sometimes you just have to go for it.” —Michelle Zatlyn, cofounder and president of Cloudflare

• “We must learn to apply all that we know so that we can attract all that we want.” —Jim Rohn, entrepreneur, author, and motivational speaker

• “You can’t avoid the daily tremors. They come with being alive. These experiences are really gifts that force us to step to the right or left in search of a new center of gravity. Don’t fight them. Just find a different way to stand.” —Oprah Winfrey

• “Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come, but you have to get up and make them!” —Madam C.J. Walker

• “I’m very much the kind of person that just dives all in. That’s just my mentality and who I am. If I feel good about it, then I will just do it.” —Drew Michael Scott, founder of Lone Fox

Entrepreneur quotes on success

• “Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration.” —Thomas Edison

• “When you’re doing the work you’re meant to do, it feels right and every day is a bonus, regardless of what you’re getting paid.” —Oprah Winfrey

• “Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals.” —Jim Rohn

• “The man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.” —Mark Twain

• “We think, mistakenly, that success is the result of the amount of time we put in at work, instead of the quality of time we put in.” —Arianna Huffington

• “Growth and comfort do not coexist.” —Ginni Rometty, former chairman and CEO of IBM

• “Success is empty if you arrive at the finish line alone. The best reward is to get there surrounded by winners.” —Howard Schultz, founder and chairman emeritus of Starbucks

• “I never dreamed about success. I worked for it.” —Estée Lauder

Entrepreneur quotes on business

• “It’s important to be willing to make mistakes. The worst thing that can happen is you become memorable.” —Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx

• “I definitely see a correlation between how many things a company gets right and how fast a company grows.” —Garrett Camp, cofounder of Uber

• “As a CEO, I am finding that I have to become a learning CEO. I have to go to school all the time because I am learning new skills that I need to run this company and I am realizing that I am not equipped to just coast, I have to constantly renew my skills.” —Indra Nooyi, former CEO of Pepsi

• “The genius at the top doesn’t make the team look good. A good team makes the person at the top look like a genius.” —Simon Sinek, author and motivational speaker

• “Whatever you do, don’t play it safe. Don’t do things the way they’ve always been done. Don’t try to fit the system. If you do what’s expected of you, you’ll never accomplish more than others expect.” —Howard Schultz

• “All humans are entrepreneurs, not because they should start companies, but because the will to create is encoded in human DNA, and creation is the essence of entrepreneurship.” —Reid Hoffman, cofounder of LinkedIn

• “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” —Bill Gates

• “You have to jump off the cliff and build your wings on the way down.” —Dorian Morris, founder of Undefined Beauty

Entrepreneur quotes on passion

• “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” —Steve Jobs

• “Don’t start a company unless it’s an obsession and something you love. If you have an exit strategy, it’s not an obsession.” —Mark Cuban

• “If you have a dream, you can spend a lifetime studying and planning and getting ready for it. What you should be doing is getting started.” —Drew Houston, cofounder and CEO of Dropbox

• “A full belly is little worth where the mind is starved.” —Mark Twain

• “I think it is often easier to make progress on mega-ambitious dreams. I know that sounds completely nuts. But, since no one else is crazy enough to do it, you have little competition.” —Larry Page, American businessman and former CEO of Google

• “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. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking—and don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.” —Steve Jobs

• “If you play safe, you might as well be invisible.” —Paul “P-Rod” Rodriguez, professional skateboarder and founder of Primitive Skateboarding

Entrepreneur quotes on hustle

• “Never be limited by other people’s limited imaginations.” —Mae Jemison, astronaut, educator, and entrepreneur

• “I always did something I was a little not ready to do. I think that’s how you grow. When there’s that moment of ‘Wow, I’m not really sure I can do this,’ and you push through those moments, that’s when you have a breakthrough.” —Marissa Mayer, former CEO of Yahoo

• “Everything in life has some risk, and what you have to actually learn to do is how to navigate it. And people who take risks intelligently can usually actually make a lot more progress than people who don’t.” —Reid Hoffman, cofounder of LinkedIn

• “Don’t pass up something that’s attractive today because you think you will find something way more attractive tomorrow.” —Warren Buffett

• “There’s this joy that comes from sitting down to solve a problem and standing up when it’s done and good. Building a company or managing people is never just done.” —Drew Houston, cofounder and CEO of Dropbox

• “Today, not starting is far, far worse than being wrong. If you start, you’ve got a shot at evolving and adjusting to turn your wrong into a right. But if you don’t start, you never get a chance.” —Seth Godin, author and entrepreneur

• “An idea can only become a reality once it is broken down into organized, actionable elements.” —Scott Belsky, founder of Behance

• “So often people are working hard at the wrong thing. Working on the right thing is probably more important than working hard.” —Caterina Fake, cofounder of Flickr

• “Be passionate and move forward with gusto every single hour of every single day, until you reach your goal.” —Ava DuVernay, award-winning filmmaker

• “Don’t be silent in the room. Even if you think you’re gonna make a mistake, that’s better than sitting there quiet, because you begin to suffocate. To be honest with you, you’ll suffocate your opinion yourself. It’ll change your self esteem. So just get it out there and feel like you have value.” —Rosalind Brewer, former CEO of Walgreens

• “Fearlessness is about getting up one more time than we fall down. The more comfortable we are with the possibility of falling down, the less worried we are of what people will think if and when we do, the less judgmental of ourselves we are every time we make a mistake, the more fearless we will be, and the easier our journey will become.” —Arianna Huffington

*Survey conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of Shopify from March 9–25, 2026, across five markets: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Spain. Respondents were business owners and senior decision-makers.