Entrepreneur Quotes

Thousands of entrepreneur quotes can be found in various sources of business media, but some are more helpful and inspirational than others. So, what I have done in this report is pick out several quotes that have been meaningful to me, and included them here. I will also add new ones periodically as I find those I consider meaningful.

Following are the entrepreneur quotes I think could be useful to all small business owners today:

• I have a dream.
  —Martin Luther King
• Do not be concerned that you might set a target too high and fail. Be concerned that you will set it too low and succeed.
  —Michelangelo
• 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, Founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese's
• Don’t be afraid to take a big step. You can’t cross a chasm in two small steps.
  —David Lloyd George, Former Prime Minister of England
• OLD: Be No.1 or No.2 in Your Market. NEW: Find a Niche, Create Something New.
  —Tom Peters, Business Guru
• I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others... I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent.
  —Thomas Edison
• If you can dream it, you can do it.
  —Walt Disney
• It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages.
  —Henry Ford
• Capital isn't that important in business. Experience isn't that important. You can get both of these things. What is important is ideas.
  —Harvey Firestone
• A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship.
  —John D. Rockefeller

• 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!
  —Madam C.J. Walker, First female entrepreneur to become a self-made millionaire
• Dot the i's, cross the t's, answer the phones promptly, send out errorless invoices, and in general never forget that the devil is in the details.
  —Tom Peters, Business Guru
• The key is to just get on the bike, and the key to getting on the bike… is to stop thinking about ‘there are a bunch of reasons I might fall off’ and just hop on and peddle the damned thing. You can pick up a map, a tire pump, and better footwear along the way.
  —Dick Costolo, Founder of Feedburner.com
• The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. Remember, the greatest failure is to not try.
  —Debbi Fields, Founder of Mrs. Fields Cookies
• Execution Excellence! (Show up on time! Leave last!)
  —Tom Peters, Business Guru
• Opportunities magnify as they are seized.
  —Sun Tzu
• To achieve anything, you must be prepared to dabble on the boundary of disaster.
  —Stirling Moss, Grand Prix racer
• Genius is 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration.
  —Thomas Edison
• The healthiest competition occurs when average people win by putting in above average effort.
  —Colin Powell, Former Secretary of State
• No great marketing decisions have ever been made on quantitative data.
  —John Sculley, Former Apple CEO
• There is no man living that cannot do more than he thinks he can.
  —Henry Ford
• The first responsibility of a leader is to define responsibility. The last is to say thank you. In between the leader is a servant.
  —Max De Pree, American entrepreneur and author
• Be vigilant and guard your mind against negative thoughts.
  —The Buddah
• Don’t ever let anyone tell you that something is too competitive. Once you subtract the people who don’t work very hard, or the people who aren’t as good as you, your competition shrinks dramatically.
  —Maggie Mason, Founder of Mighty Goods
• Business has only two basic functions—marketing and innovation.
  —Peter Drucker, Writer, Management Consultant
• Life is really simple as far as I’m concerned. There is no luck, you work hard and study things intently. If you do that for long and hard enough you’re successful.
  —Jason Calacanis, Founder of Weblogs, Inc.
• If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate.
  —Thomas J. Watson, Sr., Founder of IBM
• The best reason to start an organization is to make meaning; to create a product or service to make the world a better place.
  —Guy Kawasaki, Venture capitalist
• It doesn’t matter how many times you fail. It doesn’t matter how many times you almost get it right. No one is going to know or care about your failures, and neither should you. All you have to do is learn from them and those around you because all that matters in business is that you get it right once. Then everyone can tell you how lucky you are.
  —Mark Cuban, Founder of HDNet
• However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.
  —Winston Churchill
• I find that when you have a real interest in life and a curious life, that sleep is not the most important thing.
  —Martha Stewart, Entrepreneur and Business Personality
• Remember: You are the only human being in the world who can help this particular customer at this particular moment in time.
  —Tom Peters, Business Guru
• Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.
  
• Tap into people’s dignity, and they will do anything for you. Ignore it and they won’t lift a finger.
  —Thomas L. Friedman, Pulitzer Prize-winning author
• Experience taught me a few things. One is to listen to your gut, no matter how good something sounds on paper. The second is that you're generally better off sticking with what you know. And the third is that sometimes your best investments are the ones you don't make.
  —Donald Trump, Entrepreneur/Investor
• I have always found that my view of success has been iconoclastic: success to me is not about money or status or fame, its about finding a livelihood that brings me joy and self-sufficiency and a sense of contributing to the world.
  —Anita Roddick
• Organizations exist to serve. Period. Leaders live to serve. Period.
  —Tom Peters, Business Guru
• A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.
  —Henry Ford

3/20/12