I once scoffed at the notion of inspiring quotes and aphorisms.

Then, I grew up a bit

and shed some of my cynicism. I came to appreciate how reflecting on true words of
wisdom can help you to develop a happier, more success-oriented mindset.
With that in mind, here’s a long list of some of the most inspiring and truthful quotes
you can find about the attitudes, challenges, and determination that lead most often
to true success.
1. “Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within
you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the
world.” -Harriet Tubman
2. “If something is important enough, even if the odds are against you, you should
still do it.” -Elon Musk
3. “I often hear from new graduates that it’s better to wait until you have more
experience…. But I’m a big believer in the power of inexperience…. The world needs
you before you stop asking naive questions and while you have the time to
understand the true nature of the complex problems we face and take them on.” -
Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach for America
4. “I think in terms of evolutions, not revolutions. Failure is not part of my
vocabulary.” -Shelia Lirio Marcelo, founder of Care.com
5. “You take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing, no one
to blame.” -Erica Jong
6. “Give me a stock clerk with a goal, and I will give you a man who will make history.
Give me a man without a goal, and I will give you a stock clerk.”-James Cash Penney,
founder of J.C. Penney
7. “It doesn’t matter how far you might rise. At some point, you are bound to
stumble…. If you’re constantly pushing yourself higher…the law of averages, not to
mention the Myth of Icarus, predicts that you will at some point fall. And when you
do, I want you to know this, remember this: There is no such thing as failure. Failure
is just life trying to move us in another direction.” -Oprah Winfrey
8. “Champions keep playing until they get it right.” -Billie Jean King
9. “I never dreamt of success. I worked for it.” -Este Lauder
10. “People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.”
-George Bernard Shaw
11. “People talk about getting lucky breaks in their careers. I’m living proof that the
‘lucky breaks’ theory is simply wrong. You get to make your own luck…. The world is
run by those who show up…not those who wait to be asked.” -Steve Blank
12. “Please think about your legacy, because you’re writing it every day.” -Gary
Vaynerchuck
13. “The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is
breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into smaller manageable tasks, and
then starting on the first one.” -Mark Twain
14. “Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all-time thing. You don’t win once in a
while, you don’t do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time.
Winning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.” -Vince Lombardi
15. “Both my mother and I were determined that we weren’t going to stay on welfare.
We always worked toward doing better, toward having a better life. We never had
any doubts that we would.” -Larry Ellison
16. “What I’ve learned from running is that the time to push hard is when you’re
hurting like crazy and you want to give up. Success is often just around the corner.”
-James Dyson
17. “Most people give up just when they are about to achieve success. They quit on
the one-yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game, one foot from a
winning touchdown.” -H. Ross Perot
18. “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the
opportunity in every difficulty.” -Sir Winston Churchill
19. “If you’re not a risk taker, you should get the hell out of business.” -Ray Kroc
20. “The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. Remember, the
greatest failure is to not try. Once you find something you love to do, be the best at
doing it.”
-Debbi Fields
21. “Running a startup is like eating glass. You just start to like the taste of your own
blood.” -Sean Parker
22. “It’s irreverence, foolish confidence, and naivety combined with persistence,
open mindedness, and a continual ability to learn that created Facebook, Google,
Yahoo, eBay, Microsoft, Apple, Juniper, AOL, Sun Microsystems, and others.” -Vinod
Khosla
23. “In the movies, you want a good story and characters that are honest, but you
are also looking for a good director who can lead the ship. That’s how we look at
business. Everybody has a great idea for a startup, and so do their relatives, and
they tell me, ‘You gotta build it.’ I say, ‘I have to believe in it.’” -Ashton Kutcher
24. “Timing, perseverance, and 10 years of trying will eventually make you look like
an overnight success.” -Biz Stone
25. “Following is one of the most underrated aspects of leadership…. I have seen
many a good [military unit] underachieve, because someone…thought the
commander was incompetent, and quietly worked to undermine his authority.”
-Admiral Bill McRaven
26. “Data beats emotions” -Sean Rad, founder of Tinder
27. “When you find an idea that you just can’t stop thinking about, that’s probably a
good one to pursue.”-Josh James, CEO and founder of Omniture and Domo
28. “I never took a day off in my 20s. Not one.” -Bill Gates
29. “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
30. “Running a startup is like being punched in the face repeatedly, but working for a
large company is like being waterboarded.” -Paul Graham
31. “You can’t make anything viral, but you can make something good.” -Peter
Shankman
32. “Embrace what you don’t know, especially in the beginning, because what you
don’t know can become your greatest asset. It ensures that you will absolutely be
doing things different from everybody else.” -Sara Blakely
33. “For me, the most fun is change or growth. There are definitely elements of both
that I like. Launching a business is kind of like a motorboat: You can go very quickly
and turn fast.” -Tony Hsieh
34. “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”
-Proverb
35. “Never be ashamed! There’s some who will hold it against you, but they are not
worth bothering with.” -J.K. Rowling
36. “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
looks like work.” -Thomas Edison
37. “The biggest startup successes-from Henry Ford to Bill Gates to Mark
Zuckerberg-were pioneered by people from solidly middle-class backgrounds. These
founders were not wealthy when they began. They were hungry for success, but
knew they had a solid support system to fall back on if they failed.” -Eric Ries
38. “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” -Albert
Einstein
 39. “Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than
any other one thing.” -President Abraham Lincoln
40. “There are no working hours for leaders.” -James Cardinal Gibbons
41. “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done
because he wants to do it.” -Dwight Eisenhower
42. “When I’m old and dying, I plan to look back on my life and say, ‘Wow, that was
an adventure,’ not ‘Wow, I sure felt safe.’” -Tom Preston-Werner, co-founder of Github
43. “If you can’t fly, then run; if you can’t run, then walk; if you can’t walk, then crawl;
but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.” -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
44. “Singleness of purpose is essential for success in life.” -John D. Rockefeller
45. “Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming.”
-Sir Richard Branson
46. “Good is the enemy of great.” -Jim Collins, author of Good to Great
47. “Nothing works better than just improving your product.” -Joel Spolsky, co-founder
of Stack Overflow
48. “There’s lots of bad reasons to start a company. But there’s only one good,
legitimate reason, and I think you know what it is: it’s to change the world.” -Phil
Libin, Evernote
49. “There are no traffic jams along the extra mile.” -Roger Staubach
50. “Fall seven times and stand up eight.” -Unknown
51. “I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars-I look for 1-foot bars that I can step over.” -
Warren Buffett
52. “Being able to touch so many people through my businesses, and make money
while doing it, is a huge blessing.” -Magic Johnson
53. “Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work
worth doing.” -Theodore Roosevelt
54. “Yesterday’s home runs don’t win today’s games.” -Babe Ruth
55. “Don’t worry about funding if you don’t need it. Today, it’s cheaper to start a
business than ever.” -Noah Everett, founder of Twitpic
56. “There is only one boss: the customer. And he can fire everybody in the
company, from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere
else.” -Sam Walton, founder of Walmart and Sam’s Club
57. “The crisis of today is the joke of tomorrow.” -H.G. Wells
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58. “The last 10 percent it takes to launch something takes as much energy as the
first 90 percent.” -Rob Kalin, founder of Etsy
59. “The trouble in America is not that we are making too many mistakes, but that we
are making too few.” -Philip Knight
60. “Entrepreneurship is neither a science nor an art. It is a practice.” -Peter Drucker
61. “Diligence is the mother of good luck.” -Benjamin Franklin
62. “Always look for the fool in the deal. If you don’t find one, it’s you.” -Mark Cuban
63. “There’s nothing wrong with staying small. You can do big things with a small
team.” -Jason Fried, founder of 37signals
64. “Fearlessness is like a muscle. I know from my own life that the more I exercise
it, the more natural it becomes to not let my fears run me.” -Arianna Huffington
65. “If I have made a mistake in the design, then I’m the one who should pay for it. I
certainly would not ask somebody else to fly a plane if I were afraid to do it myself.” -
Howard Hughes
66. “Care about what other people think, and you will always be their prisoner.” -Lao
Tzu
67.”Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in.” -Bill
Bradley