200+ inspirational quotes for success, work, leadership & finance

If your proverbial tank is getting low, refuel with this list of over 200 poignant motivational quotes curated to inspire and uplift.

Feb 20, 2025 - 23:04

200+ inspirational quotes for success, work, leadership & finance

Sometimes, the day-to-day doldrums can drag us down and distract us from what matters most — our short-term priorities, our long-term goals, and the invisible but all-important line that connects them: our actions.

When it comes to staying focused, engaged, and motivated in the face of distraction or discouragement, invoking eloquent insights from those we admire can help us keep our gaze on the proverbial goalposts.

Collected here is a carefully curated treasure trove of iconic inspirational quotes designed to uplift and motivate. This list of over 200 quotations includes wise words from business leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, philanthropists, thought leaders, and other inspiring individuals.

Many of the quotes included here are broadly inspirational nuggets of wisdom perfect for any situation. Some are words of entrepreneurial advice from CEOs and business leaders, while others spell out paths to career success and personal motivation. Some focus on personal finance, while others focus on wealth-building through stock investment.

If you’re looking for anything specific, use the linked table of contents at the top of this article to navigate to your preferred section.

Inspirational quotes for success in any situation

This first collection of quotes is decidedly general — each proverb, musing, or insight below could apply to almost any situation, and their sources are as diverse as their potential applications.

“I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.”

—John D. Rockefeller

“Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.”
—Dale Carnegie

“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.”
—Calvin Coolidge

“The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty.”
—Winston Churchill

“Success in life is founded upon attention to the small things rather than to the large things; to the everyday things nearest to us rather than to the things that are remote and uncommon.”
—Booker T. Washington

“It is only when we take chances that our lives improve. The initial and the most difficult risk we need to take is to become honest.”
—Walter Anderson

“The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same.”
—Colin R. Davis

“Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
—Mark Twain

“Fear of failure is a powerful motivator, but it should never paralyze you. Embrace the risk and learn from every setback.”
—Lloyd Blankfein

“Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable.”
—John Wooden

“Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day-in and day-out.”
—Robert Collier

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.”
—Anais Nin

“The three ordinary things that we often don't pay enough attention to, but which I believe are the drivers of all success, are hard work, perseverance, and basic honesty.” —Azim Premji

“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to success is more important than any other one thing.”
—Abraham Lincoln

“For the great doesn’t happen through impulse alone, and is a succession of little things that are brought together.”
—Vincent Van Gogh

“You define your own life. Don’t let other people write your script.”
—Oprah Winfrey

“Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.”
—Henry David Thoreau

“Fake it until you make it! Act as if you had all the confidence you require until it becomes your reality.”
—Brian Tracy

“What would you do if you weren't afraid?”
—Sheryl Sandberg

“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.”
—Helen Keller

“Inspiration comes from within yourself. One has to be positive. When you’re positive, good things happen.”
—Deep Roy

“Remember, it isn't the dreamers who have good lives- it's the doers. Remember also what I call the three P's of success: passion, planning, and perseverance.”
—Homer Hickam

“Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it. … Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.” —Steve Jobs

“Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively; unless you can choose a challenge instead of competence.”
―Eleanor Roosevelt

“There are no limits to what you can accomplish, except the limits you place on your own thinking.”
—Brian Tracy

“If we take care of the moments, the years will take care of themselves.”
—Maria Edgeworth

“Learn as if you will live forever, live like you will die tomorrow.”
—Mahatma Gandhi

“Stay away from those people who try to disparage your ambitions. Small minds will always do that, but great minds will give you a feeling that you can become great too.”
—Mark Twain

“Goal setting is the secret to a compelling future.”
—Tony Robbins

“Optimism is the one quality more associated with success and happiness than any other.”
—Brian Tracy

“Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get.”
―W. P. Kinsella

“Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.”
—Winston Churchill

“There are three ways to ultimate success: The first way is to be kind. The second way is to be kind. The third way is to be kind.”
—Mister Rogers

Inspirational quotes for work & career motivation

Like it or not, we all (well, most of us) have to work in order to live. And while a job can certainly be a source of frustration and a drain on one’s free time, it can also be a tool that catapults one toward their goals, both financial and otherwise.

The quotes in this section are all about harnessing the power of work and making the most of one’s career.

“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. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.”
—Steve Jobs

“Whatever the job you are asked to do at whatever level, do a good job because your reputation is your resume.”
—Madeleine Albright

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
—Thomas Edison

“Desire! That’s the one secret of every man’s career. Not education. Not being born with hidden talents. Desire.”
—Johnny Carson

“I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.”
—Thomas Jefferson

“Rarely have I seen a situation where doing less than the other guy is a good strategy.”
—Jimmy Spithill

“Work to become, not to acquire.”
—Elbert Hubbard

Steve Jobs
Acaben, CC-BY-SA-2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

“The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.”
—Steve Jobs

“Enjoy your sweat because hard work doesn't guarantee success, but without it, you don't have a chance.”
—Alex Rodriguez

“Find out what you like doing best, and get someone to pay you for doing it.”
—Katharine Whitehorn

“Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.”
—Martin Luther King Jr.

“Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do. Don't wish it were easier; wish you were better.”
—Jim Rohn

“If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work.”
—Thomas J. Watson

“It’s not what you achieve, it’s what you overcome. That’s what defines your career.”
—Carlton Fisk

“Do the best you can in every task, no matter how unimportant it may seem at the time. No one learns more about a problem than the person at the bottom.”
—Sandra Day O’Connor

“I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.”
—Thomas Jefferson

“I want to look back on my career and be proud of the work, and be proud that I tried everything.”
—Jon Stewart

“If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work.”
—Thomas J. Watson

"There isn’t any great mystery about me. What I do is glamorous and has an awful lot of white-hot attention placed on it. But the actual work requires the same discipline and passion as any job you love doing, be it as a very good pipe fitter or a highly creative artist."
—Tom Hanks

“If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat! Just get on.”
—Sheryl Sandberg

“Some people dream of success while others wake up and work.”
—Winston Churchill

“Getting fired is nature’s way of telling you that you had the wrong job in the first place.”
—Hal Lancaster

“You can have unbelievable intelligence, you can have connections, you can have opportunities fall out of the sky. But in the end, hard work is the true, enduring characteristic of successful people.”
—Marsha Evans

Quotes about perseverance in the face of failure

Failure, like taxes, is one of life’s constants. It’s something we all have to deal with countless times in both our personal lives and our professional pursuits. The quotes in this section aren’t about avoiding failure — they’re about engaging with it in a healthy manner and moving forward despite it.

Yousuf Karsh, CC-BY-SA-4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”
―Winston Churchill

“Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.”
—Babe Ruth

“Resilience is when you address uncertainty with flexibility.”
—Unknown

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”
—Frederick Douglass

“Failure doesn’t mean you are a failure it just means you haven’t succeeded yet.”
—Robert H. Schuller

“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.”
—Aristotle

“Success is not built on success. It's built on failure. It's built on frustration. Sometimes it's built on catastrophe.”
—Sumner Redstone

“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”
—Thomas Edison

“I really think a champion is defined not by their wins but by how they can recover when they fall.”
—Serena Williams

“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
—Michael Jordan

“Don’t worry about failure; you only have to be right once.”
—Drew Houston

“We need to accept that we won't always make the right decisions, that we'll screw up royally sometimes- understanding that failure is not the opposite of success, it's part of success.”
—Arianna Huffington

“Failure is only postponed success as long as courage ‘coaches' ambition. The habit of persistence is the habit of victory.”
—Herbert Kaufman

“We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.”
—Maya Angelou

“Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.”
—Suzy Kassem

“Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.”
—Dale Carnegie

“Don't let yesterday take up too much of today.”
—Will Rogers

“You know, everybody has setbacks in their life, and everybody falls short of whatever goals they might set for themselves. That's part of living and coming to terms with who you are as a person.”
—Hillary Clinton

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”
—Albert Einstein

“Leaders never use the word failure. They look upon setbacks as learning experiences.”
—Brian Tracy

“The battles that count aren’t the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself—the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us—that’s where it’s at.”
—Jesse Owens

“Nothing will work unless you do.”
—Maya Angelou

“We generate fears while we sit. We overcome them by action. Fear is nature’s way of warning us to get busy.”
—Dr. Henry Link

“You learn more from failure than from success. Don’t let it stop you. Failure builds character.”
—Unknown

“Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.”
—Henry Ford

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
—Thomas Edison

“If the highest aim of a captain were to preserve his ship, he would keep it in port forever.”
—Thomas Aquinas

“Never let success get to your head, and never let failure get to your heart.”
—Drake

“You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, and there’s still going to be somebody who hates peaches.”
—Dita Von Teese

Powerful motivational quotes from CEOs and business leaders

Not everyone gets that one-in-a-million shot to turn their wildest dreams into a reality and get rich in the process, but those who do certainly learn a thing or two along the way. The quotes in this section come from the CEOs and founders of iconic companies like Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, Amazon, and other household names.

“The only way to do great work is to love what you do.”
—Steve Jobs

“If you’re not stubborn, you’ll give up on experiments too soon. And if you’re not flexible, you’ll pound your head against the wall and you won’t see a different solution to a problem you’re trying to solve.”
—Jeff Bezos

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”
—Warren Buffett

“I’ve learned that mistakes can often be as good a teacher as success.”
—Jack Welch

“Every time you make the hard, correct decision, you become a bit more courageous, and every time you make the easy, wrong decision, you become a bit more cowardly. If you are CEO, these choices will lead to a courageous or cowardly company.”
—Ben Horowitz

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”
—Steve Jobs

“Great companies are built on great products.”
—Elon Musk

“To me, business isn’t about wearing suits or pleasing stockholders. It’s about being true to yourself, your ideas and focusing on the essentials.”
—Sir Richard Branson

“Don’t worry about failure; you only have to be right once.”
—Drew Houston

“Make every detail perfect and limit the number of details to perfect.”
—Jack Dorsey

“Don’t bunt. Aim out of the ballpark. Aim for the company of immortals.”
—David Ogilvy

“The most dangerous poison is the feeling of achievement. The antidote is to every evening think what can be done better tomorrow.”
—Ingvar Kamprad

“Chase the vision, not the money; the money will end up following you.”
—Tony Hsieh

“A positive reputation is built by behaving consistently with sound principles, creating real value, achieving compliance excellence and living up to commitments.”
—Charles Koch

“The biggest risk is not taking any risk… In a world that is changing quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.”
—Mark Zuckerberg

“I always did something that I was a little not ready to do. I think that is how you grow. When there’s a moment of ‘Wow, I’m not so sure that I can do this,’ and you push through those moments, it’s then that you have a breakthrough. Sometimes that’s a sign that something really great is about to happen. You’re about to grow and learn a lot more about yourself.”
—Marissa Mayer

“A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.”
—Henry Ford

“Success is often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable.”
—Coco Chanel

“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.”
—Elon Musk

“You have to be willing to be misunderstood if you’re going to innovate.”
—Jeff Bezos

Personal finance & money management quotes from Orman, Ramsey & more

Regardless of your income level, the way you manage your money plays a major role in determining your ability to save, pay off debts, make large purchases, and fund personal pursuits. The quotes in this section are all about personal finance, frugality, and money management.

“Financial peace isn't the acquisition of stuff. It's learning to live on less than you make, so you can give money back and have money to invest. You can't win until you do this.”
—Dave Ramsey

“A big part of financial freedom is having your heart and mind free from worry about the what-ifs of life.”
—Suze Orman

"Don’t tell me what you value, show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.”
—Joe Biden

“A formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.”
―Jim Rohn

“Being rich is having money; being wealthy is having time.”
—Margaret Bonanno

“Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship.”
—Benjamin Franklin

"Make sure you have financial intelligence… I don’t care if you have money or you don’t have money… you need to go and study finance no matter what.”
—Daymond John

“You can have excuses or you can have success; you can’t have both.”
―Jen Sincero

“The desire of gold is not for gold. It is for the means of freedom and benefit.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Personal finance is only 20% head knowledge. It’s 80% behavior!”
—Dave Ramsey

“Money, like emotions, is something you must control to keep your life on the right track.”
—Natasha Munson

“To contract new debts is not the way to pay old ones.”
—George Washington

“In fact, what determines your wealth is not how much you make but how much you keep of what you make.”
―David Bach

“No man can be successful unless he first loves his work.”
—David Sarnoff

“Making money is easy. It is. The difficult thing in life is not making it; it's keeping it.”
—John McAfee

“Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach.”
―Tony Robbins

“When prosperity comes, do not use all of it.”
—Confucius

“To get rich, you have to be making money while you're asleep.”
―David Bailey

“A budget tells us what we can’t afford, but it doesn’t keep us from buying it.”
—William Feather

“Rely on the ordinary virtues that intelligent, balanced human beings have relied on for centuries: common sense, thrift, realistic expectations, patience, and perseverance.”
―Jack Bogle

“Wealth is largely the result of habit.”
—John Jacob Astor

Quotes about entrepreneurship from successful startup founders

Sometimes, starting something from the ground up is the only way to see one’s passions come to fruition. The quotes in this section come from successful entrepreneurs and are all about hard work, innovation, and building something from nothing.

“Any time is a good time to start a company.”
—Ron Conway

“If you are working on something that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.”
—Steve Jobs

“You don’t need to be a genius or a visionary, or even a college graduate for that matter, to be successful. You just need framework and a dream.”
—Michael Dell

“The most important thing is to be able to think big, dream big and know how to translate these dreams into reality.”
—Jack Ma

“An entrepreneur is someone who has a vision for something and a want to create.”
—David Karp

“Stay self-funded as long as possible.”
—Garrett Camp

“Get a good idea and stay with it. Dog it, and work at it until it’s done right.”
—Walt Disney

“If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.”
—Reid Hoffman

“The only thing worse than starting something and failing … is not starting something.”
—Seth Godin

“The secret to successful hiring is this: Look for the people who want to change the world.”
—Marc Benioff

“There’s nothing wrong with staying small. You can do big things with a small team.”
—Jason Fried

“When you innovate, you’ve got to be prepared for everyone telling you you’re nuts.” —Larry Ellison

“Fear of what other people will think is the single most paralyzing dynamic in business and in life. The best moment of my life was the day I realized that I no longer give a damn what anybody thinks. That’s enormously liberating and freeing, and it’s the only way to live your life and do your business”
—Cindy Gallop

“It’s not about how to get started; it’s about how to get noticed.”
—Steve Case

“Fail often so you can succeed sooner.”
—Tom Kelley

“Be undeniably good. No marketing effort or social media buzzword can be a substitute for that.”
—Anthony Volodkin

Investing quotes from Warren Buffet, Michael Burry, Charlie Munger, & other legendary investors

Outside of a high-paying career, patient and prudent investing is one of the surest paths to wealth. The quotes in this section come from legends of the investing world — people like Warren Buffet, founder and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, and Michael Burry, who predicted (and profited handsomely from) the collapse of the securitized mortgage market in 2007 and 2008.

“We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.”
—Warren Buffett

“Common hedging techniques include shorting stocks, buying put options, writing call options, and various types of leverage and paired transactions. While I do reserve the right to use these tools if and when appropriate, my firm opinion is that the best hedge is buying an appropriately safe and cheap stock.”
—Michael Burry

“Go for a business that any idiot can run – because sooner or later, any idiot probably is going to run it.”
—Peter Lynch

"Don't try to buy at the bottom and sell at the top. It can't be done except by liars."
—Bernard Baruch

“All intelligent investing is value investing — acquiring more than you are paying for. You must value the business in order to value the stock.”
—Charlie Munger

“You get recessions, you have stock market declines. If you don't understand that's going to happen, then you're not ready, you won't do well in the markets.”
—Peter Lynch

“I try to buy shares of unpopular companies when they look like road kill and sell them when they've been polished up a bit.”
—Michael Burry

“It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.”
—Charlie Munger

"An investment in knowledge pays the best interest."
—Benjamin Franklin

"Regardless of what happens in the markets, stick to your investment program. Changing your strategy at the wrong time can be the single most devastating mistake you can make as an investor."
—John Bogle

“Bottoms in the investment world don't end with four-year lows; they end with 10- or 15-year lows.”
—Jim Rogers

“Courage taught me no matter how bad a crisis gets ... any sound investment will eventually pay off.”
—Carlos Slim Helu

“Know what you own, and know why you own it.”
—Peter Lynch

“It's not how much money you make, but how much money you keep, how hard it works for you, and how many generations you keep it for.”
—Robert Kiyosaki

“The key to making money is to stay invested.”
―Suze Orman

“In the short run, the market is a voting machine, but in the long run it is a weighing machine.”
—Benjamin Graham

“Value investing is at its core the marriage of a contrarian streak and a calculator.”
—Seth Klarman

“If there is one common theme to the vast range of the world’s financial crises, it is that excessive debt accumulation, whether by the government, banks, corporations, or consumers, often poses greater systemic risks than it seems during a boom.”
—Carmen Reinhart

“If investing is entertaining, if you’re having fun, you’re probably not making any money. Good investing is boring.”
—George Soros

“I try to buy shares of unpopular companies when they look like road kill and sell them when they’ve been polished up a bit.”
—Michael Burry

"Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it ... he who doesn't ... pays it."
—Albert Einstein

“The stock market is filled with individuals who know the price of everything, but the value of nothing.”
—Phillip Fisher

"If you aren't willing to own a stock for 10 years, don't even think about owning it for 10 minutes."
—Warren Buffett

"The individual investor should act consistently as an investor and not as a speculator."
—Benjamin Graham

“Given a 10% chance of a 100 times payoff, you should take that bet every time.”
—Jeff Bezos

“How many millionaires do you know who have become wealthy by investing in savings accounts? I rest my case.”
—Robert G. Allen

“Based on my own personal experience – both as an investor in recent years and an expert witness in years past – rarely do more than three or four variables really count. Everything else is noise.”
—Martin Whitman

"Investing should be more like watching paint dry or watching grass grow. If you want excitement, take $800 and go to Las Vegas."
—Paul Samuelson

"It's not whether you're right or wrong that's important, but how much money you make when you're right and how much you lose when you're wrong."
—George Soros

“Don't look for the needle in the haystack. Just buy the haystack!”
—John Bogle

“To the extent we have been successful, it is because we concentrated on identifying one-foot hurdles that we could step over rather than because we acquired any ability to clear seven-footers.”
—Warren Buffet

“In investing, what is comfortable is rarely profitable.”
—Robert Arnott