Entrepreneurship is a bit like running a marathon — you have to keep pushing forward to get to the finish line, even when you’re out of breath, cramping, and on the verge of walking off the path and saying, “Forget it, I quit.”

To help you keep running, I’ve compiled a list of 139 motivational business quotes you can use to inspire and execute on.

And if you want to take your motivation a step further and start getting your entrepreneurial tasks done, you can sign up for my newsletter, which curates and summarizes the best marketing articles every week so you can read less and learn more.

“To waken interest and kindle enthusiasm is the sure way to teach easily and successfully.” – Tryon Edwards

“Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.” – Henry Ford

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

“Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.” – Warren Buffett

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” – Nelson Mandela

“Success or failure in business is caused more by the mental attitude even than by mental capacities.” – Walter Scott

“Energy and persistence conquer all things.” – Benjamin Franklin

“Live daringly, boldly, fearlessly. Taste the relish to be found in competition – in having put forth the best within you. – Henry J. Kaiser

“I don’t pay good wages because I have a lot of money; I have a lot of money because I pay good wages.” – Robert Bosch

“No enterprise can exist for itself alone. It ministers to some great need, it performs some great service, not for itself, but for others…or failing therein, it ceases to be profitable and ceases to exist.” – Calvin Coolidge

“Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

“Progress is impossible without change; and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” – George Bernard Shaw

“If you are running an early stage startup and you are not in a constant state of terror, you are doing something wrong.” – Jon Yongfook

“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” – Bruce Lee

“What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts to each new twist of fate.” – Donald Trump

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” – Charles Darwin

“Successful people are the ones who are breaking the rules.” – Seth Godin

“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment”- Jim Rohn

“Yesterday’s home runs don’t win today’s games.” – Babe Ruth

“If I had nine hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend the first six sharpening my ax.” – Abraham Lincoln

“If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.” – Napoleon Hill

“Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness.” – James Thurber

“The great leaders are like the best conductors – they reach beyond the notes to reach the magic in the players”. – Blaine Lee

“Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.” – Dale Carnegie

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

“I’ve always worked very, very hard, and the harder I worked, the luckier I got.” – Alan Bond

“I am thankful for all of those who said NO to me. It’s because of them I’m doing it myself.” – Albert Einstein

“The new source of power is not money in the hands of a few, but information in the hands of many.” – John Naisbitt

“The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure.” – Sven Goran Eriksson

“If you never want to be criticized, for goodness’ sake don’t do anything new.” – Jeff Bezos

“I have found no greater satisfaction than achieving success through honest dealing and strict adherence to the view that, for you to gain, those you deal with should gain as well.” – Alan Greenspan

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” – Agatha Christie

“I’ve been an entrepreneur three times. I started three companies.” – Marc Andreessen

“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” – Henry Ford

“He who rejects change is the architect of decay.” – Harold Wilson

“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.” – Beverly Sills

“Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.” – Napoleon Hill

“Success is how high you bounce after you hit bottom.” – General George Patton

“Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.” – James A. Michener

“You will get all you want in life, if you help enough other people get what they want.” – Zig Ziglar

“He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.” – Benjamin Franklin

“You are not your resume, you are your work.” – Seth Godin

“The road to success is always under construction.” – Lily Tomlin

“If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.” – Albert Einstein

“If you would like to know the value of money, try to borrow some.” – Benjamin Franklin

“Do or do not. There is no try.” – Yoda

“Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” – Confucius

“If you work just for money, you’ll never make it, but if you love what you’re doing and you always put the customer first, success will be yours.” – Ray Kroc

“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 a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.” – Vince Lombardi

“If you don’t build your dream, someone else will hire you to help them build theirs.” – Dhirubhai Ambani

“Big shots are only little shots who keep shooting.” – Christopher Morley

“Small things done consistently, in strategic places, create major impact.” – David Allen

“People often try to force an interest on themselves. You don’t choose your passions; your passions choose you.” – Jeff Bezos

“The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.” – Jimmy Johnson

“Truth builds trust.” – Marilyn Suttle

“Long-range planning works best in the short term.” – Doug Evelyn

“Success is not what you have, but who you are. ” – Bo Bennett

“Where there is an open mind, there will always be a frontier.” – Charles F. Kettering

“There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.” – Leo Tolstoy

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

“You must either modify your dreams or magnify your skills.” – Jim Rohn

“Do one thing every day that scares you.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

“Don’t let the fear of losing be greater than the excitement of winning.” – Robert Kiyosaki

“I feel that luck is preparation meeting opportunity.” – Oprah Winfrey

“If you don’t make things happen then things will happen to you.” – Robert Collier

“As a startup CEO, I slept like a baby. I woke up every 2 hours and cried.” – Ben Horowitz

“Action is the real measure of intelligence.” – Napoleon Hill

“ It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg.” – C. S. Lewis

“Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right” – Henry Ford

“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

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.” – Mark Twain

“If you see a bandwagon, it’s too late.” – James Goldsmith

“The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.” – Peter F. Drucker

“The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.” – Carlos Castaneda

“To think creatively, we must be able to look afresh at what we normally take for granted.” – George Kneller

“A calm sea does not make a skilled sailor.” – Unknown

“To win without risk is to triumph without glory.” – Pierre Corneille

“Out there in some garage is an entrepreneur who’s forging a bullet with your company’s name on it.” – Gary Hamel

“In business, three things are necessary: knowledge, temper, and time” – Owen Felltham

“Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.” – Colin Powell

“Please think about your legacy, because you’re writing it every day.” – Gary Vaynerchuk

“We’ve had three big ideas at Amazon that we’ve stuck with for 18 years, and they’re the reason we’re successful: Put the customer first. Invent. And be patient.” – Jeff Bezos

“Screw It, Let’s Do It.” – Richard Branson

“Dictionary is the only place that success comes before work.” – Vince Lombardi

“It’s always good to be underestimated.” – Donald Trump

“If things seem under control, you’re just not going fast enough.” – Mario Andretti

“Fight fair, but avoid fair fights.”- John Czepiel

“It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.” – Bill Gates

“It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.” – Epictetus

“You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” – Steve Jobs

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

“Success is never accidental.” – Jack Dorsey

“The first problem for us all, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn.” – Gloria Steinem

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

“Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds.” – Albert Einstein

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” – Steve Jobs

“You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.” – Richard Branson

“Time is the measure of business.” – Francis Bacon

“The only way around is through”. – Robert Frost

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“Solving big problems is easier than solving little problems.” – Sergey Brin

“I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” – Pablo Picasso

“Greatness is won, not awarded.” – Guy Kawasaki

“Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.” – Thomas Edison

“Some people succeed because they are destined to, but most people succeed because they are determined to.” – Unknown

“A good design is not a democratic consensus.” – Edward de Bono

“The path to success is to take massive, determined action.” – Tony Robbins

“Ninety-nine percent of failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.” – George W. Carver

“Change your thoughts and you change your world.” – Norman Vincent Peale

“The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.” – George Bernard Shaw

“You can’t improve anything if you can’t define it.” – Max Guinn, Deere & Co.

“Everything started as nothing.” – Ben Weissenstein

“Life’s too short to hang out with people who aren’t resourceful.” – Jeff Bezos

“My philosophy is that not only are you responsible for your life, but doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.” – Oprah Winfrey

“If you don’t drive your business, you will be driven out of business.” – B. C. Forbes

“Failing to plan is planning to fail.” – Chinese Proverb

“Speed is useful only if you are running in the right direction.” – Joel Barker

“If you don’t make mistakes, you aren’t really trying.” – Coleman Hawkins

“Well done is better than well said.” – Benjamin Franklin

“By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day.” – Robert Frost

“I wasn’t satisfied just to earn a good living. I was looking to make a statement.” – Donald Trump

“Carpe per diem – seize the check.” – Robin Williams

“Judge a man by his questions, not by his answers.” – Voltaire

“If we did all the things we are capable of, we would astound ourselves.” – Thomas Edison

“Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.” – Peter F. Drucker

“All businesses need to be young forever. If your customer base ages with you, you’re Woolworth’s.” – Jeff Bezos

“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” – Andy Warhol

“A reputation for one thousand years may depend upon the conduct of a single moment.” – Ernest Bramah

“It’s easy to make a buck. It’s a lot tougher to make a difference.” – Tom Brokaw

“If you owe the bank $100 that’s your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that’s the bank’s problem.” – J. Paul Getty

“Technological change is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal .” – Albert Einstein

“Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit.” – Napoleon Hill

“In the old world, you devoted 30% of your time to building a great service and 70% of your time to shouting about it. In the new world, that inverts.” – Jeff Bezos

“I think that people just have this core desire to express who they are. And I think that’s always existed.” – Mark Zuckerberg

“Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed nothing else can be managed.” – Peter Drucker

“To unpathed waters, undreamed shores.” – William Shakespeare

“Small groups of people can have a really huge impact.” – Larry Page