Business Time: 67 Quotes To Inspire New Business Leaders

Do you have purpose? Here at Flight Centre, our purpose is to open up the world for those who want to see. We do that by sending people to far-flung places (and back) all day, every day. And it all started because a few 20-somethings followed their passion and turned their love of travel into an international business. Here we’ve compiled a list of 67 inspirational quotes from business leaders, movie stars, poets and politicians to help you follow your purpose and start on your path to becoming a leader.

On Inspiration...

The future is flowering everywhere... Image: Getty

1.       Life is waiting everywhere, the future is flowering everywhere, but we only see a small part of it, and step on much of it with our feet. – Hermann Hesse

2.       Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. – Steve Jobs

3.       The answer to how is yes. – Wayne Dyer

4.       Every exit is an entry somewhere else. – Tom Stoppard

5.       Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business. – Tom Robbins

On Ideas and Innovation...

The air is full of ideas... Image: Getty

6.       The air is full of ideas. They are knocking you in the head all the time. You only have to know what you want, then forget it, and go about your business. Suddenly, the idea will come through. It was there all the time. – Henry Ford

7.       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 S. Firestone

8.       What helps people, helps business. – Leo Burnett

9.       In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity. – Albert Einstein

10.   Question everything is my motto. – Joost Bakker

On Doing What You Love...

Doing what you love is the fastest way to success. Image: Getty

11.   I like animals. I like natural history. The travel bit is not the important bit. The travel bit is what you have to do in order to go and look at animals. – David Attenborough

12.   If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. – Marc Anthony

13.   We can each define ambition and progress for ourselves. The goal is to work toward a world where expectations are not set by the stereotypes that hold us back, but by our personal passion, talents and interests. – Sheryl Sandberg

14.   Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still. – Henry David Thoreau

15.   If you do what interests you, at least one person is pleased. – Katharine Hepburn

16.   Do what you love; you’ll be better at it. It sounds pretty simple, but you’d be surprised how many people don’t get this one right away. – LL Cool J

On Success...

Go out and conquer the world. Image: Getty

17.   I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life’s a bitch. You’ve got to go out and kick ass. – Maya Angelou

18.   The difference between successful people and others is how long they spend time feeling sorry for themselves. – Barbara Corcoran

19.   Success is most often achieved by those who don’t know failure is inevitable. – Coco Chanel

20.   What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. – Napoleon Hill

21.   Success isn’t about how much money you make. It’s about the difference you make in people’s lives. – Michelle Obama

On Failure...

If at first you don't succeed... Image: Getty

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

23.   Our business in this world is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits. – Robert Louis Stevenson

24.   If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative. – Woody Allen

25.   When you take risks, you learn that there will be times when you succeed and there will be times when you fail, and both are equally important. – Ellen Degeneres

26.   A person who has never made a mistake never tried anything new. – Albert Einstein

27.   We are all failures – at least the best of us are. – J.M. Barrie

On Taking the Plunge...

Don't overthink it... Image: Getty

28.   You can’t be that kid standing at the top of the waterslide, overthinking it. You have to go down the chute. – Tina Fey

29.   Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are it might have been – Kurt Vonnegut

30.   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

31.   The question isn’t who is going to let me: it’s who is going to stop me. – Ayn Rand

32.   What you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. – John Anster/Goethe

33.   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

34.   A ship is safe in the harbour but that’s not what ships are built for. – John A. Shedd

35.   All business proceeds on beliefs, or judgments of probabilities, and not on certainties. – Charles W. Elliot

36.   You must be the change you want to see in the world. – Mahatma Gandhi

On Persistence...

10,000 light-bulb moments... Image: Getty

37.   Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all. – Dale Carnegie

38.   What is meant to happen will happen. – Skroo Turner

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

40.   It doesn’t matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop. – Confucius

41.   The difference between winning and losing is most often not quitting. – Walt Disney

42.   If you are going through hell, keep going. – Winston Churchill

On Leadership...

Empower others to make it to the top. Image: Getty

43.   If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. – John Quincy Adams

44.   Women are leaders everywhere you look – from the CEO who runs a Fortune 500 company to the housewife who raises her children and heads her household. Our country was built by strong women and we will continue to break down walls and defy stereotypes. – Nancy Pelosi

45.   It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are. – e.e. cummings

46.   If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything. – Malcolm X

47.   As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others. – Bill Gates

On Integrity...

Be your own guiding light. Image: Getty

48.   Don’t compromise yourself. You are all you’ve got – Janis Joplin.

49.   Integrity is the essence of everything successful. – R. Buckminster Fuller

50.   Not I – not anyone else, can travel that road for you, you must travel it for yourself. – Walt Whitman

51.   It often requires more courage to dare to do right than to fear to do wrong. – Abraham Lincoln

52.   It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. – Albus Dumbledore/J.K. Rowling

On Travel...

The road less travelled... Image: Getty

53.   Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference. – Robert Frost

54.   Experience, travel – these are as an education in themselves. – Euripides

55.   The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it. – Rudyard Kipling

56.   Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience. – Francis Bacon

57.   I am a passionate traveller, and from the time I was a child, travel formed me as much as my formal education. – David Rockefeller.

58.   To travel is to take a journey into yourself. – Danny Kaye

59.   Make voyages! Attempt them ... there’s nothing else. – Tennessee Williams

60.   Not all those who wander are lost. – J.R.R. Tolkien

61.   To awaken alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world. – Freya Stark

62.   A man of ordinary talent will always be ordinary, whether he travels or not; but a man of superior talent will go to pieces if he remains forever in the same place... – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

On Fun...

Don't forget to have fun! Image: Getty

63.   The most wasted of all days is one without laughter. – e.e. cummings

64.   Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. – Helen Keller

65.   If you don’t do it excellently, don’t do it at all. Because if it’s not excellent, it won’t be profitable or fun, and if you’re not in business for fun or profit, what the hell are you doing there? – Robert Townsend

66.   The goal of war is peace, of business, leisure. – Aristotle

67.   The purpose of our lives is to be happy. – Dalai Lama