25+ Timeless Business Quotes to Inspire Success, Growth, and Leadership
Business, in its broadest sense, is the art of creating value through ideas, collaboration, and service. It’s not just about transactions but about building relationships, solving problems, and driving innovation. At its best, business brings people together, fosters growth, and contributes to the betterment of society. Whether in daily tasks or grand ventures, business teaches us resilience, adaptability, and the power of vision. It’s a dynamic way to transform challenges into opportunities and ideas into reality.
- “War is the business of barbarians.”
- “I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.”
- “Be courageous. I have seen many depressions in business. Always America has emerged from these stronger and more prosperous. Be brave as your fathers before you. Have faith! Go forward!”
- “To rule a country of a thousand chariots, there must be reverent attention to business, and sincerity; economy in expenditure, and love for men; and the employment of the people at the proper seasons.”
- “It is clearly better that property should be private, but the use of it common; and the special business of the legislator is to create in men this benevolent disposition.”
- “Microsoft has had two goals in the last 10 years. One was to copy the Mac, and the other was to copy Lotus’ success in the spreadsheet – basically, the applications business. And over the course of the last 10 years, Microsoft accomplished both of those goals. And now they are completely lost.”
- “When you’re young, you look at television and think, there’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want.”
- “My model for business is The Beatles: They were four guys that kept each others’ negative tendencies in check; they balanced each other. And the total was greater than the sum of the parts.”
- “Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.”
- “But Apple really beats to a different drummer. I used to say that Apple should be the Sony of this business, but in reality, I think Apple should be the Apple of this business.”
- “Throughout my years in business, I discovered something. I would always ask why you do things. The answers that I would invariably get are: ‘Oh, that’s just the way things are done around here.’ Nobody knows why they do what they do. Nobody thinks very deeply about things in business.”
- “Politics is not a game. It is an earnest business.”
- “Prosperous farmers mean more employment, more prosperity for the workers and the business men of every industrial area in the whole country.”
- “Young people are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; and more fit for new projects than for settled business.”
- “I do not love to be printed on every occasion, much less to be dunned and teased by foreigners about mathematical things or to be thought by our own people to be trifling away my time about them when I should be about the king’s business.”
- “The people who make art their business are mostly imposters.”
- “Life is an exciting business, and most exciting when it is lived for others.”
- “There ought to be an artistic depot where the artist need only hand in his artwork in order to receive what he asks for. As things are, one must be half a business man, and how can one understand – good heavens! – that’s what I really call troublesome.”
- “Prophesy is a good line of business, but it is full of risks.”
- “It’s none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.”
- “Joy is the serious business of Heaven.”
- “Don’t go getting mixed up in the business of your betters, or you’ll land in trouble too big for you.”
- “I notice that young men go to the universities in order to become doctors or philosophers or anything, so long as it is a title, and that many go in for those professions who are utterly unfit for them, while others who would be very competent are prevented by business or their daily cares, which keep them away from letters.”
- “It takes more than capital to swing business. You’ve got to have the A. I. D. degree to get by – Advertising, Initiative, and Dynamics.”
- “I went into the business for the money, and the art grew out of it. If people are disillusioned by that remark, I can’t help it. It’s the truth.”
- “Extemporaneous speaking should be practiced and cultivated. It is the lawyer’s avenue to the public. However able and faithful he may be in other respects, people are slow to bring him business if he cannot make a speech.”
- “Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.”
- “If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business.”
- “It is easy enough to be friendly to one’s friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.”