125 Motivational Success Quotes for Business in 2023

You found our list of motivational success quotes for work.

Success quotes are inspirational sayings that motivate people to work hard and achieve goals. For example “Success is never accidental.” – Jack Dorsey and “Failure is success in progress.” – Albert Einstein. The purpose of these phrases is to provide motivation and inspiration, help listeners withstand hardship and strive for greatness.

These sayings are a subset of inspirational quotes for work and hard work quotes. You can use these phrases to boost staff morale, motivate teams and choose motivational work songs.

This list includes:

• inspirational success quotes
• short success quotes
• business success quotes
• team success quotes
• success and failure quotes
• success and hard work quotes
• the key to success quotes
• quotes on achievement

Here we go!

Inspirational success quotes

1. “All our dreams can come true; if we have the courage to pursue them.” – Walt Disney
2. “However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.” – Stephen Hawking
3. “People begin to become successful the minute they decide to be.” – Harvey MacKay
4. “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” – Nelson Mandela
5. “Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m possible’!” – Audrey Hepburn
6. “Success isn’t overnight. It’s when everyday you get a little better than the day before. It all adds up.” – Dwayne Johnson
7. “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” – Confucius
8. “The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.” – Oprah Winfrey
9. “Do what you can, with what you’ve got, where you are.” – Teddy Roosevelt
10. “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill
11. “Women, like men, should try to do the impossible. And when they fail, their failure should be a challenge to others.” – Amelia Earhart
12. “Victory is sweetest when you’ve known defeat.” – Malcolm S. Forbes
13. “Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment, full effort is full victory.” – Mahatma Gandhi
14. “Energy and persistence conquer all things.” – Benjamin Franklin
15. “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” – Thomas A. Edison
16. “The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
17. “It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.” – Herman Melville
18. “A man can succeed at almost anything for which he has unlimited enthusiasm.” – Charles Schwab
19. “In most things success depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.” – Montesquieu
20. “There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there — you must go beyond them.” – Bruce Lee

Short success quotes

1. “Fortune befriends the bold.” – Emily Dickinson
2. “Success is survival.” – Leonard Cohen
3. “There is little success where there is little laughter.” – Andrew Carnegie
4. “There is no substitute for victory.” – Douglas MacArthur
5. “They succeed, because they think they can.” – Virgil
6. “It takes 20 years to make an overnight success.” – Eddie Cantor
7. “Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.” – John F. Kennedy
8. “If you have no critics you’ll likely have no success.” – Malcolm X
9. “Success is never accidental.” – Jack Dorsey
10. “Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.” – Suzy Kassem
11. “The best revenge is massive success.” – Frank Sinatra
12. “Men are born to succeed, not to fail.” – Henry David Thoreau
13. “Success is the child of audacity.” – Benjamin Disraeli
14. “Impatience never commanded success.” – Edwin H. Chapin
15. “If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” – Milton Berle
16. “Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.” – Bill Gates
17. “Failure is success in progress.” – Albert Einstein

Business success quotes

1. “If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.” – John D. Rockefeller
2. “Success in management requires learning as fast as the world is changing.” – Warren Bennis
3. “You know you are on the road to success if you would do your job, and not be paid for it.” – Oprah Winfrey
4. “The secret of success in every field is redefining what success means to you. It can’t be your parent’s definition, the media’s definition, or your neighbor’s definition. Otherwise, success will never satisfy you.” – RuPaul
5. “Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” – Albert Einstein
6. “When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.” – Elon Musk
7. “Success depends upon previous preparation, and without such preparation there is sure to be failure.” – Confucius
8. “Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.” – Abraham Lincoln
9. “​​Success isn’t about the end result, it’s about what you learn along the way.” – Vera Wang
10. “Find something you’re passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it.” – Julia Child
11. “Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.” – Henry David Thoreau
12. “Success is only meaningful and enjoyable if it feels like your own.” – Michelle Obama
13. “I couldn’t wait for success, so I went ahead without it.” – Jonathan Winters
14. “Talent alone won’t make you a success. Neither will being in the right place at the right time, unless you are ready.” – Johnny Carson

Team success quotes

1. “Success is best when it’s shared.” – Howard Schultz
2. “If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.” – Henry Ford
3. “Success is finding satisfaction in giving a little more than you take.” – Christopher Reeve
4. “Success comes when people act together; failure tends to happen alone.” – Deepak Chopra
5. “The level of our success is limited only by our imagination and no act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted.” – Aesop
6. “If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.” – Maya Angelou
7. “Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.” – Steve Jobs
8. “Individual honors come with team success.” – Gilbert Arenas
9. “The secret of the team’s success is easy – unity and hard work.” – David Beckham
10. “The way a team plays as a whole determines its success.” – Babe Ruth
11. “The achievements of an organization are the results of the combined effort of each individual.” – Vince Lombardi
12. “There is no such thing as a self-made man. You will reach your goals only with the help of others.” – George Shinn
13. “It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed.” – Napoleon Hill

Check out more quotes about teamwork.

Success and failure quotes

1. “Success is not a good teacher, failure makes you humble.” – Shah Rukh Khan
2. “Most people give up just when they’re 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.” – Ross Perot
3. “Failure is success if we learn from it.” – Malcolm Forbes
4. “A minute’s success pays the failure of years.” – Robert Browning
5. “Success is falling nine times and getting up ten.” – Jon Bon Jovi
6. “Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.” – George S. Patton
7. “Success is often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable.” – Coco Chanel
8. “Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.” – Truman Capote
9. “I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.” – Michael Jordan
10. “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” – Thomas A. Edison
11. “Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.” – George Bernard Shaw
12. “Sometimes a noble failure serves the world as faithfully as a distinguished success.” – Edward Dowden
13. “Treat failure as a lesson on how not to approach achieving a goal, and then use that learning to improve your chances of success when you try again. Failure is only the end if you decide to stop.” – Richard Branson
14. “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill
15. “Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success.” – C. S. Lewis
16. “Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement.” – Henry Ford
17. “It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.” – Theodore Roosevelt

Success and hard work quotes

1. “Much effort, much prosperity.” – Euripides
2. “There is no success without hardship.” – Sophocles
3. “In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd.” – Miguel de Cervantes
4. “Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.” – Booker T. Washington
5. “Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.” – William Feather
6. “Success is the sum of small efforts – repeated day in and day out.” – Robert Collier
7. “Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come.” – Dwayne Johnson
8. “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” – Colin Powell
9. “The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.” – Vince Lombardi
10. “Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
11. “My powers are ordinary. Only my application brings me success.” – Isaac Newton
12. “To follow, without halt, one aim: that’s the secret of success.” – Anna Pavlova
13. “I never dreamed about success. I worked for it.” – Estée Lauder
14. “Work hard in silence, let your success be your noise.” – Frank Ocean

The key to success quotes

1. “Formula for success: rise early, work hard, strike oil.” – J. Paul Getty
2. “Action is the foundational key to all success.” – Pablo Picasso
3. “True success is overcoming the fear of being unsuccessful.” – Paul Sweeney
4. “The foundation stones for a balanced success are honesty, character, integrity, faith, love and loyalty.” – Zig Ziglar
5. “Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” – Albert Schweitzer
6. “All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.” – Mark Twain
7. “I attribute my success to this – I never gave or took any excuse.” – Florence Nightingale
8. “Every skill you acquire doubles your odds of success.” – Scott Adams
9. “Success has a simple formula: do your best, and people may like it.” – Sam Ewing
10. “A strong, positive self-image is the best possible preparation for success.” – Joyce Brothers
11. “Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.” – Alexander Graham Bell
12. “There are people who make things happen, there are people who watch things happen, and there are people who wonder what happened. To be successful, you need to be a person who makes things happen.” – Jim Lovell
13. “The secret of my success is a two word answer: Know people.” – Harvey S. Firestone
14. “For success, attitude is equally as important as ability.” – Walter Scott
15. “The secret of your success is determined by your daily agenda.” – John C. Maxwell
16. “The ladder of success is best climbed by stepping on the rungs of opportunity.” – Ayn Rand
17. “Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result.” – Oscar Wilde
18. “The secret of success is to do the common thing uncommonly well.” – John D. Rockefeller Jr.

Quotes on achievement

1. “Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
2. “Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.” – Benjamin Franklin
3. “Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.” – Bruce Lee
4. “Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.” Dale Carnegie
5. “What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.” – Bob Dylan
6. “Great achievement is usually born of great sacrifice, and is never the result of selfishness.” – Napoleon Hill
7. “Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.” – Helen Keller
8. “Comfort is the enemy of achievement.” – Farrah Gray
9. “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” – Walt Disney
10. “High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation.” – Charles Kettering
11. “There is no shortcut to achievement. Life requires thorough preparation – veneer isn’t worth anything.” – George Washington Carver
12. “Achievement is talent plus preparation.” – Malcolm Gladwell

Final Thoughts

The road to success can be long and stressful, and most folks could use guidance and encouragement. The quotes on this list are empowering, enlightening, and energizing, and can help hustlers endure the hardships of life and business. You can use these quotes to inspire your teammates or motivate yourself, or you can share with your clients and audience to give an instant pep talk to anyone who might need one. Many of these sayings are short, sweet, and to the point, and work great in several formats including email openings or sign-offs, social media posts, or motivational speeches.

For more wise words, check out this list of HR quotes, these work-life balance quotes, these creativity quotes for the workplace, this list of team building quotes, and these job satisfaction quotes.

We also have a list of books on motivation at work, a list of fun facts of the day for work, a list of quotes on jobs and life, and a list of slogans for team building.