250 Deep Empowerment Quotes For The Workplace (2023)

1. “Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.” – Gloria Steinem

2. “If you just work on stuff that you like and you’re passionate about, you don’t have to have a master plan with how things will play out.” —Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook

3. “Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish.” -Sam Walton.

4. “No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy, if you’re playing a solo game, you’ll always lose out to a team.” —Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn

5. “If you can’t fly, then run; if you can’t run, then walk; if you can’t walk, then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

6. “All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.”– Calvin Coolidge

7. “To be the best place to buy, you must be the best place to work. Treat your employees the way you want your customers to be treated–maybe even better!” ~Shep Hyken, Customer Service Expert

8. “No company, small or large, can win over the long run without energized employees who believe in the mission and understand how to achieve it.” –Jack Welch, General Electric

9. “There’s something so special about a woman who dominates in a man’s world. It takes a certain grace, strength, intelligence, fearlessness, and the nerve to never take no for an answer.” – Rihanna

10. “It’s not the tools you have faith in–tools are just tools–they work, or they don’t work. It’s the people you have faith in or not.” ~Steve Jobs, Apple

11. “Someone I once knew wrote that we walk away from our dreams afraid that we may fail, or worse yet, afraid we may succeed.” —Forrester, Finding Forrester

12. I tell myself, 'You've been through so much, you've endured so much, time will allow me to heal, and soon this will be just another memory that made me the strong woman, athlete, and mother I am today.'

13. “Good leadership requires you to surround yourself with people of diverse perspectives who can disagree with you without fear of retaliation.” – Doris Kearns Goodwin

14. “In technology it’s about the people: getting the best people, retaining them, nurturing a creative environment and helping to find a way to innovate.” —Marissa Mayer, Yahoo

15. “Welcome the future with open arms! Your first day of work brings opportunities for great things ahead – make sure to make the most out of them!”

16. “Safety has to be everyone’s responsibility… everyone needs to know that they are empowered to speak up if there’s an issue.” – Captain Scott Kelly. (Check out Made Extraordinary Summit 2021)

17. “The first day of work can be filled with excitement, fear, and a little bit of uncertainty but have faith in yourself and all the hard work you have done to get here.”

18. “The Kaizen Philosophy assumes that our way of life – be it our working life, our social life, or our home life – deserves to be constantly improved.” ~Masaaki Imai

19. Margaret Thatcher: “Do you know that one of the great problems of our age is that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than they do about thoughts and ideas.”

20. “Whatever you do, do it with all your might. Work at it, early and late, in season and out of season, not leaving a stone unturned, and never deferring for a single hour that which can be done just as well as now.” – Margaret Fuller

21. “Businesses often forget about the culture and ultimately they suffer for it because you can’t deliver good service from unhappy employees.” ~Tony Hsieh, Zappos

22. I am experienced enough to do this. I am knowledgeable enough to do this. I am prepared enough to do this. I am mature enough to do this. I am brave enough to do this.

23. “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” —Eleanor Roosevelt, known as “First Lady of the World” for her human rights advocacy

24. “Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire.”

25. “Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.” —Michael Jordan, former professional basketball player

26. “Pay attention to those employees who respectfully ask why. They are demonstrating an interest in their jobs and exhibiting a curiosity that could eventually translate into leadership ability.” – Harvey Mackay

27. “Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo Da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.” -H. Jackson Brown Jr.

28. “Teamwork is so important that it is virtually impossible for you to reach the heights of your capabilities or make the money that you want without becoming very good at it.” – Brian Tracy

29. “The only way to get people to like working hard is to motivate them. Today, people must understand why they’re working hard. Every individual in an organization is motivated by something different.” –Rick Pitino

30. “To be the best place to buy you must be the best place to work. Treat your employees the way you want your customers to be treated, maybe even better.” –Shep Hyken, customer service expert

31. “Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. Thoughts are things! And powerful things at that, when mixed with definiteness of purpose, and burning desire, can be translated into riches.” – Napoleon Hill

32. Bill Walton: “Success at the highest level comes down to one question: Can you decide that your happiness can come from someone else’s success?”

33. “Many of life’s failures are experienced by people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” —Thomas Edison, entrepreneur and inventor

34. “There is a stubbornness about me that can never bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.” – Jane Austen

35. Nelson Mandela: “A leader … is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.”

36. “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

37. “No company, small or large, can win over the long run without energized employees who believe in the mission and understand how to achieve it. ~Jack Welch, General Electric

38. “The shrewd one sees the danger and conceals himself, but the inexperienced keep right on going and suffer the consequences” – Proverbs 22:3 (New World Translation)

39. “Fearlessness is like a muscle. I know from my own life that the more I exercise it the more natural it becomes to not let my fears run me.” – Arianna Huffington

40. John Maxwell: “Successful and unsuccessful people do not vary greatly in their abilities. They vary in their desires to reach their potential.”

41. “You know, as most entrepreneurs do, that a company is only as good its people. The hard part is actually building the team that will embody your company culture and propel you forward.” –Kathryn Minshew, The Muse

42. “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

43. “If your dream is a big dream, and if you want your life to work on the high level that you say you do, there’s no way around doing the work it takes to get you there.”– Joyce Chapman

44. “A dream does not become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination, and hard work.” —Colin Powell, US statesman and retired four-star general in the United States Army

45. “It’s not the tools you have faith in. Tools are just tools — they work or they don’t work. It’s the people you have faith in or not. –Steve Jobs

46. Maya Angelou: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

47. “So often people are working hard at the wrong thing. Working on the right thing is probably more important than working hard.” —Caterina Fake, co-founder of Flickr

48. George Herbert. “Do not wait; the time will never be ‘just right.’ Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.”

49. “The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.”

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

51. “Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit.” —Conrad Hilton, founder of the Hilton Hotels chain

52. “Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, you can achieve.” – Mary K. Ash

53. “All humans are entrepreneurs not because they should start companies but because the will to create is encoded in human DNA.” —Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn

54. “Some people dream of success, while other people get up every morning and make it happen.” —Wayne Huizenga, prolific US business person.

55. “Winners take time to relish their work, knowing that scaling the mountain is what makes the view from the top so exhilarating.” – Denis Waitley

56. “A new job is a fresh opportunity to try something new – get out there and make your mark starting with this very first day of work! Good luck!”

57. “If people like you, they’ll listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.” —Zig Ziglar, author, salesman, and motivational speaker

58. For me, becoming isn’t about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey doesn't end.

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

60. “Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.” —Bernice Johnson Reagon, song composer, and social activist

61. “If your work is becoming uninteresting, so are you. Work is an inanimate thing and can be made lively and interesting only by injecting yourself into it. Your job is only as big as you are.” – George C. Hubbs

62. “Best startups generally come from somebody needing to scratch an itch.” —Michael Arrington, founder and co-editor of TechCrunch

63. “Dreams can come true, but there is a secret. They’re realized through the magic of persistence, determination, commitment, passion, practice, focus and hard work. They happen a step at a time, manifested over years, not weeks.” – Elbert Hubbard

64. “I’m glad to see how young people are stepping up when it comes to safety. They are focused on safety rather than being told to be safe. It makes a difference when people own things.” – Scott Cam, The Block

65. “Being challenged in life is inevitable, being defeated is optional.” —Roger Crawford, public speaker, author, and certified tennis professional

66. “There’s nothing wrong with staying small. You can do big things with a small team.” —Jason Fried, 37signals founder and co-author of Rework

67. “When you find an idea that you just can’t stop thinking about, that’s probably a good one to pursue.” —Josh James, CEO and co-founder of Omniture

68. “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader.” —John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States

69. “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

70. “You don’t have to be pretty. You don’t owe prettiness to anyone. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked ‘female.'” – Erin McKean

71. “Culture makes people understand each other better. And if they understand each other better in their soul, it is easier to overcome the economic and political barriers. But first they have to understand that their neighbour is, in the end, just like them, with the same problems, the same questions.” – Paulo Coelho

72. Dreams don’t have to just be dreams. You can make it a reality; if you just keep pushing and keep trying, then eventually you'll reach your goal. And if that takes a few years, then that's great, but if it takes 10 or 20, then that's part of the process.

73. “If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarves, but if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.” –David Oglivy

74. “People want guidance, not rhetoric. They need to know what the plan of action is and how it will be implemented. They want to be given responsibility to help solve the problem and the authority to act on it.” ~Howard Schultz, Starbucks

75. “Feminism isn’t about making women strong. Women are already strong. It’s about changing the way the world perceives that strength.” – G.D. Anderson

76. “Don’t play games that you don’t understand, even if you see lots of other people making money from them.” —Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos

77. “When people are financially invested, they want a return. When people are emotionally invested, they want to contribute.” – Simon Sinek, Author

78. “Employees aren't just workers, they're the backbone of business and that makes them more important than the boss any day of the week. Good Employees = Good Business.” – Kilroy J. Oldster

79. “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” —Colin Powell, US statesman and retired four-star general in the United States Army

80. “When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened, or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back.” —Paulo Coelho, lyricist and novelist

81. “Are you bored with life? Then throw yourself into some work you believe in with all your heart, live for it, die for it, and you will find happiness that you had thought could never be yours.” – Dale Carnegie

82. “I have learned that as long as I hold fast to my beliefs and values – and follow my own moral compass – then the only expectations I need to live up to are my own.” – Michelle Obama

83. “Accept responsibility for your life. Know that it is you who will get you where you want to go, no one else.” —Les Brown, motivational speaker, author, and former politician

84. “The stars will never align, and the traffic lights of life will never all be green at the same time. The universe doesn’t conspire against you, but it doesn’t go out of its way to line up the pins either. Conditions are never perfect. ‘Someday’ is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. Pro and con lists are just as bad. If it’s important to you and you want to do it ‘eventually,’ just do it and correct course along the way.” —Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Work Week

85. “Teamwork is so important that it is virtually impossible for you to reach the heights of your capabilities or make the money that you want without becoming very good at it.”

86. You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

87. ”If you make the unconditional commitment to reach your most important goals, if the strength of your decision is sufficient, you will find the way and the power to achieve your goals.”

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

89. Jarod Kintz: “Wisdom equals knowledge plus courage. You have to not only know what to do and when to do it, but you have to also be brave enough to follow through.”

90. Ray Goforth: “There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world: those who are afraid to try and those who are afraid you will succeed.”

91. Shari R. Barr: “Expecting life to treat you well because you are a good person is like expecting an angry bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian.”

92. “If you’re interested in the living heart of what you do, focus on building things rather than talking about them.” —Ryan Freitas, co-founder of About.me

93. “An empowered organization is one in which individuals have the knowledge, skill, desire, and opportunity to personally succeed in a way that leads to collective organizational success.” –Stephen Covey

94. “Safety is not an intellectual exercise to keep us in work. It is a matter of life and death. It is the sum of our contributions to safety management that determines whether the people we work with live or die.” – Sir Brian Appleton, Technical Adviser to the Enquiry on Piper Alpha Accident

95. “The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old but on building the new.” —Socrates, father of Western philosophy

96. “It is not where you start, but how hard you work and how much courage you bring as you go that makes your career successful. With each new step leaps faith, hope and success!”

97. “Today marks a new beginning for me. I’m excited for all this first day of work will bring, and I’m ready to take on any challenge that comes my way!”

98. Swami Vivekananda: “Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life-think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.”

99. “Fearlessness is like a muscle. I know from my own life that the more I exercise it the more natural it becomes to not let my fears run me.” —Arianna Huffington, co-founder of The Huffington Post and founder of Thrive Global

100. “When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.” – Audre Lord

101. “Our belief is that if you get the culture right, most of the other stuff, like great customer service, or building a great long-term brand or empowering passionate employees and customers, will happen on its own.” –Tony Hsieh, Zappos

102. “If you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money. But if you hire people who believe what you believe, they’ll work for you with blood and sweat and tears.” —Simon Sinek

103. “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

104. “My job as a leader is to make sure that everybody in the company has great opportunities and that they feel they’re having meaningful impact to the good of the society. ~Larry Page, Google

105. “Don’t be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves.” – William Patten

106. “Great teams do not hold back with one another. They are unafraid to air their dirty laundry. They admit their mistakes, their weaknesses and their concerns without fear of reprisal.”

107. “Don’t worry about people stealing your design work. Worry about the day they stop.” —Jeffrey Zeldman, entrepreneur and web designer

108. “In technology, it’s about the people–getting the best people, retaining them, nurturing a creative environment, and helping to find a way to innovate.” ~Marissa Mayer, Yahoo

109. “Never stop investing. Never stop improving. Never stop doing something new. Make it your goal to be better each and every day, in some small way. Remember the Japanese concept of Kaizen. Small daily improvements eventually result in huge advantages.” ~Bob Parsons

110. “I found that ultimately if you truly pour your heart into what you believe in — even if it makes you vulnerable — amazing things can and will happen.” – Emma Watson

111. “On your first day of work, you have every right to be scared but take courage in the knowledge that you are prepared and can do this job! Best wishes for success.”

112. “I got lucky because I never gave up the search. Are you quitting too soon? Or are you willing to pursue luck with a vengeance?” —Jill Konrath, speaker, author and thought leader

113. “You’re not just starting a job today, you’re starting an exciting career that will open new doors of opportunity for you and allow you to fulfill your dreams!”

114. I'm going to be gone one day, and I have to accept that tomorrow isn't promised. Am I OK with how I’m living today? It's the only thing I can help. If I didn't have another one, what have I done with all my todays? Am I doing a good job?

115. “As women, we have to start appreciating our own worth and each other’s worth. Seek out strong women to befriend, to align yourself with, to learn from, to collaborate with, to be inspired by, to support, and enlightened by.” – Madonna

116. “Your first job marks the beginning of a journey that holds many successes and lessons, so treat it with the respect it deserves and enjoy each part of it.”

117. We’ve been making our own opportunities, and as you prove your worth and value to people, they can’t put you in a box. You hustle it into happening, right?

118. “First get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats, and then they can figure out where to drive it.” –Jim Collins, Good to Great

119. “The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” —Winston Churchill, prime minister of Great Britain during World War II

120. “Starting a new job can be daunting, but it is also filled with potential for something great. Take the leap of faith and do your best to make yourself proud.”

121. “The fastest way to change yourself is to hang out with people who are already the way you want to be.” —Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn

122. “Small actions are at the heart of kaizen. By taking steps so tiny that they seem trivial or even laughable, you’ll sail calmly past obstacles that have defeated you before. Slowly – but painlessly! – you’ll cultivate an appetite for continued success and lay down a permanent new route to change.” ~Robert D. Maurer

123. “To all the little girls who are watching, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams.” – Hillary Clinton

124. “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, founder, and CEO of Amazon

125. “Be undeniably good. No marketing effort or social media buzzword can be a substitute for that.” —Anthony Volodkin, founder of Hype Machine

126. When we let fear be our master, we cannot be happy and free as a butterfly. But when we choose to trust the journey and embrace love and joy, we are free to fly.

127. “I’m learning how to drown out the constant noise that is such an inseparable part of my life. I don’t have to prove anything to anyone. I only have to follow my heart and concentrate on what I want to say to the world. I run my world.” – Beyoncé

128. Theodore Roosevelt: “The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.”

129. “Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.” —Golda Meir, fourth Prime Minister of Israel

130. “Success, they taught me, is built on the foundation of courage, hard-work and individual responsibility. Despite what some would have us believe, success is not built on resentment and fears.” – Susana Martinez

131. “There should be no boundaries to human endeavor. We are all different. However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. While there’s life, there is hope.” —Stephen Hawking, The Theory of Everything

132. “Of course I am not worried about intimidating men. The type of man who will be intimidated by me is exactly the type of man I have no interest in.” – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

133. “When I’m old and dying, I plan to look back on my life and say, ‘Wow, that was an adventure,’ not, ‘Wow, I sure felt safe.’” —Tom Preston-Werner, co-founder of Github

134. “20 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 harbor. Catch the trade wind in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” -Mark Twain.

135. Ronald Reagan: “The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets people to do the greatest things.”

136. “It’s more effective to do something valuable than to hope a logo or name will say it for you.” —Jason Cohen, founder of Smartbear Software

137. “Find a truly original idea. It is the only way I will ever distinguish myself. It is the only way I will ever matter.” —John Nash, A Beautiful Mind

138. “Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.” —Earl Nightingale, radio speaker and author

139. “We believe that when the right talent meets the right opportunity in a company with the right philosophy, amazing transformation can happen.” –Reid Hoffman

140. “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.” —Steve Jobs, co-founder, chairman and CEO of Apple Inc.

141. “The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” –Theodore Roosevelt

142. Be courageous. Challenge orthodoxy. Stand up for what you believe in. When you are in your rocking chair talking to your grandchildren many years from now, be sure you have a good story to tell.

143. “We need women at all levels, including the top, to change the dynamic, reshape the conversation, to make sure women’s voices are heard and heeded, not overlooked and ignored.” – Sheryl Sandberg

144. “If you can push through that feeling of being scared, that feeling of taking a risk, really amazing things can happen.” —Marissa Mayer, former president and CEO of Yahoo!

145. “People who succeed have momentum. The more they succeed, the more they want to succeed, and the more they find a way to succeed. Similarly, when someone is failing, the tendency is to get on a downward spiral that can even become a self-fulfilling prophecy.” —Tony Robbins, life and business strategist, and author

146. Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don't know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!

147. “Failure is so important. We speak about success all the time. It is the ability to resist failure or use failure that often leads to greater success. I’ve met people who don’t want to try for fear of failing.” —J.K. Rowling, novelist

148. “What do you need to start a business? Three simple things: know your product better than anyone, know your customer, and have a burning desire to succeed.” —Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy’s

149. “The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individuals in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.”

150. Steve Jobs: “You have to be burning with an idea, or a problem, or a wrong that you want to right. If you’re not passionate enough from the start, you’ll never stick it out.”

151. I just want you to know that if you are out there and you are being really hard on yourself right now for something that has happened ... it's normal. That is what is going to happen to you in life. No one gets through unscathed. We are all going to have a few scratches on us. Please be kind to yourselves and stand up for yourself, please.

152. ”Nobody is gonna hit as hard as life, but it ain’t how hard you can hit. It’s how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. It’s how much you can take, and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done.” —Rocky, Rocky Balboa

153. “Every moment could be a turning point if only we choose to think outside our comfort zone on our first day of work – nothing is ever exactly as it appears.”

154. “If you define yourself by how you differ from the competition, you’re probably in trouble.” —Omar Hamoui, co-founder of AdMob

155. “First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won't. Habit is persistence in practice.” ―Octavia Butler

156. “True leadership stems from individuality that is honestly and sometimes imperfectly expressed… Leaders should strive for authenticity over perfection.” -Sheryl Sandberg.

157. We have to be better. We have to love more, hate less. We've gotta listen more and talk less. We've gotta know that this is everybody's responsibility.

158. “Women have to harness their power—it’s absolutely true. It’s just learning not to take the first no. And if you can’t go straight ahead, you go around the corner.” – Cher

159. “Get a mentor in the applicable field if you’re at all unsure of what you’re looking for.” —Kyle Bragger, founder of Forrst and co-founder of Exposure

160. “You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.”

161. “We think, mistakenly, that success is the result of the amount of time we put in at work, instead of the quality of time we put in.” – Ariana Huffington

162. “It doesn’t matter how many times you fail. It doesn’t matter how many times you almost get it right. No one is going to know or care about your failures, and neither should you. All you have to do is learn from them and those around you, because all that matters in business is that you get it right once. Then everyone can tell you how lucky you are.” —Mark Cuban, entrepreneur, owner of Landmark Theaters and Chairman of AXS TV

163. At the end of the day, whether or not those people are comfortable with how you're living your life doesn't matter. What matters is whether you're comfortable with it.

164. “When I meet successful people, I ask about 100 questions to find out who they attribute their success to. It is usually the same: persistence, hard work and hiring good people.”– Kiana To

165. “The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.” – Barrack Obama

166. “You know, as most entrepreneurs do, that a company is only as good as its people. The hard part is actually building the team that will embody your company culture and propel you forward.” ~Kathryn Minshew, The Muse

167. Seth Godin: “In a battle between two ideas, the best one doesn’t necessarily win. No, the idea that wins is the one with the most fearless heretic behind it.”

168. “No more romanticizing about how cool it is to be an entrepreneur. It’s a struggle to save your company’s life—and your own skin—every day of the week.” —Spencer Fry, co-founder of CarbonMade

169. “My job as a leader is to make sure that everybody in the company has great opportunities and they feel they are having meaningful impact to the good of society.” — Larry Page, Google

170. “The future of the safety movement is not so much dependent upon the invention of safety devices as on the improvement of methods of educating people to the ideal of caution and safety.”

171. “Luck? I don't know anything about luck. I've never banked on it and I'm afraid of people who do. Luck to me is something else: Hard work—and realizing what is opportunity and what isn't.” – Lucille Ball

172. “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

173. “When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.” – Helen Keller

174. “Plenty of men can do good work for a spurt and with immediate promotion in mind, but for promotion you want a man in whom good work has become a habit.” – Henry L. Doherty

175. ”Strategy is all about commitment. If what you're doing isn't irrevocable, then you don't have a strategy—because anyone can do it...I've always wanted to treat life like I was an invading army and there was no turning back."

176. Klaus Balkenhol: “There is a difference between being a leader and being a boss. Both are based on authority. A boss demands blind obedience; a leader earns his authority through understanding and trust.”

177. “The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.” —Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft

178. Marcus Aurelius: “Think of what you have rather than of what you lack. Of the things you have, select the best and then reflect how eagerly you would have sought them if you did not have them.”

179. Herbert Bayard Swope: “I cannot give you a formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is: try to please everybody.”

180. “A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be.” – Rosalynn Carter (Former US First Lady)

181. “The Toyota style is not to create results by working hard. It is a system that says there is no limit to people’s creativity. People don’t go to Toyota to ‘work’ they go there to ‘think’.” ~Taiichi Ohno

182. Henry David Thoreau: “If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. But do not care to convince him. Men will believe what they see. Let them see.”

183. “Don’t ever let somebody tell you you can’t do something, not even me. All right? You dream, you gotta protect it. People can’t do something themselves, they wanna tell you you can’t do it. If you want something, go get it. Period.” —Chris Gardner, The Pursuit of Happyness

184. “If the decisions you make about where you invest your blood, sweat, and tears are not consistent with the person you aspire to be, you’ll never become that person.” ―Clayton M. Christensen

185. “We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back. We call upon our sisters around the world to be brave – to embrace the strength within themselves and realize their full potential. ” – Malala Yousafzai

186. “Businesses often forget about the culture and ultimately they suffer for it, because they cannot deliver good service from unhappy employees.” –Tony Hsieh, Zappos

187. “Embrace what you don’t know, especially in the beginning, because what you don’t know can become your greatest asset. It ensures that you will absolutely be doing things different from everybody else.” —Sara Blakely, founder of SPANX

188. “If you’re one of those people who has that little voice in the back of her mind saying, ‘Maybe I could do [fill in the blank],’ don’t tell it to be quiet. Give it a little room to grow, and try to find an environment it can grow in.” – Reese Witherspoon

189. “In this lifetime, you don’t have to prove nothing to nobody, except yourself. And after what you’ve gone through, if you haven’t done that by now, it ain’t gonna never happen.” —Fortune, Rudy

190. I want to be in the arena. I want to be brave with my life. And when we make the choice to dare greatly, we sign up to get our asses kicked. We can choose courage or we can choose comfort, but we can't have both. Not at the same time.

191. “The accident is your training. Life is a choice. You can choose to be a victim or anything else you’d like to be.” —Socrates, Peaceful Warrior

192. Barrie Davenport: “Low self-confidence isn’t a life sentence. Self-confidence can be learned, practiced, and mastered-just like any other skill. Once you master it, everything in your life will change for the better.”

193. “The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.” – Vince Lombardi

194. “I found that the men and women who got to the top were those who did the jobs they had in hand, with everything they had of energy and enthusiasm and hard work.” – Harry S. Truman

195. “I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.” —G. K. Chesterton, writer, poet, and philosopher

196. “You don’t need to know the whole alphabet of Safety. The a, b, c of it will save you if you follow it: Always Be Careful.” – Colorado School of Mines Magazine

197. “Your ability to discipline yourself to set clear goals, and then to work toward them every day, will do more to guarantee your success than any other single factor.” – Brian Tracy

198. Our lives are stories in which we write, direct and star in the leading role. Some chapters are happy while others bring lessons to learn, but we always have the power to be the heroes of our own adventures.

199. “Your employees come first. And if you treat your employees right, guess what? Your customers come back, and that makes your shareholders happy. Start with employees and the rest follows from that.” – Herb Kelleher

200. Booker T. Washington: “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.”

201. “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” —Steve Jobs, co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc.

202. “Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo Da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.” —H. Jackson Brown Jr., US author

203. “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” —Martin Luther King, Jr., leader of the civil rights movement

204. “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” —Helen Keller, US author, political activist, and lecturer

205. “I’ve interviewed and portrayed people who’ve withstood some of the ugliest things life can throw at you, but the one quality all of them seem to share is an ability to maintain hope for a brighter morning, even during our darkest nights.” – Oprah Winfrey

206. “The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It’s as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today.” -Nolan Bushnell.

207. “Virtually every company will be going out and empowering their workers with a certain set of tools, and the big difference in how much value is received from that will be how much the company steps back and really thinks through their business processes, thinking through how their business can change, how their project management, their customer feedback, their planning cycles can be quite different than they ever were before.” –Bill Gates

208. ”You have to know one big thing and stick with it. The leaders who had one very big idea and one very big commitment. This permitted them to create something. Those are the ones who leave a legacy.”

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

210. You make a choice: continue living your life feeling muddled in this abyss of self-misunderstanding, or you find your identity independent of it. You draw your own box.

211. “The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won’t. It’s whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere.” —Barack Obama, 44th president of the United States

212. Orrin Woodward: “Average leaders raise the bar on themselves; good leaders raise the bar for others; great leaders inspire others to raise their own bar.”

213. “Today’s the beginning of the rest of your career – seize this opportunity to be successful and let it fuel you on every day ahead! Best wishes for today and beyond.”

214. “Never be ashamed of what you feel. You have the right to feel any emotion that you want, and to do what makes you happy. That’s my life motto.” – Demi Lovato

215. Find out who you are and be that person. That's what your soul was put on this earth to be. Find that truth, live that truth, and everything else will come.

216. “Do not let the memories of your past limit the potential of your future. There are no limits to what you can achieve on your journey through life, except in your mind.” ―Roy T. Bennett, author

217. “Do more than is required. What is the distance between someone who achieves their goals consistently and those who spend their lives and careers merely following? The extra mile.” – Gary Ryan Blair

218. “Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple, really: Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t at all. You can be discouraged by failure or you can learn from it, so go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because remember, that’s where you will find success.” —Thomas J. Watson, former president of IBM, political figure, and philanthropist

219. “Safety is not an intellectual exercise to keep us in work. It is a matter of our contributions to safety management that determines whether the people we work with live or die.”

220. “Step out of the history that is holding you back. Step into the new story you are willing to create.” —Oprah Winfrey, media proprietor

221. “If you are working on something that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.” —Steve Jobs, co-founder, chairman and CEO of Apple Inc.

222. “Some people think that you have to be the loudest voice in the room to make a difference. That is just not true. Often, the best thing we can do is turn down the volume. When the sound is quieter, you can actually hear what someone else is saying. And that can make a world of difference.” – Nikki Haley

223. Jerry Porras: “When you put together deep knowledge about a subject that intensely matters to you, charisma happens. You gain courage to share your passion, and when you do that, folks follow.”

224. Ralph Moody: “Always remember, Son, the best boss is the one who bosses the least. Whether it’s cattle, or horses, or men, the least government is the best government.”

225. “My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition.” – Indira Gandhi

226. “Throw yourself into some work you believe in with all you heart, live for it, die for it, and you will find happiness that you had thought could never be yours.”– Dale Carnegie

227. If you make your internal life a priority, then everything else you need on the outside will be given to you and it will be extremely clear what the next step is.

228. “Don’t worry about funding if you don’t need it. Today, it’s cheaper to start a business than ever.” —Noah Everett, founder of Twitpic

229. Rosalynn Carter: “A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go but ought to be.”

230. “Human beings have an innate inner drive to be autonomous, self-determined, and connected to one another. And when that drive is liberated, people achieve more and live richer lives.” —Daniel Pink, author

231. “The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and starting on the first one.” ~Mark Twain

232. “If you can’t fly, then run. If you can’t run, then walk. And, if you can’t walk, then crawl. But whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.” —Martin Luther King Jr., leader of the US civil rights movement

233. “It’s always exciting starting something new — and scary too; like skinny dipping in a frozen lake: it might feel good afterward but right now I’m jumping in with my eyes closed!”

234. “The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.” – M. Scott Peck

235. “The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullshit story you keep telling yourself as to why you can’t achieve it.” —Jordan Belfort, The Wolf of the Wall Street

236. “Someone, at some point, came up with this very bad idea that an ordinary individual couldn’t make a difference in the world. I think that’s just a horrible thing.” — John Skoll

237. “Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice, and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.” —Pelé, professional footballer

238. “Don’t take too much advice. Most people who have a lot of advice to give—with a few exceptions—generalize whatever they did. Don’t over-analyze everything. I myself have been guilty of over-thinking problems. Just build things and find out if they work.” —Ben Silbermann, founder of Pinterest

239. “Let me tell you the secret that has led to my goal. My strength lies solely on my tenacity.” —Louis Pasteur, biologist, microbiologist and chemist

240. The moral of my story is the sun always comes out after the storm. Being optimistic and surrounding yourself with positive loving people is for me, living life on the sunny side of the street.

241. Michael Jordan: “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.”

242. ”Desire is the key to motivation, but it's determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal—a commitment to excellence—that will enable you to attain the success you seek.”

243. “You do what you can for as long as you can, and when you finally can’t, you do the next best thing. You back up but you don’t give up.” ―Chuck Yeager, former US Air Force officer

244. “Research indicates that workers have three prime needs: interesting work, recognition for doing a good job, and being let in on things that are going on in the company.” – Zig Ziglar

245. “Timing, perseverance, and 10 years of trying will eventually make you look like an overnight success.” —Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter

246. People tell you the world looks a certain way. Parents tell you how to think. Schools tell you how to think. TV. Religion. And then at a certain point, if you're lucky, you realize you can make up your own mind. Nobody sets the rules but you. You can design your own life.

247. “If you don’t know, ask. Working with people is far better than working against them — always bring together all the people and information available to you!” – Aidan O’Shannessy, The Block Site Manager

248. “Ask the people who work in the warehouse to start thinking about safety, and on a regular, periodic basis, review and discuss how they might work better. I encourage people to put a meeting on a calendar, once a month, at least to come together for an hour or 90 minutes to discuss ideas for improvement.”

249. “Developing a good work ethic is key. Apply yourself at whatever you do, whether you’re a janitor or taking your first summer job because that work ethic will be reflected in everything you do in life.” – Tyler Perry

250. “With each generation, women’s ability to live the lives they choose reaches a place their grandmothers never thought possible. But that doesn’t mean everything is perfect or that our work is finished.” – Cathy McMorris Rodgers

251. “You will never know how much you can achieve until you take that first step of trying something new. Have faith in your own abilities and take that first step bravely today!”

252. “Kaizen and innovation are the two major strategies people use to create change. Where innovation demands shocking and radical reform, all kaizen asks is that you take small, comfortable steps toward improvement.” ~Robert D. Maurer

253. “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six 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, former professional basketball player

254. “Money is like gasoline during a road trip. You don’t want to run out of gas on your trip, but you’re not doing a tour of gas stations.” —Tim O’Reilly, founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media

255. “There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world: those who are afraid to try and those who are afraid you will succeed.” —Ray Goforth, director of strategy and partnerships at Spredfast

256. “Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do.” – Pope John XXIII

257. “Don’t worry about failures, worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try.” —Jack Canfield, author, motivational speaker, corporate trainer, and entrepreneur

258. “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.”

259. “Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.”

260. “If you want to run for Prime Minister, you can. If you don’t, that’s wonderful, too. Shave your armpits, don’t shave them, wear flats one day, heels the next. These things are so irrelevant and surface to what it is all really about, and I wish people wouldn’t get caught up in that. We want to empower women to do exactly what they want, to be true to themselves, to have the opportunities to develop. Women should feel free.” – Emma Watson

261. “Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is a quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow." —Mary Anne Radmacher

262. “People want guidance, not rhetoric; they need to know what the plan of action is and how it will be implemented. They want to be given responsibility to help solve the problem and the authority to act on it.” –Howard Schultz, Starbucks

263. “My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style” – Maya Angelou

264. “Always think outside the box and embrace opportunities that appear, wherever they might be.” —Lakshmi Mittal, chairman & CEO of ArcelorMittal

265. “The thing is, continuity of strategic direction and continuous improvement in how you do things are absolutely consistent with each other. In fact, they’re mutually reinforcing.” ~Michael Porter

266. “How employees manage health and safety in the workplace or how labor rights are respected are issues important for employees and investors alike. Companies can, and should, do good right alongside doing well.”

267. “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.” – Amelia Earhart

268. “However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.” —Stephen Hawking, English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

269. “I think that my biggest attribute to any success that I have had is hard work. There really is no substitute for working hard.” – Maria Bartiromo

270. “Connect the dots between individual roles and the goals of the organization. When people see that connection, they get a lot of energy out of work. They feel the importance, dignity and meaning in their job.” – Scott and Kelly Blanchard

271. “All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.” – Calvin Coolidge

272. “Attitude is a choice. Happiness is a choice. Optimism is a choice. Kindness is a choice. Giving is a choice. Respect is a choice. Whatever choice you make makes you. Choose wisely.” – Roy T. Bennett

273. “The greatest responsibility of a leader is to give the people in your span of care grounded sense of hope for the future” – Bob Chapman, Made Extraordinary Summit