Inspirational quotes for your new year
Whether looking for motivation in your personal or professional life, one can find inspiration in the volumes of words spoken and written by those that have come before us, no matter your goals for the coming year. As we wrap up this year and anticipate success and prosperity in the next, and we set our goals for the coming year, may we all commit to turning the corner, not only economically, but through our attitudes.
To see inspirational quotes by subject, click any of the links below, or continue to scroll to view the entire collection:
- 12 quotes to inspire success in your business
- 21 quotes to inspire the achievement of your goals
- 10 inspirational quotes for leaders of any industry
- 9 inspirational quotes depicted typographically
- Succeed by following your passion: 10 inspirational quotes
- 19 inspirational quotes on the art of negotiation
- 11 inspirational quotes: getting past professional adversity
- 25 motivational quotes to kick off another year
“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” – Henry Ford
“Every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust.” – Zig Ziglar
“All lasting business is built on friendship.” – Alfred A. Montapert
“A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.” – Henry Ford
“A project is complete when it starts working for you, rather than you working for it.” – Scott Allen
“Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.” – Peter F. Drucker
“In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words: people, product and profits. Unless you’ve got a good team, you can’t do much with the other two.” – Lee Iacocca
“A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.” – Michael Leboeuf
“Do what you love to do and give it your very best. Whether it’s business or baseball, or the theater, or any field. If you don’t love what you’re doing and you can’t give it your best, get out of it. Life is too short. You’ll be an old man before you know it.” – Al Lopez
“It is difficult, but not impossible, to conduct strictly honest business.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.” – Jack Welch
“I do not believe a man can ever leave his business. He ought to think of it by day and dream of it by night.” – Henry Ford
“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.” – Albert Einstein
“What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Difficulties increase the nearer we approach the goal.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reach, don’t adjust the goals; adjust the action steps.” – Confucius
“Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
“The more intensely we feel about an idea or a goal, the more assuredly the idea, buried deep in our subconscious, will direct us along the path to its fulfillment.” – Earl Nightingale
“Not every end is the goal. The end of a melody is not its goal, and yet if the melody has not reached its end, it has not reached its goal.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
“If you want to reach a goal, you must ‘see the reaching’ in your own mind before you actually arrive at your goal.” – Zig Ziglar
“You control your future, your destiny. What you think about comes about. By recording your dreams and goals on paper, you set in motion the process of becoming the person you most want to be. Put your future in good hands – your own.” – Mark Victor Hansen
“Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.” – Anthony Robbins
“A person should set his goals as early as he can and devote all his energy and talent to getting there. With enough effort, he may achieve it. Or he may find something that is even more rewarding. But in the end, no matter what the outcome, he will know he has been alive.” – Walt Disney
“Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.” – Stephen A. Brennan
“People with goals succeed because they know where they’re going.” – Earl Nightingale
“All who have accomplished great things have had a great aim, have fixed their gaze on a goal which was high, one which sometimes seemed impossible.” – Orison Swett Marden
“A goal without a plan is just a wish.” – Larry Elder
“A goal is not always meant to be reached. It often serves simply as something to aim at.” – Bruce Lee
“Goals provide the energy source that powers our lives. One of the best ways we can get the most from the energy we have is to focus it. That is what goals can do for us; concentrate our energy.” – Denis Waitley
“You must take action now that will move you towards your goals. Develop a sense of urgency in your life.” – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.” – Jim Rohn
“Your ability to communicate is an important tool in your pursuit of your goals, whether it is with your family, your co-workers, or your clients and customers.” – Les Brown
“We are built to conquer environment, solve problems, achieve goals, and we find no real satisfaction or happiness in life without obstacles to conquer and goals to achieve.” – Maxwell Maltz
“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.” – Theodore Roosevelt
“High sentiments always win in the end. The leaders who offer blood, toil, tears and sweat always get more out of their followers than those who offer safety and a good time. When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.” – George Orwell
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, concerned citizens can change world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” – John Quincy Adams
“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
“When the effective leader is finished with his work, the people say it happened naturally.” – Lao Tzu
“No man can stand on top because he is put there.” – H. H. Vreeland
“Leaders who win the respect of others are the ones who deliver more than they promise, not the ones who promise more than they can deliver.”- Mark A. Clement
“What chance gathers, she easily scatters. A great person attracts great people and knows how to hold them together.” – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
“A leader is a dealer in hope.” – Napoleon Bonaparte
“One of the things that may get in the way of people … is that they’re not in touch with their passion. If you’re passionate about what it is you do, then you’re going to be looking for everything you can to get better at it.” – Jack Canfield
“If you want to be successful in a particular field or endeavor, I think perseverance is one of the key qualities. It’s very important that you find something that you care about, that you have a deep passion for, because you’re going to have to devote a lot of your life to it.” – George Lucas
“Chase your passion, not your pension.” – Denis Waitley
“Never follow your dreams. Follow your effort. It’s not about what you can dream of. That’s easy. It’s about whether or not it’s important enough to you to do the work to be ready to be successful in that business.” – Mark Cuban
“There is no greatness without passion to be great, whether it’s the aspiration of an athlete or an artist, a scientist, a parent, or a businessperson.” – Anthony Robbins
“I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he had imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” – Henry David Thoreau
“Follow your passions, believe in karma, and you won’t have to chase your dreams, they will come to you.” – Randy Pausch
“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic, and power in it.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“By recording your dreams and goals on paper, you set in motion the process of becoming the person you most want to be. Put your future in good hands – your own.” – Mark Victor
“A strong passion for any object will ensure success, for the desire of the end will point out the means.” – William Hazlitt
“During a negotiation, it would be wise not to take anything personally. If you leave personalities out of it, you will be able to see opportunities more objectively.” – Brian Koslow
“Negotiation in the classic diplomatic sense assumes parties more anxious to agree than to disagree.” – Dean Acheson
“The most difficult thing in any negotiation, almost, is making sure that you strip it of the emotion and deal with the facts.” – Howard Baker
“This is a classic negotiation technique. It’s a gentle, soft indication of your disapproval and a great way to keep negotiating. Count to 10. By then, the other person usually will start talking and may very well make a higher offer.” – Bill Coleman
“Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.” – John F. Kennedy
“Don’t bargain yourself down before you get to the table.” – Carol Frohlinger
“He who has learned to disagree without being disagreeable has discovered the most valuable secret of a diplomat.” – Robert Estabrook
“You must never try to make all the money that’s in a deal. Let the other fellow make some money too, because if you have a reputation for always making all the money, you won’t have many deals.” – J. Paul Getty
“The most important trip you may take in life is meeting people half way.” – Henry Boyle
“The worst thing you can say is ‘I want $X for this job,’ leaving no opening for negotiation by the other side. Better language is ‘I hope to earn between $X and $X.’ That gives the other party more flexibility.” – Bill Coleman
“If you come to a negotiation table saying you have the final truth, that you know nothing but the truth and that is final, you will get nothing.” – Harri Holkeri
“If you are planning on doing business with someone again, don’t be too tough in the negotiations. If you’re going to skin a cat, don’t keep it as a house cat.” – Marvin Levin
“Never forget the power of silence, that massively disconcerting pause which goes on and on and may last induce an opponent to babble and backtrack nervously.” – Lance Morrow
“The single and most dangerous word to be spoken in business is no. The second most dangerous word is yes. It is possible to avoid saying either.” – Lois Wyse
“A negotiator should observe everything. You must be part Sherlock Holmes, part Sigmund Freud.” – Victor Kiam
“Diplomacy is the art of letting someone else have your way.” – Sir David Frost
“Anger can be an effective negotiating tool, but only as a calculated act, never as a reaction.” – Mark McCormack
“It’s a well-known proposition that you know who’s going to win a negotiation; it’s he who pauses the longest.” – Robert Court
“Place a higher priority on discovering what a win looks like for the other person.” – Harvey Robbins
“The truth is, unless you let go…unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize the situation is over, you cannot move forward.” – Steve Maraboli
“Whenever you make a mistake or get knocked down by life, don’t look back at it too long. Mistakes are life’s way of teaching you. Your capacity for occasional blunders is inseparable from your capacity to reach your goals. No one wins them all, and your failures, when they happen, are just part of your growth. Shake off your blunders. How will you know your limits without an occasional failure? Never quit. Your turn will come.” – Og Mandino
“There is no failure except no longer trying.” – Elbert Hubbard
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas Edison
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill
“You must make a decision that you are going to move on. It won’t happen automatically. You will have to rise up and say, ‘I don’t care how hard this is, I don’t care how disappointed I am, I’m not going to let this get the best of me. I’m moving on with my life.” – Joel Osteen
“Only as high as I reach can I grow, only as far as I seek can I go, only as deep as I look can I see, only as much as I dream can I be.” – Karen Ravn
“To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.” – Anatole France
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill
“Reach high, for the stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.” – Pamela Vaull Starr
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” – T.S. Eliot
“Goals are dreams with deadlines.” – Diana Scharf Hunt
“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” – Andre Gide
“Crystallize your goals. Make a plan for achieving them and set yourself a deadline. Then, with supreme confidence, determination and disregard for obstacles and other people’s criticisms, carry out your plan.” – Paul J. Meyer
“Goals are a means to an end, not the ultimate purpose of our lives. They are simply a tool to concentrate our focus and move us in a direction. The only reason we really pursue goals is to cause ourselves to expand and grow. Achieving goals by themselves will never make us happy in the long term; it’s who you become, as you overcome the obstacles necessary to achieve your goals, that can give you the deepest of most long-lasting sense of fulfillment.” – Anthony Robbins
“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” – C.S. Lewis
“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
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.” – Zig Ziglar
“Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be.” – George Sheehan
“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language and next year’s words await another voice.” – T.S. Eliot
“Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.” – Benjamin Franklin
“Today’s patience can transform yesterday’s discouragements into tomorrow’s discoveries. Today’s purposes can turn yesterday’s defeats into tomorrow’s determination.” – William Arthur Ward
“Do not lose hold of your dreams or aspirations. For if you do, you may still exist but you have ceased to live.” – Henry David Thoreau
“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.” – Henry David Thoreau
“To dream anything that you want to dream. That’s the beauty of the human mind. To do anything that you want to do. That is the strength of the human will. To trust yourself to test your limits. That is the courage to succeed.” – Bernard Edmonds
“Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure.” – Benjamin Disraeli
“I do not think there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.” – John D. Rockefeller
“A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success.” – Elbert Hubbard
“Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.” – Marie Curie
“Life is a challenge, meet it! Life is a dream, realize it! Life is a game, play it! Life is love, enjoy it!” – Sri Sathya Sai Baba
