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230+ Inspirational Entrepreneur Quotes for digital entrepreneurs

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230+ Inspirational Entrepreneur Quotes for digital entrepreneurs

The rapid growth of the internet has led to an explosion of ways that people can make money online. Many people are now earning a decent living as bloggers, writers, YouTubers, digital marketers, social media influencers, startup founders, or e-commerce store owners.

Online businesses come with many advantages and are less risky than traditional brick-and-mortar businesses. This makes it easier for people to start and run successful businesses.

Nevertheless, digital entrepreneurs still face many challenges that other traditional entrepreneurs face.

If you are a digital entrepreneur or intend to start an online business soon, this article is for you. You will learn through the words of some of the most successful people.

The 230+ quotes in this article will cover many of the situations and challenges you are likely to encounter as you run your business. These words of inspiration and comfort will guide you as you build your business.

Some of the topics that these quotes will cover include:

  • How you can follow your passion the right way.
  • How you can deal with the challenges of running a business.
  • How to be more productive in your work.

1. Quotes About Following Your Passion

Are you spending your entire life building someone else’s dreams? If you are not fulfilled doing what you are currently doing, perhaps it is time to change course and find what will bring you joy.

The following quotes will inspire you to get a job or start a business that will enable you to do what you love while you still have the time and energy.

1. This is the real secret of life – to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play. – Alan Watts, The Real Secret of Life

2. Draw the art you want to see, start the business you want to run, play the music you want to hear, write the books you want to read, build the products you want to use- do the work you want to see done. –  Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist

3. Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from. – Seth Godin, Tribes

Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs – Farrah Gray

4. 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, Stanford Commencement address, 2005

5. Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. – Theodore Roosevelt, State Agricultural Association Address, 1903

6. To labor in the arts for any reason other than love is prostitution. –  Steven PressfieldThe War of Art

7. Put yourself where your strengths can produce results. – Peter F. Drucker, Managing Oneself

8. Know yourself. Choose the right medium, choose the right topic, create awesome content, and you can make a lot of money being happy. –  Gary Vaynerchuk, Crush It!

9. Don’t let making a living prevent you from making a life. – John Wooden, Wooden

10. A man’s true delight is to do the things he was made for. – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Can you really make a living doing things you are passionate about?

The growth of the internet has enabled many people to create businesses online as bloggers, YouTubers, digital marketers, e-commerce store owners or social media influencers.

If you want to make a living on your own terms, doing what you enjoy, it is worth exploring the opportunities that are found online.

When you look at income reports from bloggers, for example, you see concrete evidence of ordinary people making a full-time income from their passion for foodtravelparenting, or crafts.

For more, readHow much money can bloggers realistically make?

2. Quotes To Motivate You to Make Money

Money is a big reason why continue working in jobs we hate. To successfully follow your dreams, you need to be creative about how you are going to earn money without letting it control you. It is possible to do both and there are many examples of people who have successfully done so.

The following quotes will inspire you on your journey to make money doing what you love.

1. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art. – Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

2. Like Warren, I had a considerable passion to get rich. Not because I wanted Ferraris -I wanted the independence. I desperately wanted it. – Charlie Munger talking about Warren Buffet in Damn Right!

3. It should feel genuinely good to earn income from your blog- you should be driven by a healthy ambition to succeed. If your blog provides genuine value, you fully deserve to earn income from it. – Steve Pavlina, How to Make Money from Your Blog, 2006

4. Thinking first of money instead of work brings on fear of failure and this fear blocks every avenue of business -it makes a man afraid of competition, of changing his methods, or of doing anything which might change his condition. – Henry Ford, My Life and Work

5. Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. -Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address 1933

6. You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead pursue the things you love doing and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off of you. – Maya AngelouFacebook Post, June 2013

7. Business must be run at a profit, else it will die. But when any one attempts to run a business solely for profit and thinks not at all of the service to the community, then also the business must die, for it no longer has a reason for existence. – Henry Ford, Today and Tomorrow

Money often costs too much – Ralph Waldo Emerson

8. I neither wish nor intend to amass a personal fortune. Money- or rather the lack of it to carry out my ideas – may worry me, but it does not excite me. Ideas excite me. – Walt Disney, The Quotable Disney

9. It is good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it’s good too, to check up once in a while and make sure you haven’t lost the things money can’t buy. – George Horace Lorimer, Old Gorgon Graham

10. You reach a point where you don’t work for money. – Walt Disney, The Quotable Disney

When you run a business, especially one based on your passions, you may be tempted to neglect the ‘making money’ part of your business. This attitude, over time, can strangle your business. You can still make money from your passion without compromising on your values and desires.

3. Procrastination Quotes to Get You to Take Action

Procrastination is a thief of dreams. It robs you of the time and energy required to go after what you yearn for. The only way to beat procrastination is to get started today. If you hesitate, time will not wait for you.

The following quotes will help you deal with procrastination and inspire you to get started on your dreams.

1. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. –  H. Jackson Brown Jr., P.S. I Love You

2. My advice is, never do to-morrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time. – Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

3. The most pernicious aspect of procrastination is that it can become a habit. We don’t just put off our lives today; we put them off till our deathbed. – Steven PressfieldThe War of Art

4. Nothing…will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must be first overcome. -Samuel Johnson, The History of Rasselas (1759)

5. The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing. – Walt Disney, The Quotable Disney

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. – Anne Frank

6. To finish first you have to first finish. – Charlie Munger, quoted in Damn Right!

7. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step. -Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

8. The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones. – Confucius, The Analects

9. Ideas are worthless. Execution is everything. – Rand Fishkin, Lost and Founder

10. If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late. – Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn, 2017

4. Personal Growth Quotes for Self-Transformation

Who you decide to become is entirely up to you but it takes effort and dedication. If you don’t deliberately take control of that process, the circumstances of life will dictate where you end up. Don’t leave it up to chance.

The following quotes will inspire you to seek personal growth and become the person you want to be.

1. What you get by reaching your goals is not nearly as important as what you become by reaching them. – Zig Ziglar, See You At The Top

2. Don’t just let your business or your job make something for you; let it make something of you. – Jim Rohn, Treasury of Quotes

3. You are essentially who you create yourself to be and all that occurs in your life is the result of your own making. – Stephen Richards, Think Your way to Success

4. The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be. – Nike Ad, 1999

5. If you don’t try to create the future you want, you must endure the future you get. – John C. Maxwell, The 15 Invaluable Laws Of Growth

No one can construct for you the bridge upon which precisely you must cross the stream of life, no one but you yourself alone. – Friedrich Nietzsche

6. As the physically weak man can make himself strong by careful and patient training, so the man of weak thoughts can make them strong by exercising himself in right thinking. – James Allen, As a Man Thinketh

7. You cannot dream yourself into a character: you must hammer and forge yourself into one. –  James Anthony Froude, The Nemesis of Faith

8. No one improves by accident. Personal growth doesn’t just happen on its own. And once you’re done with your formal education, you must take complete ownership of the growth process, because nobody else will do it for you. – John C. Maxwell, The 15 Invaluable Laws Of Growth

9. A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with -a man is what he makes of himself. – Alexander Graham Bell, How They Succeeded, 1901

10. What greater wealth is there than to own your life and to spend it on growing? Every living thing must grow. It can’t stand still. It must grow or perish. – Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Using your business to transform yourself

Given that you spend most of your waking hours working, your work will shape who you become. Is your work helping you become the person you want to be or is it hindering you? In any business that you run, you should explore how your business can help you become who you have always wanted to be.

For more, read: See how you can use a blogging business to transform your life

5. Insightful Quotes on Making Mistakes

Whenever you attempt to do something worthwhile, you are bound to make mistakes. Mistakes are part of the learning process and a valuable part of the growth process. The key is to learn from them and correct them. Do not let the fear of making mistakes rob you of the opportunity to make an impact.

The following quotes will give you insights on how to deal with making mistakes.

1. We make our discoveries through our mistakes: we watch one another’s success: and where there is freedom to experiment there is hope to improve. – Arthur Quiller-Couch, On The Art of Reading

2. Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better. – Maya AngelouTwitter, 2018

3. The fool strikes. The wise man smiles, and watches, and learns. Then strikes. – Joe Abercrombie, Half a King

4. The secret of being wrong isn’t to avoid being wrong. The secret is being willing to be wrong. The secret is realizing that wrong isn’t fatal. – Seth Godin, Tribes

The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything. – Theodore Roosevelt

5. You don’t learn to walk by following rules, you learn by doing and by falling over. – Richard Branson, Virgin.com

6. There is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly. – Theodore Roosevelt, Man in the Arena Speech, 1910

7. If you want to grow, you need to get over any fear you may have of making mistakes. – John C. Maxwell, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth

8. The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one. – Elbert Hubbard, The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard, 1927

9. Attention and activity lead to mistakes as well as to successes; but a life spent in making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. – George Bernard Shaw, The Doctor’s Dilemma, 1911

10. If you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something. –Neil Gaiman, Neil Gaiman Blog, 2020

6. Encouraging Quotes on Failure and Defeat

Facing failure can be hard especially if you have poured your heart and soul into something. However, failure can bring you immense benefits if you learn how to leverage it correctly. Failure is the gate through which you must pass on your way to success.

The following quotes will encourage you when dealing with failure and help you to bounce back.

1. Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently. – Henry Ford, My Life and Work

2. There is no failure except in no longer trying. – Elbert Hubbard, American Bible

3. There is no disgrace in honest failure; there is disgrace in fearing to fail. What is past is useful only as it suggests ways and means for progress. – Henry Ford, My Life and Work

4. I think failure is bad. I don’t think it’s good, but if something is important enough then you do it even though the risk of failure is high. – Elon Musk, CHM revolutionaries interview

5. In the struggle of life it is always possible to turn one kind of defeat into another kind of victory. – W. L. Sheldon, What to Believe

Failure is an event, not a person. Yesterday ended last night. – Zig Ziglar

6. The only time you fail is when you fall down and stay down. – Stephen Richards, Cosmic Ordering

7. My greatest teacher has been simply trying things … not to succeed, but to learn. In that context, there is no failure. – Brian Clark, Copyblogger

8. Winners quit fast, quit often, and quit without guilt. – Seth Godin, The Dip

9. You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you. – Walt Disney, The Quotable Walt Disney

10. No man is defeated without until he has first been defeated within. – Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living

11. It is good to have a failure while you’re young because it teaches you so much. – Walt Disney, The Quotable Walt Disney

12. Fail early, fail often, but always fail forward – John Maxwell, Failing Forward

How do you deal with failure and fear of failure as an entrepreneur?

In any business you run, you are likely to spend more time failing than succeeding so it is important to learn some strategies for dealing with failure. If you want some ideas on how to deal with failure, check this article out. It is written from the perspective of a blogging business but the lessons are applicable to any type of business.

7. Powerful Quotes on Learning and Self-Education

Success comes from taking the right action which in turn comes from having the right knowledge. It is unrealistic to expect to succeed when you do not know what you are doing. If you want to find success, you have to embrace being a perpetual learner. When you are armed with the right knowledge and skills, nothing will stand in your way.

The following quotes will motivate you to keep learning and invest in self-education

1. The future belongs to those who learn more skills and combine them in creative ways. – Robert Greene, Mastery

2. Higher intelligence is not necessarily something you’re born with or genetically predisposed toward. In fact, most instances of above-the-ordinary intelligences are usually acquired through superior learning techniques. – James Morcan, Genius Intelligence

3. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest. – Benjamin Franklin, The Way to Wealth

4. If you don’t know, the thing to do is not to get scared, but to learn. – Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

5. Don’t let your learning lead to knowledge. Let your learning lead to action. – Jim Rohn, Facebook Post, 2017

6. Forget the rules, and learn from first-hand experience instead. There’s so much more to be gained from not knowing how to do things the ‘correct’ way, and learning to do them your own way. – Richard Branson, Virgin.com

7. Never begrudge the money you spend on your own education. – Jim Rohn, Treasury of Quotes

8. If a craftsman wants to do good work, he must first sharpen his tools. – Confucius, The Analects

Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune. – Jim Rohn

9. A man’s real education begins after he has left school. True education is gained through the discipline of life. – Henry Ford, My Life and Work

10. Of all the important pieces of self-knowledge, understanding how you learn is the easiest to acquire. – Peter F. Drucker, Managing Oneself

11. Right now, and for the first time ever, a passionate and committed individual has access to the technology, minds, and capital required to take on any challenge. – Peter H. Diamandis, Bold

8. Quotes To Motivate You to Make an Impact

We have all benefited from the efforts of those who have gone before us and we should pay it forward. You may think that you have nothing important to offer but you can make a difference in other people’s lives in many ways. Take time to discover your knowledge, skills, and experiences and use them to make other people’s lives better.

The following quotes will inspire you to share your gifts and make an impact on the world.

1. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact. And that is everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it-you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. –Steve Jobs, Santa Clara Valley Historical Association Interview, 1994

2. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labours of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving. – Albert Einstein, The World As I See It

3. I used to think that your calling was about doing something good in this world. Now I understand it’s about becoming someone good—and letting that goodness impact the world around you. – Jeff Goins, The Art of Work

4. Life is too short to do what doesn’t matter, to waste your time on things that don’t amount to much. What we all want is to know our time on earth has meant something. We can distract ourselves with pleasure for only so long before beginning to wonder what the point is.– Jeff Goins, The Art of Work

5. Here’s a tip about impact – your impact is measured not but what you do, but by what happens to other people when you do it. – John Jantsch, 2017 What I Want for You Most in 2017

What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead. – Nelson Mandela

6. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I’ve never met. I want to go on living even after my death!  Anne FrankThe Diary of a Young Girl

7. Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got. Steven PressfieldThe War of Art

8. Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, “What are you doing for others?” – Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love, 1963

9. I will not follow where the path may lead, but I will go where there is no path, and I will leave a trail. – Muriel Strode, Wind-Wafted Flowers, 1903

10. Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there. –  Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, 1953

9. Inspiring Quotes on Providing Value

To achieve success in life, you have to provide value to other people. Figure out what people need and give it to them. If you can give people something that they cannot get anywhere else, then you have laid the foundation of a successful business.

The following quotes will inspire you to provide value in your work or your business.

1. We get paid for bringing value to the marketplace. It takes time to bring value to the marketplace, but we get paid for the value, not for the time. – Jim Rohn, Treasury of Quotes

2. Think more about what people really want than about what you think they need. – Chris Guillebeau, The $100 Startup

3. I find out what the world needs. Then, I go ahead and invent it. – Thomas A. Edison, quoted in American Greats (1999)

4. Value is created when a person makes something useful and shares it with the world. – Chris Guillebeau, The $100 Startup

5. You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want. – Zig Ziglar, See You at the Top

Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value. – Albert Einstein

6. Find out what people want, and find a way to give it to them. Give them the fish! – Chris Guillebeau, The $100 Startup

7. Don’t bring your need to the marketplace, bring your skill. If you don’t feel well, tell your doctor, but not the marketplace. If you need money, go to the bank, but not the marketplace. – Jim Rohn, Treasury of Quotes

8. The best way to become a billionaire is to help a billion people. – Peter Diamandis, Peter’s Laws

9. If you make your business about helping others, you’ll always have plenty of work. -Chris Guillebeau, The $100 Startup

10. Powerful Quotes on Patience and Perseverance

Achieving success in anything impactful can take a long time and it is tempting to give up on your dream. Success requires a long-term vision and the patience and perseverance to bring your vision to life.

The following quotes will help you to find patience and perseverance and encourage you when the progress seems slow

1. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance. – Samuel Johnson, The History of Rasselas (1759)

2. Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential. – Liane Cordes, Fitzhenry & Whiteside Book of Quotations

3. How many a man has thrown up his hands at a time when a little more effort, a little more patience, would have achieved success. – Elbert Hubbard, American Bible

4. It is not easy to find a man who can study for three years without thinking about earning a salary – Confucius, The Analects

5. Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air. – John Quincy Adams, Landing of Pilgrim Commemoration Oration (1802)

Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years. – Bill Gates

6. The most successful men in the end are those whose success is the result of steady accretion. – Alexander Graham Bell, How they Succeeded, 1901

7. Effective executives do not race. They set an easy pace but keep going steadily. – Peter F. Drucker, The Effective Executive

8. You do the right thing and then you do the next right thing. Over time it adds up, and the geometric potential of success is unleashed. – Gary Keller, The One Thing

9. Perseverance must have some practical end, or it does not avail the man possessing it. A person without a practical end in view becomes a crank or an idiot. Such persons fill our asylums. – Alexander Graham Bell, How they Succeeded, 1901

10. No man can be patient who has not strong passions, for patience is passion tamed. – Lyman Abbott, The Theology of an Evolutionist

11. Motivating Productivity Quotes for Getting Things Done

To achieve success, you need to focus on activities that will provide the most impactful results. When you feel overwhelmed by all the things you need to do to become successful, you can always cut down on the number of things you are doing.

The following are some quotes from some of the best thinkers on productivity. They will help you to become more productive in your life and your work.

1. Fewer people, more focused on just a few things, could do more than a much larger team pulled in myriad directions. – Rand Fishkin, Lost and Founder

2. Extraordinary results are directly determined by how narrow you can make your focus … when you spread yourself out, you end up spread thin. – Gary Keller, The One Thing

3. Multitasking is merely the opportunity to screw up more than one thing at a time. – Gary Keller, The One Thing

4. Here’s the ironic thing about your greatness. It’s usually accomplished by focusing on a very small number of things and doing them exceptionally well – better than anyone else. – John Jantsch, 2017 What I Want for You Most in 2017

5. The key to success isn’t in all the things we do but in the handful of things we do well. – Gary Keller, The One Thing

6. There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all. -Peter Drucker, Harvard Business Review

7. It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about? – Henry David Thoreau, Letter to Harrison Blake, 1857

8. Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus. – Alexander Graham Bell, How they Succeeded, 1901

9. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. – James Clear, Atomic Habits

10. Quantity gives experience. From experience alone can quality come. – Ray BradburyZen in the Art of Writing

12. Insightful Writing Quotes by Writers

Writing is one of the most important skills that you can learn. All great speeches, movies, songs all began with writing. If you intend to make a living from writing, it is important to get good at it by practicing every day.

If you are struggling with writing, the following quotes will provide you with encouragement and tips on how to become a better writer.

1. Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. – Anne LamottBird by Bird

2. Unless you write yourself, you can’t know how wonderful it is; I always used to bemoan the fact that I couldn’t draw, but now I’m overjoyed that at least I can write. And if I don’t have the talent to write books or newspaper articles, I can always write for myself. – Anne FrankThe Diary of a Young Girl

3. The only way to learn to write is to force yourself to produce a certain number of words on a regular basis. – William ZinsserOn Writing Well

4. Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work. – Stephen KingOn Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

5. I don’t think you have time to waste not writing because you are afraid you won’t be good at it. – Anne LamottBird by Bird

Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. – Stephen King

6. Communication is a skill that you can learn. It’s like riding a bicycle or typing. If you’re willing to work at it, you can rapidly improve the quality of every part of your life. – Brian Tracy, Effective Communication

7. Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That’s why it’s so hard. – David McCullough, NEC Interview

8. The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading, in order to write: a man will turn over half a library to make one book. – Samuel Johnson, The Life of Samuel Johnson

9. Don’t try to visualize the great mass audience. There is no such audience- every reader is a different person. – William ZinsserOn Writing Well

10. Writing is always and forever a learning process. One is never good enough and one never knows enough. I cannot repeat that too often. No matter how good a writer becomes, he can always be better. – Louis L’Amour, Education of a Wandering Man, 1989

If you want to learn how to write well, learn from the best writers

We are lucky that many of the best writers in the world have given their tips on how to get good at writing. I have compiled over 170 quotes by some of the most famous authors on how to write well.

13. Powerful Creativity Quotes to Spark New Ideas and Innovation

If you struggle to get ideas for your business, you are not alone. Almost everyone struggles to get meaningful ideas. People who are prolific in creating great works usually rely on some strategies to keep those ideas flowing.

The following quotes will help to think creatively and show you how to come up with fresh ideas.

1. Ask anybody doing truly creative work, and they’ll tell you the truth: They don’t know where the good stuff comes from. They just show up to do their thing. Every day. -Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist

2. Boredom can be a very good thing for someone in a creative jam. –  Stephen KingOn Writing

3. Every artist gets asked the question, “Where do you get your ideas?” The honest artist answers, “I steal them”. – Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist

4. Creativity is not about being original; it’s about learning to rearrange what has already been in a way that brings fresh insight to old material. – Jeff Goins, Real Artists Don’t Starve

5. The only art I’ll ever study is stuff that I can steal from. – David Bowie, Playboy Interview, 1976

6. Every time I run across something, it’s because I was looking for something else, which I consider real discovery. It’s when you don’t expect it that you really discover something. Jeff GoinsReal Artists Don’t Starve

Almost anyone can think up an idea. The thing that counts is developing it into a practical product. – Henry Ford

7. Don’t delay acting on a good idea. Chances are someone else has just thought of it, too. Success comes to the one who acts first. – H. Jackson Brown, Jr., Complete Life’s Little Instruction Book

8. You’re only going to be as good as the stuff you surround yourself with. – Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist

9. The way to get over creative block is to simply place some constraints on yourself. It seems contradictory, but when it comes to creative work, limitations mean freedom. – Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist

10. Great ideas and products are often born from mediocre ones. – Rand Fishkin, Lost and Founder

11. The only worthwhile idea is the one on which you take action. – John Jantsch, The Referral Engine

12. You cannot force ideas. Successful ideas are the result of slow growth. Ideas do not reach perfection in a day, no matter how much study is put upon them. – Alexander Graham Bell, How they Succeeded

13. The creative adult is the child who has survived – Julian F. Fleron

14. Best Marketing Quotes to Inform Your Strategy

Marketing is the foundation of online businesses. Whether you are marketing ideas, causes, or products, the process is the same. To become an effective online entrepreneur, you have to become an effective marketer. This will not only help you impact more people but will also help you to create a stable source of income.

The following quotes will give you insights on how to become great at marketing.

1. Market segmentation matters. It’s critical to craft your message for a specific audience. – Peter H. Diamandis, Bold

2. My definition of marketing is: “getting someone who has a need, to know, like, and trust you.” – John Jantsch, Duct Tape Marketing

3. Be brief on the logic and reason portion of your presentation. There are probably about a thousand facts about an automobile, but you don’t need them all to make a decision. About a half dozen will do. – Jim Rohn, Treasury of Quotes

4. Storytelling is how you recruit others to help you achieve your dream, it’s how you attract ideal clients, it’s how you bring excitement and meaning to the day to day work of your enterprise. – John Jantsch, 2017 What I Want for You Most in 2017

5. In the future, marketing will be like sex: Only the losers pay for it. – Chris Guillebeau, The $100 Startup

6. Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know. – Jim Rohn, Treasury of Quotes

7. Do you really have a business without being able to reach and motivate a customer?”- John Jantsch, Duct Tape Marketing

8. When you’re an early-stage startup founder, your job is clear—find “product:market fit.”-  Rand Fishkin, Lost and Founder

9. Better understated than overstated. Let people be surprised that it was more than you promised and easier than you said. – Jim Rohn, Treasury of Quotes

10. You don’t sell what it is you claim to offer. You sell what the eventual buyers think they are going to get from your product. For instance, insurance sales folks don’t sell insurance; they sell peace of mind. – John Jantsch, Duct Tape Marketing

15. Insightful Quotes on Handling Criticism

If you are an entrepreneur, you must be prepared to face criticism. How you handle criticism can determine how successful you become. If you take criticism personally, it can crush you and make you quit. If you decide to use criticism as a learning opportunity, you will grow. Use the rocks thrown at you to build your castle.

Here are some quotes that will help you deal with criticism.

1. A well-thought-out critique of whatever you’re doing is as valuable as gold and you should seek that from anyone you can but particularly your friends. – Elon Musk, Elon Musk Quotes

2. If you’re remarkable, it’s likely that some people won’t like you. That’s part of the definition of remarkable. Nobody gets unanimous praise–ever. The best the timid can hope for is to be unnoticed. Criticism comes to those who stand out. –  Seth Godin, Purple Cow

3. We build up tolerances to criticism, acceptance of faults, appreciation for idiosyncrasies. -Rand Fishkin, Lost and Founder

4. I’m my best and harshest critic. I know what’s good and what isn’t. – Anne FrankThe Diary of a Young Girl

5. To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing. –  Elbert Hubbard, Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great

6. Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emerson in His Journals

7. It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again. – Theodore Roosevelt, Man in the Arena Speech, 1910

8. Do the things that interest you and do them with all your heart. Don’t be concerned about whether people are watching you or criticizing you. The chances are that they aren’t paying any attention to you. – Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living

9. Against criticism a man can neither protest nor defend himself; he must act in spite of it, and then criticism will gradually yield to him. – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe

16. Famous Quotes on Working Hard for Success

Hard work is a prerequisite for success. The bigger your goals, the harder you will have to work to achieve them. However, you need to be able to distinguish between productive hard work and busywork that wastes time. You also need to find meaning in your work so that your hard work does not seem pointless.

The following quotes will motivate you to work hard and inspire you to give your best.

1. What we hope ever to do with ease, we must first learn to do with diligence. – Samuel Johnson, The Life Of Samuel Johnson

2. Brilliant men are often strikingly ineffectual; they fail to realize that the brilliant insight is not by itself achievement. They never have learned that insights become effective only through hard systematic work. –  Peter F. Drucker, The Effective Executive

3. The true measure of something’s worth is the hours it takes to acquire it. – Peter H. Diamandis, Abundance

4. Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning. Once it does, it becomes the kind of thing that makes you grab your wife around the waist and dance a jig. – Malcolm GladwellOutliers

5. Nobody ever changed the world on 40 hours a week. But if you love what you do, it (mostly) doesn’t feel like work. – Elon Musk, Twitter 2018

6. 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. – Arianna Huffington, Thrive

7. I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more of it I seem to have. – Coleman Cox, Straight Talk from Coleman Cox

8. Talent is a dreadfully cheap commodity, cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work and study. – Stephen KingDanse Macabre

Finding joy and pride in your work is one of the great rewards of life. Every honest, meaningful work, no matter how humble, can bring happiness into your life. We tend to get distracted by what brings in the most money to the point where we despise what is already in our hands.

The following quotes will inspire you to find meaning and joy in your work.

1. We must do our work for its own sake, not for fortune or attention or applause. – Steven PressfieldThe War of Art

2. People often ask me if I know the secret of success and if I could tell others how to make their dreams come true. My answer is, you do it by working. – Walt Disney, The Quotable Walt Disney

3. The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying. – Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

4. We have the opportunity to get an education and make something of ourselves. We have many reasons to hope for great happiness, but we have to earn it. And that is something you can’t achieve by taking the easy ways out. Earning happiness means doing good and working, not speculating and being lazy. – Anne FrankThe Diary of a Young Girl

5. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. – Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address 1933

The natural thing to do is to work – to recognize that prosperity and happiness can be obtained only through honest effort. – Henry Ford

6. Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time, who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done, if we are always doing. – Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Martha Jefferson

7. Don’t work for recognition, but do work worthy of recognition. – H. Jackson Brown, Jr. – The Complete Life’s Little Instruction Book

8. Whatever your life’s work is, do it well… If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures. – Martin Luther King, Jr., A Testament of Hope

9. When a man is really at work, he needs no title. His work honours him. – Henry Ford, My Life and Work

10. You must work and do good, not be lazy and gamble, if you wish to earn happiness. Laziness may appear attractive, but work gives satisfaction. – Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

18. Inspiring Quotes on Overcoming Fear

What you desire is on the other side of your fear. To get what you want, you may have to get out of your comfort zone and confront your fears. The bigger your desire, the greater your fear will be. Everyone who has achieved something worthwhile has had to find a way to deal with their fear.

The quotes below will help you to face and overcome your fears.

1. The scariest moment is always just before you start. After that, things can only get better. – Stephen KingOn Writing

2. You might be scared to start. That’s natural. There’s this very real thing that runs rampant in educated people. It’s called “impostor syndrome.” It means that you feel like a phony, like you’re just winging it, that you really don’t have any idea what you’re doing. Guess what: None of us do. – Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist

3. One who fears the future, who fears failure, limits his activities. – Henry Ford, My Life And Work

4. The amateur believes he must first overcome his fear; then he can do his work. The professional knows that fear can never be overcome. – Steven PressfieldThe War of Art

5. Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. – Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address, 1933

6. There must be times when you ask yourself who the heck you are to think you can do something this important. Yes, it must frighten you from time to time, or it won’t mean much. – John Jantsch, 2017 What I Want for You Most in 2017

7. Are you paralyzed with fear? That’s a good sign. Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember one rule of thumb: the more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it. – Steven PressfieldThe War of Art

8. Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, and not the absence of fear. – Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson, 1893

9. He who says, “I know no fear,” is no hero. No man knows courage unless he does know fear, and has that in him which is superior to fear, and conquers it. – Lyman Abbott, Problems of Life

10. Fear doesn’t go away. The warrior and the artist live by the same code of necessity, which dictates that the battle must be fought anew every day. – Steven PressfieldThe War of Art

19. Encouraging Quotes on Struggle and Sacrifice

Nothing good comes without struggle and sacrifice. Sometimes the struggle might be so much that you wonder whether it is worth it. It helps to know that many of the successful people have had to go through what you are going through to be successful.

The quotes below will help you get through those rough days when you need some extra encouragement.

1. Comfort never leads to excellence. – Jeff GoinsThe Art of Work

2. All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles have strengthened me. – Walt Disney, The Quotable Walt Disney

3. The sweetest pleasures are those which are hardest to be won. – Giacomo Casanova, The Story of My Life

4. Difficulties break some men but make others. No axe is sharp enough to cut the soul of a sinner who keeps on trying, one armed with the hope that he will rise even in the end. –  Nelson Mandela, Letter to Winnie Mandela, 1975

5. One-half of knowing what you want is knowing what you must give up before you get it. – Sidney Howard, Gone with the Wind: The Screenplay

You can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it. –  J.M. Barrie

6. Sacrifice is a part of life. It’s supposed to be. It’s not something to regret. It’s something to aspire to. Little sacrifices. Big sacrifices. A mother works so her son can go to school. A daughter moves home to take care of her sick father. – Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven

7. Great achievement is usually born of great sacrifice, and is never the result of selfishness. – Napoleon Hill, The Law of Success

8. Far from being a disadvantage, struggle is a decided advantage, because it develops those qualities which would forever lie dormant without it. – Napoleon Hill, The Law of Success in Sixteen Lessons

9. In some ways, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice. – Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

10. A man used to vicissitudes is not easily dejected. – Samuel Johnson, The History of Rasselas (1759)

20. Quotes to Inspire You towards Success

To achieve success in business (and in life), you have to figure out what you want and take consistent action to get it. You have to be clear about it because you will have to work hard and make sacrifices along the way. When you ask yourself ‘Is it worth it?’ the answer needs to be an emphatic yes.

The quotes below will inspire you towards success and achievement.

1. I have learned that 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 while trying to succeed. – Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery (1901)

2. Genius is often only the power of making continuous efforts. The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it. – Elbert Hubbard, American Bible

3. Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory. – Mahatma Gandhi, All Men are Brothers

4. Everyone can rise above their circumstances and achieve success if they are dedicated to and passionate about what they do. – Nelson Mandela, Letter to cricketer Makhaya Ntini, 2009

5. I have always thought that one man of tolerable abilities may work great changes, and accomplish great affairs among mankind, if he forms a good plan, and then makes the execution of that plan his sole study and business. – Benjamin Franklin, The Way to Wealth

6. There’s really no secret about our approach. We keep moving forward -opening up new doors and doing new things -because we’re curious. And curiosity keeps leading us down new paths. We’re always exploring and experimenting. – Walt Disney, The Quotable Walt Disney

7. People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them. – George Bernard Shaw, Mrs. Warren’s Profession

8. I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. – Nelson Mandela, Long Road to Freedom

9. Personalizing successes sets people up for disastrous failure. They begin to treat the successes totally as a personal reflection of their abilities rather than the result of capitalizing on a good opportunity, being at the right place at the right time, or even being just plain lucky. They think their mere involvement in an undertaking guarantees success. – Brendan Moynihan, What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars

10. There are at least two kinds of games: finite and infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play – James P. Carse, Finite and Infinite Games

21. Best Leadership Quotes for Entrepreneurs

Good leadership skills are essential for any entrepreneur. Leadership is what will enable you to attract and keep quality people who can help you bring your vision to life.

The following quotes will give you some great tips on how to become a good leader.

1. Everybody acknowledges a real leader -a man who is fit to plan and command. And when you find a real leader who bears a title, you will have to inquire of someone else what his title is. He doesn’t boast about it. – Henry Ford, My Life and Work

2. A leader is best when people barely know he exists. Of a good leader, who talks little, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say, “We did this ourselves.” – Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

3. 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. – Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom

4. The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things. – Ronald Reagan, CBS News Interview

5. The signs of outstanding leadership appear primarily among the followers. Are the followers reaching their potential? Are they learning? Serving? Do they achieve the required results? Do they change with grace? Manage conflict? – Max De Pree, Leadership is an Art

6. It is essential to understand that battles are primarily won in the hearts of men. Men respond to leadership in a most remarkable way and once you have won his heart, he will follow you anywhere. –Vince Lombardi, vincelombardi.com

A great leader’s courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position. – John C. Maxwell

7. Like the gardener, a leader must take responsibility for what he cultivates; he must mind his work, try to repel enemies, preserve what can be preserved, and eliminate what cannot succeed. – Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom

8. Someone once said, ‘Life begins when you begin to serve’. Maybe if there’s a feeling that you can be of service, you feel you have to do it. – Ronald Reagan, CBS News Interview

9. Leaders are made, they are not born. They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile. –Vince Lombardi, vincelombardi.com

10. Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. –Peter Drucker, The Essential Drucker

22. Insightful Quotes on Dealing with Competition

As an entrepreneur, you will have to compete with other businesses for customers, attention, and resources. This competition is a good thing because it helps businesses to create the best products and services and this is ultimately good for the customer. If you do not offer the most value, you should expect your position to be taken over by someone who does.

The following quotes will help you deal with competition in your work or business.

1. We don’t think too much about what competitors are doing because I think it’s important to be focused on making the best possible products. – Elon Musk, StartmeupHK Forum

2. It is in vain for us to devise schemes by which competition can be put out of civilized life. Competition is the condition of life. – Lyman Abbott The Life that Really is (1899)

3. When a man can do better than everyone else in the same walk, he does not make any very painful exertions to outdo himself. The progress of improvement ceases nearly at the point where competition ends. – William Hazlitt, Characteristics

4. The ability to learn faster than competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage. – Arie P. de Geus, Planning as learning.

5. Competition is a by-product of productive work, not its goal. A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others. – Ayn Rand, The Ayn Rand Letter (1971–1976)

6. Competition brings out the best in products and the worst in people. – David Sarnoff, quoted in Dynamics of Leadership

7. The world is divided into people who do things and people who get the credit. Try, if you can, to belong to the first class. There’s far less competition. – Dwight Morrow quoted in Dwight Morrow by Harold Nicolson

8. I have been up against tough competition all my life. I wouldn’t know how to get along without it. – Walt Disney, The Quotable Walt Disney

23. Best Quotes on Keeping Good Company

As you go through your entrepreneurship journey, you need to surround yourself with influences that will make you better. These influences may be fellow entrepreneurs, mentors, books, or inspiring heroes. The internet has made it easy to surround yourself with the right kind of influences.

The following quotes will motivate you to surround yourself with the right people and influences.

1. If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together– African Proverb

2. The shortest way to get anywhere is to have good company. – H. Jackson Brown, Jr., Complete Life’s Little Instruction Book

3. I have begun to wonder if the secret of living well is not in having all the answers but in pursuing unanswerable questions in good company. -Rachel Naomi Remen, My Grandfather’s Blessings

4. People are always good company when they are doing what they really enjoy. – Samuel Butler, Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Butler

5. Keep good company, read good books, love good things and cultivate soul and body as faithfully as you can. – Louisa May Alcott, Ultimate Collection

6. If you ever find that you’re the most talented person in the room, you need to find another room. – Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist

7. The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best. – Epictetus, Art of Living

8. In the face of a true friend, a man sees as it were, a second self. – Cicero, Treatises on Friendship and Old Age

9. There’s an old saying in business: You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with. – Peter H. Diamandis, Bold

10. Where you stand depends on where you sit. – Rufus Mile, Miles Laws

Final Thoughts

Entrepreneurship can be a challenging thing, whether you are starting a blogging business or a traditional brick-and-mortar business.

Hopefully, these quotes have inspired you and given you some insights to think about as you go along your journey.

If you have always wanted to be an entrepreneur but have been scared to jump in, think about starting an online business. They are less risky because they are cheap to start and run. It is also much easier to start a business around your passions if you go with an online business.

As long as you help solve people’s problems or help meet their needs, you can earn a decent income online. Many people are already making a living by following their passion (see examples in these blogger income reports). Reverse engineer what is working for them and over time, you too could find yourself with a business you love.

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50+ Inspiring Anne Lamott Quotes for Writers

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Anne Lamott is a bestselling author of numerous fiction and non-fiction books. In this article, we will explore her quotes which a packed full of excellent advice for writers. The quotes are drawn from various sources including her interviews, talks, and her book on writing, Bird by Bird.

The quotes will help you to deal with different challenges that face writers including:

  • How to be consistent in writing
  • How to get ideas for writing
  • How to deal with self-doubt and fear

If you want to learn more about Anne Lamott, check out her quick biography.

Quotes on Why You Should Write

1. You’re going to feel like hell if you wake up someday and you never wrote the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart: your stories, memories, visions and songs -your truth, your version of thing – in your own voice. That’s really all you have to offer us, and that’s also why you were born. – Ted Talk, 2017

2. Maybe what you’ve written will help others, will be a small part of the solution. You don’t even have to know how or in what way, but if you are writing the clearest, truest words you can find and doing the best you can to understand and communicate, this will shine on paper like its own little lighthouse. – Bird by Bird, 1995

3. I’ve written 13 books now. It’s not really important that I write a lot more books, but I do it as a debt of honor. I got one of the five golden tickets to be a writer, and I take that seriously. – Goodreads Interview, 2012

4. I don’t love my own work at all, but I love my own self. I love that I’ve been given the chance to capture the stories that come through me. – Goodreads Interview, 2012

5. Writing taught my father to pay attention; my father in turn taught other people to pay attention and then to write down their thoughts and observations. – Bird by Bird, 1995

6. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do – the actual act of writing – turns out to be the best part. – Bird by Bird, 1995

7. Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. – Bird by Bird, 1995

8. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life. – Bird by Bird, 1995

Quotes on Success in Writing

9. I love the freedom success has given me, to do and write anything I want. – Washington Post Interview, 2021

10. I try to use my visibility for the most good I can. – Washington Post Interview, 2021

11. I’ve seen celebrity destroy infinitely more people than it’s fulfilled. – Washington Post Interview, 2021

12. Publication and temporary creative successes are something you have to recover from. They kill as many people as not. They will hurt, damage and change you in ways you cannot imagine. – Ted Talk, 2017

13. The most degraded and evil people I’ve ever known are male writers who’ve had huge best sellers. – Ted Talk, 2017

14. It’s also a miracle to get your work published, to get your stories read and heard. Just try to bust yourself gently of the fantasy that publication will heal you, that it will fill the Swiss-cheesy holes inside of you. It can’t. It won’t. But writing can– Ted Talk, 2017

15. My dad was a writer, and his entire life was about trying to get on the New York Times list. When it happened to me, I called my mom and said, “Oh my God, Mom, I hit the list!” And my mom said, “Oh, huh. Anything else?” I just wanted to hang up. That was my entire childhood. – Washington Post Interview, 2021

16. And then I did get on again, and then I went higher on the list, and then I fell off, and I wanted to die. Thereby proving the adage, “Happiness is an inside job.” That’s where I try to keep my attention, such as it is: on the inside. – Washington Post Interview, 2021

Quotes on Books and Reading

17. No matter how people mess with you or let you down, or how you let yourself down, a good book means that when you get in bed that night, you have a good hour. – Goodreads Interview, 2012

18. That’s what books mean to me. I can open this two-dimensional, flat white page with squiggly little black marks on them, and someone has created this world that you’re going to enter into and get lost in Berlin in the ’30s. – Goodreads Interview, 2012

19. For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. – Bird by Bird, 1995

20. When I read these books that I love so much, I am simultaneously filled with joy and gratitude and relief for their existence, and total jealousy that they are so great, these writers capable of creating entire worlds that shimmer with truth and humanity. – Lithub Interview, 2021

21. Becoming a better writer is going to help you become a better reader, and that is the real payoff. – Bird by Bird, 1995

22. One reads with a deeper appreciation and concentration, knowing now how hard writing is, especially how hard it is to make it look effortless. You begin to read with a writer’s eyes. – Bird by Bird, 1995

Quotes on Getting Started, Consistency and Persistence in Writing

23. You try to sit down at approximately the same time every day. This is how you train your unconscious to kick in for you creatively. – Bird by Bird, 1995

24. The model was my father who was a writer, Kenneth Lamott. And he had a lot of books published and a lot of magazine articles. And I heard him down at his desk at that old Olympia at 5:30, every morning, rain or shine or hangover, he just did it. And that was what he taught me was that you don’t wait for inspiration. – Tim Ferris Interview, 2021

25. Every writer you know writes really terrible first drafts, but they keep their butt in the chair. That’s the secret of life. That’s probably the main difference between you and them. They just do it. – Ted Talk, 2017

26. My brother was in tears because his fourth-grade term paper on birds was due, and he hadn’t started. So my dad put his arm around John and said, “Just take it Bird by Bird, buddy.” He had John read a page in Audubon or Roger Tory Peterson about pelicans, and then write a paragraph in his own words. And then read about chickadees, and put it in his own words. Little by little by little. – Lithub Interview, 2021

27. I teach people to take it really small, Bird by Bird. – Tim Ferris Interview, 2021

28. Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up. – Bird by Bird, 1995

Quotes on Getting Ideas and Dealing with Writers Block

29. I’ve always told my writing students that I think writer’s block is a misnomer. I don’t think we get blocked, but rather that we get empty. We need to fill back up. – Lithub Interview, 2021

30. Instead of sitting at my desk in full clench and despair, I go about accumulating snippets and chunks of cool stuff: I do informal interviews with brilliant friends on childhood, soul, the meaning of life, etc; I take my most articulate friends to marshes and museums, and I write down every brilliant observation either of us has; I look through old photo albums; I read more poetry. In other words, I fill back up. – Lithub Interview, 2021

31. If you don’t know where to start, remember that every single thing that happened to you is yours, and you get to tell it. – Ted Talk, 2017

32. My dad taught me that to be a writer is a decision and a habit. It’s not anything lofty, and it doesn’t have that much to do with inspiration. You have to develop the habit of being a certain way with yourself. – Goodreads Interview, 2012

33. I heard E.L. Doctorow say that writing was like driving at night with the headlights on. You could only see a little ways in front of you, but you could make the whole journey that way. And I think that is the most profound advice I can offer anyone on any topic. – Tim Ferris Interview, 2021

Quotes on Authenticity in Writing

34. If something inside of you is real, we will probably find it interesting, and it will probably be universal. So you must risk placing real emotion at the center of your work. Write straight into the emotional center of things. – Bird by Bird, 1995

35. Good writing is about telling the truth. We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. – Bird by Bird, 1995

36. You are going to have to give and give and give, or there’s no reason for you to be writing. You have to give from the deepest part of yourself, and you are going to have to go on giving, and the giving is going to have to be its own reward. – Bird by Bird, 1995

37. You cannot write out of someone else’s big dark place; you can only write out of your own. – Bird by Bird, 1995

Quotes on Self-Doubt and Fear as a Writer

28. I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts– Bird by Bird, 1995

39. I can never tell what I’m doing when I’m in the middle of publication because I have no confidence. I have terrible self-esteem, along with boundless narcissism. It’s complicated in here! – Goodreads Interview, 2012

40. I don’t think you have time to waste not writing because you are afraid you won’t be good at it. – Bird by Bird, 1995

Quotes on Perfectionism in Writing

41. Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor. It’s the voice of the enemy. And if you listen to it, it keeps you crazy for your entire life because we all fall short. – Tim Ferris Interview, 2021

42. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it. – Bird by Bird, 1995

43. I don’t try to teach kids or grownups how to write really, really well. I just teach them to stop not writing. I teach to keep their butt in the chair and to write badly. – Tim Ferris Interview, 2021

44. I just believe in flinging yourself into it and writing incredibly terrible first drafts. – Goodreads Interview, 2012

45. All first drafts of any book you’ve ever read by the authors you esteem most began as unreadable first drafts. – Tim Ferris Interview, 2021

46. Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. – Bird by Bird, 1995

47. Perfectionism means that you try desperately not to leave so much mess to clean up. But clutter and mess show us that life is being lived. Clutter is wonderfully fertile ground— you can still discover new treasures under all those piles, clean things up, edit things out, fix things, get a grip. – Bird by Bird, 1995

48. Try looking at your mind as a wayward puppy that you are trying to paper train. You don’t drop-kick a puppy into the neighbor’s yard every time it piddles on the floor. You just keep bringing it back to the newspaper. – Bird by Bird, 1995

49. We need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here – and, by extension, what we’re supposed to be writing. – Bird by Bird, 1995

Quotes on How to Write Well

50. I’ve been over every word in this book a dozen times, and I did notice that I’ve become a pretty decent writer. – Washington Post Interview, 2021

51. At my advanced age, I’ve had to throw a bunch of stuff out of the plane that’s kept me flying too low – including trying to impress New York City editors and writers, which actually made me mentally ill. – Washington Post Interview, 2021

Quotes on Dealing with Challenges in Writing

52. Being a writer guarantees that you will spend too much time alone – and that as a result, your mind will begin to warp. – Bird by Bird, 1995

53. On a bad day you also don’t need a lot of advice. You just need a little empathy and affirmation. You need to feel once again that other people have confidence in you. – Bird by Bird, 1995

54. If people wanted you to write more warmly about them, they should’ve behaved better. – Ted Talk, 2017

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85+ Inspirational William Zinsser Quotes for Writers

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85+ Inspirational William Zinsser Quotes for Writers

William Zinsser has taught generations of writers the basics of writing well. In this article, we will look at some of his best quotes, drawn from a variety of sources including his books, interviews, and blog.

His quotes offer insight on various issues that you may face as a writer including:

  • How do you become a better writer?
  • What are the benefits of writing?
  • Why should you write what you love?

If you want to learn more about William Zinsser, check out his quick biography.

Quotes on Reasons for Writing

1. We write to find out what we know and what we want to say. I thought of how often as a writer I had made clear to myself some subject I had previously known nothing about by just putting one sentence after another. – Writing to Learn, 1988

2. The writer’s job is like solving a puzzle, and finally arriving at a solution is a tremendous satisfaction – On Writing Well, 1976

3. Writing enables us to find out what we know -and what we don’t know -about whatever we’re trying to learn. – Writing to Learn, 1988

4. Writing is the handmaiden of leadership; Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill rode to glory on the back of the strong declarative sentence – Writing to Learn, 1988

5. All writing is ultimately a question of solving a problem. – On Writing Well, 1976

6. Writing is a way to explore a question and gain control over it – Writing to Learn, 1988

7. Writing is an intimate transaction between two people, conducted on paper, and it will go well to the extent that it retains its humanity- On Writing Well, 1976

8. Another reason [for writing] is to paint a portrait of the town or community, now considerably changed, where you grew up. Somewhere on the shelves of every American small-town library and historical society is a makeshift volume, often written by a retired schoolteacher that resuscitates a bygone way of life. – American Scholar Blog, February 18, 2011

9. Writing is also a potent search mechanism, often as helpful as psychoanalysis and a lot cheaper. When you start on your memoir you’ll find your subconscious mind delivering your past to you, recalling people and events you have entirely forgotten. That voyage of rediscovery is a pleasure in itself. – American Scholar Blog, February 18, 2011

10. Writing is a sanity-saving companion for people in times of grief, loss, illness, and other accidents of fate. Just getting down on paper those grim details…will validate your ordeal and make you feel less alone. – American Scholar Blog, February 18, 2011

11. Contrary to general belief, writing isn’t something that only “writers” do; writing is a basic skill for getting through life. – Writing to Learn, 1988

12. Reasoning is a lost skill of the children of the TV generation, with their famously short attention span. Writing can help them get it back. – Writing to Learn, 1988

13. Writers may write for any number of good personal reasons -ego, therapy, recollection, validation of their lives. But what they produce will have a validity of its own to the extent that it’s useful to somebody else. – Writing to Learn, 1988

Quotes on Writing as a Way of Clarify Thinking

14. Writing organizes and clarifies our thoughts. Writing is how we think our way into a subject and make it our own. – Writing to Learn, 1988

15. Clear writing is the logical arrangement of thought; a scientist who thinks clearly can write as well as the best writer. – Writing to Learn, 1988

16. I thought of how often the act of writing even the simplest document -a letter, for instance -had clarified my half-formed ideas. Writing and thinking and learning were the same process. – Writing to Learn, 1988

17. Writing organizes and clarifies our thoughts. Writing is how we think our way into a subject and make it our own. Writing enables us to find out what we know -and what we don’t know -about whatever we’re trying to learn. – Writing to Learn, 1988

18. Putting an idea into written words is like defrosting the windshield: The idea, so vague out there in the murk, slowly begins to gather itself into a sensible shape. Whatever we write -a memo, a letter, a note to the baby-sitter -all of us know this moment of finding out what we really want to say by trying in writing to say it. – Writing to Learn, 1988

19. Probably no subject is too hard if people take the trouble to think and write and read clearly. – Writing to Learn, 1988

20. Writing is thinking on paper, or talking to someone on paper. If you can think clearly, or if you can talk to someone about the things you know and care about, you can write – with confidence and enjoyment. – On Writing Well, 1976

Quotes on How To Write Well

21. You must find some way to elevate your act of writing into entertainment. – On Writing Well, 1976

22. The hardest column to write was the one that taught me the most. – American Scholar Blog, April 29, 2011

23. Make a habit of reading what is being written today and what has been written before. Writing is learned by imitation. – On Writing Well, 1976

24. Examine every word you put on paper. You’ll find a surprising number that don’t serve any purpose. – On Writing Well, 1976

25. Don’t try to visualize the great mass audience. There is no such audience -every reader is a different person. – On Writing Well, 1976

26. Clear thinking becomes clear writing; one cannot exist without the other. – On Writing Well, 1976

27. Most first drafts can be cut by 50 percent without losing any information or losing the author’s voice. – On Writing Well, 1976

28. The most important sentence in any article is the first one. If it doesn’t induce the reader to proceed to the second sentence, your article is dead. And if the second sentence doesn’t induce him to continue to the third sentence, it’s equally dead. – On Writing Well, 1976

29. So decide what single point you want to leave in the reader’s mind. It will not only give you a better idea of what route you should follow and what destination you hope to reach; it will affect your decision about tone and attitude. – On Writing Well, 1976

30. Much of the trouble that writers get into comes from trying to make one sentence do too much work. Never be afraid to break a long sentence into two short ones, or even three. – On Writing Well, 1976

31. Writing improves in direct ratio to the number of things we can keep out of it that shouldn’t be there. – On Writing Well, 1976

32. “Who am I writing for?” You are writing for yourself. Don’t try to visualize the great mass audience. There is no such audience -every reader is a different person. – On Writing Well, 1976

33. Thinking clearly is a conscious act that writers must force on themselves- On Writing Well, 1976

34. Constantly ask yourself: “What am I trying to say?” Then look at what you have written and ask if you have said it. – On Writing Well, 1976

35. Never hesitate to imitate another writer – every person learning a craft or an art needs models. Eventually you’ll find your own voice and will shed the skin of the writer you imitated. – On Writing Well, 1976

36. The best way to learn to write is to study the work of the men and women who are doing the kind of writing you want to do. – On Writing Well, 1976

37. The only way to learn to write is to force yourself to produce a certain number of words on a regular basis. – On Writing Well, 1976

38. Rewriting is the essence of writing well: it’s where the game is won or lost. – On Writing Well, 1976

39. I don’t do tips…It’s not that I don’t have any; On Writing Well, 1976 is full of what might be called tips. But that’s not the point of the book. It’s a book of craft principles that add up to what it means to be a writer Tips can make someone a better writer but not necessarily a good writer. That’s a larger package –a matter of character. – American Scholar Blog, November 5, 2010

40. Golfing is more than keeping the left arm straight. Every good golfer is a complex engine that runs on ability, ego, determination, discipline, patience, confidence, and other qualities that are self-taught. So it is with writers and all creative artists. If their values are solid their work is likely to be solid. – American Scholar Blog, November 5, 2010

41. The essence of writing is rewriting. Very few writers say on their first try exactly what they want to say. – Writing to Learn, 1988

42. Writing is learned by imitation. I learned to write mainly by reading writers who were doing the kind of writing I wanted to do and by trying to figure out how they did it. – Writing to Learn, 1988

43. Students often feel guilty about modeling their writing on someone else’s writing. They think it’s unethical—which is commendable. Or they’re afraid they’ll lose their own identity. The point, however, is that we eventually move beyond our models; we take what we need and then we shed those skins and become who we are supposed to become. – Writing to Learn, 1988

44. He may have been a little high. Beware of dashing. “Effortless” articles that look as if they were dashed off are the result of strenuous effort. A piece of writing must be viewed as a constantly evolving organism. – Writing to Learn, 1988

45. The English language is endlessly supple. It will do anything you ask it to do, if you treat it well.  – American Scholar Blog, March 11, 2011

Quotes on What It Takes To Be a Successful Writer

46. Sell yourself, and your subject will exert its own appeal. Believe in your own identity and your own opinions. Writing is an act of ego, and you might as well admit it. Use its energy to keep yourself going. – On Writing Well, 1976

47. Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it’s because it is hard. It’s one of the hardest things that people do. – On Writing Well, 1976

48. A writer will do anything to avoid the act of writing- On Writing Well, 1976

49. Nobody becomes Tom Wolfe overnight, not even Tom Wolfe- On Writing Well, 1976

Quotes on Being Authentic When Writing

50. Write about things that are important to you, not about what you think readers will want to read. Readers don’t know what they want to read until they read it. If it’s important to you it will be important to other people. – American Scholar Blog, August 13, 2010

51. Be yourself and your readers will follow you anywhere. Try to commit an act of writing and your readers will jump overboard to get away. Your product is you. – On Writing Well, 1976

52. If you write for yourself, you’ll reach all the people you want to write for. – On Writing Well, 1976

53. You are writing primarily to please yourself, and if you go about it with enjoyment you will also entertain the readers who are worth writing for. – On Writing Well, 1976

54. Readers want the person who is talking to them to sound genuine. Therefore a fundamental rule is: be yourself. – On Writing Well, 1976

55. I don’t think you should never worry what people think of you. I think you should write whatever you’re writing, you should write entirely for yourself. Don’t try to think what editors want, what publishers want, what agents want. They don’t really know until they see it. So I think the important thing is to get it down. – NPR, 2015

56. As a teacher and as a mentor I give people permission to be who they want to be. – American Scholar Blog, June 4, 2010

57. You must give yourself permission, by a daily act of will, to believe in your remembered truth. Do not remain nameless to yourself. Only you can turn on the switch; nobody is going to do it for you. – American Scholar Blog, June 4, 2010

58. Nobody can make us write what we don’t want to write. – American Scholar Blog, November 5, 2010

Quotes on Education

59. Most Americans look back on their education as a permission-denying experience –a long trail of don’ts and can’ts and shouldn’ts. – American Scholar Blog, June 4, 2010

60. Consider the countless hours we require our children to attend classes and tutoring sessions whose sole purpose is to teach them how to pass college entrance tests–a body of knowledge wholly useless to their growth. – American Scholar Blog, June 4, 2010

61. The fear of writing is planted in countless people at an early age -often, ironically, by English teachers, who make science-minded kids feel stupid for not being “good at words,” just as science teachers make people like me feel stupid for not being good at science. – Writing to Learn, 1988

62. Writing, however, isn’t a special language that belongs to English teachers and a few other sensitive souls who have a “gift for words.” Writing is thinking on paper. Anyone who thinks clearly should be able to write clearly -about any subject at all. – Writing to Learn, 1988

63. Yet most American adults are terrified of the prospect -ask a middle-aged engineer to write a report and you’ll see something close to panic. – Writing to Learn, 1988

Quotes on Working on What You Love and What Is Meaningful to You

64. Motivation is crucial to writing -students will write far more willingly if they write about subjects that interest them and that they have an aptitude for. – Writing to Learn, 1988

65. Try not to acquiesce too quickly in projects that you know aren’t right for who you are. Think about other financial solutions that will free you to focus on the primary task of becoming a writer. – American Scholar Blog, June 3, 2011

66. Give more thought to the longer trajectory of your life. Your most important work-in-progress is not the story you’re working on now. Your most important work-in-progress is you. – American Scholar Blog, June 3, 2011

67. I often think I’m the only teacher who talks about enjoyment as a crucial ingredient in writing. My students seem puzzled that I keep coming back to the subject. – American Scholar Blog, May 14, 2010

68. Writing is serious! Most writers take the act of writing with grim solemnity, fearful that they won’t be worthy of the gods of literature scowling down from Mount Parnassus. Or is it that they take themselves so seriously? – American Scholar Blog, May 14, 2010

69. When I write I make a conscious effort to generate a sense of enjoyment –to convey to my readers that I found the events I’m describing more than ordinarily interesting, or unusual, or amusing, or emotional, or bizarre. Otherwise why bother to describe them? – American Scholar Blog, May 14, 2010

70. I also try to convey the idea that I was feeling great when I did my writing –which I almost never was; writing well is hard work. But readers have a right to believe that you were having a good time taking them on your chosen voyage. – American Scholar Blog, May 14, 2010

71. Only when the job was over did I enjoy it. I don’t like to write, but I take great pleasure in having written. – Writing to Learn, 1988

Quotes on Creativity and Getting Ideas

72. Some of our most creative work gets done in downtime –waking from a nap, taking a walk, daydreaming in the shower…Downtime is when breakthrough ideas are delivered to us, unsummoned, when yesterday’s blockages somehow come unblocked. That’s because we treated ourselves to a little boredom and cleared our brains of the sludge of information. – American Scholar Blog, December 3, 2010

73. Something happened when I actually started to write. The book took on a life of its own and told me how it wanted to be written. – Writing to Learn, 1988

74. An idea can have value in itself, but its usefulness diminishes to the extent that you can’t articulate it to someone else. – Writing to Learn, 1988

Quotes on Writing for Money

75. I know that writers, like everyone else, have to pay the bills. But I believe that blind subservience to an imagined final product is harmful to body and soul and is also often unnecessary. – American Scholar Blog, June 3, 2011

76. Depressingly often I hear from people who are stalled on a piece of writing for reasons that have nothing to do with actual writing. They are snarled in the machinery of trying to market what they write. – American Scholar Blog, June 3, 2011

77. If the process is sound, the product will take care of itself. – Writing to Learn, 1988

78. Ravi’s India memoir also might not get published, but she would be fully alive while writing it. She would grow as a writer and as a person. – American Scholar Blog, June 3, 2011

79. Much of the trouble that writers get into is caused by cart-before-the-horse disease. Writers fixate on the successful final product, forgetting that they will only create that product if they start at the beginning and get the process right. – American Scholar Blog, September 24, 2010

Quotes on Memoirs

80. Memoirs first got a bad name in the mid-1990s. Until that time authors adhered to an agreed-upon code of modesty, drawing a veil over their most shameful acts and feelings. Then talk shows were born and shame went out the window. Overnight, no recollected event was too squalid, no family too dysfunctional, to be trotted out, for the titillation of the masses, on television and in magazines and books. – American Scholar Blog, February 18, 2011

81. Memoir became the new therapy. Everybody and his brother wallowed in their struggle with alcohol, drug addiction, recovery, abuse, illness, aging parents, troubled children, codependency, and other newly fashionable syndromes, meanwhile bashing their parents, siblings, teachers, coaches, and everyone else who ever dared to misunderstand them. It was a new literature of victimhood. – American Scholar Blog, February 18, 2011

82. Nobody remembered those books for more than 10 minutes; readers won’t put up with whining. The memoirs that endure from that period are the ones that look back with love and forgiveness. – American Scholar Blog, February 18, 2011

83. There are many good reasons for writing your memoir that have nothing to do with being published. One is to leave your children and grandchildren a record of who you were and what heritage they were born into. Please get started on that; time tends to surprise us by running out. One of the saddest sentences I know is “I wish I had asked my mother about that.” – American Scholar Blog, February 18, 2011

84. I don’t like people telling other people they shouldn’t write about their life. All of us earn that right by being born; one of the deepest human impulses is to leave a record of what we did and what we thought and felt on our journey. The issue here is not whether so many bad memoirs should be written. It’s whether they should be published. – American Scholar Blog, February 18, 2011

85. Most of those memoirs shouldn’t be published. They are too raw and ragged, too self-absorbed and poorly written, seldom telling us anything we don’t already know. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t write them. Don’t worry about the trees. – American Scholar Blog, February 18, 2011

Quotes on Non-fiction Writing

86. Nonfiction writing should always have a point: It should leave the reader with a set of facts, or an idea, or a point of view, that he didn’t have before he started reading. – Writing to Learn, 1988

87. As a nonfiction writer you must anchor your work in specific detail and personal experience that’s useful to your readers. – American Scholar Blog, September 24, 2010

88. Nonfiction writers should always gather far more material than they will use, never knowing which morsel will later exactly serve their needs. – American Scholar Blog, March 11, 2011

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Louis L’Amour Biography

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Louis L’Amour (born Louis Dearborn LaMoore) was an American author best known for novels and short stories. Although he is most famous for his western novels, he has also written poetry, science-fiction, historical fiction, and non-fiction books.

L’Amour was highly prolific. He wrote 100 novels and numerous short stories (over 250 by some estimates). His books have sold over 320 million copies and have been translated into 20 languages. He also wrote numerous screenplays and television scripts. Several of his books (at least 30) have been made into films.

Louis L’Amour’s life story is a colorful as the characters he writes about in his books. He was born in Jamestown, North Dakota, US on March 22, 1908.  His father was a veterinarian and his mother was a teacher.

His comfortable childhood ended in 1923 when, after a series of bank failures ruined the economy of the upper Midwest, the family had to move to look for work. This meant that Louis and his brother John had to leave school. Louis was 15 at the time.

During these difficult years, Louis worked all kinds of jobs. He worked in cattle farms, mines, sawmills, and lumber camps. He also spent time as a professional boxer and merchant seaman. His work as a merchant seaman enables him to travel around the world, visiting England, Japan, China, Borneo, the Dutch East Indies, Arabia, Egypt, and Panama.

In the early 1930s, during the great depression, he settled in Choctaw, Oklahoma, to start his writing career. In 1939, at the age of 31, he published a book of poetry and several short stories. His writing career was interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War. In 1942 (at the age of 35) he joined the US army transportation corps and spent time in France and Germany.

He continued with his writing career after the war in 1946. From 1946 to 1950, he wrote many short stories for various magazines under the pseudonym “Jim Mayo.” He also wrote four novels as “Tex Burns.”

The first novel he wrote under his real name was Westward the Tide (1951). In 1953, he wrote Hondo, which became a hit and sold 1.5 million copies. In 1954, Hondo was made into a highly successful film starring John Wayne. The rest, as they say, is history.

In 1983, L’Amour became the first novelist to be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. He was also awarded the Medal of Freedom in 1984.

L’Amour died from lung cancer at the age of 80 (on 10 June 1988).  His autobiography, Education of a Wandering Man (1989), was published shortly after.

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