Written by Matt Zavadil
Updated November 12, 2022
Quitting your day job is often the goal after starting a side hustle or one of many business ideas. Getting there can turn frustrating as you hit inevitable roadblocks. Use my collection of 216 side hustle quotes to stay fired up.
1. “Do or do not; there is no try.” – Yoda
2. “Eat. Sleep. Hustle. Repeat.” – Anonymous
3. “Some people want it to happen, some people wish it would happen, others make it happen.” Michael Jordan
4. “You can’t have a million-dollar dream with a minimum-wage work ethic.” – Stephen C. Hogan
5. “If successful and unsuccessful people share the same goals, then the goal cannot be what differentiates the winners from the losers.” – James Clear
6. “Some hustle for respect. Some hustle for love. Others hustle for truth. We all hustle to survive.” – Unknown
7. “You could certainly say that I’ve never underestimated myself. There’s nothing wrong with being ambitious.” – Angela Merkel
8. “Don’t stay in bed unless you can make money in bed.” – George Burns
9. “The only way to do great work is to love what you do.” – Steve Jobs
10. “The Enemy of the best is the good. If you’re always settling with what’s good, you’ll never be the best.” – Jerry Rice
11. “Do not underestimate the determination of a quiet man.” – Iain Duncan Smith
12. “Contrary to popular opinion, the hustle is not a dance step – it’s an old business procedure.” – Fran Lebowitz
13. “If you don’t find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die.” – Warren Buffett
14. “I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.” – Jimmy Dean
15. “When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” – Henry Ford
16. “I work best inundated with things when it’s like raining information.” – Ryan Seacrest
17. “Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” – Theodore Roosevelt
18. “Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won’t, so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can’t.” – Anonymous
19. Michael Jordan said, “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
20. “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” – Walt Disney
21. “You can have everything in life you want if you will just help other people get what they want.” – Zig Ziglar
22. “There is no substitute for hard work.” – Thomas Edison
23. “I am not a failure because I have failed, I am a failure because I have given up.” – Stephen C. Hogan
24. Richard Branson said, “If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later!”
25. “Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” – Steve Jobs
26. “So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.” – Christopher Reeve
27. Vince Lombardi said, “It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get back up.”
28. “My hustle is nonstop. I never stop hustling.” – Young Jeezy
29. “Opportunities don’t happen. You create them.” – Chris Grosser
30. “Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the best.” – John D. Rockefeller
31. “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing–that’s why we recommend it daily.” – Zig Ziglar
32. “Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit at home and think about it. Go out and get busy.” – Dale Carnegie
33. “If you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing you have to do is wake up.” – J.M. Power
34. “Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in.” – Bill Bradley
35. “Never again, at any other point in your journey, will you have so much to gain as you will if you start today?” – Mike Dooley
36. “The trouble for most people is they don’t decide to get wealthy, they just dream about it.” – Michael Masters
37. “If you can dream it, you can achieve it.” – Walt Disney
38. “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill
39. “Don’t think about your errors or failures; otherwise, you’ll never do a thing.” – Bill Murray
40. “Everyone has a purpose in life and a unique talent to give to others. And when we blend this unique talent with service to others, we experience the ecstasy and exultation of own spirit, which is the ultimate goal of all goals.” – Kallam Anji Reddy
41. “We become what we think about most of the time.” – Earl Nightingale
42. “The man on top of the mountain didn’t fall there.” – Vince Lombardi
43. “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” – Chinese Proverb
44. “I’m living every day like a hustle. Another drug to juggle. Another day, another struggle.” – Notorious BIG
45. “Don’t tell me where your priorities are. Show me where you spend your money and I’ll tell you what they are.” — James W. Frick
46. “The best kinds of people in your life aren’t those who gather to celebrate your success, but those who gather to help your hustle.” – Usman Ismaheel
47. “Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” – Albert Einstein
48. “I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse.” – Florence Nightingale
49. “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel .” – Maya Angelou
50. “Fear is your road sign to growth and success.” – Unknown
51. “If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things .” – Albert Einstein
52. Gary Vaynerchuk said, “If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat. Just get on.”
53. “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” – Ernest Hemingway
54. “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
55. “I am thankful for a lawn that needs mowing, windows that need cleaning, and gutters that need fixing because it means I have a home…. I am thankful for the piles of laundry and ironing because it means my loved ones are nearby.” – Nancie J. Carmody
56. “The side hustle is the new job security.” – Unknown
57. “All the so-called secrets of success will not work unless you do.” – Jaymin Shah
58. Mark Twain said, “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”
59. “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
60. “There’s no shortage of remarkable ideas, what’s lacking is the will to execute them.” – Seth Godin
61. “The number one reason people fail with side hustles (or anything in life) is that they give up too soon.” – Unknown
62. “Ideas won’t keep; something must be done about them.” – Alfred North Whitehead
63. “You can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone.” – Ronald Reagan
64. “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.” – Colossians
65. “The best side hustles are the ones that solve a problem that you have.” – Unknown
66. “It’s important to be willing to make mistakes. The worst that can happen is that you become memorable.” – Sara Blakely
67. “Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time.” – Jim Rohn
68. “If your mind can conceive it, You can achieve it.” – Napoleon Hill
69. “I played the game one way. I gave it everything I had. It doesn’t take any ability to hustle.” – Wade Boggs
70. “If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.” Reid Hoffman
71. “The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
72. “I want the peace in knowing that it wasn’t for lack of hustling that I missed a target for my dream. I want to know that the one thing in my control was under control.” – Jon Acuff
73. “We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.” – Maya Angelou
74. “Don’t be afraid to start small with your side hustle. Just because it’s a side hustle doesn’t mean it can’t turn into a full-time business.” – Unknown
75. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.” – Aristotle
76. “You’ve got to get up every morning with determination if you’re going to go to bed with satisfaction.” – George Horace Lorimer
77. Oprah Winfrey said, “The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams.”
78. “If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success.” James Cameron
79. “Kill your goals. Create habits instead.” – Unknown
80. “Remember, you only have to be right once to make a fortune.” – Mark Cuban
81. William James said, “The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.”
82. “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” – Theodore Roosevelt
83. Estee Lauder said, “I didn’t get there by wishing for it or hoping for it, but by working for it.”
84. “A dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination, and hard work.” – Colin Powell
85. “I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.” – Michael Jordan
86. “Hustle beats talent when talent doesn’t hustle” – Ross Simmonds
87. Muhammad Ali said, “Don’t count the days, make the days count.”
88. “I’d rather be a failure at something I love than a success at something I hate .” – George Burns
89. “Work harder than you think you did yesterday.” – Alex Elle
90. “Greatness only comes before hustle in the dictionary.” – Ross Simmonds
91. “Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” – Albert Schweitzer
92. “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky
93. “The most important thing is to enjoy your life—to be happy—it’s all that matters.” – Dalai Lama
94. Tony Robbins said, “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.”
95. Abraham Lincoln said, “Whatever you are, be a good one.”
96. “You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.” – Henry Ford
97. “I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions .” – Stephen Covey
98. Richard Branson said, “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”
99. “All dreams are within reach. All you have to do is keep moving towards them.” – Viola Davis
100. “I don’t believe in competing for what I want. I believe in creating what I want.” – Zain Asher
101. “The difference between fear and excitement is the way you think about it.” – Unknown
102. Jim Rohn said, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
103. “There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.” – Aristotle
104. “When I started flirting with the hustle, failure became my ex. Now engaged to the game and married to success.” – Unknown
105. “If you can dream it, you can achieve it.” – Zig Ziglar
106. “Action is the foundational key to all success.” – Pablo Picasso
107. “Sometimes, you’ve got to work a little, so you can ball a lot.” – Tom Haverford
108. “Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” – William James
109. Thomas Jefferson said, “I’m a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.”
110. “Without hustle, talent will only carry you so far.” – Gary Vaynerchuk
111. “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” – Colin Powell
112. “The world is changing very fast. Big will not beat small anymore. It will be the fast beating the slow.” – Rupert Murdoch
113. “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” – Maya Angelou
114. “The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullshit story you keep telling yourself as to why you can’t achieve it.” – Jordan Belfort
115. Stephen King said, “Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”
116. George Bernard Shaw said, “I am not in the world to live up to other people’s expectations, nor do I feel that the world must live up to mine.”
117. “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi
118. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
119. “I’d rather hustle 24/7 than slave 9 to 5.” – Unknown
120. “Don’t wish for things to be easier, wish for you to be better.” – Jim Rohn
121. “You need to be willing to lose if you’re truly committed to winning.” – Unknown
122. “If you want something you’ve never had, you must be willing to do something you’ve never done.” – Thomas Jefferson
123. “Great things come from hard work and perseverance. No excuses.” – Kobe Bryant
124. Vince Lombardi said, “The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.”
125. “Hustle isn’t just working on the things you like. It means doing the things you don’t enjoy so you can do the things you love.” – Unknown
126. “Life is short. Don’t be lazy.” – Sophia Amoruso’
127. “There are no traffic jams along the extra mile .” – Roger Staubach
128. “You can’t be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline- it helps if you have some kind of a football team or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer.” – Frank Zappa
129. “Good things happen to those who hustle.” – Anais Nin
130. “It is never too late to be what you might have been.” – George Eliot
131. “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” – Sheryl Sandberg
132. “I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.” – Bruce Lee
133. “I never took a day off in my 20s. Not one.” – Bill Gates
134. “You must either modify your dreams or magnify your skills.” – Jim Rohn
135. “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” – Albert Einstein
136. “Business opportunities are like buses: there’s always another one coming.” – Richard Branson
137. “Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill
138. “I knew I could control one thing, and that is my time and my hours and my effort and my efficiency.” – Ryan Seacrest
139. “My entire life can be summed up in four words: I hustled. I conquered. ” – Unknown
140. “Tell the world this is my voice.” -Shane Koyczan
141. “So be a mirror reflecting yourself, and remembering the times when you thought all of this was too hard and that you’d never make it through. Remember the times you could have pressed quit – but you hit continue.”- MacKenzie Bezos
142. “I created my lane. No one can ever run my lane because it’s mine. I’m the Michael Jackson of my lane. And you know, nobody was as great as Michael. I love Prince, but he’s not Michael.” – Young Jeezy
143. “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader .” – John Quincy Adams
144. “Courage, sacrifice, determination, commitment, toughness, heart, talent, guts. That’s what little girls are made of.” – Bethany Hamilton
145. “Live daringly, boldly, fearlessly. Taste the relish to be found in competition – in having put forth the best within you”. – Henry J. Kaiser
146. “Progress equals happiness.” – Tony Robbins
147. Babe Ruth said, “It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.”
148. “The energy you’ll expend focusing on someone else’s life is better spent working on your own.” – Sophia Amoruso
149. “Do not wait; the time will never be ‘just right.’ Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.” – George Herbert
150. “I am not a failure because I have failed, I am a failure because I have given up.” – Denis Waitley
151. “Grit is that ‘extra something’ that separates the most successful people from the rest. It’s the passion, perseverance, and stamina that we must channel to stick with our dreams until they become a reality.” – Travis Bradberry
152. “Never accept yourself as a finished product. Be a finished product when you die. As long as you have breath in your lungs, expand yourself.” – Brandi Bates
153. “The day you plant the seed is not the day you eat the fruit.” – Fabienne Frederickson
154. “What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight – it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower
155. “So often people are working hard at the wrong thing. Working on the right thing is probably more important than working hard.” – Caterina Fake
156. Margaret Thatcher said, “If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.”
157. “It’s not about money or connections. It’s the willingness to outwork and outlearn everyone when it comes to your business.” – Mark Cuban
158. Sophia Loren said, “Beauty is how you feel inside, and it reflects in your eyes. It is not something physical.”
159. “Hard work compounds like interest, and the earlier you do it, the more time you have for the benefits to pay off.” – Sam Altman
160. “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any .” – Alice Walker
161. “Hustle in silence and let your success make the noise.” – Unknown
162. “We can each define ambition and progress for ourselves. The goal is to work toward a world where expectations are not set by the stereotypes that hold us back, but by our personal passion, talents, and interests.” – Sheryl Sandberg
163. “A real leader faces the music, even when he doesn’t like the tune.” – Anonymous
164. “Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.” – Suzy Kassem
165. “Things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out.” – John Wooden
166. “Today’s accomplishments were yesterday’s impossibilities .” – Robert H. Schuller
167. Gary Vaynerchuk said, “The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don’t define them, or ever seriously consider them as believable or achievable. Winners can tell you where they are going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will go with them.”
168. Oprah Winfrey said, “You become what you believe.”
169. “Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs.” – Farrah Gray
170. Abraham Lincoln said, “I’m a success today because I had a friend who believed in me and I didn’t have the heart to let him down.”
171. “Business success requires training and discipline and hard work. But if you’re not frightened by these things, the opportunities are just as great today as they ever were.” – David Rockefeller
172. “Be not afraid of going slowly. Be afraid only of standing still.” – Chinese Proverb
173. “Things may come to those who wait … but only the things left by those who hustle.” – Abraham Lincoln (Not so sure he said it!)
174. “The dream is free. The hustle is sold separately.” – Unknown
175. Jerry Rice said, “Today I will do what others won’t, so tomorrow I can do what others can’t.”
176. “Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.” – Peter Drucker
177. “I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear.”- Rosa Parks
178. Bill Gates said, “As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.”
179. “The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a man’s determination.” – Tommy Lasorda
180. “I never dreamed about success. I worked for it.” – Estée Lauder
181. “What you lack in talent can be made up with desire, hustle, and giving 110 percent all the time.” – Don Zimmer
182. “If you can’t fly then run… if you can’t run then walk… if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
183. “The work you do while you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life.” – Jessica Hische
184. “Invest in your dreams. Grind now. Shine later.” – Unknown
185. “The hustle brings the dollar. The experience brings the knowledge. The persistence brings success.” – Ross Simmonds
186. Henry Rollins said, “The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.”
187. “So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because that’s where you will find success. On the far side of failure.” – Thomas J. Watson
188. “Don’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle.” – Jon Acuff
189. “Hustle until you no longer need to introduce yourself.” – Anonymous
190. “If you don’t value your time, neither will others. Stop giving away your time and talents– start charging for it.” – Kim Garst
191. “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas Edison
192. “You just have to keep trying to do good work and hope that it leads to more good work. I know it sounds ridiculous, but that’s really all you can do.” – Jon Stewart
193. Gabriel García Márquez said, “Nobody deserves your tears, but whoever deserves them will not make you cry.”
194. “You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing and falling over.” – Richard Branson
195. “Done is better than perfect.” – Mark Zuckerberg
196. “The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.” – Vidal Sassoon
197. “There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.” – Beverly Sills
198. “If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it.” – Lucille Ball
199. “I’m from where your hustle determines your salary.” – Mark Ross
200. “The key to success is action, and the essential in action is perseverance.” – Sun Yat-sen
201. “The longer you’re not taking action the more money you’re losing.” – Carrie Wilkerson
202. “If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.” – Jim Rohn
203. “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.” – Winston Churchill
204. “There is no such thing as failure. There are only results.” – Tony Robbins
205. Frank Sinatra said, “The best revenge is massive success.”
206. “Results have very little to do with goals and nearly everything to do with systems.” – James Clear
207. “He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.”- Muhammad Ali
208. “The risk of moving toward your dreams is much lower than the slow, everyday punishment you inflict on yourself by suppressing your dream.” – Mel Robbins
209. “You gotta run more than your mouth to escape the treadmill of mediocrity. A true hustler jogs during the day, and sleepwalks at night.” – Jarod Kintz
210. “Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.” – Og Mandino
211. “Success is never owned; it is only rented—and the rent is due every day.” – Rory Vaden
212. “Challenges are gifts that force us to search for a new center of gravity. Don’t fight them. Just find a new way to stand.” – Oprah Winfrey
213. “Your 9-5 may make you a living, but your 5-9 makes you alive!” – Nick Loper
214. “Work and you’ll get what you need; work harder and you’ll get what you want.” – Prabakaran Thirumalai
215. “Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe.” – Gail Devers
216. “Action is the antidote to despair.” – Joan Baez
