The 25 Best Success Quotes from Billionaires
There are debates about who was actually the first billionaire. Was it REALLY Augustus Caesar? African King Mansa Musa? Some other incredibly wealthy olden king? We can’t say with absolute certainty, but the first billionaire under the dollar was John Rockefeller back in 1919. At his peak, John Rockefeller represented something like 2% of the whole US economy PERSONALLY, which is admittedly pretty impressive. Since then, there have only been roughly 4,000 billionaires in all of world history out of an estimated 117 billion people that have ever lived.
So obviously, reaching a billion dollars is an incredible financial milestone that sets you apart from the rest of humanity financially. While I’m not sure how good an idea it would be to get advice about something like health, relationships, or living a balanced life from billionaires, as a group, they can at least tell you something about the sort of thinking it takes to reach the pinnacle of financial success. With that in mind, enjoy the 25 best success quotes from billionaires.
1) “If you never want to be criticized, for goodness’ sake, don’t do anything new.” -- Jeff Bezos
2) “No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time. You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.” -- Warren Buffett
3) “Look for people who have lots of great questions. Smart people are the ones who ask the most thoughtful questions, as opposed to thinking they have all the answers. Great questions are a much better indicator of future success than great answers.” -- Ray Dalio
4) “If you do everything that everyone else does in business, you’re going to lose. The only way to really be ahead is to ‘be different’.” -- Larry Ellison
5) “We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Don’t let yourself be lulled into inaction.” -- Bill Gates
6) “The #1 guideline to success is you must be in business for yourself. When you work for someone else, you sell your time at wholesale to your employer, who then resells it at retail to the customer.” -- J. Paul Getty
7) “I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.” -- Steve Jobs
8) “You must expect great things of yourself before you can do them.” -- Michael Jordan
9) “Ten minutes are not just one-sixth of your hourly pay; ten minutes is a piece of yourself. Divide yourself into ten units and sacrifice as few of them as possible in meaningless activities. Most things still remain to be done.” -- Ingvar Kamprad
10) “I’d tell men and women in their mid-twenties not to settle for a job or a profession or even a career. Seek a calling. Even if you don’t know what that means, seek it. If you’re following your calling, the fatigue will be easier to bear, the disappointments will be fuel, the highs will be like nothing you’ve ever felt.” -- Jack Knight
11) “Opportunities lie in the place where the complaints are.” -- Jack Ma
12) “In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time -- none, zero. You’d be amazed at how much Warren reads -- and at how much I read. My children laugh at me. They think I’m a book with a couple of legs sticking out.” -- Charlie Munger
13) “Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.” -- Elon Musk
14) “The activist is not the man who says the river is dirty. The activist is the man who cleans up the river.” -- Ross Perot
15) “People say the truth hurts. Hell no, it hurts even more if you do a whole bunch of foolishness to try and avoid it.” -- Tyler Perry
16) “When the rate of change outside is more than what is inside, be sure that the end is near.” -- Azim Premji
17) “If you want to succeed, you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.” -- John Rockefeller
18) “A man can succeed at almost anything for which he has unlimited enthusiasm.” -- Charles Schwab
19) “You have to remember something: Everybody pities the weak; jealousy you have to earn.” -- Arnold Schwarzenegger
20) “It’s not whether you’re right or wrong, but how much money you make when you’re right and how much you lose when you’re wrong.” -- George Soros
21) “Don’t bother starting the 10,000th restaurant in Manhattan. Find something to do that if you don’t do it, it won’t get done.” -- Peter Thiel
22) “Protect the downside and the upside will take care of itself... I happen to be very conservative in business. I always go into a deal anticipating the worst. If you plan for the worst -- if you can live with the worst -- the good will always take care of itself.” -- Donald Trump
23) “What we guard against around here is people saying, ‘Let’s think about it.’ We make a decision. Then we act on it.” -- Sam Walton
24) “Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.” -- Oprah Winfrey
25) “There’s always stuff to work on. You’re never there.” -- Tiger Woods