If you run a business and are not familiar with Zig Ziglar, he’s someone you should pay attention to.

Zig Ziglar is perhaps most renowned for his saying that “You can have everything in life that you want if you just give enough other people what they want“, which reveals perhaps the ultimate key to success in business, but there’s a whole lot more from where that came from.

If you’re short on motivation to grow your business, or if you need direction, you’d get a lot from the following Zig Ziglar quotes.

ON SUCCESS

1. “Success is the doing, not the getting; in the trying, not the triumph. Success is a personal standard, reaching for the highest that is in us, becoming all that we can be. If we do our best, we are a success.”

2. “You can have everything in life that you want if you just give enough other people what they want.”

3. “Ability can take you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.”

4. “Attitude, not Aptitude, determines Altitude.”

5. “Some of us learn from other people’s mistakes and the rest of us have to be other people.”

6. “It’s not where you start or even what happens to you along the way that’s important. What is important is that you persevere and never give up on yourself.”

7. “Success is achieved by ordinary people with extraordinary determination.”

ON TAKING ACTION

8.”The greatest of all mistakes is to do nothing because you think you can only do a little.”

9. “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.”

10. “Do it, and then you will feel motivated to do it.”

11. “Outstanding people have one thing in common: an absolute sense of mission.”

12. “You hit what you aim at, and if you aim at nothing you will hit it every time.”

13. “Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly–until you can learn to do it well.”

ON FAILURE AND NOT GIVING UP

14. “It’s not how far you fall, but how high you bounce that counts.”

15. “The seed of a bamboo tree is planted, fertilized and watered. Nothing happens for the first year. There´s no sign of growth. Not even a hint. The same thing happens – or doesn’t happen – the second year. And then the third year. The tree is carefully watered and fertilized each year, but nothing shows. No growth. No anything. For eight years it can continue. Eight years! Then – after the eight years of fertilizing and watering have passed, with nothing to show for it – the bamboo tree suddenly sprouts and grows thirty feet in three months!”

16. “Make failure your teacher, not your undertaker.”

17. “When obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal; you do not change your decision to get there.”

18. “Expect the best. Prepare for the worst. Capitalize on what comes.”

19. “If you learn from defeat, you haven’t really lost.”

20. “You don’t drown by falling in water; you only drown if you stay there.”

21. “If you have the character to hang in there when its tough, you will develop or acquire every other characteristic necessary to WIN in the game of life.”

ON MINDSET

22. “You were born to win, but to be a winner you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win.”

23. “You cannot consistently perform in a manner which is inconsistent with the way you see yourself.”

24. “Put all excuses aside and remember this: YOU are capable.”

25. “You can succeed at almost anything for which you have unbridled enthusiasm.”

ON FOCUS, COMMITMENT AND DIRECTION

26. “Rich people have small TVs and big libraries, and poor people have small libraries and big TVs.”

27. “Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.”

28. “People do not wander around and then find themselves at the top of Mount Everest.”

29. “Most people who fail in their dream fail not from lack of ability but from lack of commitment.”

30. “If you don’t plan your time, someone else will help you waste it.”

ON DEALING WITH NEGATIVITY FROM OTHERS

31. “Don’t be distracted by criticism. Remember ~ the only taste of success some people have is when they take a bite out of you.”

32. “Life is too short to spend your precious time trying to convince a person who wants to live in gloom and doom otherwise. Give lifting that person your best shot, but don’t hang around long enough for his/her bad attitude to pull you down. Instead, surround yourself with optimistic people.”

ON HAVING “PERMISSION”

33. “If God would have wanted us to live in a permissive society He would have given us Ten Suggestions and not Ten Commandments.”

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