100 Business Development Quotes That Highlight Opportunity
At its core, business development is about relationships, building them, nurturing them, and turning them into real opportunities.
It’s also about seeing the potential in unexpected places and knowing how to act on it.
These quotes bring insight from those who’ve mastered the art of growth and connection.
If you’re looking to expand your impact, these words will point you in the right direction.
Top Business Development Quotes
Development is about transforming the lives of people, not just transforming economies. ~ Joseph Stiglitz
The purpose of development is to create an environment for people to enjoy long, healthy, and creative lives. ~ Mahbub ul Haq
The best way to predict the future is to create it. ~ Peter Drucker
The key to successful leadership is influence, not authority. ~ Kenneth H. Blanchard
Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to high sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations. ~ Peter Drucker
The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails. ~ John Maxwell
A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others. ~ Douglas MacArthur
Leadership is not about titles, positions, or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another. ~ John C. Maxwell
The task of the leader is to get their people from where they are to where they have not been. ~ Henry Kissinger
Leadership is the art of giving people a platform for spreading ideas that work. ~ Seth Godin
Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality. ~ Warren Bennis
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. ~ Peter Drucker
A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way. ~ John C. Maxwell
The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers. ~ Ralph Nader
Leadership is not about being in charge. It’s about taking care of those in your charge. ~ Simon Sinek
A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be. ~ Rosalynn Carter
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
Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit. ~ Arnold H. Glasow
Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. ~ John F. Kennedy
Organizational Growth Quotes
Growth is never by mere chance; it is the result of forces working together. ~ James Cash Penney
The only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks. ~ Mark Zuckerberg
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth. ~ John F. Kennedy
Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning. ~ Benjamin Franklin
The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday’s logic. ~ Peter Drucker
If you’re not growing, you’re dying. ~ Lou Holtz
Growth and comfort do not coexist. ~ Ginni Rometty
Sustainable growth means responsible fiscal and environmental policies that avoid waste and reduce deficits for future generations. ~ Tom Allen
The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness. ~ Lao Tzu
Growth is painful. Change is painful. But nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you don’t belong. ~ Mandy Hale
All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work. ~ Calvin Coolidge
Scaling is not just about more. It’s about growing smartly, efficiently, and in the right direction. ~ Reid Hoffman
The true measure of the value of any business leader and manager is performance. ~ Brian Tracy
Growth demands a temporary surrender of security. ~ Gail Sheehy
Comfort and growth rarely coexist. ~ Jocko Willink
Growth is the only evidence of life. ~ John Henry Newman
The biggest room in the world is the room for improvement. ~ Helmut Schmidt
Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle. ~ Napoleon Hill
Growth is a spiral process, doubling back on itself, reassessing and regrouping. ~ Julia Margaret Cameron
If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living. ~ Gail Sheehy
Business Capability Building Quotes
The only sustainable competitive advantage is an organization’s ability to learn faster than the competition. ~ Peter Senge
An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage. ~ Jack Welch
The capacity to learn is a gift; the ability to learn is a skill; the willingness to learn is a choice. ~ Brian Herbert
Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence. ~ Abigail Adams
The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. ~ Alvin Toffler
Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow. ~ Anthony J. D’Angelo
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. ~ Mahatma Gandhi
Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. ~ Henry Ford
In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists. ~ Eric Hoffer
The beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take it away from you. ~ B.B. King
Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. ~ William Butler Yeats
The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go. ~ Dr. Seuss
Learning never exhausts the mind. ~ Leonardo da Vinci
Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn. ~ Benjamin Franklin
I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it. ~ Pablo Picasso
You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over. ~ Richard Branson
The only source of knowledge is experience. ~ Albert Einstein
For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them. ~ Aristotle
I never learn anything talking. I only learn things when I ask questions. ~ Lou Holtz
Learning is not a spectator sport. ~ D. Blocher
Strategic Development Quotes
The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do. ~ Michael Porter
Without a strategy, an organization is like a ship without a rudder. ~ Joel Ross
The best CEOs I know are teachers, and at the core of what they teach is strategy. ~ Michael Porter
Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs; it’s about deliberately choosing to be different. ~ Michael Porter
You have to be fast on your feet and adaptive or else a strategy is useless. ~ Charles de Gaulle
Sound strategy starts with having the right goal. ~ Michael Porter
The biggest risk is not taking any risk. In a world that’s changing quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks. ~ Mark Zuckerberg
If everybody’s doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by going exactly in the opposite direction. ~ Sam Walton
Good strategy requires leaders to say no to a whole array of possible initiatives, even though each one on its own looks promising. ~ Richard Rumelt
Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat. ~ Sun Tzu
The essence of strategy is that you must set limits on what you’re trying to accomplish. ~ Michael Porter
A strategy delineates a territory in which a company seeks to be unique. ~ Michael Porter
Strategy is a pattern in a stream of decisions. ~ Henry Mintzberg
The best strategies are those that create a sustainable competitive advantage. ~ Michael Porter
Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs; it’s about deliberately choosing to be different. ~ Michael Porter
The underlying principles of strategy are enduring, regardless of technology or the pace of change. ~ Michael Porter
Strategy is a commodity, execution is an art. ~ Peter Drucker
The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do. ~ Michael Porter
A good strategy must be accompanied by a strong execution culture. ~ Ram Charan
Strategy is not the consequence of planning, but the opposite: its starting point. ~ Henry Mintzberg
Continuous Improvement Quotes
Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection. ~ Mark Twain
If you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse. ~ Pat Riley
Strive for continuous improvement, instead of perfection. ~ Kim Collins
There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all. ~ Peter Drucker
Improvement usually means doing something that we have never done before. ~ Shigeo Shingo
The biggest room in the world is the room for improvement. ~ Helmut Schmidt
Without change there is no innovation, creativity, or incentive for improvement. Those who initiate change will have a better opportunity to manage the change that is inevitable. ~ William Pollard
Excellent firms don’t believe in excellence – only in constant improvement and constant change. ~ Tom Peters
Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives. ~ William A. Foster
The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor. ~ Vince Lombardi
Quality is not an act, it is a habit. ~ Aristotle
Quality means doing it right when no one is looking. ~ Henry Ford
The price of doing the same old thing is far higher than the price of change. ~ Bill Clinton
The only way forward is to move forward. To forge new ground and break new barriers. ~ Jacqueline Novogratz
Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence. ~ Vince Lombardi
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. ~ Aristotle
The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. ~ Lao Tzu
Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. ~ George Bernard Shaw
Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future. ~ John F. Kennedy
It’s not that we need new ideas, but we need to stop having old ideas. ~ Edwin Land
