Sir Richard Branson is one of the United Kingdom’s most successful entrepreneurs. His rise in business was rapid, and the Virgin Group, which he founded, comprised some four hundred companies at its height. You can be sure that any inspirational Richard Branson quotes you read will come from years of experience and reflection on the nature of success.
He was born in 1950, in the small Surrey village of Shamley Green. He left school and went straight into the business world, launching a magazine called Student. He went on to found Virgin Mail Order Records, then a chain of records stores in 1971, and two years later, he founded Virgin Records. With punk and new wave music at the core of its output, Virgin Records soon became a major label all over the world.
Success in the music and record business allowed Branson to indulge another of his dreams. In 1984 he became the majority shareholder in an airline that became Virgin Atlantic Airways. Opposition from the mainstream, longer-established airlines was relentless. Despite this, however, the airline went on to considerable success.
In the 1990s, the Virgin Group ranked as one of the largest privately-owned businesses in the United Kingdom. Virgin Galactic was later added to the portfolio to provide space tourism.
Respect is how to treat everyone, not just those you want to impress.
Richard Branson
Branson is also a great self-publicist. He has set records in powerboat racing under the Virgin banner. Hot-air ballooning is another passion, and Branson has made records tumble in that field, too. He has been a member of teams that were the first to fly a hot-air balloon across the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean and the entire continent of Asia. These are wonderful examples of his willingness to take risks.
Richard Branson’s philosophy is mostly aimed at those going into business. However, much of the wisdom he shares with us can be used to help us live life to the full. He believes that taking risks makes us more confident and more determined. When you encounter failure, just put it behind you and try again.
Keep trying until you do succeed. If you want to start a business or start a new chapter of your life, remember the qualities needed. Passion, determination, and hard work won’t cost you financially, but they will significantly enrich your ability to succeed.
The brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all.
Richard Branson
Branson also urges everyone to listen to others. Everyone can learn from others by listening, reading, and communicating. From all you hear and read, take the best, and then discard the rest.
Treat everyone with respect, kindness, and consideration. Most importantly, respect yourself. Don’t waste time, put in the maximum effort, and enjoy life.
Richard Branson Quotes
Building a business is not rocket science, it’s about having a great idea and seeing it through with integrity.
Richard Branson
A business is simply an idea to make other people’s lives better.
Richard Branson
If your dreams don’t scare you they are too small.
Richard Branson
There is no greater thing you can do with your life and your work than follow your passions in a way that serves the world and you.
Richard Branson
Entrepreneurship isn’t just a label – it’s a lifestyle.
Richard Branson
You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.
Richard Branson
The one person who can make your business succeed is not an investor or even a mentor, it is you.
Richard Branson
The lesson that I have learned and follow all my life is that we should try and try and try again – but never give up!.
Richard Branson
There is no greater thing you can do with your life and your work than follow your passions – in a way that serves the world and you.
Richard Branson
My family brought me up to always look for the best in other people. I love people. Love spending time with people. I love learning from people.
Richard Branson
Whatever business you are in, every company can shoot for the start in their own way.
Richard Branson
You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and falling over.
Richard Branson
When you’re first thinking through an idea, it’s important not to get bogged down in complexity. Thinking simply and clearly, is hard to do.
Richard Branson
If you don’t succeed at first, there’s no need for the F word (Failure). Pick yourself up and try, try again.
Richard Branson
If you don’t have time for the small things, you won’t have time for the big things.
Richard Branson
I’m inquisitive, and love a new challenge.
Richard Branson
Do good, have fun and the money will come.
Richard Branson
If you don’t succeed at first, there’s no need for the F word (Failure). Pick yourself up and try, try again.
Richard Branson
Respect is how to treat everyone, not just those you want to impress.
Richard Branson
Your company should act as a springboard for ambitious employees, not a set of shackles.
Richard Branson
Screw it. Let’s do it.
Richard Branson
Learn from failure. If you are an entrepreneur and your first venture wasn’t a success, welcome to the club.
Richard Branson
If you spot an opportunity and are really excited by it, throw yourself into it with everything you’ve got.
Richard Branson
My definition of success? The more you’re actively and practically engaged, the more successful you will feel.
Richard Branson
Engage your emotions at work. Your instincts and emotions are there to help you.
Richard Branson
Happiness is the secret ingredient for successful businesses. If you have a happy company it will be invincible.
Richard Branson
Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.
Richard Branson
Cover the downside.
Richard Branson
You’ve got to take risks if you’re going to succeed. I would much rather ask forgiveness than permission.
Richard Branson
Communication: the thing humans forgot when we invented words.
Richard Branson
If you’re hurt, lick your wound and get up again. If you’ve given it your absolute best, it’s time to move forward.
Richard Branson
Take a chance. It’s the best way to test yourself. Have fun and push boundaries.
Richard Branson
A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts.
Richard Branson
Your company should act as a springboard for ambitious employees, not a set of shackles.
Richard Branson
If you don’t have time for the small things, you won’t have time for the big things.
Richard Branson
Entrepreneurial business favors the open mind. It favors people whose optimism drives them to prepare for many possible futures, pretty much purely for the joy of doing so.
Richard Branson
Please be polite. Nothing in life should erode the habit of saying thank you to people or praising them.
Richard Branson
Listen. Take the best. Leave the rest.
Richard Branson
Chance favors the prepared mind. The more you practice, luckier you become.
Richard Branson
If you spot an opportunity and are really excited by it, throw yourself into it with everything you’ve got.
Richard Branson
Education doesn’t just take place in stuffy classrooms and university buildings, it can happen everywhere, every day to every person.
Richard Branson
Don’t become a slave to technology, manage your phone, don’t let it manage you.
Richard Branson
The best way of learning about anything is by doing.
Richard Branson
A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts.
Richard Branson
Once a changemaker, always a changemaker but only a few swim against the tide.
Richard Branson
You’ve got to take risks if you’re going to succeed.
Richard Branson
Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to.
Richard Branson
Please be polite. Nothing in life should erode the habit of saying thank you to people or praising them.
Richard Branson
Life is a series of ups and clowns. Make it worth your wild!
Richard Branson
Entrepreneurship is about turning what excites you in life into capital so that you can do more of it and move forward with it.
Richard Branson
You can’t do a good business with a bad person. Find the right people to work with and you can’t go wrong.
Richard Branson
Find the right people to work with and you can’t go wrong.
Richard Branson
Don’t think what’s the cheapest way to do it or what’s the fastest way to do it…think ‘what’s the most amazing way to do it’.
Richard Branson
Remember it’s OK to be yourself.
Richard Branson
For a successful entrepreneur it can mean extreme wealth. But with extreme wealth comes extreme responsibility. And the responsibility for me is to invest in creating new businesses, create jobs, employ people, and to put money aside to tackle issues where we can make a difference.
Richard Branson
I’ve seen life as one long learning process.
Richard Branson
The balloons only have one life and the only way of finding out whether they work is to attempt to fly around the world.
Richard Branson
If you want swashbuckling action in your life, become an entrepreneur and give it a go.
Richard Branson
I believe in benevolent dictatorship provided I am the dictator.
Richard Branson
Through the right people focusing on the right things, we can, in time, get on top of a lot if not most of the problems of this world. And that’s what a number of us are trying to do.
Richard Branson
I was dyslexic, I had no understanding of schoolwork whatsoever. I certainly would have failed IQ tests. And it was one of the reasons I left school when I was 15 years old. And if I’m not interested in something, I don’t grasp it.
Richard Branson
Life is a hell of a lot more fun if you say yes rather than no.
Richard Branson
The music industry is a strange combination of having real and intangible assets: pop bands are brand names in themselves, and at a given stage in their careers their name alone can practically guarantee hit records.
Richard Branson
One thing is certain in business. You and everyone around you will make mistakes.
Richard Branson
Fortunately we’re not a public company – we’re a private group of companies, and I can do what I want.
Richard Branson
I think it’s quite great to set yourself a big challenge, and then you’ve got another reason for keeping fit.
Richard Branson
To me, business isn’t about wearing suits or pleasing stockholders. It’s about being true to yourself, your ideas and focusing on the essentials.
Richard Branson
My general attitude to life is to enjoy every minute of every day. I never do anything with a feeling of, ‘Oh God, I’ve got to do this today.
Richard Branson
Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.
Richard Branson
My philosophy is that if I have any money I invest it in new ventures and not have it sitting around.
Richard Branson
For a successful entrepreneur, it can mean extreme wealth. But with extreme wealth comes extreme responsibility. And the responsibility for me is to invest in creating new businesses, create jobs, employ people, and to put money aside to tackle issues where we can make a difference.
Richard Branson
I cannot remember a moment in my life when I have not felt the love of my family.
Richard Branson
My mother was determined to make us independent.
Richard Branson
A good leader doesn’t get stuck behind a desk.
Richard Branson
If you want to be more productive, then start at the start: get there on time. Whether it is a meeting, a flight, an appointment or a date, it’s important to ensure you are there when you say you will be there. This may feel like an old-fashioned tip to give, but it has served me well for five decades in business.
Richard Branson
Be willing to use yourself to get out there and put the company on the market. If you have to make a fool of yourself, make a fool of yourself, but make sure that you end up on the front pages, not the back pages. In time, it’s possible that your company will stand out from the crowd, and you’ll be successful.
Richard Branson
Material things are delightful, but they’re not important.
Richard Branson
Having begun in business as a teenager and continuing up to the present day, you can be sure that any Richard Branson quotes will be motivational. Wisdom based on experience cannot be ignored, and if you wish to succeed, you would be foolish to do that. Read these Richard Branson quotes and choose those that you think apply to you and your circumstances. Favorite ones need to be noted and referred to when you need inspiration.