10 Courageous quotes to inspire small business owners

At Hiscox, we encourage courage. We know that starting a business involves risk, because, without risk, nothing great can happen. We want business owners to have the courage to take the right risks so they can be successful. When you take the right risks, you also have to protect against risks you cannot control. That’s where general liability insurance comes in.

Once you have protected yourself and your company against claims and lawsuits resulting from bodily injury, property damage, and negligence, you can channel all that courage into running your business.

We’ve compiled these quotes to inspire you to courageously continue along your path to success.

1. Tom Krause, motivational speaker

Much has been written about the role of failure in entrepreneurship. A successful entrepreneur maintains the mindset that failure is just a step along the way, not the end of the journey.

"Courage is the discovery that you may not win, and trying when you know you can lose."

2. Mark Twain

While not an entrepreneur, Twain had a lot to say about courage and numerous other topics. This quote provides an important reminder when we get overwhelmed and afraid.

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear."

3. Bethany Hamilton

Hamilton is a professional surfer who lost her arm in a shark attack and went back to compete and win as a surfer. She knows a thing or two about fear—and about courage.

"Courage doesn’t mean you don’t get afraid. Courage means you don’t let fear stop you."

4. Peter Drucker, management consultant and writer

In this quote, the founder of modern management succinctly distills the importance of courage in business.

"Wherever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision."

5. Winston Churchill

Another classic quote about the courage it takes to try again after a failure.

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts."

6. John Wayne

America’s most famous cowboy personified courage on the big screen for decades.

"Courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway."

7. Nelson Mandela

Twenty-seven years in prison on charges of conspiring to overthrow the state taught Mandela a lot about courage and overcoming fear. He later served as president of South Africa, having been elected in the country’s first-ever fully representative democratic election.

"I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear."

8. Atticus Finch (in "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee)

Lee’s seminal novel includes this quote that speaks to perseverance and tenacity.

"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what."

9. William Faulkner

Writer and Nobel Prize laureate Faulkner never graduated high school, yet found the courage to write "The Sound and the Fury", "Absalom, Absalom!", and other classics.

"You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore."

10. John Quincy Adams, 6th U.S. President

This quote gives a far more optimistic view of courage than many others, truly making it one of our favorites. 

"Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air."

Entrepreneurship is a journey, and you’ll need to bolster your courage many times along the way. Look to these quotes when you need some inspiration. Speaking of quotes, get one today to see what it will cost to protect your business from the risks you can’t see coming.