65 Bill Gates Quotes About Life, Business, and Love

Our latest collection of Bill Gates quotes to inspire you to success!

Each quote has a net worth 20.2 million so read each one with care!

LOL!

Enjoy!

William Henry “Bill” Gates, III is a business magnate, mega philanthropist, serial investor, and computer program developer.

Bill Gates is known for being the Chief Executive and Chairman of Microsoft, the world’s largest and most popular personal-computer software company.

Bill Gates leads the world in both net worth and charitable donations.

While reading through this collection of Bill Gates quotes, ask yourself the following questions.

How does this idea apply into my life?

How could this idea impact my performance in the work place?

What is Bill trying to say about our own unique voice, journey and self?

What can I do to become more successful?

What ideas do I need to let go of?

Below is our collection of inspirational, wise, and thought-provoking Bill Gates quotes and sayings, collected from a variety of sources over the years.

Enjoy these awesome Bill gates quotes!

Don’t forget to also read these wise Michael Bloomberg quotes from the multi-billionaire businessman.

Check out our most popular quote article, a list of short inspirational quotes for daily inspiration. 

Our inspirational quotes category page has all of our motivational quotes for all the different areas of life.

Bill Gates Quotes About What Successful People Do

1. “Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.” – Bill Gates

Everyday Application: Be nice to everyone! Everyone is facing something you don’t know anything about, and we can all be kind. Bill takes the time to remind us two things: kindness is good and Karma is a b****!

2. “It’s fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.” – Bill Gates

Everyday Application: Success is wonderful and it makes us feel good. Failure not so much. However, we learn invaluable lessons when we fail that ultimately help us be even better! 

3. “Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.” – Bill Gates

Everyday Application: Was there a job you really wanted and were qualified for, but didn’t get? Did that experience open new doors for you? How about something else that you “failed” at? What lessons did you learn? Everyone loses and everyone fails, and sometimes it is just what we need!

4. “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” – Bill Gates

Everyday Application: Just like failures, unhappy customers can provide you with a wealth of information to learn from. The same can be said about haters, competitors, and other people who might be unhappy with how you have done something. This is not to say that these people are always right (sometimes they can even be wrong and toxic). However, there is usually always something you can learn, even if that lessen is how to walk away from toxic people! 

5. “We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve.” – Bill Gates

Everyday Application: Feedback is important for growth, and we should all seek it out. Be thankful when someone provides you with thoughtful and insightful feedback with the intent to help you be better. Also, keep in mind that there is a difference between constructive criticism and being a hater! 

6. “If you can’t make it good, at least make it look good.” – Bill Gates

Everyday Application: Sometimes, we go through stuff that just is not good. But there is often good that can be found. Make the best out of the situation that you can.

7. “Television is not real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.” – Bill Gates

Everyday Application: This isn’t exactly true as many of us work from home or coffee shops. However, the point here is that you can not just sit back and watch life go by. You have to put in the work required to reach your goals. Leave your comfort zone and take some kind of action! 

If you enjoyed this collection of quotes, check out our coffee quotes for our high energy coffee lovers out there.

8. “As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.” – Bill Gates

Everyday Power: Leaders are people who inspire others to reach their full potential. They want to help the people following them be the best they can be. Even if that means that their skills will one day surpass those of the leader. This is one of the greatest rewards a leader can be given. 

9. “Expectations are a form of first-class truth: If people believe it, it’s true.” – Bill Gates

10. “The general idea of the rich helping the poor, I think, is important.” – Bill Gates

You will also enjoy our article on engineering quotes.

Bill Gates Quotes that will inspire you to change the world

11. “Of my mental cycles, I devote maybe 10% to business thinking. Business isn’t that complicated.” – Bill Gates

Everyday Application: What are you devoting your thinking to? Make sure your focus is on the most challenging and pressing task. Try not to spend a lot of time worrying about the things that are not complicated, not important, or beyond your control! 

12. “Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important.” – Bill Gates

Everyday Application: Technology has become a resource that most of us depend on. However, while it has made learning more accessible, it has not done away with the need for talented teachers. Teachers are an invaluable part of our education system.

13. “Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off, and very few employers are interested in helping you. Find yourself.” – Bill Gates

Everyday Application: School teaches us many things, but few of those translate to real life. Bill is right (unless you are a teacher, then you might get summers off). However, find a career or an employer that is interested in helping you (they are out there). Also, don’t be afraid to discover just who you are. That leads to the best things! 

14. “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

Everyday Application: Change happens all the time and sometimes the fruits of that change are quick, and other times they are not. Keep learning, keep growing, and keep doing something. Inaction is worse than waiting years to see the benefit of the changes you are making.

15. “Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.” – Bill Gates

Everyday Application: Growth and achievement start with the behavior that develops within ourselves. If you want to do great things, then you will have to start developing the habits of successful people. Don’t blame others, but rather, do the work and put in the effort to get where it is you want to be. 

16. “I’m a great believer that any tool that enhances communication has profound effects in terms of how people can learn from each other, and how they can achieve the kind of freedoms that they’re interested in.” – Bill Gates

Everyday Application: Communication is key to how humans learn from one another. The method of communication can be verbal or nonverbal. Communication leads to understanding and empathy.

17. “If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1,000 MPG.” – Bill Gates

Everyday Application: Technology is a truth that can not be ignored in today’s world. We are capable of so many “impossible things” (like flying to the moon) because of technology. Yet, there are so many areas where progress is lacking. Why? 

18. “I believe in innovation and that the way you get innovation is you fund research and you learn the basic facts.” – Bill Gates

Everyday Application: Learning and research costs money, but it is necessary for innovation. Knowledge and learning the basic facts will help us in our day to day endeavors, too! Remember, it is ok to not know something and have to research it. Research is more than a Google search, though, so make sure you are getting information from a reliable source.

19. “Everyone needs a coach. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a basketball player, a tennis player, a gymnast or a bridge player.” – Bill Gates

Everyday Application: Do not be afraid to seek out someone who is better at, or has more knowledge about, something. A coach (or mentor) can make all the difference! The lessons you learn will help you along your journey to living life to the fullest! 

20. “I really had a lot of dreams when I was a kid, and I think a great deal of that grew out of the fact that I had a chance to read a lot.” – Bill Gates

Everyday Application: Reading opens up your mind to possibilities and feeds your imagination. Reading is the perfect environment in which to create dreams. Read a lot and dream a lot, too! If you believe it, then you can make it happen!

You will also enjoy our article on airplane quotes.

Bill Gates Quotes to enrich your life

21. “I’m a big believer that as much as possible, and there’s obviously political limitations, freedom of migration is a good thing.” – Bill Gates

Everyday Application: If you don’t like where you are in your life, you do not have to have to stay there. We can move out of bad situations or places. You can leave the place you were born in and learn much from other cultures and ways of life. 

22. “I believe that if you show people the problems and you show them the solutions they will be moved to act.” – Bill Gates

Everyday Application: Sometimes, we all just need a little help spotting what is going wrong and how we can make it right. Successful people are not afraid to look their problems in the eye and then work on solutions.

23. “This is a fantastic time to be entering the business world, because business is going to change more in the next 10 years than it has in the last 50.” – Bill Gates

24. “Our success has really been based on partnerships from the very beginning.”  – Bill Gates

25. “If you can’t make it good, at least make it look good.” – Bill Gates

26. “Until we’re educating every kid in a fantastic way, until ever inner city is cleaned up, there is no shortage of things to do.” – Bill Gates

27. “If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you get a boss. He doesn’t have tenure.” – Bill Gates

28. “If I’d had some set idea of a finish line, don’t you think I would have crossed it years ago?” – Bill Gates

29. “We’ve got to put a lot of money into changing behavior.” – Bill Gates

30. “I do think this next century, hopefully, will be about a more global view. Where you don’t just think, ‘Yes, my country is doing well,’ but you think about the world at large.” – Bill Gates

Bill Gates Quotes on Leadership

31. “There is a certain responsibility that accrued to me when I got to this unexpected position.” – Bill Gates

32. “You see, antiquated ideas of kindness and generosity are simply bugs that must be programmed out of our world. And these cold, unfeeling machines show us the way.”  – Bill Gates

33. “The most amazing philanthropists are people who are actually making a significant sacrifice.” – Bill Gates

34. “I have been struck again and again by how important measurement is to improving the human condition.” – Bill Gates

35. “I was lucky to be involved and get to contribute to something that was important, which is empowering people with software.” – Bill Gates

36. I believe the returns on investment in the poor are just as exciting as successes achieved in the business arena, and they are even more meaningful!” – Bill Gates

37. “Whether I’m at the office, at home, or on the road, I always have a stack of books I’m looking forward to reading.” – Bill Gates

If you’re enjoying these quotes, make sure to read our collection of The Office quotes from the iconic hit show.

38. “Who decides what’s in Windows? The customers who buy it.” – Bill Gates

39. “The best teacher is very interactive.” – Bill Gates

40. “In business, the idea of measuring what you are doing, picking the measurements that count like customer satisfaction and performance… you thrive on that.” – Bill Gates
If you’re enjoying these quotes, make sure to read our collection of customer service quotes to inspire you at work.

Bill Gates Quotes on Success

41. “Effective philanthropy requires a lot of time and creativity – the same kind of focus and skills that building a business requires.” – Bill Gates

42. “We make the future sustainable when we invest in the poor, not when we insist on their suffering.” – Bill Gates

43. Americans want students to get the best education possible. We want schools to prepare children to become good citizens and members of a prosperous American economy.” – Bill Gates

44. “The way to be successful in the software world is to come up with breakthrough software, and so whether it’s Microsoft Office or Windows, its pushing that forward. New ideas, surprising the marketplace, so good engineering and good business are one in the same.”– Bill Gates

45. “To win big, you sometimes have to take big risks.” – Bill Gates

46. “Don’t compare yourself with anyone in this world. If you do so, you are insulting yourself.” – Bill Gates

47. “The best way to prepare [to be a programmer] is to write programs, and to study great programs that other people have written. In my case, I went to the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and fished out listings of their operating system.” – Bill Gates

48. “I studied every thing but never topped..
But today the toppers of the best universities
are my employees”- Bill Gates

49. “In this business, by the time you realize you are in trouble, it’s too late to save yourself. Unless your running scared all the time, you’re gone.”― Bill Gates

50. “In my view, investing in public libraries is an investment in the nation’s future.” – Bill Gates

Motivational Bill Gates quotes and sayings

51. “Business is a money game with few rules and a lot of risk.”― Bill Gates

52. “Innovation is moving at a scarily fast pace.”– Bill Gates
If you’re enjoying these quotes, make sure to read our collection of innovation quotes that will inspire you to find new successes by trying new things.

53. “The vision is about empowering workers, giving them all the information about what’s going on so they can do a lot more than they’ve done in the past.”― Bill Gates

54. “Life is not fair, get used to it.”– Bill Gates

55. “I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.” – Bill Gates

56. “A bad strategy will fail no matter how good your information is, and lame execution will stymie a good strategy. If you do enough things poorly, you will go out of business.”– Bill Gates

57. “If you are born poor it’s not your mistake, But if you die poor it’s your mistake.”– Bill Gates

58. “A fundamental new rule for business is that the Internet changes everything.” – Bill Gates

59. “Money has no utility to me beyond a certain point.”– Bill Gates

60. “I am not in competition with anyone but myself.
My goal is to improve myself continuously.”– Bill Gates

More Bill Gates Quotes

61. “If you give people tools, and they use their natural abilities and their curiosity, they will develop things in ways that will surprise you very much beyond what you might have expected.” – Bill Gates

62. “Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight.” – Bill Gates

63. “Power comes not from knowledge kept but from knowledge shared.” – Bill Gates

64. “In particular, Green Premiums are a fantastic lens for making decisions.” – Bill Gates

65. “It wasn’t enough to deliver cheap, reliable energy for the poor. It also had to be clean.” – Bill Gates

Bill and Melinda Gates on TED: Why giving away our wealth has been the most satisfying thing we’ve done

What other Bill Gates quotes would you add to the list?

Bill Gates is a great businessman, a great inspiration, and a great hard worker.

He is a hero to many people because of all his accomplishments and because he worked hard to rich where he is.

We hope his words will help you succeed and never forget to be kind to others.

Which of these Bill Gates quotes was your favorite?

Do you have any other inspirational quotes to add to the list?

Tell us in the comment section below!