50 Opportunity Quotes for Work and Life

If you are waiting around for your life or career to improve, these opportunity quotes can help motivate and guide you.

Life is full of opportunities. But it’s easyto miss those opportunities because they don’t often look like we think theyare going to. Or, we allow fear to stop us from grasping opportunity when itpresents itself to us.

If you want to grow in life and work, you need to learn how to recognize opportunity when it arises and also to create new opportunities for yourself. But you don’t want to stop there, as you keep growing you will learn how to help create opportunities for others as well.

To help motivate you, below is our collection of inspirational, wise, and thoughtful opportunity quotes and sayings, collected from a variety of sources over the years.

We also have a variety of motivational quotes for employees to power your day. Be sure to read that as well.

Failure and opportunity quotes

1. “Failure is only the opportunity more intelligently to begin again.” – Henry Ford

2. “When things do not go your way, remember that every challenge – every adversity – contains within it the seeds of opportunity and growth.” – Roy T. Bennett

3. “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” – Albert Einstein

4. “Every twist and turn in life is an opportunity to learn something new about yourself, your interests, your talents, and how to set and then achieve goals.” – Jameela Jamil

5. “I always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity.” – John D. Rockefeller

6. “In a world that’s changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.” – Mark Zuckerberg

7. “There are secret opportunities hidden inside every failure.” – Anonymous

8. “Decide what you want, and then act as if it were impossible to fail.” – Brian Tracy

9. “The true measure of success is how many times you can bounce back from failure.” – Stephen Richards

10. “When written in Chinese, the word ‘crisis’ is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.” – John F. Kennedy

11. “Turn your obstacles into opportunities and your problems into possibilities.” – Roy T. Bennett

12. “Every moment wasted looking back, keeps us from moving forward.” – Hillary Clinton

13. “There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity.” – Douglas MacArthur

14. Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage. – Victor Kiam

Opportunity quotes to help you seize your chances

15. “If a window of opportunity appears, don’t pull down the shade.” – Tom Peters

16. “When opportunity presents itself, don’t be afraid to go after it.” – Eddie Kennison

17. “Most people miss Opportunity because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” – Thomas A. Edison

18. “Expect change. Analyze the landscape. Take the opportunities. Stop being the chess piece; become the player. It’s your move.” – Tony Robbins

19. “It is possible to become discouraged about the injustice we see everywhere. But God did not promise us that the world would be humane and just. He gives us the gift of life and allows us to choose the way we will use our limited time on earth. It is an awesome opportunity.” – Cesar Chavez

20. “When a great moment knocks on the door of your life, it is often no louder than the beating of your heart, and it is very easy to miss it.” ― Boris Pasternak

21. “If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later.” – Richard Branson

22. “I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.” – John D. Rockefeller

Opportunity quotes on thinking big

23. “As long as you are going to be thinking anyway, think big.” – Donald Trump

24. “Ability is of little account without opportunity.” – Lucille Ball

25. “Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don’t recognize them.” – Ann Landers

26. “The sad truth is that opportunity doesn’t knock twice.” – Gloria Estefan

27. “Opportunities are like sunrises. If you wait too long, you miss them.” – William Arthur Ward

28. “Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door.” – Emily Dickinson

29. “Excuses will always be there for you. Opportunity won’t.” – Anonymous

30. “What is the recipe for successful achievement? To my mind there are just four essential ingredients: Choose a career you love, give it the best there is in you, seize your opportunities, and be a member of the team.” – Benjamin Franklin

31. “Let me tell ya. You gotta pay attention to signs. When life reaches out with a moment like this it’s a sin if you don’t reach back…I’m telling you.” – Matthew Quick

Opportunity quotes on how to create them

32. “Don’t wait for the right opportunity: create it.” – George Bernard Shaw

33. “If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” – Milton Berle

34. “I speak not for myself but for those without voice… those who have fought for their rights… their right to live in peace, their right to be treated with dignity, their right to equality of opportunity, their right to be educated.” – Malala Yousafzai

35. “To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.” – Bruce Lee

36. “We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.” – Edith Lovejoy Pierce

37. “Victory comes from finding opportunities in problems.” – Sun Tzu
If you’re enjoying these quotes, make sure to read our collection of Sun Tzu quotes from the iconic warrior and philospher.

38. “Success is where preparation and opportunity meet.” – Bobby Unser

39. “To stay ahead, you must have your next idea waiting in the wings.” – Rosabeth Moss Kanter

40. “America is another name for opportunity.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

41. “Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.” – Warren Buffett

42. “I will prepare and some day my chance will come.” – Abraham Lincoln

43. “A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.” – Francis Bacon

Opportunity quotes on creating chances for others

44. “The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.” – Peter Drucker

45. “As we enjoy great adventures from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by an invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously.” – Benjamin Franklin

46. “What’s important for my daughter to know is that… if you are fortunate to have opportunity, it is your duty to make sure other people have those opportunities as well.” – Kamala Harris

47. “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” – Winston Churchill

48. “Pursuing your passions makes you more interesting, and interesting people are enchanting.” – Guy Kawsaki

49. “… one opportunity leads directly to another, just as risk leads to more risk, life to more life, and death to more death.” – Markus Zusak

50. “When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.” ― Alexander Graham Bell

Start looking for your open door

Are you feeling motivated to start taking action? That’s exactly what you need to do in order to make the most of the opportunities that show up in your life. Only when you learn how to spot them will you really be able to grasp it.

Having the right attitude towards opportunity and looking for ways to help others do the same can make a difference in your home life and work life. Don’t be afraid to move past any failures that you experienced in the past or any fear that you have over the future. Real growth and opportunity come when you step outside of your comfort zone.

Which of these motivational opportunity quotes inspired you to take action? Do you have any other favorite quotes to add? Let us know in the comment section.