Top 500 Richard Branson Quotes (2025 Update)
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401. “If you’re bringing up kids, you just want to smother them with love and praise and enthusiasm. So I don’t think you can mollycoddle your kids too much really.”

— Richard Branson

402. “In the ’80’s my gut feeling was that airlines were crap. I hated spending time on planes. I thought we could create the kind of airline I’d like. So we got a secondhand 747 and gave it a go.”

— Richard Branson

403. “I love the freedom of movement that my phone gives me. That has definitely transformed my life.”

— Richard Branson

404. “I always tell other people to protect against the downside, and not risk roughing on new ventures, but I never stuck to that rule myself.”

— Richard Branson

405. “I’m not superstitious. I don’t really believe in star signs, sorry, or superstitions.”

— Richard Branson

406. “The jet stream is a very strong force and pushing a balloon into it is like pushing up against a brick wall, but once we got into it, we found that, remarkably, the balloon went whatever speed the wind went.”

— Richard Branson

407. “We’d love to be involved with the creation of something very special, something quite large and something quite exciting.”

— Richard Branson

408. “Growth does not always lead a business to build on success. All too often it converts a highly successful business into a mediocre large business.”

— Richard Branson

409. “What’s the quickest way to become a millionaire? Borrow fivers off everyone you meet.”

— Richard Branson

410. “Happiness doesn’t come from making a fortune and owning lots of possessions. ‘Stuff’ doesn’t bring happiness. Family, friends, good health and the satisfaction that comes from making a positive difference are what really matter.”

— Richard Branson

411. “Ridiculous yachts and private planes and big limousines won’t make people enjoy life more, and it sends out terrible messages to the people who work for them. It would be so much better if that money was spent in Africa – and it’s about getting a balance.”

— Richard Branson

412. “I am no stranger to healthy competition-wor king hard and playing hard.”

— Richard Branson

413. “I had no plans to be an entrepreneur. I just wanted to be a journalist and write for a magazine. At 15, I just decided to leave school and launch a national student magazine.”

— Richard Branson

414. “I’m a lad of the ’60s. I started a magazine to try and end the Vietnam war, but it was a number of years before I had the profile, the financial resources and the time to do more.”

— Richard Branson

415. “I love stirring the pot. I love giving big companies a run for their money – especially if they’re offering expensive, poor-quality products.”

— Richard Branson

416. “If you are glass half empty type of person, maybe you just haven’t been holding the right glass.”

— Richard Branson

417. “I am a great believer that you need passion and energy to create a truly successful business. Remember many new businesses do not make it and running a business will be a tough experience, involving long hours and many hard decisions – it helps to have that passion to keep you going.”

— Richard Branson

418. “My mother was determined to make us independent. When I was four years old, she stopped the car a few miles from our house and made me find my own way home across the fields. I got hopelessly lost.”

— Richard Branson

419. “Learning and leadership go together. Too much credit goes to me for what we have achieved at Virgin but the successes happen from working and learning with some of the world’s most inspiring and inspired people.”

— Richard Branson

420. “What does the name Virgin mean? We are a company that likes to take on the giants. In too many businesses, these giants have had things their own way. We are going to have fun competing with them.”

— Richard Branson

421. “London is one of the most exciting cities in the world with so many fantastic pubs and restaurants. I would urge people to get out there and see as much as possible.”

— Richard Branson

422. “Capitalism has never stood back and examined itself properly. I think everybody knows that capitalism is the only thing that works, but is the current form of capitalism the best way of it working?”

— Richard Branson

423. “All of us have just got to find that time to look after our bodies. That helps us make sure that our mind is sharp. I know that when I’m feeling great and really fit, I can get in three or four hours more of really productive work.”

— Richard Branson

424. “I think business leaders all over the world should not just think of how we can make lots of money, which is fine, but to take some of the problems in the world and get out there and tackle them using business. I think that if businesses do that we can get on top of these problems.”

— Richard Branson

425. “People have to decide on priorities if they want to get anywhere. The best lessons I learned was to just do it.”

— Richard Branson

426. “So I became a publisher by mistake – well, not quite by mistake, because I wanted to be an editor but I had to make sure the magazine would survive. The point is this: Most businesses fail, so if you’re going to succeed, it has to be about more than making money.”

— Richard Branson

427. “To be a real entrepreneur you always have to be looking forward. The moment you rest on your laurels is the moment your competition overtakes you.”

— Richard Branson

428. “I think that marijuana should be legalized. I think the only reason it isn’t legal is because politicians who smoked it when they were young men or young women just don’t have the courage when they become politicians to legalize it.”

— Richard Branson

429. “I’m sure if Brawn GP keep plying me with champagne and putting gorgeous Virgin girls either side of me, you never know!”

— Richard Branson

430. “I have learnt more from my failures than my successes.”

— Richard Branson

431. “If people are jumping down people’s throats all the time, in the end, they’ll just shrivel up like a flower shrivels up that’s not watered.”

— Richard Branson

432. “I felt uneasy about making the rapid decisions I have always made, and wondered whether every decision should be formally ratified and minuted at a board meeting.”

— Richard Branson

433. “I think you should do in life what you think you’ll make a real difference at. And generally, as a businessperson, you do things you don’t really have experience in.”

— Richard Branson

434. “I don’t buy a lot of things. I like to create things. I’ve been lucky enough to be able to build my beautiful island in the Caribbean. I certainly haven’t regretted that.”

— Richard Branson

435. “Virgin could never have grown into the group of more than 200 companies it is now, were it not for a steady stream of intrapreneurs who looked for and developed opportunities, often leading efforts that went against the grain.”

— Richard Branson

436. “I just love every minute of my life. I love the variety. Every minute of every day I’m meeting fascinating new people, learning and working with wonderful teams of people creating wonderful things.”

— Richard Branson

437. “I cannot remember a moment in my life when I have not felt the love of my family. We were a family that would have killed for each other – and we still are.”

— Richard Branson

438. “There are quite a few things I’ve done that even I thought might have been one step too far. But if you are willing to make a fool of yourself and make people smile, as long as you do it with a sense of fun, you can get away with it.”

— Richard Branson

439. “I don’t think so, in that Virgin is already a global brand. Brands like Amazon have had to spend hundreds of millions of pounds you know, building their brands, whereas Virgin is already well-known around the world.”

— Richard Branson

440. “We, we – as I say, we go in and shake up other industries and I think, you know, we do it differently and I think that industries are not quite the same as a result of Virgin attacking the market.”

— Richard Branson

441. “New York to Tokyo could be less than an hour. You could be traveling at 19,000 miles per hour orbitally. After we’ve done the space program, we will be producing supersonic planes, which will go far, far, faster than Concorde.”

— Richard Branson

442. “We hope to create thousands of astronauts over the next few years and bring alive their dream of seeing the majestic beauty of our planet from above, the stars in all their glory and the amazing sensations of weightlessness and space flight.”

— Richard Branson

443. “I will work day and night to avoid failure, but if I can’t, I’ll pick myself up the next day. The most important thing for entrepreneurs is not to be put off by failure.”

— Richard Branson

444. “I never set out to be a businessman.”

— Richard Branson

445. “As men, we all have something to give. We all have the power to do our own part to stop the global pandemic of violence against women and girls. It is holding us all back.”

— Richard Branson

446. “Although my spelling is still sometimes poor, I have managed to overcome the worst of my difficulties through training myself to concentrate.”

— Richard Branson

447. “I have always looked on my businesses not just as money-making machines, but as adventures that can, I hope, make people better off.”

— Richard Branson

448. “About 40 percent of my time is spent on social issues and building new organizations, more for the benefit of the climate or health issues.”

— Richard Branson

449. “Nobody’s ever called me Sir Richard. Occasionally in America, I hear people saying Sir Richard and think there’s some Shakespearean play taking place. But nowhere else anyway.”

— Richard Branson

450. “Clearly in the eyes of the consumer; the brand has not been diluted, but we must guard against that happening at all costs.”

— Richard Branson