Motivation Quotes

Tough times never last, but tough people do.
Dr. Robert Schuller

The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person's determination.
Tommy Lasorda

You see things; and you say, "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say, "Why not?"
George Bernard Shaw

There is only one real sin, and that is to persuade oneself that the second-best is anything but the second-best.
Doris Lessing

They can because they think they can.
Virgil

I am the greatest!
Muhammad Ali

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
Marianne Williamson

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.
Thomas Jefferson

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.
Aristotle

We are what we think.
Buddha

Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall.
Confucius

Victory belongs to the most persevering.
Napoleon Bonaparte

It's not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.
Mark Twain

It's never too late to be what you might have been.
George Eliot

We tend to get what we expect.
Norman Vincent Peale

This world is but canvas to our imaginations.
Henry David Thoreau

No-one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
Eleanor Roosevelt

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.
Samuel Jackson

The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.
Vince Lombardi

Whether you think you can or think you can't, you are right.
Henry Ford

Every artist was first an amateur.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

The power of imagination makes us infinite.
John Muir

We become what we think about all day long.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
Helen Keller

The man of wisdom is never of two minds; the man of benevolence never worries; the man of courage is never afraid.
Confucius

Happiness resides not in possessions and not in gold; the feeling of happiness dwells in the soul.
Democritus

There is only one person who could ever make you happy, and that person is you.
David Burns
Intimate Connections.

Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.
William Shakespeare

Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero! (Seize the day, put no trust in tomorrow)
Horace/Quintus Hortius Flaccus

No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.
William Blake

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

The greatest mistake you can make in life is to continually be afraid you will make one.
Elbert Hubbard

Do not wait for your ship to come in - swim out to it
Author Unknown

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, learning from failure.
Colin Powell

This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night of the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.
William Shakespeare

Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Until your good is better and your better is best.
Tim Duncan

Everybody pulls for David, nobody roots for Goliath.
Wilt Chamberlain

Things that hurt, instruct.
Benjamin Franklin

To lose patience is to lose the battle.
Mahatma Gandhi

Most of the shadows of this life are caused by our standing in our own sunshine.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.
Benjamin Franklin

I never think of the future - it comes soon enough.
Albert Einstein

It is the trouble that never comes that causes the loss of sleep.
Charles Austin Bates

Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow.
Swedish Proverb

I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it
Thomas Jefferson

If you can imagine it, you can achieve it; if you can dream it, you can become it.
William Arthur Ward

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

We are still masters of our fate. We are still captains of our souls.
Winston Churchill

Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Albert Einstein

Every problem has in it the seeds of its own solution. If you don't have any problems, you don't have any seeds
Norman Vincent Peale

One who fears failure limits his activities. Failure is only the opportunity to more intelligently begin again.
Henry Ford

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
Albert Einstein

Ask yourself this question: "Will this matter a year from now?"
Richard Carlson
Writing in Don't Sweat the Small Stuff.

It's not the situation…… it's your reaction to the situation.
Bob Conklin

The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
Thomas Paine

Whatever your mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.
Napoleon Hill

If at first an idea isn't absurd there is no hope for it.
Albert Einstein

Life is just a blank slate, what matters most is what you write on it.
Christine Frankland

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give!
Winston Churchill

Knowledge itself is power.
Francis Bacon

What you think of yourself is much more important than what others think of you.
Seneca

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
Henry David Thoreau

To avoid criticism , do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.
Elbert Green Hubbard

I can live for two months on a good compliment.
Mark Twain

Follow your bliss.
Joseph Campbell

Try out your ideas by visualizing them in action
David Seabury

Believe that you have it, and you have it.
Latin Proverb

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
Eleanor Roosevelt

To win takes a complete commitment of mind and body. When you can't make that commitment, they don't call you a champion anymore
Rocky Marciano

When everything seems like an uphill struggle, just think of the view from the top
Author Unknown

Meaning doesn't lie in things. Meaning lies in us. When we attach value to things that aren't love - the money, the car, the house, the prestige - we are loving things that can't love us back. We are searching for meaning in the meaningless. Money, of itself, means nothing. Material things, of themselves, mean nothing. It's not that they're bad. It's that they're nothing.
Marianne Williamson

Keep steadily before you the fact that all true success depends at last upon yourself.
Theodore T. Hunger

The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen.
Frank Loyd Wright

A failure is a man who has blundered, but is not able to cash in on the experience.
Elbert Hubbard

There is only one success--to be able to spend your life in your own way.
Christopher Morley

I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure--which is: Try to please everybody.
Herbert Bayard Swope

The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do, well.
Henry W. Longfellow

A strong imagination begetteth opportunity.
Michel de Montaigne

Your imagination is your preview of life's coming attractions.
Albert Einstein

You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
Mark Twain

The ability to convert ideas to things is the secret to outward success.
Henry Ward Beecher

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
Francis Bacon

Nature and wisdom never are at strife.
Plutarch

The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook.
William James

The first step in the acquisition of wisdom is silence, the second listening, the third memory, the fourth practice, the fifth teaching others.
Solomon Ibn Gabirol

Nothing happens unless first a dream.
Carl Sandburg

A loving heart is the truest wisdom.
Charles Dickens

I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.
Mark Twain

Happiness depends more on the inward disposition of mind than on outward circumstances.
Benjamin Franklin

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.
Mark Twain

Somehow our devils are never quite what we expect when we meet them face to face.
Nelson DeMille

Some patients I see are actually draining into their bodies the diseased thoughts of their minds.
Zacharty Bercovitz

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.
Mark Twain

The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph... You can't be a winner and be afraid to lose.
Charles Lynch

Worry is a think stream of fear which, if encouraged, becomes a wide channel into which all other thoughts flow. Assume an attitude of positive expectancy!
Author Unknown

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
Thomas Edison

Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.
Emile Coue

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he had imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
Henry David Thoreau

Great works are performed, not by strength, but perseverance.
Samuel Johnson

The body moves naturally, automatically, without any personal intervention or awareness. If we think too much, our actions become slow and hesitant.
Taisen Deshimaru

Champions in any field have made a habit of doing what others find boring or uncomfortable.
Author Unknown

The price of greatness is responsibility.
Winston Churchill

It's easy to make a buck. It's tougher to make a difference.
Tom Brokaw

Opportunity... often it comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat.
Napoleon Hill

The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it.
Moliere

The greatest pleasure in life is in doing what people say you cannot do.
Walter Bagehot

The only limits on human achievement are self-imposed.
Dr. Denis Waitley

The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be.
Bruce Lee

The only lack or limitation is in your own mind.
N. H. Moos

Your altitude is determined by your attitude.
Author Unknown

If you are aware of your weaknesses and are constantly learning, your potential is virtually limitless.
Jay Sidhu

It's the constant and determined effort that breaks down all resistance, sweeps away all obstacles
Claude M. Bristol

There are only two ways to live your life. One is though nothing is a miracle. The other is though everything is a miracle.
Albert Einstein

If you do not hope, you will not find what is beyond your hopes.
St. Clement of Alexandria

Faith will move mountains.
Proverb

Remember always that you have not only the right to be an individual, but you have an obligation to be one.
Eleanor Roosevelt

Integrity has no need of rules.
Albert Camus

Those who follow the crowd are quickly lost in it.
Author Unknown

The highest reward for a man's toil is not what he gets for it but what he becomes by it.
John Ruskin

The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Well done is better than well said.
Benjamin Franklin

Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.
Plutarch

The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man's foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher.
Thomas Huxley

The older I get, the more wisdom I find in the ancient rule of taking first things first - a process which often reduces the most complex human problems to manageable proportions.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble.
Helen Keller

It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.
Mark Twain

Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.
William Faulkner

What you become is more important than what you accomplish.
Author Unknown

Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way.
Abraham Lincoln

Nothing worthwhile ever happens quickly and easily. You achieve only as you are determined to achieve... and as you keep at it until you have achieved.
Robert H. Lauer

For all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, 'It might have been'.
John Greenleaf Whittier

He is rich or poor according to what he is, not according to what he has.
Henry Ward Beecher

A good goal is like a strenuous exercise -- it makes you stretch.
Mary Kay Ash

Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.
Cicero

Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you will land amongst the stars.
Jill McLemore

We are new every day.
Irene Claremont de Castillego

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.
Robert Louis Stevenson

If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

The superior man is distressed by the limitations of his ability; he is not distressed by the fact that men do not recognize the ability that he has.
Confucius

The desire not to be anything is the desire not to be.
Ayn Rand

If we did the things we are capable of, we would astound ourselves.
Thomas Edison

Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new
Brian Tracy

Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.
Lou Holtz

I have always admired the ability to bite off more than one can chew and then chew it.
William DeMille

Ability has nothing to do with opportunity.
Napoleon Bonaparte

If a man does his best, what else is there?
General George S. Patton

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.
Henry Ford

If a man is called a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Our work is the presentation of our capabilities.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

A man's true state of power and riches is to be in himself.
Henry Ward Beecher

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help with man with the wrong mental attitude.
W.W. Ziege

The big shots are only the little shots who keep shooting.
Christopher Morley

You can come out of the furnace of trouble two ways: if you let if consume you, you come out a cinder; but there is a kind of metal which refuses to be consumed, and comes out a star.
Jean Church

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have.
Abraham Lincoln

Don't spend your precious time asking "Why isn't the world a better place?" It will only be time wasted. The question to ask is "How can I make it better?" To that there is an answer.
Leo F. Buscaglia

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.
Ayn Rand

Life unexamined, is not worth living.
Democritus

A man who dares to waste one hour of life has not discovered the value of life.
Charles Darwin

The truly important things in life - love, beauty, and one's own uniqueness - are constantly being overlooked.
Pablo Casals

The proof of a well-trained mind is that it rejoices in which is good and grieves at the opposite.
Cicero

As a rule, men worry more about what they can't see than about what they can.
Julius Caesar

In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.
Anne Frank

No one's happiness but my own is in my power to achieve or to destroy.
Ayn Rand

Anybody can do anything that he imagines.
Henry Ford

I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.
Winston Churchill

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
Percy Shelley

Trouble is only opportunity in work clothes.
Henry J. Kaiser

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
Winston Churchill

To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour.
Robert L. Stevenson

Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness.
James Thurber

We must learn our limits. We are all something, but none of us are everything.
Blaise Pascal

The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make heaven of Hell, and a hell of Heaven.
John Milton

God asks no man whether he will accept life. That is not the choice. You must take it. The only choice is how.
Henry Ward Beecher

Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the face.
Helen Keller

Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.
Louisa May Alcott

What would it be like if you lived each day, each breath, as a work of art in progress? Imagine that you are a Masterpiece unfolding, every second of every day, a work of art taking form with every breath.
Thomas Crum

Do continue to believe that with your feeling and your work you are taking part in the greatest; the more strongly you cultivate this belief, the more will reality and the world go forth from it.
Rainer Maria Rilke

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Begin at once to live, and count each day as a separate life.
Seneca

The one unchangeable certainty is that nothing is unchangeable or certain.
John F. Kennedy

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.
Theodore Roosevelt

You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.
Zig Ziglar

In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high.
Henry David Thoreau

Better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness.
Chinese Proverb

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you have was once among the things only hoped for.
Epicurus

Did you ever see an unhappy horse? Did you ever see bird that had the blues? One reason why birds and horses are not unhappy is because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses.
Dale Carnegie

Remember, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.
Dale Carnegie

Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes the furthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare.
Dale Carnegie

Face your deficiencies and acknowledge them; but do not let them master you. Let them teach you patience, sweetness, insight.
Helen Keller

You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.
Margaret Thatcher

When you come to a roadblock, take a detour.
Mary Kay Ash

Man is what he believes.
Anton Chekhov

No individual raindrop considers itself responsible for the flood.
Author Unknown

Life is meant to be a celebration! It shouldn't be necessary to set aside special times to remind us of this fact. Wise is the person who finds a reason to make every day a special one.
Leo Buscaglia

Hitch your wagon to a star.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you're already walking on thin ice, you might as well dance.
Gill Atkinson

Never frown because you never know who might be falling in love with your smile.
Justine Milton

Decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it.
Bill Cosby

When asked if my cup is half-full or half-empty my only response is that I am thankful I have a cup.
Sam Lefkowitz

How lovely to think that no one need wait a moment, we can start now, start slowly changing the world! How lovely that everyone, great and small, can make their contribution toward introducing justice straightaway... And you can always, always give something, even if it is only kindness!
Anne Frank

The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.
Emily Dickinson

Bad times, hard times - this is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times: Such as we are, such are the times.
St. Augustine

The only thing that you can carry with you on your travels is your heart. So fill your heart with good things and good things will follow you for the rest of your life.
Scott Murray

Experience shows that success is due less to ability than to zeal. The winner is he who gives himself to his work, body and soul.
Charles Buxton

The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it - so fine that we often are on the line and do not know it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.
Dale Carnegie

Why not go out on a limb? Isn't that where the fruit is?
Frank Scully

Success is never wondering what if.
Karrie Huffman

The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything.
Bishop W.C. Magee

Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in.
Napoleon Bonaparte

Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life, as by the obstacles one has overcome trying to succeed.
Booker T. Washington

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
Antoine de Saint Exupery

One man has enthusiasm for 30 minutes, another for 30 days, but it is the man who has it for 30 years who makes a success of his life.
Edward B. Butler

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.
Henry David Thoreau

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.
Henry David Thoreau

No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed. No stream or gas ever drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara ever turned light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.
Harry Emerson Fosdick

The strongest man in the world is he who stands alone.
Henrik Ibsen

One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
Andre Gide

A hero is one who knows how to hang on one minute longer.
Norwegian proverb

Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know… One who doesn't try cannot fail and become wise.
William Saroyan

No man or woman is uniformly successful… we must all expect a rather high percentage of failure in the things we attempt.
Barnaby Keeney

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence -- and then success is sure.
Mark Twain

Opportunities multiply as they are seized.
Sun Tzu

There are two kinds of people who never amount to much: those who cannot do what they are told, and those who can do nothing else.
Cyrus Curtis

There are two kinds of failures: those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought.
Dr. Laurence J. Peter

There are two things to aim at in life: first to get what you want; and after that, to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second.
Logan Pearsall Smith

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to success is more important than any other one thing.
Abraham Lincoln

A great man is he who has not lost the heart of a child.
Mencius

He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.
Edmund Burke

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic and power in it. Begin it now.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.
Japanese Proverb

Ones best success comes after their greatest disappointments.
Henry Ward Beecher

Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
Helen Keller

Facing it, always facing it, that's the way to get through. Face it.
Joseph Conrad

Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections, but instantly set about remedying them - every day begin the task anew.
Saint Francis De Sales

The successful man will profit from his mistakes and try again in a different way.
Dale Carnegie

People fail forward to success.
Mary Kay Ash

As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world... as in being able to remake ourselves.
Mahatma Gandhi

Our first and last love is - self-love.
Bovee

The secret of the man who is universally interesting is that he is universally interested.
William Dean Howells

There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.
Elie Wiesel

It is not only for what we do that we are held responsible, but also for what we do not do.
Moliere

The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.
Charles du Bois

Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values.
Ayn Rand

Ideals are like stars; you will not succeed in touching them with your hands, but like the seafaring man on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them, you reach your destiny.
Carl Schurz

Convictions are the mainsprings of action, the driving powers of life. What a man lives are his convictions.
Francis C. Kelley