When times are tough, many of us turn to inspirational quotes for a boost. A regular hit of motivation can help you stay focused, reduce the stress of uncertainty, and increase productivity.
Here are 52 quotes from pioneers, entrepreneurs, innovators, business leaders, creatives, athletes, world leaders, trend setters (and a few surprises just for fun). Those that have faced adversity head on… and come out on top to achieve amazing feats.
Bookmark this page. Visit when you need a boost. Share with friends, family and colleagues. Print and stick your favourites on the wall to remind you that you CAN do it.
Here we go.
1. “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”
- Walt Disney
2. “Don’t give them what they want. Give them what they never dreamed was possible.”
- Orson Welles
3. “Don’t worry about being successful but work toward being significant and the success will naturally follow.”
- Oprah Winfrey
4. “I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
- Michael Jordan
5. “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
- Ferris Bueller
6. “Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.”
- Gloria Steinem
7. “Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
8. “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
- Thomas Edison
9. “Dear optimist, pessimist, and realist – while you guys were busy arguing about the glass of wine, I drank it! Sincerely, the opportunist!”
- Lori Greiner
10. ”The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.”
- Amelia Earhart
11. “When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.”
- Helen Keller
12. “It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.”
- Bill Gates
13. “You can waste your lives drawing lines. Or you can live your life crossing them.”
- Shonda Rhimes
14. “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
- Henry Ford
15. “If you want to be successful, find someone who has achieved the results you want and copy what they do, and you’ll achieve the same results.”
- Tony Robbins
16. “You take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing, no one to blame.”
- Erica Jong
17. “My biggest motivation? Just to keep challenging myself. I see life almost like one long university education that I never had – every day I’m learning something new.”
- Richard Branson
18. “Genius is 1 percent inspiration, and 99 percent perspiration.”
- Thomas Edison
19. “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”
- Warren Buffett
20. “You can’t be that kid standing at the top of the waterslide, overthinking it. You have to go down the chute.”
- Tina Fey
21. “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.”
- Albert Einstein
22. ”Do not let the behaviour of others destroy your inner peace.”
- Dalai Lama
23. “Successful and unsuccessful people do not vary greatly in their abilities. They va
ry in their desires to reach their potential.”
- John Maxwell
24. “Do, or do not. There is no try.”
- Yoda
25. “You have trust in what you think. If you splinter yourself and try to please everyone, you can’t.”
- Annie Leibovitz
26. ”You always miss 100% of the shots you don't take.”
- Wayne Gretzky
27. “Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”
- Winston Churchill
28. “Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”
- Eleanor Roosevelt
29. “If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.”
- Napoleon Hill
30. ”Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.”
- Maya Angelou
31. “Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
- Mark Twain
32. “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”
- Steve Jobs
33. “I’m never going back, the past is in the past!”
- Elsa of Arendelle
34. “Be so good they can’t ignore you.”
- Steve Martin
35. “Tough times never last, but tough people do.”
- Robert H. Schuller
36. “A ship in the harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.”
- John A. Shedd
37. “Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.”
- Albert Schweitzer
38. “If people are doubting how far you can go, go so far that you can’t hear them anymore.”
- Michele Ruiz
39. “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
- Mahatma Gandhi
40. “If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat! Just get on.”
- Sheryl Sandberg
41. “The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.”
- Ralph Nader
42. “True freedom is understanding that we have a choice in who and what we allow to have power over us.”
- Meryl Streep
43. “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”
- Gandalf
44. “Success is not what you have, but who you are.”
- Bo Bennett
45. “When I’m tired, I rest. I say, ‘I can’t be a superwoman today.’”
- Jada Pinkett Smith
46. “Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.”
- Babe Ruth
47. “Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs.”
- Farrah Gray
48. “Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”
- Warren Buffett
49. “Timing, perseverance, and ten years of trying will eventually make you look like an overnight success.”
- Biz Stone
50. “If we tried to think of a good idea, we wouldn’t have been able to think of a good idea. You just have to find the solution for a problem in your own life.”
- Brian Chesky
51. “My will shall shape the future. Whether I fail or succeed shall be no one’s doing but my own. I am the force. I can clear any obstacle before me or I can be lost in the maze. My choice. My responsibility. Win or lose; only I hold the key to my destiny.”
- Elaine Maxwell
52. “What is not started will never get finished.”
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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