Inspiring Words: A Collection of Famous Short Quotes

"I never dreamed about success. I worked for it."

- Estée Lauder

"Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get."

- W. P. Kinsella

"You can’t be that kid standing at the top of the waterslide, overthinking it. You have to go down the chute."

- Tina Fey

"It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid instead of trying to be very intelligent."

- Charlie Munger

"Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts."

- Winston Churchill

"The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same."

- Colin R. Davis

"Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success."

- Dale Carnegie

"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. The slogan ’Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."

- Calvin Coolidge

"There are three ways to ultimate success: The first way is to be kind. The second way is to be kind. The third way is to be kind."

- Mister Rogers

"Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable."

- John Wooden

"Just when you think it can’t get any worse, it can. And just when you think it can’t get any better, it can."

- Nicholas Sparks

"You must do the thing which you think you cannot do."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"You’ll seldom experience regret for anything that you’ve done. It is what you haven’t done that will torment you."

- Wayne Dyer

"Anything I’ve ever done that ultimately was worthwhile…initially scared me to death."

- Betty Bender

"We are here to add what we can to life, not to get what we can from life."

- William Osler

"Be where you are; otherwise you will miss your life."

- Buddha

"We pass through this world but once."

- Stephen Jay Gould

"One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth doing is what we do for others."

- Lewis Carol

"There’s love enough in this world for everybody, if people will just look."

- Kurt Vonnegut

"Whatever we are, whatever we make of ourselves, is all we will ever have—and that, in its profound simplicity, is the meaning of life."

- Philip Appleman

"The new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is always light if only we’re brave enough to see it, if only we’re brave enough to be it."

- Amanda Gorman

"Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today."

- Malcolm X

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."

- Nelson Mandela

"One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world."

- Malala Yousafzai

"Always work hard and have fun in what you do because I think that's when you're more successful. You have to choose to do it."

- Simone Biles

"Every strike brings me closer to the next home run."

- Babe Ruth

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

- Mark Twain

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."

- Thomas Edison

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it."

- Steve Jobs

"It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent."

- Madeleine Albright

"The most difficult thing is the decision to act; the rest is merely tenacity."

- Amelia Earhart

"I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific."

- Lily Tomlin

"If you’re not positive energy, you’re negative energy."

- Mark Cuban

"Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m possible.”"

- Audrey Hepburn

"We need to accept that we won’t always make the right decisions, that we’ll screw up royally sometimes—understanding that failure is not the opposite of success, it’s part of success."

- Ariana Huffington

"When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it."

- Henry Ford

"You cannot always control what goes on outside. But you can always control what goes on inside."

- Wayne Dyer

"Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can."

- Arthur Ashe

"All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them."

- Walt Disney

"Everything you’ve ever wanted is sitting on the other side of fear."

- George Addair

"The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me."

- Ayn Rand

"I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work."

- Thomas Edison

"Don’t worry about failure; you only have to be right once."

- Drew Houston

"You carry the passport to your own happiness."

- Diane Von Furstenberg

"Never let success get to your head, and never let failure get to your heart."

- Drake

"Ideation without execution is delusion."

- Robin Sharma

"The two most important days in your life are the day you’re born and the day you find out why."

- Mark Twain

"Nothing ever goes away until it teaches us what we need to know."

- Pema Chodron

"First, forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won’t. Habit is persistence in practice."

- Octavia Butler

"The best way out is always through."

- Robert Frost

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress."

- Frederick Douglass

"Courage is like a muscle. We strengthen it by use."

- Ruth Gordo

"You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, and there’s still going to be somebody who hates peaches."

- Dita Von Teese

"Keep a little fire burning; however small, however hidden."

- Cormac McCarthy

"Make sure your worst enemy doesn’t live between your own two ears."

- Laird Hamilton

"It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness."

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

"If we take care of the moments, the years will take care of themselves."

- Maria Edgeworth

"It’s not the will to win that matters —everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters."

- Paul Bryant

"As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway."

- Earl Nightingale

"If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does."

- William James

"Be the change that you wish to see in the world."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"Don't sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them."

- Madam C.J. Walker

"The bad news is time flies. The good news is you're the pilot."

- Michael Altshuler

"I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination."

- Jimmy Dean

"You get what you give."

- Jennifer Lopez

"It is often the small steps, not the giant leaps, that bring about the most lasting change."

- Queen Elizabeth II

"If what you have done yesterday still looks big to you, you haven't done much today."

- Mikhail Gorbachev

"In the long run, you make your own luck — good, bad, or indifferent."

- Loretta Lynn

"If my mind can conceive it, if my heart can believe it, then I can achieve it."

- Muhammad Ali

"Believe you can and you're halfway there."

- Theodore Roosevelt

"Never limit yourself because of others’ limited imagination; never limit others because of your own limited imagination."

- Mae Jemison

"We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained."

- Marie Curie

"The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do."

- Steve Jobs

"Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye."

- Helen Keller

"Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn’t have the power to say yes."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"When you have a dream, you've got to grab it and never let go."

- Carol Burnett

"Let us make our future now, and let us make our dreams tomorrow's reality."

- Malala Yousafzai

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Dreams don’t have to just be dreams. You can make it a reality; if you just keep pushing and keep trying, then eventually you’ll reach your goal."

- Naomi Osaka

"Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars."

- Norman Vincent Peale

"There is nothing impossible to they who will try."

- Alexander the Great

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."

- Winston Churchill

"Champions keep playing until they get it right."

- Billie Jean King

"We will fail when we fail to try."

- Rosa Parks

"A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new."

- Albert Einstein

"Challenges are gifts that force us to search for a new center of gravity. Don't fight them. Just find a new way to stand."

- Oprah Winfrey

"It ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward."

- Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa

"Our predecessors overcame many troubles and much suffering, but each time got back up stronger than before."

- Shinzo Abe

"I have learned not to allow rejection to move me."

- Cicely Tyson

"Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong."

- Ella Fitzgerald

"It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome."

- William James

"Attitude is the 'little' thing that makes a big difference."

- Winston Churchill

"Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you'll start having positive results."

- Willie Nelson

"Inspiration comes from within yourself. One has to be positive. When you're positive, good things happen."

- Deep Roy

"Optimism is a happiness magnet. If you stay positive, good things and good people will be drawn to you."

- Mary Lou Retton

"I don't harp on the negative because if you do, then there's no progression. There's no forward movement. You got to always look on the bright side of things, and we are in control. Like, you have control over the choices you make."

- Taraji P. Henson

"I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing."

- Herman Melville

"Where there's hope, there's life. It fills us with fresh courage and makes us strong again."

- Anne Frank

"You’re braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think."

- A.A. Milne

"You must do the things you think you cannot do."

- ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

"The Sun himself is weak when he first rises, and gathers strength and courage as the day gets on."

- Charles Dickens

"When your dreams are bigger than the places you find yourself in, sometimes you need to seek out your own reminders that there is more. And there is always more waiting for you on the other side of fear."

- Elaine Welteroth

"Happiness is not something readymade; it comes from your own actions."

- The Dalai Lama

"You do not find the happy life. You make it."

- Camilla Eyring Kimball

"Happiness is not by chance, but by choice."

- Jim Rohn

"Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn't know you left open."

- John Barrymore

"The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it."

- Mother Theresa

"Some people look for a beautiful place. Others make a place beautiful."

- Hazrat Inayat Khan

"Stay close to anything that makes you glad you are alive."

- Hafez

"For one to have complete satisfaction from flowers, you must have time to spend with them."

- Grace Kelly

"Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor."

- Truman Capote

"What's money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do."

- Bob Dylan

"The best revenge is massive success."

- Frank Sinatra

"Try to be a rainbow in someone else's cloud."

- Maya Angelou

"If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else."

- Booker T. Washington

"We can't help everyone, but everyone can help someone."

- Ronald Reagan

"It has always been easy to hate and destroy. To build and to cherish is much more difficult."

- Queen Elizabeth II

"You can't rely on how you look to sustain you, what sustains us, what is fundamentally beautiful is compassion; for yourself and your those around you."

- Lupita Nyong'o

"It’s no use going back to yesterday because I was a different person then."

- Lewis Caroll

"It isn't where you came from. It's where you're going that counts."

- Ella Fitzgerald

"Tough times never last, but tough people do."

- Robert Schuller

"One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals."

- Michelle Obama

"You define your own life. Don’t let other people write your script."

- Oprah Winfrey

"You make a choice: continue living your life feeling muddled in this abyss of self-misunderstanding, or you find your identity independent of it. You draw your own box."

- Meghan Markle

"What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals."

- Zig Ziglar

"You don't always need a plan. Sometimes you just need to breathe, trust, let go and see what happens."

- Mandy Hale

"Life has got all those twists and turns. You’ve got to hold on tight and off you go."

- Nicole Kidman

"Life changes very quickly, in a very positive way, if you let it."

- Lindsey Vonn

"We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us."

- Joseph Campbell

"Keep your face always toward the sunshine — and shadows will fall behind you."

- Walt Whitman

"There is always light. If only we're brave enough to see it. If only we're brave enough to be it."

- Amanda Gorman

"No matter what you're going through, there's a light at the end of the tunnel."

- Demi Lovato

"My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive."

- Maya Angelou

"The most wasted of days is one without laughter."

- E.E. Cummings

"Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment, until it becomes a memory."

- Dr. Seuss

"Forgiveness is choosing to love. It is the first skill of self-giving love."

- Gandhi

"Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it."

- Mark Twain

"An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind."

- Ghandi

"The only reason you are happy is because you choose to be happy. Happiness is a choice, and so is suffering."

- don Miguel Ruiz

"The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails."

- William Arthur Ward

"The sanest thing in this world is love."

- Anne Sexton

"The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread."

- Mother Teresa

"When two people fall in love, past and future disappear."

- The Alchemist

"Love means protection, adoration, mutual growth, & respect above all other things. Without this, love is an illusion, a confused attachment."

- Dena Botbyl

"When I work fourteen hours a day, seven days a week, I get lucky."

- Armand Hammer

"Opportunities multiply as they are seized."

- Sun Tzu

"It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently."

- Anthony Robbins

"Ask not what the world needs; ask what makes you come alive, and then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

- Howard Thurman

"The present moment is the still point around which the universe arises and subsides, only to be reborn again, fresh as a new born child."

- Deepak Chopra

"With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be."

- Clementine Paddleford

"The only limits we have are the limits we believe."

- Wayne Dyer

"You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you."

- Joseph Campbell

"You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream."

- C.S. Lewis

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

- Albert Einstein

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

- Ghandi

"Having the fewest wants, I am nearest to the gods."

- Socrates

"You have to believe in yourself when no one else does."

- Serena Williams

"When you have a dream, you’ve got to grab it and never let go."

- Carol Burnett

"Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come without leaving happier."

- Mother Teresa

"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken."

- Oscar Wilde

"The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams."

- Oprah Winfrey

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen."

- Michael Jordan

"It does not matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop."

- Confucius

"Find out who you are and do it on purpose."

- Dolly Parton

"For me, becoming isn’t about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey doesn’t end."

- Michelle Obama

"You can be everything. You can be the infinite amount of things that people are."

- Kesha

"Always go with your passions. Never ask yourself if it’s realistic or not."

- Deepak Chopra

"Do one thing every day that scares you."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"It is never too late to be what you might have been."

- George Eliot

"Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later."

- Og Mandino

"Get busy living or get busy dying."

- Stephen King

"The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time."

- Mark Twain

"In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: It goes on."

- Robert Frost

"You can’t help what you feel, but you can help how you behave."

- Margaret Atwood

"No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself."

- Virginia Woolf

"It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not."

- Andre Gide

"Failure is a great teacher and, if you are open to it, every mistake has a lesson to offer."

- Oprah Winfrey

"If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one."

- Dolly Parton

"Keep smiling, because life is a beautiful thing and there’s so much to smile about."

- Marilyn Monroe

"Be persistent and never give up hope."

- George Lucas

"There are so many great things in life; why dwell on negativity?"

- Zendaya

"Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else."

- Margaret Mead

"You don’t always need a plan. Sometimes you just need to breathe, trust, let go and see what happens."

- Mandy Hale

"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving."

- Albert Einstein

"Nothing is impossible. The word itself says ‘I’m possible!’"

- Audrey Hepburn

"Life does not have to be perfect to be wonderful."

- Annette Funicello

"It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light."

- Aristotle

"Don’t take yourself too seriously. Know when to laugh at yourself, and find a way to laugh at obstacles that inevitably present themselves."

- Halle Bailey

"Keep your face towards the sunshine and shadows will fall behind you."

- Walt Whitman

"I’m not going to continue knocking that old door that doesn’t open for me. I’m going to create my own door and walk through that."

- Ava DuVernay

"I believe that if you’ll just stand up and go, life will open up for you. Something just motivates you to keep moving."

- Tina Turner

"Once you face your fear, nothing is ever as hard as you think."

- Olivia Newton John

"Next time, ask ‘What’s the worst that will happen?’ Then push yourself a little further than you dare."

- Audre Lorde

"Dreams do not come true just because you dream them. It’s hard work that makes things happen. It’s hard work that creates change."

- Shonda Rhimes

"Let us make our future now, and let us make our dreams tomorrow’s reality."

- Malala Yousafzai

"You will face many defeats in life, but never let yourself be defeated."

- Maya Angelou

"The future is not something we enter. The future is something we create."

- Leonard I. Sweet

"The future belongs to those who prepare for it today."

- Malcolm X

"Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us."

- Joseph Campbell

"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give."

- Winston Churchill

"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be."

- Lao Tzu

"Life has no limitations, except the ones you make."

- Les Brown

"You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them."

- Maya Angelou

"Everything you can imagine is real."

- Pablo Picasso

"Life is very interesting…in the end, some of your greatest pains become your greatest strengths."

- Drew Barrymore

"Life is a daring adventure or it is nothing at all."

- Helen Keller

"All dreams are within reach. All you have to do is keep moving towards them."

- Viola Davis

"Life is made of ever so many partings welded together."

- Charles Dickens

"Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans."

- John Lennon

"Yesterday is but today’s memory and tomorrow is today’s dream."

- Khalil Gibran

"It’s amazing how a little tomorrow can make up for a whole lot of yesterday."

- John Guare

"I am not afraid. I was born to do this."

- Joan of Arc

"The world you desire can be won. It exists... it is real... it is possible... it’s yours."

- Ayn Rand

"Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm."

- Winston Churchill

"Before anything else, preparation is the key to success."

- Alexander Graham Bell

"Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in."

- Bill Bradley

"If you don’t have any shadows, you’re not in the light."

- Lady Gaga

"There are no regrets in life. Just lessons."

- Jennifer Aniston

"Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success."

- Henry Ford

"If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it."

- Margaret Fuller

"And when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it."

- Paulo Coelho

"Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant."

- Robert Louis Stevenson

"It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation."

- Herman Melville

"Don’t worry about failure, you only have to be right once."

- Drew Houston

"Dream big and dare to fail."

- Norman Vaughan

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be."

- Douglas Adams

"For the great doesn’t happen through impulse alone, and is a succession of little things that are brought together."

- Vincent Van Gogh

"We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be."

- May Sarton

"Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game."

- Babe Ruth

"If you live long enough, you’ll make mistakes. But if you learn from them, you’ll be a better person."

- Bill Clinton

"To succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone, and a funnybone."

- Reba McEntire

"Living might mean taking chances, but they’re worth taking."

- Lee Ann Womack

"The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them."

- Paulo Coelho

"Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"There is no perfection, only life."

- Milan Kundera

"My wish for you is that you continue. Continue to be who you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness."

- Maya Angelou

"The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure very much."

- William Hazlitt

"Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: This is the ideal life."

- Mark Twain

"You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough."

- Mae West

"There is no passion to be found playing small—in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living."

- Nelson Mandela

"The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"The great courageous act that we must all do is to have the courage to step out of our history and past so that we can live our dreams."

- Oprah Winfrey

"Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself."

- George Bernard Shaw

"The only one who can tell you ‘you can’t win’ is you, and you don’t have to listen."

- Jessica Ennis

"Set your goals high, and don’t stop till you get there."

- Bo Jackson

"Take your victories, whatever they may be, cherish them, use them, but don’t settle for them."

- Mia Hamm

"If you can’t yet do great things, do small things in a great way."

- Napoleon Hill

"If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way. If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse."

- Jim Rohn

"Live out of your imagination, not your history."

- Stephen Covey

"The greater the difficulty, the more the glory in surmounting it."

- Epicurus

"Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is a quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’"

- Mary Anne Radmacher

"If the decisions you make about where you invest your blood, sweat, and tears are not consistent with the person you aspire to be, you’ll never become that person."

- Clayton M. Christensen

"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any."

- Alice Walker

"Power’s not given to you. You have to take it."

- Beyoncé

"Believe you can and you’re halfway there."

- Theodore Roosevelt

"You have power over your mind —not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength."

- Marcus Aurelius

"The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another."

- William James

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up."

- Vince Lombardi

"With great power comes great responsibility."

- Voltaire

"We cannot solve problems with the kind of thinking we employed when we came up with them."

- Albert Einstein

"Learn as if you will live forever, live like you will die tomorrow."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"Stay away from those people who try to disparage your ambitions. Small minds will always do that, but great minds will give you a feeling that you can become great too."

- Mark Twain

"When you give joy to other people, you get more joy in return. You should give a good thought to the happiness that you can give out."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"When you change your thoughts, remember to also change your world."

- Norman Vincent Peale

"It is only when we take chances that our lives improve. The initial and the most difficult risk we need to take is to become honest."

- Walter Anderson

"Nature has given us all the pieces required to achieve exceptional wellness and health, but has left it to us to put these pieces together."

- Diane McLaren

"The elevator to success is out of order. You’ll have to use the stairs, one step at a time."

- Joe Girard

"Be a positive energy trampoline —absorb what you need and rebound more back."

- Dave Carolan

"Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm."

- Abraham Lincoln

"People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing—that’s why we recommend it daily."

- Zig Ziglar

"Just one small positive thought in the morning can change your whole day."

- Dalai Lama

"Opportunities don’t happen, you create them."

- Chris Grosser

"Love your family, work super hard, live your passion."

- Gary Vaynerchuk

"Don’t let someone else’s opinion of you become your reality."

- Les Brown

"I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions."

- Stephen R. Covey

"Do the best you can. No one can do more than that."

- John Wooden

"If you can dream it, you can do it."

- Walt Disney

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."

- Theodore Roosevelt

"Don’t look at your feet to see if you are doing it right. Just dance."

- Anne Lamott

"Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago."

- Warren Buffet

"True freedom is impossible without a mind made free by discipline."

- Mortimer J. Adler

"Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there someday."

- A. A. Milne

"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost."

- Martha Graham

"Small is not just a stepping stone. Small is a great destination itself."

- Jason Fried

"He that can have patience can have what he will."

- Benjamin Franklin

"Change is made of choices, and choices are made of character."

- Amanda Gorman

"Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."

- John F. Kennedy

"Keep your face towards the sunshine and shadows will fall behind you"

- Walt Whitman

"Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself."

- John Dewey

"An investment in knowledge pays the best interest."

- Benjamin Franklin

"Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently."

- Henry Ford

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

- Confucius

"Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value."

- Albert Einstein

"If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."

- Wayne Dyer

"Failure is not the opposite of success; it is a stepping stone towards it."

- Sundar Pichai

"We must reach out our hand in friendship and dignity, both to those who would befriend us and those who would be our enemy."

- Arthur Ashe

"Success isn't about the end result, it's about what you learn along the way."

- Vera Wang

"It’s fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure."

- Bill Gates

"When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you… never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn."

- Harriet Beecher Stowe

"Accept responsibility for your life. Know that it is you who will get you where you want to go, no one else."

- Les Brown

"Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experiences that reveals the human spirit."

- e.e. cummings

"It isn’t normal to know what we want. It is a rare and difficult psychological achievement."

- Abraham Maslow

"Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible."

- Tony Robbins

"Women challenge the status quo because we are never it."

- Cindy Gallop

"We don’t just sit around and wait for other people. We just make, and we do."

- Arlan Hamilton

"Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another stepping stone to greatness."

- Oprah Winfrey

"The thing women have yet to learn is nobody gives you power. You just take it."

- Roseanne Barr

"If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair."

- Shirley Chisholm

"I raise up my voice—not so that I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard. … We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back."

- Malala Yousafzai

"If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman."

- Margaret Thatcher

"We need women at all levels, including the top, to change the dynamic, reshape the conversation, to make sure women’s voices are heard and heeded, not overlooked and ignored."

- Sheryl Sandberg

"Don't save your best for when you think the material calls for it. Always bring your full potential to every take, and be on top of your job, or they will replace you."

- Gabrielle Union

"Women must learn to play the game as men do."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."

- Ayn Rand

"He who conquers himself is the mightiest warrior."

- Confucius

"Try not to become a man of success, but rather become a man of value."

- Albert Einstein

"One secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes."

- Benjamin Disraeli

"A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him."

- David Brinkley

"You’ve got to get up every morning with determination if you’re going to go to bed with satisfaction."

- George Lorimer

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

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"Take the attitude of a student: never be too big to ask questions, never know too much to learn something new."

- Augustine Og Mandino

"Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it. … Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again."

- Steve Jobs

"What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."

- Mark Twain

"Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power."

- Laozi

"Going in one more round when you don’t think you can. That’s what makes all the difference in your life."

- Rocky Balboa

"Perfection is not attainable. But if we chase perfection we can catch excellence."

- Vince Lombardi

"I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it."

- Thomas Jefferson

"Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively; unless you can choose a challenge instead of competence."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"Keep your eyes on the stars and your feet on the ground."

- Theodore Roosevelt

"Always be a first version of yourself and not a second rate version of someone else."

- Judy Garland

"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer."

- Albert Camus

"When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too."

- Paulo Coelho

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

- Anaïs Nin

"When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive — to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love."

- Marcus Aurelius

"Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation."

- Viktor Frankl

"The two most important days in your life are the day you are born... and the day you find out why."

- Mark Twain

"Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’"

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Either you run the day or the day runs you."

- Jim Rohn

"Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work in hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus."

- Alexander Graham Bell

"Goal setting is the secret to a compelling future."

- Tony Robbins

"I didn’t get there by wishing for it or hoping for it, but by working for it."

- Estée Lauder

"To know how much there is to know is the beginning of learning to live."

- Dorothy West

"If you are working on something that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you."

- Steve Jobs

"Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence."

- Helen Keller

"We should care as much about well-doing as well-being. I want to live in a world that values purpose as much as pleasure, contribution as much as contentment, honesty as much as excitement, and justice as much as joy."

- Adam Grant

"There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning."

- Jiddu Krishnamurti

"I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence I can reach for; perfection is God’s business."

- Michael J. Fox

"True self-care is not salt baths and chocolate cake, it is making the choice to build a life you don’t need to regularly escape from."

- Brianna Wiest

"A year from now you may wish you had started today."

- Karen Lamb

"If you want to do this, if you want to play big, if you want to really impact lives, you’ve got to face yourself. You’ve got to be courageous and willing to go all in and address everything about you that is uncomfortable."

- Harry Lopez

"Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become."

- James Clear

"You don’t have to become something you’re not to be better than you were."

- Sidney Poitier

"Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure."

- Paulo Coelho

"In a moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing to do, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing."

- Theodore Roosevelt

"Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: It must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all."

- William Faulkner

"Failure I can live with. Not trying is what I can’t handle."

- Sanya Richards-Ross

"When I believe in something, I’m like a dog with a bone."

- Melissa McCarthy

"Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live."

- Norman Cousins

"You cannot do kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Everything in nature invites us constantly to be what we are."

- Gretel Ehrlich

"If a window of opportunity appears, don’t pull down the shade."

- Tom Peters

"Self-discipline is doing what’s right instead of doing what you feel like doing. That’s the meaning of self-disciple."

- Eliud Kipchoge

"The quality of our life on planet earth depends on the choices we make every day."

- BJ Fogg

"The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries."

- Rene Descartes

"You really have to love yourself first to get anything done in this world."

- Lucille Ball

"The direction you choose to face determines whether you’re standing at the end or the beginning of a road."

- Richelle E. Goodrich

"Until you value yourself, you won’t value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it."

- M. Scott Peck

"Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time."

- John Lubbock

"The best investment is in the tools of one’s own trade."

- Benjamin Franklin

"Get a good idea and stay with it. Dog it, and work at it until it’s done right."

- Walt Disney

"The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty."

- Winston Churchill

"Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward."

- Vernon Sanders Law

"We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us."

- Joseph Campbell

"You are the one that possesses the keys to your being. You carry the passport to your own happiness."

- Diane von Furstenberg

"A man who has committed a mistake and doesn’t correct it is committing another mistake."

- Confucius Kongzi

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

- Dale Carnegie

"A well-educated mind will always have more questions than answers."

- Helen Keller

"Our greatest natural resource is the minds of our children."

- Walt Disney

"You cannot uneducate the person who has learned to read."

- Cesar Chavez

"Some women choose to follow men, and some choose to follow their dreams. If you’re wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn’t love you anymore."

- Lady Gaga

"The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows."

- Sydney J. Harris

"He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has."

- Epictetus

"The swiftest way to triple your success is to double your investment in personal development."

- Robin Sharma

"Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago."

- Warren Buffett

"I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it."

- Thomas Jefferson

"When a woman becomes her own best friend, life is easier."

- Diane Von Furstenberg

"Limit your 'always' and your 'nevers.'"

- Amy Poehler

"You’ll find that education is just about the only thing lying around loose in this world, and it’s about the only thing a fellow can have as much of as he’s willing to haul away."

- John Graham

"We are products of our past, but we don’t have to be prisoners of it."

- Rick Warren

"and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make."

- Jane Goodall

"If you don’t make the time to work on creating the life you want, you’re eventually going to be forced to spend a lot of time dealing with a life you don’t want."

- Kevin Ngo

"It is never too late to be who you might have been."

- George Eliot

"One man with courage makes a majority."

- Andrew Jackson

"Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken."

- Warren Buffett

"What you learn from a life in science is the vastness of our ignorance."

- David Eagleman

"The same elements of your brain light up when you consider your future self as when you consider a stranger. That may be why your present self is so quick to sell your future self short by procrastinating."

- Tim Pychyl

"You are not responsible for your first thought, but you are responsible for your second thought."

- Raquel Smith

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

- R. A. Heinlein

"The paradox of learning is that to get better, you need to go outside your comfort zone, and thus feel worse. The people who grow continuously, thus feel consistently over their heads."

- Scott Young

"Sometimes, magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect."

- Teller

"I know people that believe in ghosts but don’t believe in themselves."

- Mitch Hedberg

"Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today."

- Will Rogers

"Slow is smooth and smooth is fast."

- Navy SEALs

"Too many people spend money they earned to buy things they don’t want to impress people that they don’t like."

- Will Rogers

"The standard you walk past is the standard you accept."

- David Hurley

"A nail is driven out by another nail. Habit is overcome by habit."

- Erasmus

"I would like to think that all of my successes in life are really just the fruit of my failures."

- Yvie Oddly

"Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don’t."

- Bill Nye

"Whenever you see a successful woman, look out for three men who are going out of their way to try to block her."

- Yulia Tymoshenko

"A dead-end street is a good place to turn around."

- Naomi Judd

"The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain."

- Dolly Parton

"You can waste your lives drawing lines. Or you can live your life crossing them."

- Shonda Rhimes

"I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying."

- Oscar Wilde

"When someone tells me ‘no,’ it doesn’t mean I can’t do it, it simply means I can’t do it with them."

- Karen E. Quinones Miller

"I’ve searched all the parks in all the cities and found no statues of committees."

- Gilbert K. Chesterton

"Life is like a sewer … what you get out of it depends on what you put into it."

- Tom Lehrer

"God long ago drew a circle in the sand exactly around the spot where you are standing right now. You were never not coming here."

- Sufi poem

"Whatever is… is best."

- Ella Wheeler Wilcox

"People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day."

- Winnie the Pooh

"If you’re going through hell, keep going."

- Winston Churchill

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

"Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning."

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."

"Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true."

"Discipline is an exercise of repetition. Not once or twice but until. Until completed."

"Resilience is when you address uncertainty with flexibility."

"True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less."

"Every shadow—no matter how deep—is threatened by morning light."

- Unknown

"Work until your bank account looks like a phone number."

"Do not wait for the perfect time and place to enter, for you are already onstage."

"The strongest actions for a woman is to love herself, be herself and shine amongst those who never believed she could."

"Recognizing and acknowledging our boundaries is critical and healthy both for our mind and body — it’s stressful when we are pressured to do something we should not."

"You learn more from failure than from success. Don’t let it stop you. Failure builds character."

"What gets measured gets done, what gets measured and fed back gets done well, what gets rewarded gets repeated."

"If you want more time, freedom, and energy, start saying no."

"Budgeting isn’t about limiting yourself — it’s about making the things that excite you possible."