"A woodsman was once asked, ‘What would you do if you had just five minutes to chop down a tree?’ He answered, ‘I would spend the first two and a half minutes sharpening my axe.”"
- Anonymous woodsman, popularly attributed to Abraham Lincoln
Efficiency
"You were born to win. But to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win and expect to win."
- Zig Ziglar
Success
"Trust yourself, you know more than you think you do"
- Benjamin Spock
Belief in Self
"Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can."
- Arthur Ashe
Motivation
"It’s not the time to look for excuses."
- Rafael Nadal
Responsibility
"The secret of getting ahead is getting started."
- Mark Twain
Motivation
"Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish."
- John Quincy Adams
Success
"It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up."
- Babe Ruth
Persistence
"If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right."
- Henry Ford
Belief in Self
"Your life is not a simulation; it’s the real game. Play wisely."
- Richelle Goodrich
Awareness
"Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle."
- Christian D. Larson
Belief in Self
"Believe in yourself, take on your challenges, dig deep within yourself to conquer fears. Never let anyone bring you down. You got to keep going."
- Chantal Sutherland
Belief in Self
"Successful and unsuccessful people do not vary greatly in their abilities. They vary in their desires to reach their potential."
- John Maxwell
Success
"Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one."
- Malcolm S. Forbes
Education
"Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction."
- John F. Kennedy
Determination
"The whole secret of a successful life is to find out what is one’s destiny to do, and then do it."
- Henry Ford
Success
"Life is never made unbearable by circumstance, but only by lack of meaning and purpose."
- Viktor Frankl
Awareness
"Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending."
- Maria Robinson
Courage
"If we wait for the moment when absolutely everything is ready we shall never begin."
- Ivan Turgenev
Motivation
"Nothing is impossible. The word itself says ‘I’m Possible’."
- Audrey Hepburn
Empowerment
"Everything you want is out there waiting for you to ask. Everything you want also wants you. But you have to take action to get it."
- Jules Renard
Motivation
"It’s the job that’s never started as takes the longest to finish."
- J.R.R. Tolkien
Productivity
"I don’t measure a man’s success by how high he climbs, but how high he bounces when he hits the bottom."
- General George S. Patton
Resilience
"Limitations live only in our minds. But if we use our imaginations, our possibilities become limitless."
- Jamie Paolinetti
Creativity
"However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at."
- Stephen Hawking
Success
"I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself."
- Arianna Huffington
Personal Growth
"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."
- Winston Churchill
Courage
"If you are going through hell, keep going."
- Winston S. Churchill
Persistence
"Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did."
- Newt Gingrich
Perseverance
"Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn."
- Harriet Stowe
Perseverance
"Education is the most powerful weapon, which you can use to change the world."
- Nelson Mandela
Education
"However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up."
- Stephen Hawking
Persistence
"Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out."
- Robert Collier
Success
"Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."
- Steve Jobs
Courage
"I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
- Michael Jordan
Failure
"Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts."
- Winston Churchill
Courage
"The best way to predict your future is to create it."
- Peter Drucker
Vision
"Nothing will work unless you do."
- Maya Angelou
Hard Work
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
- Teddy Roosevelt
Courage
"Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today."
- Malcolm X
Education
"Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time."
- Thomas A. Edison
Perseverance
"Before anything else, preparation is the key to success."
- Alexander Graham Bell
Success
"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
Success
"Self-belief and hard work will always earn you success."
- Virat Kohli
Belief in Self
"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid."
- Albert Einstein
Belief in Self
"Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe."
- Gail Devers
Aspirations
"By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail."
- Benjamin Franklin
Education
"Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses."
- George Washington Carver
Failure
"You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great."
- Zig Ziglar
New Beginnings
"My advice is, never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time."
- Charles Dickens
Time Management
"If you don’t do your revision properly, you know what’ll happen? YOU SHALL NOT PASS!"
- Sir Ian McKellen, channelling Gandalf from Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings”
Motivation
"Of course, it is very important to be sober when you take an exam. Many worthwhile careers in the street-cleansing, fruit-picking and subway-guitar-playing industries have been founded on a lack of understanding of this simple fact."
- Sir Terry Pratchett
Awareness
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education."
- Albert Einstein
Education
"Your success and happiness lie in you."
- Helen Keller
Self-confidence
"Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed, is more important than any other one thing."
- Abraham Lincoln
Determination
"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
Belief in Self
"My advice is to never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time."
- Charles Dickens
Time Management
"There are two days in the year that we can not do anything, yesterday and tomorrow."
- Mahatma Gandhi
Awareness
"The only thing that stands between you and your dream is the will to try and the belief that it is actually possible."
- Joel Brown
Belief in Self
"The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you."
- B.B. King
Education
"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go."
- Dr. Seuss
Learning
"Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible."
- Richard Feynman
Learning
"Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in."
- Leonardo da Vinci
Learning
"Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value."
- Albert Einstein
Success
"Excellence is not a skill. It is an attitude."
- Ralph Marston
Success
"Quality is not an act, it is a habit."
- Aristotle
Success
"I think it’s possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary."
- Elon Musk
Ambition
"If you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires."
- Malcolm Gladwell
Ambition
"No gains without pains."
- Benjamin Franklin
Hard Work
"Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration."
- Thomas Edison
Hard Work
"The only difference between success and failure is the ability to take action."
- Alexander Graham Bell
Taking Risks
"If my future were determined just by my performance on a standardized test, I wouldn’t be here. I guarantee you that."
- Michelle Obama
Resilience
"Do not allow yourselves to be disheartened by any failure as long as you have done your best."
- Mother Teresa
Perseverance
"When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us."
- Alexander Graham Bell
Change
"Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works."
- Leonardo Da Vinci
Growth
"The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be ignited."
- Plutarch
Education
"A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new."
- Albert Einstein
Learning from Mistakes
"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."
- Eleanor Roosevelt
Aspirations
"Just believe in yourself. Even if you don’t pretend that you do and, at some point, you will."
- Venus Williams
Belief in Self
"Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better."
- Maya Angelou
Personal Growth
"Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will."
- Karim Seddiki
Courage
"You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think."
- A.A. Milne
Future
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined."
- Henry David Thoreau
Ambition
"Learn from yesterday. Live for today. Hope for tomorrow."
- Albert Einstein
Future
"The more that you read, the more things you will know, the more that you learn, the more places you’ll go."
- Dr. Seuss
Education
"I don’t love studying. I hate studying. I like learning. Learning is beautiful."
- Natalie Portman
Education
"Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it."
- Stephen Hawking
Personal Growth
"You can’t have a better tomorrow if you’re still thinking about yesterday."
- Charles F. Kettering
Future
"The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows."
- Sydney J. Harris
Education
"You can always be better."
- Tiger Woods
Personal Growth
"There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind."
- C.S. Lewis
Optimism
"Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny."
- C.S. Lewis
Adversity
"There is no secret to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure."
- General Colin Powell
Success
"Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you haven’t planted."
- David Bly
Hard Work
"There is no elevator to success. You have to take the stairs."
- Zig Ziglar
Success
"A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him."
- David Brinkley
Resilience
"If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and the voice will be silenced."
- Vincent Van Gogh
Creativity
"Great things are done by a series of small things brought together."
- Vincent van Gogh
Compassion
"All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them."
- Walt Disney
Aspirations
"There are no shortcuts to any place worth going."
- Beverly Sills
Success
"Genius is 10% inspiration, 90% perspiration."
- Thomas Edison
Hard Work
"Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going."
- Jim Ryun
Motivation
"Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated."
- R Collier
Success
"It will not happen cutting corners, taking shortcuts, or looking for the easy way! There’s only hard work, late nights, early mornings, practice, repetition, study, and discipline."
- nimo_wehearit
Hard Work
"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no help at all."
- Dale Carnegie
Perseverance
"If you don’t build your dreams, someone will hire you to help build theirs."
- Tony Gaskin
Ambition
"If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door."
- Milton Berle
Ambition
"To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream, not only plan but also believe."
- Anatole France
Aspirations
"Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work."
- Stephen King
Hard Work
"An investment in knowledge pays the best interest."
- Benjamin Franklin
Learning
"When you get to the end of the rope, tie a knot and hang on."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
Perseverance
"Follow your passion. It will lead you to your purpose."
- Oprah
Aspirations
"The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand."
- Vince Lombardi
Hard Work
"The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary."
- Vidal Sassoon
Hard Work
"There are no traffic jams on the extra mile."
- Zig Ziglar
Success
"Procrastination makes easy things hard and hard things harder."
- Mason Cooley
Productivity
"The capacity to learn is a gift; the ability to learn is a skill; the willingness to learn is a choice."
- Brian Herbert
Learning
"So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable."
- Christopher Reeve
Aspirations
"Procrastination is opportunity’s assassin."
- Victor Kiam
Motivation
"Procrastination is the thief of time."
- Edward Young
Time Management
"It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things."
- Leonardo Da Vinci
Ambition
"The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing."
- Walt Disney
Motivation
"Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice, and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do."
- Pelé
Success
"I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top, but it should get you pretty near."
- Margaret Thatcher
Hard Work
"Study hard, no matter if it seems impossible, no matter if it takes time, no matter if you have to be up all night, just remember that the feeling of success is the best thing in the entire world."
- khangal_wehearit
Motivation
"If people knew how hard I worked to achieve my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful after all."
- Michelangelo
Hard Work
"Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve."
- Mary Kay Ash
Belief in Self
"You’ve got to get up every morning with determination if you’re going to go to bed with satisfaction."
- George Lorimer
Determination
"Working hard is important, but there is something that matters even more: Believing in yourself."
- Harry Potter
Belief in Self
"Trust yourself, you know more than you think you do."
- Benjamin Spock
Self-confidence
"If you don’t go after what you want, you’ll never have it. If you don’t ask, the answer is always no. If you don’t step forward, you’re always in the same place."
- Nora Roberts
Goals
"The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
Belief in Self
"The more I study, the more I realize how much I don’t know."
- Albert Einstein
Learning
"Failure is not the opposite of success. It’s part of success."
- Ariana Huffington
Learning from Mistakes
"You can’t let your failures define you. You have to let your failures teach you."
- Barack Obama
Failure
"Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."
- Thomas Edison
Failure
"The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one."
- Elbert Hubbard
Courage
"It’s the pain and failure that teaches you the best lesson in life and motivates you to rebuild yourself and stand again with a robust faith."
- Priti Chaubey
Failure
"You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try."
- Beverly Sills
Motivation
"Stress should be a powerful driving force, not an obstacle."
- Bill Phillips
Motivation
"Failure is success in progress."
- Albert Einstein
Success
"The only thing that overcomes hard luck is hard work."
- Harry Golden
Hard Work
"Use all your efforts, even when the possibilities play against you."
- Arnold Palmer
Determination
"Set tough goals and do not stop until you get there."
- Bo Jackson
Goals
"The man well prepared for the struggle has achieved half a triumph."
- Miguel de Cervantes
Success
"When you find yourself stressed, ask yourself one question: Will this matter in 5 years from now? If yes, then do something about the situation. If no, then let it go."
- Catherine Pulsifer
Mindfulness
"You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore."
- William Faulkner
Courage
"A quality education has the power to transform societies in a single generation; provide children with the protection they need from the hazards of poverty, labor exploitation and disease; and give them the knowledge, skills and confidence to reach their full potential."
- Audrey Hepburn
Education
"I learned many great lessons from my father, not the least of which was that you can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love."
- Jim Carrey
Courage
"Challenges are what make life interesting. Overcoming them is what makes life meaningful."
- Joshua J. Marine
Growth
"The world of the future is in our making. Tomorrow is now."
- Eleanor Roosevelt
Vision
"Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground."
- Theodore Roosevelt
Vision
"Education not just preparation for life, but part of life itself – a continuous art."
- Henry Ford
Education
"Trust yourself; you know more than you think you do."
- Benjamin Spock
Belief in Self
"The real man is one who always finds excuses for others, but never excuses himself."
- Henry Ward Beecher
Responsibility
"My biggest regret could be summed up in one word, and that’s procrastination."
- Ron Cooper
Productivity
"The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones."
- Confucius
Determination
"Study the past if you want to intuit the future."
- Confucius
Learning from Mistakes
"It’s not stress that kills us, it’s our reaction to it."
- Hans Selye
Self-awareness
"Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday."
- Don Marquis
Time Management
"Procrastination is like a credit card: it’s a lot of fun until you get the bill."
- Christopher Parker
Productivity
"The expert in anything was once a beginner."
- Helen Hayes
Learning
"He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever."
- Chinese Proverb
Education
"How wonderful it is that nobody needs to wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."
- Anne Frank
Empowerment
"Learning is the only thing the mind never exhausts, never fears, and never regrets."
- Leonardo da Vinci
Learning
"The purpose of our lives is to be happy."
- Dalai Lama
Happiness
"When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It’s to enjoy each step along the way."
- Wayne Dyer
Contentment
"Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good."
- Minor Myers
Compassion
"Stress acts as an accelerator: it will push you either forward or backward, but you choose which direction."
- Chelsea Erieau
Choice
"A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality."
- Yoko Ono
Love
"Life itself is your teacher, and you are in a state of constant learning."
- Bruce Lee
Learning
"Education is not to reform students or amuse them or to make them expert technicians. It is to unsettle their minds, widen their horizons, inflame their intellects, teach them to think straight, if possible."
- Robert M. Hutchins
Education
"You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have."
- Maya Angelou
Creativity
"When your dreams become reality, they’re no longer your dreams."
- Hugh Jackman
Achievement
"Do not make your goal to be the best. The best is a label. It’s something someone else decides for you. ‘Better’ is more personal."
- Baryshnikov
Personal Growth
"None of us is as smart as all of us."
- Ken Blanchard
Teamwork
"Turning your passion into your job is easier than finding a job that matches your passion."
- Seth Godin
Ambition
"The most successful people are those who are good at plan B."
- James Yorke
Adaptation
"The road to success is always under construction."
- Lily Tomlin
Success
"Through hard work, perseverance, and faith in God, you can live your dreams."
- Ben Carson
Faith
"You get the best out of others when you give the best of yourself."
- Harvey S. Firestone
Empowerment
"In life you make the small decisions with your head and the big decisions with your heart."
- Omid Kordgstani
Choice
"The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem. Do you understand?"
- Captain Jack Sparrow
Awareness
"It always seems impossible until it’s done."
- Nelson Mandela
Courage
"If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it’s only because they do not realize how complicated life is."
- John Von Neumann
Philosophy
"Rule no.1 is: Don’t sweat the small stuff. Rule no. 2 is: It’s all small stuff."
- Robert Eliot
Balance
"Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask."
- Albus Dumbledore
Empowerment
"It is well to remind ourselves that anxiety signifies a conflict, and so long as a conflict is going on, a constructive solution is possible."
- Rollo May
Awareness
"Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times if one only remembers to turn on the light."
- Albus Dumbledore
Hope
"Worry gives a small thing a big shadow."
- Swedish Proverb
Awareness
"The only limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work for them."
- Michelle Obama
Aspirations
"Some people dream of success, while other people get up every morning and make it happen."
- Wayne Huizenga
Success
"Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right."
- Henry Ford
Belief in Self
"Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."
- John R. Wooden
Empowerment
"The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus."
Focus
"Successful people are not gifted. They just work hard, then succeed on purpose"
Hard Work
"The chapters you study today write the story of your future. Make it a bestseller."
Future
"Education is the compass that guides us through the maze of life. Keep studying, keep exploring."
Education
"Struggles today lead to strength tomorrow. Your hard work in studying will never be in vain."
Strength
"Study not to escape life, but so that life doesn’t escape you."
Education
"Education illuminates the path."
Education
"The pages of your books hold not just information, but the keys to your future."
Future
"When doubt whispers, let your hard work roar."
Motivation
"The path of studying is never smooth, but it leads to the peak of understanding and wisdom."
Wisdom
"Education is not about memorizing facts; it’s about connecting with the essence of life itself."
Education
"Your studies are the seeds you plant today for the garden of success you’ll enjoy tomorrow."
Success
"Uncertainty is a part of the journey, but so is hope. Your studies are your hope for a brighter future."
Hope
"Education is like a boat that helps you cross the turbulent sea of life. Stay on course, keep studying."
Education
"You don’t have to be great to start. But you have to start to be great."
Motivation
"Fear of exams diminishes with every page you turn. Keep studying, keep succeeding."
Overcoming Obstacles
"A single exam doesn’t define you, but your attitude towards it does."
Self-awareness
"The best way to predict your future is to create it. Study well, score well."
Vision
"Perseverance and focus are the secret of success"
Persistence
"Studying is an investment in yourself. It always pays off in the end."
Education
"Keep going, because you did not come this far just to come this far."
Motivation
"Study for knowledge, not just grades."
Education
"Everything you do now is for your future."
Future
"The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet."
Education
"I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have."
Hard Work
"Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try."
Motivation
"A bad grade is just a lesson, not a defeat. Learn from it, and let it fuel your next victory."
Learning from Mistakes
"Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts"
Courage
"Failure paves the way to success."
Success
"Your exam results don’t define you, but they can shape you."
Self-awareness
"This isn’t what you were hoping for, but there’s no reason this will hold you back."
Resilience
"All your hard work and effort wasn’t for nothing. All that mattered is that you gave it your all."
Hard Work
"Success cannot be reached without failure."
Success
"Fear, inherently, is not meant to limit you. Fear is the brain’s way of saying that there is something important for you to overcome."
- Unknown
Courage
"Learning from failure requires courage."
Courage
"Today a reader. Tomorrow a leader."
Education
"In a world where you can be anything, be kind."
Compassion
"Trying again takes strength."
Strength
"I’m not failed. My success is just postponed."
Optimism
"Learning through failure is part of being human."
Personal Growth
"Find opportunity in failure."
Optimism
"There’s a lot more to life than what you get in your exams, keep your head up."
Balance
"Work in silence. Let success be the noise."
Success
"Focus on the step in front of you. Not the whole staircase."
Focus
"If you’re totally convinced you’ll fail, you’ll struggle to succeed. But if you believe you’ll succeed, you’ll stand a much better chance. Take it one step at a time – you can get there!"
Belief
"Work while they sleep. Learn while they party. Save while they spend. Live like they dream."
Ambition
"Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do. Don’t wish it were easier; wish you were better."
Determination
"Just believe in yourself. Even if you don’t, pretend that you do and, at some point, you will."
Self-confidence
"If you don’t sacrifice for what you want, what you want becomes the sacrifice."
Ambition
"Forget all the reasons it won’t work and believe the one reason that it will."
- Unknown
Belief
"Every morning you have two choices: continue to sleep with your dreams, or wake up and chase them."
- Unknown
Aspirations