100+ Inspiring Quotes on Discipline to Motivate Your Success Journey

"Discipline is doing what you really don't want to do so you can do what you really want to do."

- Jeff Fisher

"It takes hard work, dedication, discipline and a positive attitude to get to the top - in business or in sports."

- George Blanda

"Discipline is based on pride, on meticulous attention to details, and on mutual respect and confidence. Discipline must be a habit so ingrained that it is stronger than the excitement of the goal or the fear of failure."

- Gary Ryan Blair

"Discipline is just doing the same thing the right way whether anyone's watching or not."

- Michael J. Fox

"Success is not a matter of mastering subtle, sophisticated theory but rather of embracing common sense with uncommon levels of discipline and persistence."

- Patrick Lencioni

"To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one's family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one's own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him."

- Buddha

"Discipline yourself, and others won't need to."

- John Wooden

"Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out."

- Stephen Covey

"Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most."

- Abraham Lincoln

"The only discipline that lasts is self-discipline."

- Bum Phillips

"Once you have commitment, you need the discipline and hard work to get you there."

- Haile Gebrselassie

"It was character that got us out of bed, commitment that moved us into action, and discipline that enabled us to follow through."

- Zig Ziglar

"It sounds simple telling people to work hard and never quit, but to really execute and demonstrate those principles takes discipline and faith. Those are the two factors that I believe separate the good from the great, the successes from the failures."

- Nipsey Hussle

"Discipline is remembering what you want."

- David Campbell

"Everything we want to do in life requires discipline. And like strength, flexibility, and endurance, it can be built up over time."

- Laird Hamilton

"Life is not decided by lines on a palm but by the power of the will, hard work and discipline."

- Milkha Singh

"The temptation to take the easy road is always there. It is as easy as staying in bed in the morning and sleeping in. But discipline is paramount to ultimate success and victory for any leader and any team."

- Jocko Willink

"It's easy to have faith in yourself and have discipline when you're a winner, when you're number one. What you got to have is faith and discipline when you're not a winner."

- Vince Lombardi

"If you want to master the mind […], you’ll have to become addicted to hard work. Because passion and obsession, even talent, are only useful tools if you have the work ethic to back them up."

- David Goggins

"Discipline: The root of all good qualities. The driver of daily execution. The core principle that overcomes laziness and lethargy and excuses. Discipline defeats the infinite excuses that say: Not today, not now, I need a rest, I will do it tomorrow."

- Jocko Willink

"Throughout my career, I have discovered and rediscovered a simple truth. The ability to concentrate single-mindedly on your most important task, to do it well and finish it completely, is the key to great success, achievement, respect, status, and happiness in life."

- Brian Tracy

"Concentrate every minute like a Roman—like a man—on doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing yourself from all other distractions. Yes, you can — if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered, irritable."

- Marcus Aurelius

"Discipline is about facing your fears so you can conquer them. Discipline means taking the hard road— the uphill road."

- Jocko Willink

"Discipline is the refining fire by which talent becomes ability."

- Roy L. Smith

"Talent is nothing without dedication and discipline, and dedication and discipline is a talent in itself."

- Luke Campbell

"With faith, discipline and selfless devotion to duty, there is nothing worthwhile that you cannot achieve."

- Muhammad Ali Jinnah

"Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There's plenty of movement, but you never know if it's going to be forward, backwards, or sideways."

- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

"Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. It may not be difficult to store up in the mind a vast quantity of facts within a comparatively short time, but the ability to form judgments requires the severe discipline of hard work and the tempering heat of experience and maturity."

- Calvin Coolidge

"Believe in yourself, and find ways to express yourself, and find the discipline to keep growing."

- Michael Feinstein

"Without discipline, there's no life at all."

- Katharine Hepburn

"I think we judge talent wrong. What do we see as talent? I think I have made the same mistake myself. We judge talent by people's ability to strike a cricket ball. The sweetness, the timing. That's the only thing we see as talent. Things like determination, courage, discipline, temperament, these are also talent."

- Rahul Dravid

"There are hunters, and there are victims. By your discipline, cunning, obedience, and alertness, you will decide if you are a hunter or a victim."

- Jim Mattis

"Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty."

- Frank Herbert

"Discipline equals freedom."

- Jocko Willink

"Discipline is the foundation of a successful life."

- Nick Saban

"Discipline is what makes a champion."

- Jocko Willink

"Discipline is the master key to achieving success in any area of life."

- Jim Rohn

"Discipline is what separates the winners from the losers."

- Craig Groeschel

"Discipline is what separates the champions from the contenders."

- Nick Saban

"Discipline is the mark of a true champion."

- Bobby Knight

"Self-discipline is the ability to do what you should do, when you should do it."

- Brian Tracy

"Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments."

- Jim Rohn

"We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort."

- Jesse Owens

"Self-discipline is the ability to make yourself do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not."

- Elbert Hubbard

"Self-discipline starts with the mastery of your thoughts. If you don’t control what you think, you can’t control what you do."

- Napoleon Hill

"Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself."

- Abraham Joshua Heschel

"You will never have a greater or lesser dominion than that over yourself…the height of a man’s success is gauged by his self-mastery; the depth of his failure by his self-abandonment. …And this law is the expression of eternal justice. He who cannot establish dominion over himself will have no dominion over others."

- Leonardo da Vinci

"Goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes that lead to those results. […] Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress."

- James Clear

"Only the disciplined ones in life are free. If you are undisciplined, then you are a slave to your moods and your passions."

- Eliud Kipchoge

"No man is free who is not master of himself."

- Epictetus

"Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come."

- Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson

"Discipline requires you to set goals, filter distractions, control unhelpful inhibitions, prioritize activities, and pursue the goals that you have set."

- Daniel Walter

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

- Jim Rohn

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

- Marcus Aurelius

"Don’t wish it were easier. Wish you were better."

- Jim Rohn

"A disciplined mind leads to happiness, and an undisciplined mind leads to suffering."

- Dalai Lama

"The biggest difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is that successful people are willing to do what unsuccessful people are not."

- Darren Hardy

"Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all."

- George Washington

"Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment."

- Jim Rohn

"Discipline is doing what you hate to do, but nonetheless doing it like you love it."

- Mike Tyson

"I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'"

- Muhammad Ali

"Football is like life – it requires perseverance, self-denial, hard work, sacrifice, dedication, and respect for authority."

- Vince Lombardi

"The last three or four reps is what makes the muscle grow. This area of pain divides a champion from someone who is not a champion."

- Arnold Schwarzenegger

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

- Mortimer J. Adler

"To learn hard things quickly, you must focus intensely without distraction."

- Cal Newport

"Many of us, it seems, quit what we start far too early and far too often. Even more than the effort a gritty person puts in on a single day, what matters is that they wake up the next day, and the next, ready to get on that treadmill and keep going."

- Angela Duckworth

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

- Colin Powell

"The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack in will."

- Vince Lombardi

"You cannot win the war against the world, if you can’t win the war against your own mind."

- Will Smith

"Learning to do the things you need to do, regardless of how you feel, is a core discipline for success."

- Brian P. Moran

"No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it."

- Hebrews 12:11 (NIV)

"The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person. Reactive people are driven by feelings, by circumstances, by conditions, by their environment. Proactive people are driven by values—carefully thought about, selected, and internalized values."

- Stephen Covey

"If it is endurable, then endure it. Stop complaining."

- Marcus Aurelius

"To find flow, you need to choose one single goal; make sure your goal is meaningful to you; and try to push yourself to the edge of your abilities."

- Johann Hari

"Self-discipline is when your conscience tells you to do something and you don’t talk back."

- W.K. Hope

"With self-discipline, most anything is possible."

- Theodore Roosevelt

"Wishing will not bring riches. But desiring riches with a state of mind that becomes an obsession, then planning definite ways and means to acquire riches, and backing those plans with persistence which does not recognise failure, will bring riches."

- Napoleon Hill

"The price of excellence is discipline."

- William Arthur Ward

"Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."

- John R. Wooden

"Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor"

- Alexis Carrel

"Why waste time proving over and over how great you are, when you could be getting better?"

- Carol Dweck

"Discipline is the mark of a true leader."

- Abraham Lincoln

"Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself."

- Marcus Aurelius

"Today I will do what others won’t, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can’t."

- Jerry Rice

"The purpose of life is finding the largest burden that you can bear and bearing it."

- Jordan Peterson

"Discipline is what makes a team great."

- Nick Saban

"The most powerful thing about a discipline is the discipline itself, not the outcome."

- Craig Groeschel

"Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going."

- Jim Ryun

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

- Malcolm X

"Discipline and constant work are the whetstones upon which the dull knife of talent is honed until it becomes sharp enough, hopefully, to cut through even the toughest meat and gristle."

- Stephen King

"No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable."

- Socrates

"Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each."

- Plato

"The paradox seems to be, as Socrates demonstrated long ago, that the truly free individual is free only to the extent of his own self-mastery. While those who will not govern themselves are condemned to find masters to govern over them."

- Steven Pressfield

"Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"Life is like school, with one key difference—in school you get the lesson, and then you take the test. But in life, you get the test, and it’s your job to take the lesson."

- Will Smith

"My rituals keep me consistent, and consistency is the key to achieving goals."

- Kelsey Heenan

"Progress takes time and discipline."

- Ronnie Coleman

"If we do not discipline ourselves the world will do it for us."

- William Feather

"You can overthink anything. There are always negatives. The more you know, the less you tend to do something."

- Arnold Schwarzenegger

"Some people regard discipline as a chore. For me, it is a kind of order that sets me free to fly."

- Julie Andrews

"I believe that through knowledge and discipline, financial peace is possible for all of us."

- Dave Ramsey

"The discipline of desire is the background of character."

- John Locke

"Stop wishing. Start doing. And next time you fix your lips to say ‘I wish,’ perhaps consider replacing it with ‘I will.'"

- Lita Lewis

"The surest test of discipline is its absence."

- Clara Barton

"Action isn’t just the effect of motivation; it’s also the cause of it."

- Mark Manson

"Right discipline consists, not in external compulsion, but in the habits of mind which lead spontaneously to desirable rather than undesirable activities."

- Bertrand Russell

"It takes discipline not to let social media steal your time."

- Alexis Ohanian

"You can judge the quality of their faith from the way they behave. Discipline is an index to doctrine."

- Tertullian

"The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy."

- Henri Nouwen

"Character contributes to beauty. It fortifies a woman as her youth fades. A mode of conduct, a standard of courage, discipline, fortitude, and integrity can do a great deal to make a woman beautiful."

- Jacqueline Bisset

"The philosophy of fasting calls upon us to know ourselves, to master ourselves, and to discipline ourselves the better to free ourselves. To fast is to identify our dependencies, and free ourselves from them."

- Tariq Ramadan

"Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body."

- Seneca

"Compassion does not just happen. Pity does, but compassion is not pity. It's not a feeling. Compassion is a viewpoint, a way of life, a perspective, a habit that becomes a discipline - and more than anything else, compassion is a choice we make that love is more important than comfort or convenience."

- Glennon Doyle Melton

"The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty."

- John Steinbeck

"Soul is the central point of spiritual discipline."

- Mahavira

"The real and effectual discipline which is exercised over a workman is that of his customers. It is the fear of losing their employment which restrains his frauds and corrects his negligence."

- Adam Smith

"Love myself I do. Not everything, but I love the good as well as the bad. I love my crazy lifestyle, and I love my hard discipline. I love my freedom of speech and the way my eyes get dark when I'm tired. I love that I have learned to trust people with my heart, even if it will get broken. I am proud of everything that I am and will become."

- Johnny Weir

"Reasonable orders are easy enough to obey; it is capricious, bureaucratic or plain idiotic demands that form the habit of discipline."

- Barbara W. Tuchman

"Poetry, I feel, is a tyrannical discipline. You've got to go so far so fast in such a small space; you've got to burn away all the peripherals."

- Sylvia Plath

"The only bad workout is the one that didn’t happen."

- Anonymous

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

"The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus."

"The pain you feel today will be the strength you feel tomorrow."

"The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet."

"Strive for progress, not perfection."