224 Quotes of Inspiration and Encouragement to Transform Your Mindset

# Discover Powerful Quotes of Inspiration and Encouragement Sometimes we all need a little reminder that we're capable of more than we think. Whether you're facing challenges, pursuing ambitious goals, or simply seeking motivation, our carefully curated collection of 224 quotes of inspiration and encouragement offers wisdom from some of history's greatest minds. ## Transform Your Perspective These quotes span decades of human experience and achievement. From Maya Angelou's wisdom about doing better once you know better, to Carrie Fisher's empowering reminder that action precedes confidence, each quote is selected to inspire meaningful change. You'll find reflections on growth, resilience, acceptance, and personal transformation that resonate across all walks of life. ## Timeless Wisdom for Modern Challenges Our collection includes perspectives from leaders, artists, philosophers, and change-makers who have grappled with life's biggest questions. Whether you're looking for motivation during difficult times, encouragement to pursue your dreams, or simply daily inspiration, these quotes provide the perspective shift you need to move forward with confidence and purpose.

Wisdom from the Masters

"If you can't fly, then run, if you can't run, then walk, if you can't walk, then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward."

- Martin Luther King III

Perseverance

"No matter how you feel, get up, dress up, show up, and never give up."

- Regina Brett

Courage

"Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better."

- Maya Angelou

Personal Growth

"Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What's important is the action. You don't have to wait to be confident. Just do it and eventually the confidence will follow."

- Carrie Fisher

Courage

"One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again."

- Abraham Maslow

Personal Growth

"Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending."

- Carl Bard

New Beginnings

"I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept."

- Angela Davis

Change

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

- Nelson Mandela

Education

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

- Malala Yousafzai

Education

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

- Sundar Pichai

Success

"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."

- H. Jackson Brown Jr.

Ambition

"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

Perseverance

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

- George Eliot

Transformation

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear."

- Mark Twain

Courage

"I am learning every day to allow the space between where I am and where I want to be to inspire me and not terrify me."

- Tracee Ellis Ross

Courage

"To try is to risk failure. But risk must be taken because the greatest hazard of life is to risk nothing. The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, is nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow, live, and love."

- Leo Buscaglia

Courage

"It's not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that things are difficult."

- Seneca

Courage

"A ship in harbor is safe, but that's not what ships are built for."

- G.T. Shedd

Taking Risks

"You can choose courage, or you can choose comfort, but you cannot choose both."

- Brené Brown

Courage

"I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear."

- Nelson Mandela

Courage

"Courage does not always roar, sometimes it's the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, I will try again tomorrow."

- Mary Anne Radmacher

Courage

"Choose the great adventure of being brave and afraid at the exact same time"

- Brené Brown

Courage

"The one who falls and gets up is so much stronger than the one who never fell."

- Roy T. Bennett

Resilience

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

- Jim Ryun

Motivation

"A river cuts through rock, not because of its power, but because of its persistence."

- Jim Watkins

Perseverance

"If you can't fly, then run; if you can't run then walk; if you can't walk, then crawl; but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward."

- Martin Luther King III

Perseverance

"It always seems impossible until it's done."

- Nelson Mandela

Courage

"Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible."

- Francis of Assisi

Achievement

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

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Contribution

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

- Mahatma Gandhi

Change

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

- Madam C.J. Walker

Ambition

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

- Amelia Earhart

Determination

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

- Muhammad Ali

Belief in Self

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

- Theodore Roosevelt

Belief in Self

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

- Steve Jobs

Ambition

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

- C.S. Lewis

Aspirations

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

- Carol Burnett

Aspirations

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

- Malala Yousafzai

Future

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

- Walt Disney

Aspirations

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

- Henry David Thoreau

Ambition

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

- Viola Davis

Aspirations

"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

Aspirations

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

- Winston Churchill

Courage

"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

Adversity

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

- Sylvester Stallone

Courage

"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

Inspiration

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

- Anne Frank

Hope

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

- Eleanor Roosevelt

Courage

"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

Facing Fears

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

- Robert Schuller

Resilience

"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

Integrity

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

- Oprah Winfrey

Empowerment

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

- Walt Whitman

Optimism

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

- Amanda Gorman

Courage

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

- Aristotle

Hope

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

- Maya Angelou

Success

"I've failed over and over and over again in my life, and that is why I succeed."

- Michael Jordan

Perseverance

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

- Theodore Roosevelt

Determination

"Thinking will not overcome fear, but action will."

- W. Clement Stone

Facing Fears

"Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try one more time."

- Thomas Edison

Perseverance

"To achieve greatness, start where you are, use what you have, and do what you can."

- Arthur Ashe

Achievement

"Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending."

- Maria Robinson

Courage

"You will either step forward into growth, or you will step back into safety."

- Abraham Maslow

Growth

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

- Confucius

Resilience

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

- Napoleon Hill

Motivation

"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

Transformation

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

- Malcolm X

Education

"An investment in knowledge pays the best interest."

- Benjamin Franklin

Learning

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

- Albert Einstein

Success

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

- Robin Sharma

Success

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

- Warren Buffett

Contribution

"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

Success

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

- Thomas Jefferson

Hard Work

"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

Determination

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

- Babe Ruth

Perseverance

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

- Mark Twain

Aspirations

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self."

- Ernest Hemingway

Personal Growth

"We can't become what we need to be by remaining what we are."

- Oprah Winfrey

Personal Growth

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

- Frederick Douglass

Adversity

"Sometimes good things fall apart so better things could fall together."

- Marilyn Monroe

Change

"Incredible change happens in your life when you decide to take control of what you have power over instead of craving control over what you don't."

- Steve Maraboli

Change

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

- Rob Siltanen

Change

"What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make."

- Jane Goodall

Compassion

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

- Rick Warren

Change

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

- Shonda Rhimes

Personal Growth

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

- Diane von Furstenberg

Happiness

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

- Les Brown

Responsibility

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

- E.E. Cummings

Self-confidence

"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

Responsibility

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

- Dolly Parton

Optimism

"Courage, dear heart."

- C.S. Lewis

Courage

"Don't give into your fears, if you do, you won't be able to talk to your heart."

- Paulo Coelho

Facing Fears

"We fear that we are inadequate, but our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure."

- Marianne Williamson

Courage

"Life is a daring adventure or nothing"

- Helen Keller

Ambition

"Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment."

- Jim Rohn

Determination

"Don't go through life, grow through life."

- Eric Butterworth

Personal Growth

"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen."

- Winston Churchill

Courage

"Don't wait for the right opportunity. Create it."

- George Bernard Shaw

Empowerment

"Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me."

- Carol Burnett

Change

"Oh what we could be if we stopped carrying the remains of who we were."

- Tyler Knott Gregson

Transformation

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

- Jim Rohn

Time Management

"Be there for others, but never leave yourself behind."

- Dodinsky

Balance

"Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing."

- Theodore Roosevelt

Motivation

"Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing."

- Abraham Lincoln

Determination

"Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow."

- Helen Keller

Positivity

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

- William James

Contribution

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

- Thomas Edison

Hard Work

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

- Michael Altshuler

Time Management

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

- Jimmy Dean

Change

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

- Queen Elizabeth II

Transformation

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

- Dr. Mae Jemison

Inspiration

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

- Marie Curie

Ambition

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

- Audrey Hepburn

Optimism

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

- Helen Keller

Courage

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

- Eleanor Roosevelt

Empowerment

"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

Empowerment

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

- Norman Vincent Peale

Aspirations

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

- Alexander the Great

Motivation

"Champions keep playing until they get it right."

- Billie Jean King

Achievement

"We will fail when we fail to try."

- Rosa Parks

Courage

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

- Albert Einstein

Learning from Mistakes

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

- Shinzo Abe

Resilience

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

- Cicely Tyson

Resilience

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

- William James

Mindfulness

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

- Winston Churchill

Positivity

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

- Willie Nelson

Positivity

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

- Deep Roy

Positivity

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

- Mary Lou Retton

Positivity

"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

Positivity

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

- Olivia Newton John

Facing Fears

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

- Christopher Robin

Courage

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

- 14th Dalai Lama

Happiness

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

- Camilla Eyring Kimball

Happiness

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

- Jim Rohn

Happiness

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

- Hafez

Gratitude

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

- Estée Lauder

Success

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

- Maya Angelou

Compassion

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

- Booker T. Washington

Compassion

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

- Albert Einstein

Balance

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

- Zig Ziglar

Goals

"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

Change

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

- Demi Lovato

Hope

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

- John Wooden

Belief in Self

"The greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing."

- Steve Jobs

Courage

"The biggest gap in your life is that between what you know and what you do."

- Bob Proctor

Personal Growth

"To get what we've never had, we must do what we have never done."

- Juan Casimiro

Change

"The undertaking of a new action brings new strength."

- Richard Evans

Motivation

"Action eliminates doubt."

- Nashid Sharrief

Courage

"Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why we call it the present."

- B. Olatunji

Mindfulness

"I must lose myself in action, lest I wither in despair."

- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Determination

"So many fail because they don't get started."

- W. Clement Stone

Inspiration

"Action is the foundational key to all success."

- Pablo Picasso

Success

"Every accomplishment starts with a decision to try."

- Gail Devers

Achievement

"Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin."

- Mother Teresa

New Beginnings

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

- Abraham Maslow

Self-awareness

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

- Norman Cousins

Awareness

"When we're growing up, there are all sorts of people telling us what to do when really what we need is space to work out who to be."

- Elliot Page

Personal Growth

"Change brings opportunity."

- Nido Qubein

Change

"Recognizing that you are not where you want to be is a starting point to begin changing your life."

- Deborah Day

Change

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

- Amanda Gorman

Change

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

- Helen Keller

Education

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

- John Dewey

Education

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

- Bill Nye

Learning

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

- Sydney J. Harris

Education

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

- Yvie Oddly

Success

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

- Vera Wang

Success

"Embrace what you don't know, especially in the beginning, because what you don't know can become your greatest asset. It ensures that you will absolutely be doing things different from everybody else."

- Sara Blakely

Learning

"You get what you give."

- Jennifer Lopez

Generosity

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

- Mikhail Gorbachev

Personal Growth

"I scorched the earth with my talent and I let my light shine."

- Andre Leon Talley

Creativity

"Permit yourself to change your mind when something is no longer working for you."

- Nedra Glover Tawwab

Change

"There are no regrets in life, just lessons."

- Jennifer Aniston

Learning from Mistakes

"What might happen if you chose a softer view of yourself?"

- Kelly Rae Roberts

Self-care

"To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, so do it."

- Kurt Vonnegut

Creativity

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

- Loretta Lynn

Responsibility

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

- Herman Melville

Positivity

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

- Charles Dickens

Courage

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

- John Barrymore

Happiness

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

- Mother Theresa

Happiness

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

- Truman Capote

Failure

"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

Success

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

- Ronald Reagan

Compassion

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

- Queen Elizabeth II

Compassion

"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

Compassion

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

- Ella Fitzgerald

Change

"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

Independence

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

- Mandy Hale

Mindfulness

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

- Nicole Kidman

Resilience

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

- Lindsey Vonn

Change

"Remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it."

- Henry Ford

Overcoming Obstacles

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

- Naomi Judd

Reflection

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

- E.E. Cummings

Happiness

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

- Dr. Seuss

Reflection

"There is no greater harm than that of time wasted."

- Michelangelo

Time Management

"Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today."

- Thomas Jefferson

Motivation

"Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation… even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind."

- Leonardo da Vinci

Inspiration

"Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing."

- William Shakespeare

Happiness

"Dream as if you will live forever. Live as if you will die tomorrow."

- James Dean

Motivation

"Your big opportunity may be right where you are now."

- Napoleon Hill

Awareness

"The longer you wait for the future, the shorter it will be."

- Loesje

Time Management

"Lose not yourself in a far off time, seize the moment that is thine."

- Friedrich Schiller

Presence

"I take my fundamental cue from John Coltrane that says there must be a priority of integrity, honesty, decency, and mastery of craft."

- Cornel West

Integrity

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

- Walt Disney

Education

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

- Cesar Chavez

Education

"You are an example. Whether you are a good example or not is up to you."

- Steve Ferrante

Responsibility

"The crisis of today is the joke of tomorrow."

- H.G. Wells

Optimism

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

- Hazrat Inayat Khan

Creativity

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

- Alice

Personal Growth

"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

Hard Work

"The only cure for grief is action."

- George Henry Lewes

Healing

"Action is eloquence."

- William Shakespeare

Creativity

"Tradition is nothing but ancestral peer pressure."

- Indya Moore

Awareness

"The best revenge is massive success."

- Frank Sinatra

Success

"We do not fall in love with the package of the person; we fall in love with the inside of a person."

- Anne Heche

Love

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

- Amy Poehler

Wisdom

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

- Grace Kelly

Contentment

"My least favorite phrase in the English language is 'I don't care."

- James Caan

Motivation

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

- Lily Tomlin

Self-awareness

"I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly."

- Winston Churchill

Courage

Bite-sized Inspirational Quotes

"If your dreams don't scare you, they're not big enough."

Aspirations

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

Positivity