Motivational Quotes

Cheerfulness is the best promoter of health and is as friendly to the mind as to the body.
Joseph Addison

The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say 'no' to almost everything.
Warren Buffett

Spare me the grim litany of the realist. Give me the unrealistic aspirations of the optimist any day.
Colin Powell

There is nothing to be learned from the second kick of a mule.
Mark Twain

There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.
Warren Buffett

You're as good as the best thing you've ever done.
Billy Wilder

You've got to tell the world how to treat you. If the world tells you how you are going to be treated, you are in trouble.
James Baldwin

Admit when you are wrong. The older you get, the more frequently you'll have the opportunity.
Jennifer Finney Boylan

Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.
Truman Capote

I don't always follow my own advice.
Edith Wharton

Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.
Lord Chesterfield

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
Maya Angelou

To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain and play with it.
Charlie Chaplin

He who seeks rest finds boredom. He who seeks work finds rest.
Dylan Thomas

If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.
Henry Ford

Self-development is a higher duty than self-sacrifice.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton

An error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.
John F. Kennedy

Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired.
Jules Renard

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one.'
C.S. Lewis

It is best to act with confidence, no matter how little right you have to it.
Lillian Hellman

Pessimism is an excuse for not trying and a guarantee to a personal failure.
Bill Clinton

Efficiency is doing the thing right; effectiveness is doing the right things.
Peter Drucker

Commit to your job and your work, whatever it is. Believe in it more than anything else. If you love your work, you'll be out there every day trying to do the best you can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you.
Sam Walton

The glad hand is alright in the sunshine, but it's the helping hand on a dark day that folks remember to the end of time.
Amadeo Giannini

Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.
William Ellery Channing

Failure is a learning experience. It can be a gravestone or a stepping stone.
Bud Hadfield

The best way to get people to think out of the box is not to create the box in the first place.
Martin Cooper

Money motivates neither the best people, nor the best in people. It can move the body and influence the mind, but it cannot touch the heart or move the spirit; that is reserved for belief, principle, and morality.
Dee Hock

Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.
Andrew Jackson

One person who wants something is a hundred times stronger than a hundred who want to be left alone.
Barbara Ward

If we're going to get anywhere, we're going to have to risk venturing into the unknown. Life is about adventure, not maintenance.
John C. Maxwell

I never felt there was any great risk in starting new ventures. The greater risk was missing an opportunity.
Robert N. Noyce

The great leaders are like the best conductors-- they reach beyond the notes to reach the magic in the players.
Blaine Lee

There is no such thing as a great talent without great will-power.
Honore' de Balzac

A leader is someone who can take a group of people to a place they don't think they can go.
Bob Eaton

People have inside them a certain work ethic, and, if you appeal to them nicely, they'll respond and give all they can give.
Fred Deluca

Everyone has an opportunity to be great because everyone has an opportunity to serve.
Martin Luther King Jr.

The real winners in life are the people who look at every situation with an expectation that they can make it work or make it better.
Barbara Pletcher

It is ours to win with--if we can shift gears from decades of controlling things to a decade of liberty-- turning people loose to dream, dare, and win.
Jack Welch

There are all kinds of ways to learn to be a leader. The foolish way is to think that there is a type of ideal leader, and try to become that. The smart way is to . . . find out where and how you can be effective in making changes in the world.
Bruce L. Payne

The most important attribute of successful people is not that they always succeed, but that they respond to failure by coming back and redoubling their efforts.
Mary Farrell

I'm slowly becoming a convert to the principle that you can't motivate people to do things, you can only demotivate them. The primary job of the manager is not to empower but to remove obstacles.
Scott Adams

I define leadership as leaders inducing followers to act for certain goals that represent the values and motivations--the wants and needs, the aspirations and expectations--of both leaders and followers.
James McGregor Burns

I expect a lot from people, but I expect no more of them than I expect from myself. I expect strong commitments. But I also reward people accordingly. That's how you keep people motivated.
Bob Tillman

It is the nature of man to rise to greatness if greatness is expected of him.
John Steinbeck

If we take the generally accepted definition of bravery as a quality which knows no fear, I have never seen a brave man. All men are frightened. The more intelligent they are, the more they are frightened.
George S. Patton

It is only as we develop others that we permanently succeed.
Harvey S. Firestone

Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It's the only thing.
Albert Schweitzer

Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in you temperance and self-control, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and content, and a hundred virtues which the idle never know.
Charles Kingsley

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

I don't believe there's a contradiction between contemplation and action. Action should be founded on contemplation, and those of us who act don't put enough time, don't give enough emphasis to contemplation.
Robert S. McNamara

The ultimate test for a leader is not whether he or she makes smart decisions and takes decisive action, but whether he or she teaches others to make smart decisions and take decisive action.
Noel M. Tichy

You need to plan the way a fire department plans; it cannot anticipate where the next fire will be, so it has to shape an energetic and efficient team that is capable of responding to the unanticipated as well as to any ordinary event.
Andrew S. Grove

You cannot escape the results of your thoughts . . . Whatever your present environment may be, you will fall, remain or rise with your thoughts, your vision, your ideal. You will become as small as your controlling desire, as great as your dominant aspiration.
Thomas Dreier

Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.
Margaret Mead

A great manager has a knack for making ballplayers think they are better than they think they are. He forces you to have a good opinion of yourself. He lets you know he believes in you . . . And once you learn how good you really are, you never settle for playing anything less than your very best.
Reggie Jackson

I once heard a high school coach tell a kid that it was not his job to motivate players, that they should show up motivated . . . I could not disagree more with a statement like that. I believe the main job of a coach is to motivate. The main job of a leader is to inspire.
Mike Krzyzewski

Work finally begins when the fear of doing nothing exceeds the fear of doing it badly.
Alain de Botton

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
James Baldwin

When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.
Elon Musk

Easy lives make boring people.
Ronda Rousey

It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all.
J.K. Rowling

Champions keep playing until they get it right.
Billie Jean King

Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.
Anne Lamott

If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough.
Mario Andretti

Nonsense wakes up the brain cells.
Dr. Seuss

I never learned anything while I was talking.
Larry King

There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.
Elie Wiesel

What I've learned is not to change who you are, because eventually you're going to run out of new things to become.
Taylor Swift

Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.
Mark Twain

Morale is when your hands and feet keep on working when your head says it can't be done.
Benjamin Morrell

I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.
Maya Angelou

I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.
Abraham Lincoln

Since we must eat to live, we might as well do it with both grace and gusto.
M.F.K. Fisher

In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.r
Dwight Eisenhowe

Sometimes you need to get knocked down before you can really figure out what your fight is.
Chadwick Boseman

So convenient a thing to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for every thing one has a mind to do.
Benjamin Franklin

Doubt can motivate you, so don't be afraid of it.
Barbra Streisand

Only the educated are free.
Epictetus

Success doesn't come to those who wait - and it doesn't wait for anyone to come to it.
Unknown

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.
Robert Louis Stevenson

Normal is not something to aspire to, it's something to get away from.
Jodie Foster

No man is able to make progress when he is wavering between opposite things.
Epictetus

There's much to be said for challenging fate instead of ducking behind it.
Diana Trilling

The middle of the road is where the white line is - and that's the worst place to drive.
Robert Frost

It's a very important thing to learn to talk to people you disagree with.
Pete Seeger

If geniuses can sometimes make mistakes, cannot the rest of us on occasion be geniuses?
Joseph Epstein

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
Eleanor Roosevelt

If you don't like the road you're walking, start paving another one.
Dolly Parton

Deliberation is the function of many; action is the function of one.
Charles de Gaulle

Aging is not 'lost youth' but a new stage of opportunity and strength.
Betty Friedan

Imagination is but another name for super intelligence.
Edgar Rice Burroughs

You show people what you're willing to fight for when you fight for your friends.
Hillary Clinton

The pupil who is never required to do what he cannot do never does what he can do.
John Stuart Mill

Don't raise your voice, improve your argument.
Desmond Tutu

A burning purpose attracts others who are drawn along with it and help fulfill it.
Margaret Bourke-White

Nothing is more intolerable than to have to admit to yourself your own errors.
Ludwig van Beethoven

For some reason, people want to see you fail. That's not your problem, that is their problem.
Sandra Bullock

If you chase two rabbits, you catch none.
Confucius