150+ Motivational Quotes!
Everyone loves a great motivational quote! But what makes motivational quotes so endearing? Sure, they are just words, but they are positive words. They reach out to us when we feel like giving up or struggling to push ourselves to the next level. The right quote at the right time can uplift us, help us overcome tough times, stop procrastinating, escape our comfort zone, and encourage us to take action!
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What is Motivation?
Motivation is the desire to act, the process that initiates, guides, and maintains goal-oriented behaviours.
Motivation involves the biological, emotional, social, and cognitive forces that activate behaviour. It’s the driving force behind human actions.
There are two types of motivation. The first is extrinsic motivation, which arises from the desire to pursue and attain goals such as fame, praise, or money. The second is intrinsic motivation, an act of doing something without apparent external rewards, such as doing something purely for enjoyment or personal satisfaction.
How to Motivate Yourself:
Everyone will experience fluctuations in motivation and willpower at some point in their lives. Sometimes, you might feel fired up and highly driven to reach your goals, while at other times, you might feel restless or unsure of what you want or how to achieve it.
However, at times when our motivation is lacking, there are a few simple techniques we can use to get us back on track:
Simplify the tasks – Delegate or eliminate tasks that don’t motivate or excite you and use the time spared to focus on those that do.
Combine all your small tasks – Make a list of all your tasks and tackle all the similar ones together. This will give you a sense of accomplishment and increase motivation.
Focus on your accomplishments – Concentrate on looking at how far you have come instead of how far you need to go!
Celebrate success – Rather than focusing on your ideal, consider what you’ve achieved from a specific starting point.
Set measurable goals – Set achievable goals. This will make us feel like we are progressing as we accomplish them, motivating us further.
Create and complete a new positive habit – Sometimes, the slightest shift can create the most significant improvements. The key is focusing on what you want to improve and doing something small each day to achieve it. Even a 1% improvement every day can produce big results in the end.
Motivational Quotes to Help You Reach Your Full Potential:
Positive Motivational Quotes:
1. Attitude is a choice. Happiness is a choice. Optimism is a choice. Kindness is a choice. Giving is a choice. Respect is a choice. Whatever choice you make makes you. Choose wisely – Roy T. Bennett
2. Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you’ll start having positive results – Willie Nelson
3. Action is the foundational key to all success – Pablo Picasso
4. Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them – Marcus Aurelius
5. Pessimism leads to weakness and optimism to power – William James
6. The greatest weapon against stress is the ability to choose one thought over another – William James
7. It takes nothing to join the crowd. It takes everything to stand alone – Hans F. Hansen
8. It is never too late to be what you might have been – George Eliot
9. Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow – Helen Keller
10. Words can inspire, thoughts can provoke, but only action truly brings you closer to your dreams – Brad Sugars
11. Either you run the day, or the day runs you – Jim Rohn
12. Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference – Winston Churchill
13. You can’t make positive choices for the rest of your life without an environment that makes those choices easy, natural, and enjoyable – Deepak Chopra
Motivational Quotes of the Day:
14. Everything you can imagine is real – Pablo Picasso
15. Your passion is waiting for your courage to catch up – Isabelle Lafleche
16. Magic is believing in yourself. If you can make that happen, you can make anything happen – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
17. When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us – Helen Keller
18. You’ve gotta dance like nobody is watching, love like you’ll never be hurt, sing like nobody is listening, and live like its heaven on earth – William W. Purkey
19. Smart people learn from everything and everyone, average people from their experiences, and stupid people already have all the answers – Socrates
20. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life – Steve Jobs
21. Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway – Eleanor Roosevelt
22. Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great – John D. Rockefeller
23. Whatever you are, be a good one – Abraham Lincoln
24. Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions – Dalai Lama XIV
25. If we have the attitude that it’s going to be a great day it usually is – Catherine Pulsifier
26. Impossible is just an opinion – Paulo Coelho
27. Someday is not a day of the week – Denise Brennan-Nelson
28. If something is important enough, even if the odds are stacked against you, you should still do it – Elon Musk
29. Do one thing every day that scares you – Eleanor Roosevelt
30. Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten – Neil Gaiman
31. It’s no use going back to yesterday because I was a different person then – Lewis Carroll
Monday Motivational Quotes:
32. When life gives you Monday, dip it in glitter and sparkle all day – Ella Woodward
33. Goodbye blue Monday – Kurt Vonnegut
34. Mondays are the start of the work week which offers new beginnings 52 times a year – David Dweck
35. It was a Monday and they walked on a tightrope to the sun – Kurt Vonnegut
36. Your Monday morning thoughts set the tone for your whole week. See yourself getting stronger, and living a fulfilling, happier & healthier life – Germany Kent
37. So. Monday. We meet again. We will never be friends—but maybe we can move past our mutual enmity toward a more-positive partnership – Julio-Alexi Genao
38. It’s Monday… time to motivate and make dreams and goals happen. Let’s go – Heather Stillufsen
Motivational Quotes for Women:
39. Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself – Eleanor Roosevelt
40. 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
41. The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has been before – Albert Einstein
42. We realise the importance of our voices only when we are silenced – Malala Yousafzain
43. On my own, I will just create and if it works, it works. And if it doesn’t, I’ll just create something else. I don’t have any limitations on what I think I could do or be – Oprah Winfrey
44. Women challenge the status quo because we are never it – Cindy Gallop
45. I was smart enough to go through any door that opened – Joan Rivers
46. If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman – Unknown
47. Don’t compromise yourself. You’re all you’ve got – Janis Joplin
48. We need to accept that we won’t always make the right decisions and that we’ll screw up royally sometimes – understanding that failure is not the opposite of success, it’s part of success – Arianna Huffington
49. When something I can’t control happens, I ask myself: Where is the hidden gift? Where is the positive in this – Sara Blakely
50. Done is better than perfect – Sheryl Sandberg
51. Women must learn to play the game as men do – Eleanor Roosevelt
52. Be a first-rate version of yourself, not a second-rate version of someone else – Judy Garland
53. Doubt is a killer. You just have to know who you are and what you stand for – Jennifer Lopez
54. 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
Hustle Quotes:
55. Greatness only comes before hustle in the dictionary – Ross Simmonds
56. Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle – Abraham Lincoln
57. Every successful person in the world is a hustler in one way or another. We all hustle to get where we need to be. Only a fool would sit around and wait on another man to feed him – K’wan
58. Everything comes to him he hustles while he waits – Thomas Edison
59. Work like someone is working twenty-four hours a day to take it away from you – Mark Cuban
60. No one is to blame for your future situation but yourself. If you want to be successful, then become “Successful.” – Jaymin Shah
61. Without hustle, talent will only carry you so far – Gary Vaynerchuk
You Can Do It Quotes:
62. Twenty years from now you’ll be more disappointed by the things you did not do than the ones you did – Mark Twain
63. It’s never too late to be what you might’ve been – George Eliot
64. You can do anything you set your mind to – Benjamin Franklin
65. Do what you can, with what you have, where you are – Theodore Roosevelt
66. Trust yourself that you can do it and get it – Baz Luhrmann
67. You never know what you can do until you try – William Cobbett
68. Do the best you can. No one can do more than that – John Wooden
69. All we can do is the best we can do – David Axelrod
70. If you can dream it, you can do it – Walt Disney
Motivational Quotes for Work:
71. If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced – Vincent Van Gogh
72. The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one – Oscar Wilde
73. Work hard for what you want because it won’t come to you without a fight. You have to be strong and courageous and know that you can do anything you put your mind to. If somebody puts you down or criticizes you, just keep on believing in yourself and turn it into something positive – Leah LaBelle
74. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit – Aristotle
74. Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, ‘Make me feel important.’ Not only will you succeed in sales, but you will also succeed in life – Mary Kay Ash
75. How wonderful it is that nobody needs to wait a single moment before starting to improve the world – Anne Frank
76. Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, and others make it happen – Michael Jordan
77. It’s not just about being better. It’s about being different. You need to give people a reason to choose your business – Tom Abbott
78. If everything seems to be under control, you’re not going fast enough – Mario Andretti
79. Leaders can let you fail and yet not let you be a failure – Stanley McChrystal
80. Very often, a change of self is needed more than a change of scene – A.C. Benson
81. Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo Da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein – H. Jackson Brown Jr
82. It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it – Lou Holtz
83. If you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money. But if you hire people who believe what you believe, they’ll work for you with blood and sweat and tears – Simon Sinek
84. Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard – Tim Notke
85. Never stop doing your best just because someone doesn’t give you credit – Kamari aka Lyrikal
86. Unsuccessful people make their decisions based on their current situations. Successful people make their decisions based on where they want to be – Benjamin Hardy
87. Work hard, be kind, and amazing things will happen – Conan O’Brien
88. I always did something I was a little not ready to do. I think that’s how you grow. When there’s that moment of ‘Wow, I’m not sure I can do this,’ and you push through those moments, that’s when you have a breakthrough – Marissa Mayer
89. Great things are done by a series of small things brought together – Vincent Van Gogh
90. The only difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra – Jimmy Johnson
Encouraging Quotes to Motivate You:
91. Go the extra mile. It’s never crowded there – Dr Wayne D. Dyer
92. Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there someday – A.A. Milne
93. When written in Chinese the word “crisis” is composed of two characters – one represents danger and the other represents opportunity – John F Kennedy
94. We can do anything we want to if we stick to it long enough – Helen Keller
95. Set your goals high, and don’t stop till you get there – Bo Jackson
96. Small is not just a stepping-stone. Small is a great destination itself – Jason Fried
97. Begin anywhere – John Cage
98. In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity – Albert Einstein
99. Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can – Arthur Ashe
100. Wherever you go, go with all your heart – Confucius
101. Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have got it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known – Garrison Keillor
102. Good. Better. Best. Never let it rest. ‘Til your good is better and your better is best – St. Jerome
103. Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you – Walt Whitman
104. Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago – Warren Buffet
105. Everyone has inside them a piece of good news. The good news is you don’t know how great you can be! How much you can love? What you can accomplish! And what your potential is – Anne Frank
Motivational Quotes for Entrepreneurs:
106. Write it. Shoot it. Publish it. Crochet it, sauté it, whatever. MAKE – Joss Whedon
107. The secret of getting ahead is getting started – Mark Twain
108. I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed – Michael Jordan
109. Without a customer, you don’t have a business, all you have is a hobby – Don Peppers
110. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now – the Chinese Proverb
111. It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up – Babe Ruth
112. I wake up every morning and think to myself, ‘how far can I push this company in the next 24 hours – Leah Busque
113. All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them – Walt Disney
114. 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
115. Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender; it’s holy ground. There’s no greater investment – Stephen Covey
116. If people are doubting how far you can go, go so far that you can’t hear them anymore – Michele Ruiz
117. 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 – Arianna Huffington
Motivational Quotes for Success:
118. Every champion was once a contender that didn’t give up – Gabby Douglas
119. I never dreamed about success. I worked for it – Estée Lauder
120. 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 – Pele
121. 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
122. Success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you get – W. P. Kinsella
123. To be a champion, I think you have to see the big picture. It’s not about winning and losing; it’s about everyday hard work and about thriving on a challenge. It’s about embracing the pain that you’ll experience at the end of a race and not being afraid. I think people think too hard and get afraid of a certain challenge – Summer Sanders
124. Opportunities don’t happen. You create them – Chris Grosser
125. Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success – Dale Carnegie
126. The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything – Warren Buffett
127. Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it – Maya Angelou
128. Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple, really: Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t at all. You can be discouraged by failure or you can learn from it, so go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because remember that’s where you will find success – Thomas J. Watson
129. It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation – Herman Melville
Motivational Quotes for Life:
130. Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will – Suzy Kassem
131. Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing the monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward – C.S. Lewis
132. If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun – Katharine Hepburn
133. Life is not what you alone make it. Life is the input of everyone who touched your life and every experience that entered it. We are all part of one another – Yuri Kochiyama
134. Never regret anything that made you smile – Mark Twain
135. You must do the thing you think you cannot do – Eleanor Roosevelt
136. Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards – Vernon Sanders Law
137. Today is your opportunity to build the tomorrow you want – Ken Poirot
138. If you want to fly give up everything that weighs you down – Buddha
139. I never lose. Either I win or learn – Nelson Mandela
140. To know how much there is to know is the beginning of learning to live – Dorothy West
Motivational Quotes About Money:
141. Money can’t buy happiness, but it can make you comfortable while you’re being miserable – Clare Boothe Luce
142. You must gain control over your money or the lack of it will forever control you – Dave Ramsey
143. Don’t stay in bed unless you can make money in bed – George Burns
144. It’s not your salary that makes you rich, it’s your spending habits – Charles A. Jaffe
145. You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off of you – Maya Angelou
146. Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune – Jim Rohn
147. Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver – Jen Sincero
148. That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest – Henry David Thoreau
Motivational Quotes for Students:
149. Study while others are sleeping; work while others are loafing; prepare while others are playing; and dream while others are wishing – William Arthur Ward
150. If you can’t make a mistake you can’t make anything – Marva Collin
151. Motivation comes from working on things we care about – Sheryl Sandberg
152. Take the attitude of a student, never be too big to ask questions, and never know too much to learn something new – Augustine Og Mandino
153. If today you are a little bit better than you were yesterday, then that’s enough – David A. Bednar
154. Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world – Nelson Mandela
155. Failure is the tuition you pay for success – Walter Brunell
156. I really appreciate people who correct me, because, without them, I might have been repeating mistakes for a long time – Mufti Menk
157. If we wait until we’re ready, we’ll be waiting for the rest of our lives – Lemony Snicket
158. You’ve got to get up every morning with determination if you’re going to go to bed with satisfaction – George Lorimer
159. You may be disappointed if you fail, but you’ll be doomed if you don’t try – Beverly Sills
Funny Motivational Quotes:
160. Life is like a sewer… what you get out of it depends on what you put into it – Tom Lehrer
170. Be a positive energy trampoline – absorb what you need and rebound more back – Dave Carolan
171. People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily – Zig Ziglar
172. I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realise I should have been more specific – Lily Tomlin
173. The elevator to success is out of order. You’ll have to use the stairs, one step at a time – Joe Girard
174. I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying – Oscar Wilde
175. People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day – Winnie the Pooh
Motivational Quotes About Change:
176. Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has – Margaret Mead
177. Dreams are the seeds of change. Nothing ever grows without a seed, and nothing ever changes without a dream – Debby Boone
178. 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
180. Change is painful, but nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you don’t belong – Mandy Hale
181. Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself – Leo Tolstoy
182. Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything – George Bernard Shaw
183. Be the change that you wish to see in the world – Mahatma Gandhi
184. We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty – Maya Angelou
Motivational Quotes About Time:
185. Better three hours too soon than a minute too late – William Shakespeare
186. It’s not about having enough time, it’s about making enough time – Rachael Bermingham
187. Time is money – Benjamin Franklin
180. The trouble is, you think you have time – Buddha
181. Punctuality is not just limited to arriving at a place at right time, it is also about taking action at right time – Amit Kalantri
182. Time is what we want most and what we use worst – William Penn
Motivational Quotes About Winning:
183. A winner is a dreamer who never gives up – Nelson Mandela
184. Losers quit when they fail. Winners fail until they succeed – Robert T. Kiyosaki
185. Competing at the highest level is not about winning. It’s about preparation, courage, understanding, nurturing your people, and heart. Winning is the result – Joe Torre
186. One thing’s for sure, if you don’t play, you don’t win – Kylie Francis
187. Winning means you’re willing to go longer, work harder, and give more than anyone else – Vince Lombardi
188. A winner is a dreamer who never gives up – Nelson Mandela
189. Losers quit when they fail. Winners fail until they succeed – Robert T. Kiyosaki
190. Competing at the highest level is not about winning. It’s about preparation, courage, understanding, nurturing your people, and heart. Winning is the result – Joe Torre
191. One thing’s for sure, if you don’t play, you don’t win – Kylie Francis
192. Winning means you’re willing to go longer, work harder, and give more than anyone else – Vince Lombardi
Final Thoughts
Achieving your full potential starts with believing in yourself and having the courage to take the first step. Whether you need to be more hopeful and focused or rediscover your passion, embracing a positive attitude and letting go of perfectionist tendencies will help unlock your potential.
Taking on new challenges and experiences can bring clarity to life’s purpose, while encouragement and support from others may be necessary at times to keep you going. Whenever possible, use resources, like motivational quotes, that offer comfort and inspiration when facing obstacles.
Through dedication and hard work, with trust in yourself, it’s possible to progress towards finding a true purpose that allows you to reach your full potential.
Read More: 85 Sassy self love quotes!
Remember to check out our related resources for more tips and guidance on this important topic. Take control of your life and embrace a brighter future!
Thanks so much for stopping by; I appreciate everyone who takes the time to read and make it to the end! I have lots of exciting new content in the next few weeks, so make sure you pop back to catch up!
