When you find yourself stuck in a rut that you can’t seem to dig yourself out of, sometimes change is exactly what you need, even when it’s scary. When it comes time for you to change gears, motivational quotes can help you get into the right mindset. The best motivational quotes offer us tremendous insight into what it truly means to throw yourself into life with every ounce of strength you can muster in the hopes of achieving something better. The most motivating quotes are those that speak for you (and to you) when you’re at a loss for words. They reveal every little feeling you are trying to express. So if you’re having trouble finding the right words to express how you feel or you’re just in need of a motivational pick-me-up, the inspirational quotes and sayings below will help you remember that change can be a beautiful thing.
Motivational quotes to inspire you
RELATED: 75 Inspirational Quotes About Life And Struggles To Get You Through Difficult Times
Motivational life quotes
“You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody.” — Maya Angelou
“Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow know what you truly want to become.” — Steve Jobs
“If you cannot do great things yourself, remember that you may do small things in a great way.” — Napoleon Hill
“Time will pass anyway, you can either spend it creating the life you want or spend it living the life you don’t want. The choice is yours.” — Anonymous
“Courage is more exhilarating than fear and in the long run it is easier. We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just one step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
“You’ve got to get up every morning with determination if you’re going to go to bed with satisfaction.” — George Lorimer
“If you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.” — Roald Dahl
“If you’re gonna make a change, you’re gonna have to operate from a new belief that says life happens not to me but for me.” — Tony Robbins
“Maybe there’s something you’re afraid to do today, someone you’re afraid to love, or somewhere you’re afraid it’s gonna hurt. It’s gonna hurt because it matters.” — John Green
“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” — George Bernard Shaw
“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” — Andy Warhol
“I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start over all over again.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald
“Each morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most.” — Jack Kornfield
“When a man says I cannot, he has made a suggestion to himself. He has weakened his power of accomplishing that which otherwise would have been accomplished.” — Muhammad Ali
“And suddenly you know: It’s time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.” — Meister Eckhart
“You are not judged by the height you have risen, but from the depth you have climbed.” — Frederick Douglass
“When we deny our stories, they define us. When we own our stories, we get to write a brave new ending.” — Brené Brown
“When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” — Haruki Murakami
“You’ve got to kick fear to the side, because the payoff is huge.” — Mariska Hargitay
“Stop letting people who do so little for you control so much of your mind, feelings and emotions.” — Will Smith
“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, Jr.
“Remember that just because you hit bottom doesn’t mean you have to stay there.” — Robert Downey Jr.
“You will have bad times, but they will always wake you up to the stuff you weren’t paying attention to.” — Robin Williams
“The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.” — JP Morgan
“I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.” — Angela Davis
“We are born in one day. We die in one day. We can change in one day. And we can fall in love in one day. Anything can happen in just one day.” — Gayle Forman
“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” — Les Brown
“Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me.” — Carol Burnett
“Where there is a will, there is a way. If there is a chance in a million that you can do something, anything, to keep what you want from ending, do it. Pry the door open or, if need be, wedge your foot in that door and keep it open.” — Pauline Kael
“Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower
“You simply have to put one foot in front of the other and keep going. Put blinders on and plow right ahead.” — George Lucas
“Whatever you want in life, other people are going to want it too. Believe in yourself enough to accept the idea that you have an equal right to it.” — Diane Sawyer
“When you fail you learn from the mistakes you made and it motivates you to work even harder.” — Natalie Gulbis
“Motivation will almost always beat mere talent.” — Norman Ralph Augustine
35. “If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.” — Jim Rohn 36. “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” — Charles R. Swindoll 37. “Life is a series of baby steps along the way and if you add up these tiny little steps you take toward your goal, whatever it is, whether it’s giving up something, a terrible addiction or trying to work your way through an illness.” — Hoda Kotb 38. “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, Duchess of Sussex 39. “If you make your internal life a priority, then everything else you need on the outside will be given to you and it will be extremely clear what the next step is.” — Gabrielle Bernstein 40. “Learning how to be still, to really be still and let life happen—that stillness becomes a radiance.” — Morgan Freeman RELATED: 108 Funny Inspirational Quotes To Keep You Laughing All Day
Motivational quotes for success
“You’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.” — John C. Maxwell
“It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.” — Theodore Roosevelt
“Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.” — Henry David Thoreau
“Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit.” — Conrad Hilton
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” — Anonymous
“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
“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” — Thomas A. Edison
“Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.” — Norman Vincent Peale
“Opportunity does not knock, it presents itself when you beat down the door.” — Kyle Chandler
“In order to succeed, we must first believe that we can.” — Nikos Kazantzakis
“The will to succeed is important, but what’s more important is the will to prepare.” — Bobby Knight
“I really believe that everyone has a talent, ability, or skill that he can mine to support himself and to succeed in life.” — Dean Koontz
“If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.” — John D. Rockefeller
“The hardships that I encountered in the past will help me succeed in the future.” — Philip Emeagwali
“The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment in which you first find yourself.” — Mark Caine
“Do your work with your whole heart, and you will succeed - there’s so little competition.” — Elbert Hubbard
“I attribute my success to this - I never gave or took any excuse.” — Florence Nightingale
“To be wholly devoted to some intellectual exercise is to have succeeded in life.” — Robert Louis Stevenson 59. “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” — Mark Twain
“Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking: ‘What’s in it for me?’” — Brian Tracy 61. “I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.” — Michael Jordan 62. “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” — Winston Churchill
“To succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone, and a funny bone.” — Reba McIntire
“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” — Albert Schweitzer
“Success is the sum of small efforts - repeated day in and day out.” — Robert Collier
“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” — Winston Churchill
“Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.” — John Wooden
“Action is the foundational key to all success.” — Pablo Picasso
“Desire is the key to motivation, but it’s determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal - a commitment to excellence - that will enable you to attain the success you seek.” — Mario Andretti
“However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.” — Stephen Hawking
“Success is not measured by what you accomplish, but by the opposition you have encountered, and the courage with which you have maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds.” — Orison Swett Marden
“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.” — Abraham Lincoln
“Success isn’t a result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.” — Andrew H. Glasgow
“Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.” — Booker T. Washington
“There are people who make things happen, there are people who watch things happen, and there are people who wonder what happened. To be successful, you need to be a person who makes things happen.” — Jim Lovell
“Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.” — George S. Patton
“Eighty percent of success is showing up.”
“There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way.” — Christopher Morley
“Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.” — WIlliam Feather
“Success consists of getting up just one more time than you fall.” — Oliver Goldsmith RELATED: 75 Inspirational Quotes For Work To Get You Through The Week
Motivational quotes for work
“Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard.” — Tim Notke
“Do each day all that can be done that day. You don’t need to overwork or to rush blindly into your work trying to do the greatest possible number of things in the shortest possible time.” — Earl Nightingale
“Decide what you want, decide what you are willing to exchange for it. Establish your priorities and go to work.” — H.L. Hunt
“Without hard work, nothing grows but weeds.” — Gordon B. Hinckley
“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.” — Edward Everett Hale 86. “Your talent determines what you can do. Your motivation determines how much you’re willing to do. Your attitude determines how well you do it.” — Lou Holtz 87. “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.” — Steve Jobs 88. “The more I want to get something done the less I call it work.” — Richard Bach 89. “You are not your resume, you are your work.” — Seth Godin
90. “Be humble. Be hungry. And always be the hardest worker in the room.” — Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson 91. “Work hard and be kind and amazing things will happen.” — Conan O’Brien 92. “Nothing will work unless you do.” — Maya Angelou 93. “Work hard in silence, let your success be your noise.” — Frank Ocean 94. “The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today.” — Elbert Hubbard 95. “The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.” — Vince Lombardi
“Laziness may appear attractive, but work gives satisfaction.” — Anne Frank
“Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” — Theodore Roosevelt
“Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work.” — Booker T. Washington
“The only thing that overcomes hard luck is hard work.” — Harry Golden
“Once you start a working on something, don’t be afraid of failure and don’t abandon it. People who work sincerely are the happiest.” — Chanakya
“To find joy in work is to discover the fountain of youth.” — Pearl S. Buck
“Life grants nothing to us mortals without hard work.” — Horace
“Find a job you like and you add five days to every week.” — H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
“No one can arrive from being talented alone, work transforms talent into genius.” — Anna Pavlova
“Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did.” — Newt Gingrich 106. “Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work in hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.“ — Alexander Graham Bell
“Work and you’ll get what you need; work harder and you’ll get what you want.” — Prabakaran Thirumalai 108. “A dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it takes a lot of hard work.” — Ozwald Boateng 109. “Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.” — Aristotle
“It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.” — Henry Ford
“The big secret in life is that there is no big secret. Whatever your goal, you can get there if you’re willing to work.” — Oprah Winfrey
“The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.” — Steven Pressfield
“If you don’t build your dream, someone else will hire you to help them build theirs.” — Dhirubhai Ambani
“Work takes on new meaning when you feel you are pointed in the right direction. Otherwise, it’s just a job, and life is too short for that.” — Tim Cook
“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” — Albert Einstein
“Greatness only comes before hustle in the dictionary.” — Ross Simmonds
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” — Aristotle
“Very often, a change of self is needed more than a change of scene.” — A.C. Benson
“It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.” — Lou Holtz
“The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one.” — Oscar Wilde RELATED: 50 Motivational Quotes For Work To Keep You Inspired & Get You Through The Week
Short motivational quotes
“Always do what you are afraid to do.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
“A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.” — Ayn Rand
“When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.” — Abraham Lincoln
“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” — Nelson Mandela
“Don’t feel stupid if you don’t like what everyone else pretends to love.” — Emma Watson
“Only do what your heart tells you.” — Princess Diana
“The final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.” — Anne Frank
“Better to fight for something than to live for nothing.” — George Patton
“If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with BS.” — W.C. Fields
“You must learn a new way to think before you can master a new way to be.” — Marianne Williamson
“Well-behaved women rarely make history.” — Marilyn Monroe
“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.” — Albert Einstein
“We always may be what we might have been.” — Adelaide Anne Procter
“You don’t worry ‘bout fitting in when you custom made.” — Drake, “Views”
“‘Where you movin’?’ I said, ‘Onto better things.’” — Drake, “10 Bands”
“There are no regrets in life, just lessons.” — Jennifer Aniston
“If you see someone without a smile, give them one of yours.” — Dolly Parton
“Nevertheless, she persisted.” — Mitch McConnell
“Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.” — Stephen Hawking
“With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
“Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines.” — Robert H. Schuller
“Every exit is an entry somewhere else.” — Tom Stoppard
“Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned.” — Peter Marshall
“One finds limits by pushing them.” — Herbert A. Simon 145. “Make each day your masterpiece.” — John Wooden 146. “Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” — Theodore Roosevelt
“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” — Winston Churchill
“I could either watch it happen or be a part of it.” — Elon Musk
“Live life as if everything is rigged in your favor.” — Rumi 150. “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” — Theodore Roosevelt RELATED: 60 Best Inspirational Life Quotes To Live By Each Day Tabitha Blaisdell is a freelance writer whose work can be found all across the web on websites such as BuzzFeed, Elite Daily, Thought Catalog, YourTango, Psych Central and more.
