135 Motivational Quotes

Feeling stuck or in need of a little extra motivation? Whether you're pursuing personal goals, professional ambitions, or simply trying to get through a tough day, a few well-chosen words can make all the difference. In this blog post, we’ve curated a selection of the top 135 motivational quotes to inspire and uplift you. These powerful words from renowned thinkers, leaders, and creatives offer timeless wisdom and encouragement to help you stay focused, energized, and optimistic. Dive in and let these quotes reignite your passion and drive!

1. “Of course motivation is not permanent. But then, neither is bathing; but it is something you should do on a regular basis.” - Zig Ziglar

2. “You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do.” - Henry Ford

3. “The war to preserve the privilege of mythmaking” - Marvin Bell

4. “It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it.” - Lou Holtz

5. “You'll never get ahead of anyone as long as you try to get even with him.” - Lou Holtz

6. “All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be.” - Henry David Thoreau

7. “The road to success is always under construction” - Lily Tomlin

8. “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing. ” - Walt Disney

9. “Live with Fulfillment, Serve with Passion so in this Lifetime you will have the ablility to Die with NO Regrets.” - Randy Gonzales

10. “The individual who says it is not possible should move out of the way of those doing it.” - Tricia Cunningham

11. “No one wakes up in the morning and says, 'I want to gain 150 pounds and I will start right now!” - Tricia Cunningham

12. “But one of the worst results of being a slave and being forced to do things is that when there is no one to force you any more you find you have almost lost the power of forcing yourself.” - C.S. Lewis

13. “I said "Somebody should do something about that." Then I realized I am somebody.” - Lily Tomlin

14. “It's not that some people have willpower and some don't... It's that some people are ready to change and others are not.” - James Gordon

15. “The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world. ” - Michael Pollan

16. “Let your playerhaters be your motivators.” - Alberta Parish

17. “we tend to steer our lives in the direction of the lessons we need to learn” - Don Campbell

18. “Yawns are not the only infectious things out there besides germs.Giggles can spread from person to person.So can blushing.But maybe the most powerful infectious thing is the act of speaking the truth.” - Vera Nazarian

19. “Desire is the key to motivation. It is the key to develop a healthy personality and a positive attitude towards oneself and others.” - Dr. Amit Abraham

20. “I turned from my window. Suddenly it seemed odd for my neighbors on both sides to have visitors while I had none. For the first time, I felt lonely at 'Sconset."Let's cook," Frannie said energetically. "We will smell so good that they'll all come running." She picked up a bowl, filled it with apples from the barrel, and immediately began to cut them up. I put water to boil, got out cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, lard, flour, sugar, salt, saleratus, vinegar, and all the other things for apple pies. We both laughed happily. How easy it is, we thought, to make a decision, to implement a remedy, to act.” - Sena Jeter Naslund

21. “It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.” - Eric Hoffer

22. “Perfection is not a destination; it's a never-ending process...Enjoy!” - Jim Bouchard

23. “Dituntun oleh masa laluku, didorong oleh keberadaanku, aku terbang mencari sesuatu yang tak kuketahui. Antusiasme, rasa ingin tahu, dan harapan menemaniku.” - Samarpan

24. “Anything which is physically possible can always be made financially possible; money is a bugaboo of small minds.” - Robert A. Heinlein

25. “The IMPOSSIBLE is ONLY relevant to those who NEVER attempt it…otherwise it is ABSTACT and MEANINGLESS” - John Paul warren

26. “Moving forward implies MOTION when in all actuality it may be simply standing STILL and seeing the salvation of the Lord.” - John Paul warren

27. “I was going to buy a copy of The Power of Positive Thinking, and then I thought: What the hell good would that do?” - Ronnie Shanks

28. “You have come nearer to mastering a good many aspects of cooking than anyone except a handful of great chefs, and some day it will pay off. I know it will. You will just have to go on working, and teaching, and getting around, and spreading the gospel until it does. (Avis DeVoto to Julia Child)” - Joan Reardon

29. “but I have no mind for business and considered staying awake to be enough of an accomplishment.” - David Sedaris

30. “A dream is your creative vision for your life in the future. You must break out of your current comfort zone and become comfortable with the unfamiliar and the unknown.” - Dennis Waitley

31. “Tis in ourselves that we are thusor thus. Our bodies are our gardens, to the whichour wills are gardeners: so that if we will plantnettles, or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed upthyme, supply it with one gender of herbs, ordistract it with many, either to have it sterilewith idleness, or manured with industry, why, thepower and corrigible authority of this lies in ourwills. If the balance of our lives had not onescale of reason to poise another of sensuality, theblood and baseness of our natures would conduct usto most preposterous conclusions: but we havereason to cool our raging motions, our carnalstings, our unbitted lusts, whereof I take this thatyou call love to be a sect or scion.” - William Shakespeare

32. “An employee's motivation is a direct result of the sum of interactions with his or her manager.” - Bob Nelson

33. “To summarize, using money to motivate people can be a double-edged sword. For tasks that require cognitive ability, low to moderate performance-based incentives can help. But when the incentive level is very high, it can command too much attention and thereby distract the person’s mind with thoughts about the reward. This can create stress and ultimately reduce the level of performance.” - Dan Ariely

34. “When nothing goes right, you have to face forward and take it on head first.” - Kyo Shirodaira

35. “Motivation gets you going and habit gets you there.” - Zig Ziglar

36. “In the very act of writing I felt pleased with what I did. There was the pleasure of having words come to me, and the pleasure of ordering them, re-ordering them, weighing one against another. Pleasure also in the imagination of the story, the feeling that it could mean something. Mostly I was glad to find out that I could write at all. In writing you work toward a result you won't see for years, and can't be sure you'll ever see. It takes stamina and self-mastery and faith. It demands those things of you, then gives them back with a little extra, a surprise to keep you coming. It toughens you and clears your head. I could feel it happening. I was saving my life with every word I wrote, and I knew it.” - Tobias Wolff

37. “I refuse to live life with unsettled differences”.” - John Paul warren

38. “The power of "can't": The word "can't" makes strong people weak, blinds people who can see, saddens happy people, turns brave people into cowards, robs a genius of their brilliance, causes rich people to think poorly, and limits the achievements of that great person living inside us all.” - Robert T. Kiyosaki

39. “The heights charm us, but the steps do not; with the mountain in our view we love to walk the plains.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

40. “Competition is a rude yet effective motivation.” - Toba Beta

41. “You don't go walking into the proverbial lion's den lightly. You start with a good breakfast.” - Jim Butcher

42. “Newtonian physics runs into problems at the subatomic level. Down there--in the land of hadrons, quarks, and Schrödinger's cat--things gent freaky. The cool rationality of Isaac Newton gives way to the bizarre unpredictability of Lewis Carroll.” - Daniel H. Pink

43. “Money is just an idea.” - Robert T. Kiyosaki

44. “Intent not followed by action is an insult to your design. Decide what you want, create a plan, and get your ass out there!” - Steve Maraboli

45. “Rise and rise again until lambs become lions” - Robin Hood

46. “Live Long and Prosper” - Leonard Nimoy

47. “Yours is a race whose imagination is limited to its own small appetites. Greed, lust, envy - these are the motivating forces of humankind. What redeems you is that in every man and woman there is a seed that can grow to encompass love, joy and compassion. But this seed is never allowed to prosper in fertile ground. It struggles for life among the rocks of your human soul.” - David Gemmell

48. “The greater the loyalty of a group toward the group, the greater is the motivation among the members to achieve the goals of the group, and the greater the probability that the group will achieve its goals.” - Rensis Likert

49. “When healthy competition prevails -- you come out to play and you play to win.” - Lorii Myers

50. “Did I love what I was doing, or did I love myself in doing it?” - C. Terry Warner

51. “Control Your Own Destiny or Someone Else Will” - Jack Welch

52. “There is a sense in which all cognition can be said to be motivated. One is motivated to understand the world, to be in touch with reality, to remove doubt, etc. Alternately one might say that motivation is an aspect of cognition itself. Nevertheless, motives like wanting to find the truth, not wanting to be mistaken, etc., tend to align with epistemic goals in a way that many other commitments do not. As we have begun to see, all reasoning may be inextricable from emotion. But if a person's primary motivation in holding a belief is to hue to a positive state of mind, to mitigate feelings of anxiety, embarrassment, or guilt for instance. This is precisely what we mean by phrases like "wishful thinking", and "self-deception". Such a person will of necessity be less responsive to valid chains of evidence and argument that run counter to the beliefs he is seeking to maintain. To point out non-epistemic motives in an others view of the world, therefore, is always a criticism, as it serves to cast doubt on a persons connection to the world as it is.” - Sam Harris

53. “If life didn’t give you at least one person not wanting you to succeed then half of us would lose are motivation to climb that cliff, in order to prove them wrong.” - Shannon Alder

54. “I advise you to stop sharing your dreams with people who try to hold you back, even if they're your parents. Because, if you're the kind of person who senses there's something out there for you beyond whatever it is you're expected to do - if you want to be EXTRA-ordinary- you will not get there by hanging around a bunch of people who tell you you're not extraordinary. Instead, you will probablybecome as ordinary as they expect you to be.” - Kelly Cutrone

55. “No one asks how to motivate a baby. A baby naturally explores everything it can get at, unless restraining forces have already been at work. And this tendency doesn't die out, it's wiped out.” - B.F. Skinner

56. “If you think you are too small to be effective, you have never been in the dark with a mosquito!” - Wolfgang Reiber

57. “He who perseveres like an infant that falls down and keeps getting up, shall eventually find the way.”~ Amunhotep El Bey” - Amunhotep El Bey

58. “It did matter to get out of bed. There were webs to weave. Strings to grasp. Packages to deliver. Conversations to start. Thoughts to be expressed. Sams to slam into. Oceans to swim. And sad little men hiding in electrical sockets, waiting to be born of the human imagination.” - Bud Macfarlane Jr.

59. “And will you succeed? Yes indeed, yes indeed! Ninety-eight and three-quarters percent guaranteed!” - Dr Suess

60. “I challenge you to make your life the masterpiece you want to paint, the novel you want to read, the day you want to wake to.” - Toni Sorenson

61. “Do not sit still; start moving now. In the beginning, you may not go in the direction you want, but as long as you are moving, you are creating alternatives and possibilities.” - Rodolfo Costa

62. “Erase self-doubt by working to build your strengths instead of focusing on your weaknesses.” - Rodolfo Costa

63. “There is only one motive for writing a novel: to be published and read. To me there is no distinction between the mystery novel and the novel, only between good books and bad books. A good book takes the reader into a new world of experience; it is an experiment. A bad book, unless the writing is inept, reinforces the intransigent attitude of the reader not to experiment with a new world. Since there are criminals and psychopaths and sociopaths in all my novels they are in a way psychological thrillers.” - John Franklin Bardin

64. “Sordid things, for the most part, are what make human beings, my father included, move. That's what it is to be human, I'm afraid.” - Kurt Vonnegut

65. “Perserverance: Outlasting the most rash, pessimistic, cowardly naysayers; those first in line to deny us the dreams never tried. Ourselves.” - R. S. Guthrie

66. “Live your truth. Express your love. Share your enthusiasm. Take action towards your dreams. Walk your talk. Dance and sing to your music. Embrace your blessings. Make today worth remembering.” - Steve Maraboli

67. “Ish #211 "Your child is your parental obligation, not friend.” - Regina Griffin

68. “It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly.” - Isaac Asimov

69. “Don't let your dreams rust! Listen to your youthful bells ringing loud inside of you.” - Bernard Kelvin Clive

70. “Waiting around to be perfect never amounts to anything. Don't be a waiter or you'll be serving other people.” - Ian Desabrais

71. “If you’ve got a dozen pitchers, you need to speak 12 different languages.” - Michael Lewis

72. “Ardour in well-doing is a misleading and a treacherous thing. It cries out loudly for employment; you can't satisfy it at first; it wants more and more; it is eager to move mountains and divert the course of rivers. It isn't content till it perspires. And then, too often, when it feels the perspiration on its brow, it wearies all of a sudden and dies, without even putting itself to the trouble of saying, "I've had enough of this.” - Arnold Bennett

73. “We mistakenly assume that bodily survival has a higher precedence than ego survival. This is simply not generally true. Ego will happily destroy the body for its own sake. Look at overweight executives headed for heart attacks on the way to getting their pictures in Fortune or anorexic models suffering slow starvation on their way to getting their pictures in Vogue. Protecting ego is the general case.” - Karl Marlantes

74. “The issue isn't, Am I good enough? No. The issue is, Do I not have any other choice? Will and desire don't matter. Ability doesn't matter. Need is the only thing that matters.” - Dana Spiotta

75. “Trust not in Sprites nor the motivations of a Gnome.” - Jefferson Smith

76. “It's hard to stay committed when our heart isn't in it.” - Deborah Day

77. “Always strive to aim for the highest peak of the goals in life you have set, this way if you manage to reach even half way toward a goal, landing in the middle is not such a bad place to end up.” - Victoria Addino

78. “Whatever you think you are, you are always bigger than that...” - Gino Norris

79. “There are six reasons anyone does anything: Love. Faith. Greed. Boredom. Fear..." he said, ticking them off on his fingers; but he lingered on the last, drawing a deep breath before he said, "Revenge.” - Ally Carter

80. “It doesn't matter where you've been, only where you are going.” - L.M. Fields

81. “We're all going through something ... The trick is to go through it anyway!” - Vaughn Ripley

82. “Forget perfect on the first try. In the face of frustration, your best tool is a few deep breaths, and remembering that you can do anything once you've practed two hundred times.” - Miriam Peskowitz

83. “The desire to do something because you find it deeply satisfying and personally challenging inspires the highest levels of creativity, whetherit's in the arts, sciences, or business.” - Teresa Amabile

84. “Because it is my desire. Is that not enough?"[Sherlock Holmes on his raison d'être.]” - Arthur Conan Doyle

85. “You cannot control the past but you have control over the life you build going forward.” - Nancy D. Butler

86. “Strong leaders encourage you to do things for your own benefit, not just theirs.” - Tim Tebow

87. “Woodrow Wilson intimate Edward House urged that his boss never first be approached by argument. Instead, the President could be made most receptive by laying a groundwork of 'common hatred".” - David Pietrusza

88. “Gardening is about cheating, about persuading unlikely plants to survive in unlikely places and when that trick is well accomplished the results can be highly satisfying.” - David Wheeler

89. “Motivation can't take you very far if you don't have the legs.” - Lance Armstrong

90. “Leadership reveals itself in the big moments, but is forged in the small. It is the exponential and compounding product of our many incremental behaviors and actions; all of which arise out of our choices in values, beliefs & emotions. Choices all. Not a one is thrust upon us.” - Christopher Babson

91. “I do not wish to avoid the walk. The distance is nothing when one has a motive.” - Jane Austen

92. “Life is about being nice to people and believing in yourself..” - Gary Gray

93. “It’s never been easier for audiences to skip, filter, or avoid advertising, so the best ideas are the ones that respect that the audience needs to get something out of the work; it should inspire, satisfy, or motivate them. You can’t just bombard people with messages anymore.” - Ajaz Ahmed

94. “If you want him to do it, you've got to change the picture of the world inside his head.” - Robert Penn Warren

95. “Motivation gets you going; Inspiration keeps you going.” - Todd Stocker

96. “Surviving ain't thriving.” - Peter James West

97. “If you want to be happy, you need to set your mind on happiness.” - Ana Kostovska

98. “Believe in yourself. Under-confidence leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy that you are not good enough for your work.” - Dr Roopleen

99. “Opportunity will always pass YOU by, until YOU open your eyes! - Kit McCann” - Kit McCann

100. “To turn your dreams into reality, all your resources, efforts and concentration should be aligned in the same direction.” - Dr Roopleen

101. “Extra miles, extensive preparation and exhaustive efforts usually show astonishing results.” - Dr Roopleen

102. “Intelligence and common sense, what makes a person a real genius.” - Wazim Shaw

103. “Don’t let mental blocks control you. Set yourself free. Confront your fear and turn the mental blocks into building blocks.” - Dr Roopleen

104. “I have cancer. Cancer doesn't have me.” - Marco Calderon

105. “I am billionaire bold bright omnipotent lively determined to go within to win opening my omnific eyes to realize wisdom innovation naturalizes…My cascading flow of financial love lavishly streams gold bars as I realize gold is intrinsic wealth as my intuitive imagination is my intrinsic innovations…” - Robert A. Wilson

106. “Always tell yourself that you are as good as anyone that breathes; that you have two hands and a brain, and a little time in which to use them. But they are enough, and no one has any more. And if you train and force them to serve you well, you can reach any height to which you aspire. But to waste any of them is to betray yourself.” - Robert Stroud

107. “Yesterday is never as good as right now so enjoy every moment of the journey into TOMORROW.” - C. Smith

108. “When we pray we admit defeat.” - Anthony Burgess

109. “You live long enough, you lose enough people, you learn to appreciate the memories you have.” - Nicholas Sparks

110. “Why are...poor people more ready to share their goods than rich people? The answer is easy: The poor have little to lose; the rich have more to lose and they are more attached to their possessions. Poverty provides a deeper motivation for understanding your neighbors, welcoming others and attending to those who are suffering. I would go so far as to say that poverty helps you understand what happiness is, what serenity is in life.” - Piero Gheddo

111. “It's always ok to do the right thing. It's never ok to be a bully.” - Magdalena VandenBerg

112. “If you don't burn out at the end of each day, you're a bum.” - George Lois

113. “Hidup itu seperti air mengalir saja. Tapi, kalau bisa mengalir yang deras. Batu pun kadang bisa menggelundung , kalah dengan air yang deras. Itu menangnya orang yang tidak punya cita-cita tinggi sejak awal. Hidupnya lebih fleksible. Karena tidak punya cita-cita, kalau dalam perjalanannya menghadapi batu besar, ia akan membelok. Tapi, kalau orang berpegang teguh pada cita-cita, bertemu batu pun akan ditabrak. Iya kalau batunya yang nggelundung, lha kalau kepalanya yang pecah gimana?” - Dahlan iskan

114. “We can't always have our druthers.” - Harper Lee

115. “The professional loves her work. She is invested in it wholeheartedly. But she does not forget that the work is not her.” - Steven Pressfield

116. “If you do the things you need to do when you need to do them, then someday you can do the things you want do when you want to do them.” - John C. Maxwell

117. “Without drive you will never get anywhere in life.” - Habeeb Akande

118. “Maybe we feel meaning only when we deal with something bigger. Perhaps we hope that someone else, especially someone important to us, will ascribe value to what we've produced? Maybe we need the illusion that our work might one day matter to many people. That it might be of some value in the big, broad world out there [...]? Most likely it is all of these. But fundamentally, I think that almost any aspect of meaning [...] can be sufficient to drive our behaviour. As long as we are doing something that is somewhat connected to our self image, it can fuel our motivation and get us to work much harder.” - Dan Ariely

119. “Without the desire to be patient patience doesn't happen, Just like without the desire to grow, LIFE doesn't happen!” - Sujit Lalwani

120. “Once You keep Aside the Emotional side Of yours,Is when You stop using the phrase “This was a BAD PHASE” of life..” - Sujit Lalwani

121. “What You were Once, Was Also Because You Were Someone Else Before that” - Sujit Lalwani

122. “All have dreams, live for them, They add meaning to LIFE.The only thing that differentiates us from other beings is the fact that us can DREAM!!!” - Sujit Lalwani

123. “When every minute of your day is planned & you are packed for days, you shall soon realize that the pain of past fades, vision of life gets clearer and all that seemed to poison your life Ceases to exist.” - Sujit Lalwani

124. “At times what you expect and what happens don’t match. The faster you accept and adapt to what happened & work towards creating what you believed, that what you expected gets created in a whole new way..!” - Sujit Lalwani

125. “IT’s All In The Game Of Mind.” - Sujit Lalwani

126. “The ordeals of others . . .prepare us, andlater become the compass . . .in our time of ordeal.” - John-Talmage Mathis

127. “When you’ve worked hard and done well and walked through that doorway of opportunity, you do not slam it shut behind you.” - Guy Kawasaki

128. “People often say motivation doesn’t last. Neither does bathing—that’s why we recommend it daily.” - Zig Ziglar

129. “It's about personal development. It's about creating your own character and pushing it to the limit. It's about pushing yourself so far out of your own and everybody else's idea of who you are and what you're capable of, that you no longer believe in limits. It's about reaching beyond your so-called potential, because your potential is never where you or anyone else expects it to be, not even close. It's about being able to say with the last breath of your life “I used all my potential and all my talents and pushed myself to the limit. I could not have fought any harder.” - Charlotte Eriksson

130. “Fear of failure prevents you from realising your dreams of success.” - Habeeb Akande

131. “If your arteries are good, eat more ice cream. If they are bad, drink more red wine. Proceed thusly.” - Sandra Byrd

132. “When you encounter obstacles, don’t turn your back on them. Face them, confront them and your will see them dissolving in front of your eyes.” - Roopleen

133. “To stay in recovery, you must be responsible for finding your own motivation. Remember, motivation may not be easy to come by at first. It will probably be a very small, timid part inside of you. When you find it, let that part be in charge. Let the minority rule and lead you to a life you never dreamed was possible” - Jenni Schaefer

134. “My emotional state is determined by where my attention goes.” - Elizabeth Grace Saunders

135. “Reality always wins.” - Elizabeth Grace Saunders