Opportunities often come disguised as challenges or unexpected moments, waiting to be recognized and embraced. Whether you're seeking motivation to take a bold step or simply need a fresh perspective, these 140 inspiring opportunity quotes offer powerful insights to ignite your ambition and help you see potential where others might not. Dive in and let these words encourage you to seize the possibilities around you.
1. “When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.” - Alexander Graham Bell
2. “The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger--but recognize the opportunity.” - John F. Kennedy
3. “...one opportunity leads directly to another, just as risk leads to more risk, life to more life, and death to more death.” - Markus Zusak
4. “We often miss opportunity because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work” - Thomas A. Edison
5. “I will prepare and some day my chance will come.” - Abraham Lincoln
6. “Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can, there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did.” - Sarah Caldwell
7. “Sometimes maybe you need an experience. The experience can be a person or it can be a drug. The experience opens a door that was there all the time but you never saw it. Or maybe it blasts you into outer space...All that negative stuff. All the pain...It just floted away from me, I just floated away from it...up and away...” - Melvin Burgess
8. “Failure is only the opportunity more intelligently to begin again.” - Henry Ford
9. “For age is opportunity no less Than youth itself, though in another dress, And as the evening twilight fades away The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.” - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
10. “In the ill-judged execution of the well-judged plan of things the call seldom produces the comer, the man to love rarely coincides with the hour for loving. Nature does not often say 'See!' to her poor creature at a time when seeing can lead to happy doing; or reply 'Here!' to a body's cry of 'Where?' till the hide-and-seek has become an irksome outworn game.” - Thomas Hardy
11. “My country owes me nothing. It gave me, as it gives every boy and girl, a chance. It gave me schooling, independence of action, opportunity for service and honor.” - Herbert Hoover
12. “No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
13. “Salvation is more than a word, It is His Word. His word became flesh so we have the opportunity to live.” - Tabitha Robin
14. “When a great moment knocks on the door of your life, it is often no louder than the beating of your heart, and it is very easy to miss it. ” - Boris Pasternak
15. “I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.” - Stephen Jay Gould
16. “How much I missed, simply because I was afraid of missing it.” - Paulo Coelho
17. “Sometimes opportunities float right past your nose. Work hard, apply yourself, and be ready. When an opportunity comes you can grab it.” - Julie Andrews Edwards
18. “We can be hindered in our development and our personal growth by political conditions. Outer circumstances can constrain us. Only when we are free to develop our innate abilities can we live as free beings. But we are just as much determined by inner potential and outer opportunities as the Stone Age boy on the Rhine, the lion in Africa, or the apple tree in the garden.” - Jostein Gaarder
19. “Every mistake committed is a learning opportunity.” - Santosh Kalwar
20. “Friendship is selfless love, care, respect, and honor not a profitable opportunity.” - Santosh Kalwar
21. “Opportunity never knocks. It hangs thick in the air all around you. You breathe it unthinking, and dissipate it with your sighs.” - Roy H. Williams
22. “What made America great was her ability to transform her own dream into hope for all mankind. America did not tell the millions of men and women who came from every country in the world and who -- with their hands, their intelligence and their heart -- built the greatest nation in the world: ‘Come, and everything will be given to you.’ She said: ‘Come, and the only limits to what you'll be able to achieve will be your own courage and your own talent.” - Nicolas Sarkozy
23. “It is not often that a man can make opportunities for himself. But he can put himself in such shape that when or if the opportunities come he is ready.” - Theodore Roosevelt
24. “Any human anywhere will blossom in a hundred unexpected talents and capacities simply by being given the opportunity to do so.” - Doris Lessing
25. “We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.” - Edith Lovejoy Pierce
26. “Sometimes oppurtunities float right past your nose. Work hard, apply yourself, and be ready. When an opportunity comes you can grab it.” - Julie Andrews
27. “Unfortunately, there seems to be far more opportunity out there than ability.... We should remember that good fortune often happens when opportunity meets with preparation.” - Thomas A. Edison
28. “Not knowing when the dawn will comeI open every door.” - Emily Dickinson
29. “If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door” - Milton Berle
30. “It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities.” - Eric Hoffer
31. “It's not a competition, it's a doorway.” - Mary Oliver
32. “Stay open to opportunity -- you never know where your next important connection will be made.” - Nicholas Boothman
33. “Sky is not a limit for me; because I have no limit for myself in life. Because life is a world full of risk taking and possibilities. No matter how hard or easy life is; I will always find a way to enjoy myself; even in the mist of circumstances; because problems is a sense of adventure in sheep's clothing.” - Temitope Owosela
34. “Remember the two benefits of failure. First, if you do fail, you learn what doesn't work; and second, the failure gives you the opportunity to try a new approach.” - Roger Von Oech
35. “Time is limited and some opportunities never repeat themselves.” - Belle de Jour
36. “My grandfather says that's what books are for," Ashoke said, using the opportunity to open the volume in his hands. "To travel without moving an inch.” - Jhumpa Lahiri
37. “If you have to ask if you’ve done enough, you haven’t. Each day brings with it the opportunity to do more than you did yesterday.” - Steve Maraboli
38. “Today I will take the opportunity to do unanticipated good.” - Steve Maraboli
39. “If you were offered the chance to live your own life again, would you seize the opportunity? The only real philosophical answer is automatically self-contradictory: 'Only if I did not know that I was doing so.' To go through the entire experience once more would be banal and Sisyphean—even if it did build muscle—whereas to wish to be young again and to have the benefit of one's learned and acquired existence is not at all to wish for a repeat performance, or a Groundhog Day. And the mind ought to, but cannot, set some limits to wish-thinking. All right, same me but with more money, an even sturdier penis, slightly different parents, a briefer latency period… the thing is absurd. I seriously would like to know what it was to be a woman, but like blind Tiresias would also want the option of re-metamorphosing if I wished. How terrible it is that we have so many more desires than opportunities.” - Christopher Hitchens
40. “How often had she wondered what would have happened if she'd remained with Jonathan? Not often, but regularly over the years. It was impossible not to have imagined that rejected future, a life of many countries, of vast and enduring adventure, of tiny rooms and rental houses. It was the sense of missed opportunity that returned to her, frightening but real, overwhelmingly real.” - Michael Stein
41. “I believe that every single event in life happens in an opportunity to choose love over fear.” - Oprah Winfrey
42. “I used to feel so alone in the city. All those gazillions of people and then me, on the outside. Because how do you meet a new person? I was very stunned by this for many years. And then I realized, you just say, "Hi." They may ignore you. Or you may marry them. And that possibility is worth that one word.” - Augusten Burroughs
43. “Opportunists seek for a chance.Entrepreneurs make new chances.” - Toba Beta
44. “It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy;—it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.” - Jane Austen
45. “ Before I ever knew what the word Entrepeneur was, I realized in America and in the Western part of the world in general, you are given the opportunity to be whatever you want to be. And that is all anyone should ever expect from the Capitalist system. The rest is up to you.It's up to you to educate yourself.It's up to you to learn speaking skills and people skills.It's up to you to try (and usually fail, but to try again) all sorts of ventures.The rest is a combination of hard work, being at the right place ...at the right time...with the right thing...oh yes...and more (never ending) hard work.” - Gene Simmons
46. “Our most significant opportunities will be found in times of greatest difficulty.” - Thomas S. Monson
47. “By focusing on possibilities, you can see more than a potential light at the end of the tunnel. The light doesn't have to be at the end of the tunnel; it can illuminate an opportunity wherever you are.” - John B. Arden
48. “You Hang on to your pain like it means something; like it's worth something. Well, let me tell you, it's not worth shit, so let it go. Infinite Possibilities and all you can do is whine.""Well, what am I supposed to do?""What do you think? You can do anything, you lucky bastard; You're alive!” - Nancy Oliver
49. “The excitement of opportunity and challenge inspires us to push for greatness.” - Lorii Myers
50. “For a long time that had seemed to her to be the key to life: Life--real life--was just a solitude waiting to be transfigured. If Phillip was with her, the solitude she needed would be shattered, and along with it whatever wondrous thing might have come her way if she had been alone.” - Kevin Brockmeier
51. “Every day, you get the opportunity to change your life. Change what you do not want. Change what makes you unhappy.” - Rodolfo Costa
52. “But,instead of what our imagination makes us suppose and which we worthless try to discover,life gives us something that we could hardly imagine.” - Marcel Proust
53. “Life, for the living, is a gift of opportunity; an exercise of the will to choose.” - T.F. Hodge
54. “Today, you have the opportunity to transcend from a disempowered mindset of existence to an empowered reality of purpose-driven living. Today is a new day that has been handed to you for shaping. You have the tools, now get out there and create a masterpiece.” - Steve Maraboli
55. “Do not despise your own place and hour. Every place is under the stars, every place is the center of the world.” - John Burroughs
56. “The faithful man perceives nothing less than opportunity in difficulties. Flowing through his spine, faith and courage work together: Such a man does not fear losing his life, thus he will risk losing it at times in order to empower it. By this he actually values his life more than the man who fears losing his life. It is much like leaping from a window in order to avoid a fire yet in that most crucial moment knowing that God will appear to catch you.” - Criss Jami
57. “An opportunity is a miracle waiting to happen.” - Rue Allyn
58. “Strength comes from struggle. When you learn to see your struggles as opportunities to become stronger, better, wiser, then your thinking shifts from "I can't do this" to "I must do this.” - Toni Sorenson
59. “From deep within, our spirits are calling for a new and greater global wholeness, global healing, and global opportunity -- the voice is ours, the time is now, and the resources are what we have.” - Laura Teresa Marquez
60. “And it’s all my fault, Gale. Because of what I did in the arena. If I had just killed myself with those berries, none of this would’ve happened. Peeta could have come home and lived, and everyone else would have been safe, too.”“Safe to do what?” he says in a gentler tone. “Starve? Work like slaves? Send their kids to the reaping? You haven’t hurt people – you’ve given them an opportunity. They just have to be brave enough to take it.” - Suzanne Collins
61. “There comes a moment in every life when the Universe presents you with an opportunity to rise to your potential. An open door that only requires the heart to walk through, seize it and hang on.The choice is never simple. It’s never easy. It’s not supposed to be. But those who travel this path have always looked back and realizedthat the test was always about the heart. ...The rest is just practice.” - Jaime Buckley
62. “Give me but a firm spot on which to stand, and I shall move the earth.” - Archimedes
63. “Every time your heart is broken, a doorway cracks open to a world full of new beginnings, new opportunities.” - Patti Roberts
64. “Success will be within your reach only when you start reaching out for it.” - Stephen Richards
65. “The true measure of success is how many times you can bounce back from failure.” - Stephen Richards
66. “If you think you can then you can.” - Stephen Richards
67. “When your back is to the wall and you are facing fear head on, the only way is forward and through it.” - Stephen Richards
68. “When you fail, that is when you get closer to success.” - Stephen Richards
69. “The only time you fail is when you fall down and stay down.” - Stephen Richards
70. “Doing the tough things sets winners apart from losers.” - Stephen Richards
71. “Our way of thinking creates good or bad outcomes.” - Stephen Richards
72. “Before you can successfully make friends with others, first you have to become your own friend.” - Stephen Richards
73. “When you connect to the silence within you, that is when you can make sense of the disturbance going on around you.” - Stephen Richards
74. “Without enthusiasm then what we have surrounded ourselves with becomes worthless.” - Stephen Richards
75. “Happy people produce. Bored people consume.” - Stephen Richards
76. “You have been given a second chance to start your life over. You can't throw this opportunity away. If you do you will be a colossal fool. If you get the chance to do something and don't do it then you'll simply live with regret. That's a worse situation than trying something daring and maybe not succeeding. At least you tried. Isn't that what you want to show your kids?” - Lorena Bathey
77. “Those who don't jump will never fly.” - Leena Ahmad Almashat
78. “Judgment is a negative frequency.” - Stephen Richards
79. “Equality of opportunity is not enough. Unless we create an environment where everyone is guaranteed some minimum capabilities through some guarantee of minimum income, education, and healthcare, we cannot say that we have fair competition. When some people have to run a 100 metre race with sandbags on their legs, the fact that no one is allowed to have a head start does not make the race fair. Equality of opportunity is absolutely necessary but not sufficient in building a genuinely fair and efficient society.” - Ha-Joon Chang
80. “I wanted to throw myself into an experience that was too big for me and learn in a way that cost me something” - Jamie Zeppa
81. “When life gives you lemons, use Cosmic Ordering!” - Stephen Richards
82. “Believe and achieve with Cosmic Ordering.” - Stephen Richards
83. “Some people only dream of success… while others wake up and use Cosmic Ordering.” - Stephen Richards
84. “On the road to success some will always expect tragedy ... ditch your doubts and experience success with Cosmic Ordering.” - Stephen Richards
85. “Whatever your desire, use Cosmic Ordering to get what you require!” - Stephen Richards
86. “In the beginning man was poor, then along came Cosmic Ordering.” - Stephen Richards
87. “Human beings are incredibly slow, Cosmic Ordering is incredibly fast!” - Stephen Richards
88. “Twenty years from now you will be disappointed you never used Cosmic Ordering today.” - Stephen Richards
89. “Everybody talks about being rich, Cosmic Ordering does something about it.” - Stephen Richards
90. “Often the only difference between success and failure is not using Cosmic Ordering.” - Stephen Richards
91. “There are more triumphs than defeats with Cosmic Ordering.” - Stephen Richards
92. “There is a funny story I always tell my students...when I came for the first time to the US. I didn’t speak English (Only Spanish) & I saw on every door the word “exit” which in Spanish means Success = Exito. And then I said :”No wonder Americans are winners ,every door they take leads to success” ~smile :)” - Pablo
93. “What do you mean I have to wait for someone's approval? I'm someone. I approve. So I give myself permission to move forward with my full support!” - Richelle E. Goodrich
94. “America’s education system has become less a ladder of opportunity than a structure to transmit inequity from one generation to the next.” - Nicholas Kristof
95. “In the ashes of adversity, lies opportunity.” - S.L. Coelho
96. “The opportunities for using our financial resources to spread the gospel and strengthen the church all over the world are greater than they've ever been. As God raised up Esther for just such a time as hers, I'm convinced he's raise us up, with all our wealth, to help fulfill the great commission. The question is, what are we doing with that money? Our job is to make sure it gets to his intended recipients.” - Randy Alcorn
97. “.. becoming attached to a country involves pressing, uncomfortable questions about justice and opportunity for its least powerful citizens.” - Katherine Boo
98. “There's a war on. We don't know how anything's going to end. We just have to grasp each fleeting moment of joy as it whizzes by.” - Rosamunde Pilcher
99. “The potential, for anything, was overwhelming to a degree that bothered him. It wasn’t, he thought, the idea of power. It certainly wasn’t that nervous feeling T.C. would get in the pit of his stomach when he knew he had an incredible opportunity in front of him, that amazing brief pause before an act of creation. This was something else. Something to fear and respect.” - Adam P. Knave
100. “A man is deficient in understanding until he perceives that there is a whole cycle of evolution possible within himself: repeating endlessly, offering opportunities for personal development.” - Idries Shah
101. “It is not 'Have I got a chance?' It is more often: 'Have I seen my chance?” - Idries Shah
102. “Life really is a most whimsical thing. While we consistently try and chart its route, it goes ahead and takes its own turn. Just follow the paths it lays out before you. And you may find, at some sudden turn, a miracle waiting just for you.” - Jyoti Arora
103. “It is not very often that an opportunity comes knocking. But when it does, you better be bathed and dressed and ready to answer its call.” - Jyoti Arora
104. “With sticky thinking you can become unstuck!” - Stephen Richards
105. “Willful blindness sees no end of damage done.” - Stephen Richards
106. “Do you know the opportunity you get when you fail? It is starting again - an opportunity to perform better.” - Ogwo David Emenike
107. “The beginning [of a journey] is a terrible time to plan. It's the moment of greatest ignorance. In self-directed education, a lot of the value comes from exploiting opportunities that arise well out to sea, once I've seen some things and begun the learning process.” - James Marcus Bach
108. “Coincidences give you opportunities to look more deeply into your existence.” - Doug Dillon
109. “Let me tell ya. You gotta pay attention to signs. When life reaches out with a moment like this it's a sin if you don't reach back... I'm telling you.” - Matthew Quick
110. “Tomorrow is an illusion suggesting that another chance always exists. It is a dangerously false illusion.” - Richelle E. Goodrich
111. “Every reaction is an opportunity to cultivate a pearl - a beautiful truth that will illuminate the way forwards.” - Pollyanna Darling
112. “It's not who, it's when” - Alejandro Taubas
113. “Know this for sure: When you get the chance, go for it.” - Oprah Winfrey
114. “We have an internal check and balance system. By design we are so filled with possibility, opportunity, with greatness that when we live small, within the bottom of our capability, we innately know we should be living greater than that, and it creates a disconnect inside that leads us to feeling empty, unhappy, maybe even depressed.” - Steve Maraboli
115. “An opportunity, no matter how small it is, is still worth a golden chance. So take it or have regrets for the rest of your life.” - Francisca Olivia
116. “Possible is more a matter of attitude, A matter of decision, to choose Among the impossible possibilities, When one sound opportunity Becomes a possible solution.” - Dejan Stojanovic
117. “No matter what your wishes, they are not crazy so long as they are not crazy to you!” - Stephen Richards
118. “That was the one thing she knew now. Some chances came and went, and if you missed them, you could spend the rest of your life standing alone, waiting for an opportunity that had already passed you by.” - Kristin Hannah
119. “For Time calls only once, and that determines all.” - Sophocles
120. “You just don’t get it. The point I’m trying to make—the point you’re deliberately ignoring—is that tomorrow it might all go away. You have to do what you want and take what you want now.” - Steph Bowe
121. “To control your life, control your mind. To control your mind, control your breath.” - Stephen Richards
122. “Stop harboring grudges against those who have wronged you, it just holds you back when you really want to be in the NOW.” - Stephen Richards
123. “An opportunist ventures nothing, believes in nothing and invests in nothing, therefore he ends with nothing.” - Nicko Widjaja
124. “You can have it all, just not all at the same time.” - Betty Friedan
125. “Do you see a problem in every opportunity or an opportunity in every problem?” - Orrin Woodward
126. “..the best strategy for giving is a two-fold approach: a basic plan combined with a willingness to consider spontaneous giving when unique opportunities arise.” - Andy Stanley
127. “Every day we’re given opportunities, some of us see them and some are too busy to notice.” - Rachael Bermingham
128. “Through adversity, not only are we given an opportunity to discover our inner strength, we are also given the gift of foresight so we can shine a light for others who go through the experience after us.” - Rachael Bermingham
129. “Every opportunity missed is an opportunity for regret” - Karl Kloppenborg
130. “Wherever there is danger, there lurks opportunity; wherever there is opportunity, there lurks danger. The two are inseparable.” - Earl Nightingale
131. “That's your opportunity--to approach your work in a way that generates unique learning and interactions that are worth sharing.” - Seth Godin
132. “Difficult situations create exploitable opportunities for those strong enough to persevere.” - Chad Bowen
133. “If "IT" doesn't break you, you have the opportunity to overtake "IT"!” - Sanjo Jendayi
134. “Never sit under a tree waiting for the apple to fall. Climb the tree, grab that apple!When it comes, never be inert and take your time, TIME TO MOVE!” - Tsem Tulku Rinpoche
135. “Failure is an opportunity.If you blame someone else,there is no end to the blame.Therefore the Masterfulfills her own obligationsand corrects her own mistakes.She does what she needs to doand demands nothing of others.” - Lao Tzu
136. “Each day brings a fresh opportunity for you to set the standard of how dedicated and committed you are to your needs, wants, goals, and relationships.” - Steve Maraboli
137. “God does not ask your abilityOr your inability.He asks only your availability.” - Mary Kay Ash
138. “Most of all, differences of opinion are opportunities for learning.” - Terry Tempest Williams
139. “Sometimes in this life, only one or two opportunities are put before us and we must seize them no matter the risk.” - Andre Dubus III
140. “Change is nature’s way of offering us the opportunity to explore the parameters of our humanity and potential. Don’t fight it, embrace it. There is a magical experience awaiting those who embrace this natural process.” - Steve Maraboli
