67 Motivating Quotes That Will Inspire You to Be Successful

I once scoffed at the notion of inspiring quotes and aphorisms. Then, I grew up a bit and shed some of my cynicism. I came to appreciate how reflecting on true words of wisdom can help you to develop a happier, more success-oriented mindset.

With that in mind, here’s a long list of some of the most inspiring and truthful quotes you can find about the attitudes, challenges, and determination that lead most often to true success.

1. “Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.” –Harriet Tubman

2. “If something is important enough, even if the odds are against you, you should still do it.” –Elon Musk

3. “I often hear from new graduates that it’s better to wait until you have more experience…. But I’m a big believer in the power of inexperience…. The world needs you before you stop asking naive questions and while you have the time to understand the true nature of the complex problems we face and take them on.” –Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach for America

4. “I think in terms of evolutions, not revolutions. Failure is not part of my vocabulary.” –Shelia Lirio Marcelo, founder of Care.com

5. “You take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing, no one to blame.” –Erica Jong

6. “Give me a stock clerk with a goal, and I will give you a man who will make history. Give me a man without a goal, and I will give you a stock clerk.”-James Cash Penney, founder of J.C. Penney

7. “It doesn’t matter how far you might rise. At some point, you are bound to stumble…. If you’re constantly pushing yourself higher…the law of averages, not to mention the Myth of Icarus, predicts that you will at some point fall. And when you do, I want you to know this, remember this: There is no such thing as failure. Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction.” –Oprah Winfrey

8. “Champions keep playing until they get it right.” –Billie Jean King

9. “I never dreamt of success. I worked for it.” –Este Lauder

10. “People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.”
–George Bernard Shaw

11. “People talk about getting lucky breaks in their careers. I’m living proof that the ‘lucky breaks’ theory is simply wrong. You get to make your own luck…. The world is run by those who show up…not those who wait to be asked.” –Steve Blank

12. “Please think about your legacy, because you’re writing it every day.” –Gary Vaynerchuck

13. “The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into smaller manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.” –Mark Twain

14. “Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all-time thing. You don’t win once in a while, you don’t do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.” –Vince Lombardi

15. “Both my mother and I were determined that we weren’t going to stay on welfare. We always worked toward doing better, toward having a better life. We never had any doubts that we would.” –Larry Ellison

16. “What I’ve learned from running is that the time to push hard is when you’re hurting like crazy and you want to give up. Success is often just around the corner.”
–James Dyson

17. “Most people give up just when they are about to achieve success. They quit on the one-yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game, one foot from a winning touchdown.” –H. Ross Perot

18. “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” –Sir Winston Churchill

19. “If you’re not a risk taker, you should get the hell out of business.” –Ray Kroc

20. “The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. Remember, the greatest failure is to not try. Once you find something you love to do, be the best at doing it.”
–Debbi Fields

21. “Running a startup is like eating glass. You just start to like the taste of your own blood.” –Sean Parker

22. “It’s irreverence, foolish confidence, and naivety combined with persistence, open mindedness, and a continual ability to learn that created Facebook, Google, Yahoo, eBay, Microsoft, Apple, Juniper, AOL, Sun Microsystems, and others.” –Vinod Khosla

23. “In the movies, you want a good story and characters that are honest, but you are also looking for a good director who can lead the ship. That’s how we look at business. Everybody has a great idea for a startup, and so do their relatives, and they tell me, ‘You gotta build it.’ I say, ‘I have to believe in it.’” –Ashton Kutcher

24. “Timing, perseverance, and 10 years of trying will eventually make you look like an overnight success.” –Biz Stone

25. “Following is one of the most underrated aspects of leadership…. I have seen many a good [military unit] underachieve, because someone…thought the commander was incompetent, and quietly worked to undermine his authority.”
–Admiral Bill McRaven

26. “Data beats emotions” –Sean Rad, founder of Tinder

27. “When you find an idea that you just can’t stop thinking about, that’s probably a good one to pursue.”-Josh James, CEO and founder of Omniture and Domo

28. “I never took a day off in my 20s. Not one.” –Bill Gates

29. “I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying.” –Jeff Bezos

30. “Running a startup is like being punched in the face repeatedly, but working for a large company is like being waterboarded.” –Paul Graham

31. “You can’t make anything viral, but you can make something good.” –Peter Shankman

32. “Embrace what you don’t know, especially in the beginning, because what you don’t know can become your greatest asset. It ensures that you will absolutely be doing things different from everybody else.” –Sara Blakely

33. “For me, the most fun is change or growth. There are definitely elements of both that I like. Launching a business is kind of like a motorboat: You can go very quickly and turn fast.” –Tony Hsieh

34. “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”
–Proverb

35. “Never be ashamed! There’s some who will hold it against you, but they are not worth bothering with.” –J.K. Rowling

36. “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” –Thomas Edison

37. “The biggest startup successes-from Henry Ford to Bill Gates to Mark Zuckerberg-were pioneered by people from solidly middle-class backgrounds. These founders were not wealthy when they began. They were hungry for success, but knew they had a solid support system to fall back on if they failed.” –Eric Ries

38. “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” –Albert Einstein

39. “Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing.” –President Abraham Lincoln

40. “There are no working hours for leaders.” –James Cardinal Gibbons

41. “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” –Dwight Eisenhower

42. “When I’m old and dying, I plan to look back on my life and say, ‘Wow, that was an adventure,’ not ‘Wow, I sure felt safe.’” –Tom Preston-Werner, co-founder of Github

43. “If you can’t fly, then run; if you can’t run, then walk; if you can’t walk, then crawl; but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.” –Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

44. “Singleness of purpose is essential for success in life.” –John D. Rockefeller

45. “Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming.”
–Sir Richard Branson

46. “Good is the enemy of great.” –Jim Collins, author of Good to Great

47. “Nothing works better than just improving your product.” –Joel Spolsky, co-founder of Stack Overflow

48. “There’s lots of bad reasons to start a company. But there’s only one good, legitimate reason, and I think you know what it is: it’s to change the world.” –Phil Libin, Evernote

49. “There are no traffic jams along the extra mile.” –Roger Staubach

50. “Fall seven times and stand up eight.” –Unknown

51. “I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars-I look for 1-foot bars that I can step over.” –Warren Buffett

52. “Being able to touch so many people through my businesses, and make money while doing it, is a huge blessing.” –Magic Johnson

53. “Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” –Theodore Roosevelt

54. “Yesterday’s home runs don’t win today’s games.” –Babe Ruth

55. “Don’t worry about funding if you don’t need it. Today, it’s cheaper to start a business than ever.” –Noah Everett, founder of Twitpic

56. “There is only one boss: the customer. And he can fire everybody in the company, from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.” –Sam Walton, founder of Walmart and Sam’s Club

57. “The crisis of today is the joke of tomorrow.” –H.G. Wells

58. “The last 10 percent it takes to launch something takes as much energy as the first 90 percent.” –Rob Kalin, founder of Etsy

59. “The trouble in America is not that we are making too many mistakes, but that we are making too few.” –Philip Knight

60. “Entrepreneurship is neither a science nor an art. It is a practice.” –Peter Drucker

61. “Diligence is the mother of good luck.” –Benjamin Franklin

62. “Always look for the fool in the deal. If you don’t find one, it’s you.” –Mark Cuban

63. “There’s nothing wrong with staying small. You can do big things with a small team.” –Jason Fried, founder of 37signals

64. “Fearlessness is like a muscle. I know from my own life that the more I exercise it, the more natural it becomes to not let my fears run me.” –Arianna Huffington

65. “If I have made a mistake in the design, then I’m the one who should pay for it. I certainly would not ask somebody else to fly a plane if I were afraid to do it myself.” –Howard Hughes

66. “Care about what other people think, and you will always be their prisoner.” –Lao Tzu

67.”Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in.” –Bill Bradley