Motivational Quotes

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Has been attributed to Stephen Leacock's "Literary Lapses" (1910), but the quote does not appear in the Project Gutenberg edition http://www.gutenberg.org/files/6340/6340.txt of this work.
Misattributed
Variant: I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.
Variant: I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.

Source: 1790s, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790–1793), Proverbs of Hell, Line 15

Illusions : The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977)

This phrase was created by reporter Sharon Begley in the end of a 1977 Newsweek article with an extended profile of Carl Sagan. It was a final conclusion about Sagan's work and the topic of hypotethical extra-terrestrial life forms. "Quote Investigator" http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/18/incredible/
Misattributed

As quoted in Marilyn Monroe : In Her Own Words (1983), edited by Roger Taylor
Context: Hollywood's a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss, and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty cents.

Lake Wobegon Days (1985), p. 337
Source: Lake Wobegon U.S.A.

Source: Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Source: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Source: How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

Source: Small Great Things

Source: Civilization and Its Discontents

On the success of Bill Gates and Microsoft, as quoted in The Wall Street Journal (Summer 1993)
1990s
Variant: Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me… Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful… that's what matters to me.

Day 19: Cultivating Community
The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? (2002)

It Takes A Village, January 1996
White House years (1993–2000)

Source: Success! (1977), p. 36

No known citation to Thoreau's works. First found, uncredited, in the 1940s in the variant "Success usually comes to those who are too busy to look for it", p. 711, Locomotive Engineers Journal, Volume 76, 1942. Google Books http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=N6GZAAAAIAAJ&q=%22Success+usually+comes+to+those+who+are+too+busy%22&dq=%22Success+usually+comes+to+those+who+are+too+busy%22&lr=&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=1900&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=1980&as_brr=0
Misattributed

Response received (after Edison spat on the floor and before he walked off) when M. A. Rosanoff joined the West Orange, New Jersey team in 1903 and humbly asked: “Mr. Edison, please tell me what laboratory rules you want me to observe.” M. A. Rosanoff’s quote appeared in Harper’s Monthly, September 1932, p. 24.
1900s
Variant: There ain´t no rules around here. We are trying to accomplish something.

Unknown, but also attributed to Les Brown, a motivational speaker. Commonly attributed to C.S. Lewis, but never with a primary source listed.
Misattributed

Widely attributed to Milton Friedman, and sometimes cited as being in his work Capitalism and Freedom (1962) this is also attributed to Alfred P. Sloan, sometimes with citation of a statement of 1964, but sometimes with attestations to his use of it as a motto as early as 1923.
Disputed

As quoted in Become a Conscious Creator: A Return to Self-Empowerment (2007) by Lisa Ford, p. 44

Why IT Doesn't Matter Anymore http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/3520.html, Harvard Business Review, June 9, 2003.

As quoted in Steps to the Top (1985) by Zig Ziglar, p. 16

Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book V, p. 153

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 36

Variant on aphorism "Study as if you were to live forever. Live as if you were to die tomorrow" pre-dating Gandhi, variously attributed to Isidore of Seville (c. 560 – 636), in FPA Book of Quotations (1952) by Franklin Pierce Adams, to Edmund Rich (1175–1240) in American Journal of Education (1877), or to Alain de Lille in Samuel Smiles's Duty https://books.google.com/books?id=33UzAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA363&dq=live+die+tomorrow+learn+forever&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjd3s_2m57MAhWFMGMKHe-sAl8Q6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=live%20die%20tomorrow%20learn%20forever&f=false (1881).
The 1995 book "The good boatman: a portrait of Gandhi," states that Gandhi subscribed "to the view that a man should live thinking he might die tomorrow but learn as if he would live forever."
In his 2010 Boyer lecture Glyn Davis (Professor of Political Science and Vice-Chancellor of Melbourne University) attributes the quote to Desiderius Erasmus. "He [Erasmus] reworked Pliny to urge 'live as if you are to die tomorrow, study as if you were to live forever'. Many students obey the first clause - the best heed both."
There is a similar quote by Johann Gottfried Herder: "Mensch, genieße dein Leben, als müssest morgen du weggehn; Schone dein Leben, als ob ewig du weiletest hier." ["Man, enjoy your life as if you were to depart tomorrow; spare your life as if you were to linger here forever."] (Zerstreute Blätter, 1785).
Disputed

“The Knight,” p. 81
The Sun Watches the Sun (1999), Sequence: “What After”

As quoted in Trust Or Consequences : Build Trust Today Or Lose Your Market Tomorrow (2004) by Al Golin, p. 206; also in Storms of Life (2008) by Dr. Don Givens, p. 136

Attributed to Zig Ziglar
Misattributed

From the Pisces Iscariot liner notes.

As quoted in Funny Ladies : The Best Humor from America's Funniest Women (2001) by Bill Adler, p. 4

Often misattributed to but inspired by GK Chesterton:
Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.
Coraline (2002)

Downey, Maureen (interviewer), "Teaching introverts: Do schools prefer big talkers to big thinkers?", The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 5, 2016.

According to The Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/04/17/butterfly/, "the earliest instance of this saying was crafted by the enigmatic “L” for “The Daily Crescent” newspaper in New Orleans [in June 1848]. ... The linkage to Henry David Thoreau is unsupported."
Misattributed

Source: How to Be Like Walt : Capturing the Magic Every Day of Your Life (2004), Ch. 3 : Imagination Unlimited, p. 63; Unsourced variant: All your dreams can come true if you have the courage to pursue them.

No definite source has been found for this statement; though most often attributed to Sir Winston Churchill, and sometimes to Abraham Lincoln, it has only rarely been attributed to Campbell.
Disputed

As quoted in The Pocket Philosopher/ Psychologist (2004) by Mark J. Merten, p. 87

Source: Think (1999), Chapter Four, The Self, p. 135

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

Haven (1951)

Bk. III, Ch. 9
Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865)

Widely attributed to Friedman, and sometimes cited as being in his work Capitalism and Freedom (1962) this is also attributed to Alfred P. Sloan, sometimes with citation of a statement of 1964, but sometimes with attestations to his use of it as a motto as early as 1923.
Disputed

Gandhi: His Life and Message for the World (1954), by Louis Fischer, p. 177
Mahatma Gandhi to Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, August 29, 1947 https://www.gandhiheritageportal.org/ghp_booksection_detail/Ny0yMzUtMg==#page/258/mode/2up. In Letters to Rajkumari Amrit Kaur. 1st edition (April, 1961), p. 246
Posthumous publications (1950s and later)

Act 6, sc. 2
Dirty Hands (1948)

1969 note to self, as quoted in Nixon (1987) by Stephen E. Ambrose, p. 284
1960s
Variant: A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

Der sicherste Reichtum ist die Armut an Bedürfnissen.
Zwischen oben und unten (1946), p. 315

1963, Address at the Free University of Berlin

continuity (3) “After One Decade”
Stand on Zanzibar (1968)

Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night I, Line 393.

Quote from a program at a Coolidge memorial service (1933); cited in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1999). The passage did not originate with Coolidge, but evolved over several decades, appearing as early as 1881 in a youth guidance book. From [Garson O’Toole, https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/01/12/persist/, Purpose and Persistence Are Required for Success: Unrewarded Genius Is Almost a Proverb, Quote Investigator, January 12, 2016]
1930s

As quoted in Edison & Ford Quote Book (2003) edited by Edison & Ford Winter Estates.
Date unknown

As quoted in Stack the Logs! : Building a Success Framework to Reach Your Dreams (2003) by Frank F. Lunn, p. 45

Though Rickover quoted this, he did not claim to be the author of the statement. Using it in "The World of the Uneducated" in The Saturday Evening Post (28 November 1959), he prefaces it with "As the unknown sage puts it..." — It has sometimes been attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, but without definite citation.
Some evidence for Henry Buckle (1821-1862) as the source: see p.33 quotation https://books.google.com/books?id=2moaAAAAYAAJ&q=buckle#v=snippet&q=buckle&f=false
Misattributed

"Mills and boon story of Ella Mill's recipe for success" https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/mills-and-boon-story-of-ella-mills-recipe-for-success-35422146.html, Independent.ie (6 February 2017).

This is presented as a statement of 1877, as quoted in From Telegraph to Light Bulb with Thomas Edison (2007) by Deborah Headstrom-Page, p. 22.
1800s

They Call Me Coach (1972)

The Way You Wear Your Hat (1997)

Attributed to Confucius in Out of the Blue: Delight Comes Into Our Lives (1996) by Mark Victor Hansen, Barbara Nichols, and Patty Hansen, p. 93
Attributed

As quoted in: [J. L.] Elkhorne. Edison — The Fabulous Drone, in 73 Vol. XLVI, No. 3 (March 1967) http://www.arimi.it/wp-content/73/03_March_1967.pdf, p. 52
Disputed

This quote is commonly attributed to Churchill, but appears in the "Red Herrings: False Attributions" appendix of Churchill by Himself : The Definitive Collection of Quotations (2008) by Richard Langworth, without citation as to where it originates.
In American Character, a 1905 address by Brander Matthews, a similar quotation is attributed to L. P. Jacks ( link http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015059451156?urlappend=%3Bseq=238).
""Our civilization is a perilous adventure for an uncertain prize... Human society is not a constructed thing but a human organization... We are adopting a false method of reform when we begin by operations that weaken society, either morally or materially, by lower its vitality, by plunging it into gloom and despair about itself, by inducing the atmosphere of the sick-room, and then when its courage and resources are at a low ebb, expecting it to perform some mighty feat of self-reformation... Social despair or bitterness does not get us anywhere... Low spirits are an intellectual luxury. An optimist is one who sees an opportunity in every difficulty. A pessimist is one who sees a difficulty in every opportunity... The conquest of great difficulties is the glory of human nature." L. P. Jacks, quoted in American character, by Brander Matthews, 1906
Misattributed
Variant: A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

As quoted in An Enemy Called Average (1990) by John L. Mason, p. 55.
Date unknown

Everyday Wisdom (1927)

As quoted in Animated Architecture (1982) by Derek Walker, p. 10
Variant: It's kind of fun to do the impossible.

Michael Korda, in Success! (1977), p. 284
Misattributed

Tom Fitzgerald, a Disney Imagineer, as quoted in Ask Dave by Dave Smith (27 February - 12 March 2013) https://d23.com/d23-presents-ask-dave-answers-to-questions-asked/:
:: Despite its frequent publication, that is not a Walt Disney quote. We checked with Imagineer Tom Fitzgerald for the definitive answer: "I am very familiar with that line because I wrote it! It was written specifically for the Horizons attraction at Epcot and used in numerous ways, from dialogue in the ride to graphics. I find it amusing that the Science of Imagineering DVD series attributes it to Walt Disney, but I guess I should be flattered."
::* Disney Trivia from the Vault (2012) by Dave Smith, p. 243
Misattributed
Variant: If you can dream it, you can do it.

Toynbee, cited in: Arnold Joseph Toynbee, ‎Edward DeLos Myers (1955) A study of history. Vol. 7. p. 388

Source: Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXXXIV: On gathering ideas, Line 13

The Anatomy of Frustration (1936)

Bell Telephone Talk (1901)

Eric Stanley on CBS News https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksYrWGivy5A
2011

Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life (2002)

The Dragon Queen

Appears in Churchill By Himself, ed. Langworth, PublicAffairs , p. 576 (“Appendix I : Red Herrings”) : ISBN 1586489577 , with the following explanatory note ; "Reported by the usually reliable Graham Cawthorne, but not in Hansard; possibly an aside to a colleague, however"
Disputed

From "Self-Portrait" (1972)
Truman Capote: Conversations (1987)

Nur der Dumme lernt aus Erfahrung, der Kluge aus der Erfahrung der anderen!
Alan Turing

The earliest citation yet found does not attribute this to Roosevelt, but presents it as a piece of anonymous piece folk-wisdom: "When one reaches the end of his rope, he should tie a knot in it and hang on" ( LIFE magazine (3 April 1919), p. 585 http://hdl.handle.net/2027/wu.89063018576?urlappend=%3Bseq=65).
Misattributed
Variant: When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.

David Seabury, as quoted in The Forbes Scrapbook of Thoughts on the Business of Life (1950), p. 248
Misattributed

As quoted in Thomas Alva Edison : Sixty Years of an Inventor's Life (1908) by Francis Arthur Jones, p. 14.
1900s

Address, Faneuil Hall, Boston (18 April 1859)

As quoted in The Power of Choice (2007) by Joyce Guccione, p. 199
also attributed to Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) and Les Brown (1912–2001)
Misattributed

The Last Lecture (2008)
Variant: You can always change your plan, but only if you have one.."

Misattributed
Variant: We are what we repeatedly do, therefore excellence is not an act, but a habit.
Source: Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers (1926), reprinted in Simon & Schuster/Pocket Books, 1991, ISBN 0-671-73916-6], Ch. II: Aristotle and Greek Science; part VII: Ethics and the Nature of Happiness: "Excellence is an art won by training and habituation: we do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have these because we have acted rightly; 'these virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions'; we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit: 'the good of man is a working of the soul in the way of excellence in a complete life... for as it is not one swallow or one fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy'" (p. 76). The quoted phrases within the quotation are from the Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, 4; Book I, 7. The misattribution is from taking Durant's summation of Aristotle's ideas as being the words of Aristotle himself.

Message regarding unacceptable behaviour (2013)
Context: I will be ruthless in ridding the army of people who cannot live up to its values. And I need everyone of you to support me in achieving this. The standard you walk past, is the standard you accept. that goes for all of us, but especially those, who by their rank, have a leadership role. NB While on Q & A, ABC TV on 1st February 2016, Australian of the Year, Lieutenant General David Lindsay Morrison attributed; "The standard you walk by is the standard you accept"; to David ­Hurley, former Chief, Australian Defence Force, explaining the quote; "... doesn't belong to me or [my former speechwriter] Cate McGregor, it belongs to the Governor of NSW, David Hurley."

The Last Lecture (2008)
Variant: The questions are always more important than the answers."

Source: Aeneid (29–19 BC), Book V, Line 231 (tr. John Conington)

"Elizabeth Hand on Mortal Love at HarperCollins (2004)

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Compensation
Context: Our strength grows out of our weakness. The indignation which arms itself with secret forces does not awaken until we are pricked and stung and sorely assailed. A great man is always willing to be little. Whilst he sits on the cushion of advantages, he goes to sleep. When he is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something; he has been put on his wits, on his manhood; he has gained facts; learns his ignorance; is cured of the insanity of conceit; has got moderation and real skill. The wise man throws himself on the side of his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his weak point. The wound cicatrizes and falls off from him like a dead skin, and when they would triumph, lo! he has passed on invulnerable. Blame is safer than praise. I hate to be defended in a newspaper. As long as all that is said is said against me, I feel a certain assurance of success. But as soon as honeyed words of praise are spoken for me, I feel as one that lies unprotected before his enemies. In general, every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor.

CMU Graduation speech (2008)
Context: You will need find your passion. Many of you have already done it, many of you will later, many of you may take to your thirties or forties, but don't give up on finding it. Right, then all you are doing is waiting for the reaper. Find your passion and follow it. And if there is anything that I have learned in life, you will not find that passion in things. And you will not find that passion in money. Because the more things and the more money you have, the more you will just look around and use that as the metric — and there will always be someone with more. Your passion must come from the things that fuel you from the inside. And honors and awards are nice things, but only to the extent that they regard real respect from your peers. And to be thought of well by people you think of more highly up is a tremendous honor I've been granted. Find your passion, and in my experience, no matter what you do at work or what you do in in official settings, that passion will be grounded in people. It will be grounded in the relationships you have with people and what they think of you when your time comes.

This evokes Will Durant's famous summation of Aristotle: "Excellence then is not an act, but a habit."
2000s, The Powell Principles (2003)
Context: If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.

In "Bat It Outǃ" https://books.google.com/books?id=IEEEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA14&lpg=PA14&dq=%22you+just+can%27t+beat+the+person+who+never+gives+up%22+rotarian&source=bl&ots=AH8Z2KbO5c&sig=jxgpb2trmAXRSvZi1xmAmDc3e68&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjuo4XD6Z7dAhURZd8KHfOkBokQ6AEwB3oECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22you%20just%20can't%20beat%20the%20person%20who%20never%20gives%20up%22%20rotarian&f=false by George Herman ('Babe') Ruth, in The Rotarian (July 14, 1940), pp. 12-14
Context: One more point: A good player never stops until he's actually out, running as hard for first base on the almost-certain-to-be-caught fly or grounder as he would if he were sprinting the 100-yard dash. If Henry Ford hadn't kept going in the early days despite ridicule, we would never have seen the Ford car. It's been much the same with almost every great man you could name. He kept plugging when everybody said his chances of making first base were nil. You just can’t beat the person who never gives up.

Source: The Law of Success (1928), p. 109
Variant: Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.
As quoted in Quote-A-Quote: To Your Success Health Wealth & Happiness (2005) by Michael E. Ruge, p. 38
Context: Strong, deeply rooted desire is the starting point of all achievement. Just as the electron is the last unit of matter discernible to the scientist. DESIRE is the seed of all achievement; the starting place, back of which there is nothing, or at least there is nothing of which we have any knowledge.

1990s, Long Walk to Freedom (1995)
Context: I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.

The Analects, Chapter I, Chapter II
Context: To worship to other than one's own ancestral spirits is brown-nosing. If you see what is right and fail to act on it, you lack courage.
Variant To see what is right, and not to do it, is want of courage or of principle.