A collection of quotes on the topic of motivational, business, success, inspirational.
“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
“Believe you can and you're halfway there.”
“Do one thing every day that scares you.”
“If you're going through hell, keep going.”
True origin unknown. Finest Hour described it as "not verifiable in any of the 50 million published words by and about him" ( Finest Hour, The Journal of Winston Churchill, Number 145, Winter 2009–10, p. 9 https://www.winstonchurchill.org/images/finesthour/vol.01%20no.145.pdf). A similar quotation: "If you're going through hell, don't stop!" is "plausibly attributed" to Oregon self-help author and counselor Douglas Bloch (1990), according to Quote Investigator.
Misattributed
Variant: If you're going through hell, keep going
Source: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/09/14/keep-going/
“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
Source: You Learn by Living (1960), p. 29–30
Context: You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." … You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
Worstward Ho (1983)
Variant: Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
Context: All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
“Try to become not a man of success, but try rather to become a man of value.”
As quoted by LIFE magazine (2 May 1955)
1950s
Variant: Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.
“If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.”
'Where Do We Go From Here?" as published in Where Do We Go from Here : Chaos or Community? (1967), p. 62; many statements in this book, or slight variants of them, were also part of his address Where Do We Go From Here?" which has a section below. A common variant appearing at least as early as 1968 has "Returning violence for violence multiplies violence..." An early version of the speech as published in A Martin Luther King Treasury (1964), p. 173, has : "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate..."
1960s
Source: A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches
Context: The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. … Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
“The secret to getting ahead is getting started.”
“What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”
“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.”
Source: Jordan, Michael. I Can't Accept Not Trying : Michael Jordan on the Pursuit of Excellence. San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994. p. 129
Context: I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying [no hard work].
Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships. (p. 20, 24)
“You can’t let your failures define you. You have to let your failures teach you.”
“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”
“Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.”
The Cancer Journals, Special Edition, Aunt Lute Books, San Francisco, CA, 1997, p. 13.
“Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people. ”
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”
Preface to Transit of Venus: Poems by Harry Crosby (1931)
“Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen.”
Variant: Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, and others make it happen.
“Life will bring you pain all by itself. Your responsibility is to create joy.”
“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VII
This is actually a quotation http://books.google.com/books?id=FUIHmRHf8SUC&lpg=PA130&dq=%22not%20on%20fighting%20the%20old%20but%20on%20building%20the%20new%22&pg=PA130#v=onepage&q=%22not%20on%20fighting%20the%20old%20but%20on%20building%20the%20new%22&f=false from a character named Socrates in Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book that Changes Lives http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Way_of_the_Peaceful_Warrior, by Dan Millman.
Misattributed
As quoted in Our Precarious Habitat (1973) by Melvin A. Benarde, p. v
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.”
Variant: Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. If you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don't throw it away.
“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.”
As quoted in Our Precarious Habitat (1973) by Melvin A. Benarde, p. v
Context: Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.
“Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.”
“It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.”
1900s, The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses (1900), The Strenuous Life
Context: It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. In this life we get nothing save by effort. Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been stored up effort in the past.
Context: A life of slothful ease, a life of that peace which springs merely from lack either of desire or of power to strive after great things, is as little worthy of a nation as of an individual. [... ] If you are rich and are worth your salt, you will teach your sons that though they may have leisure, it is not to be spent in idleness; for wisely used leisure merely means that those who possess it, being free from the necessity of working for their livelihood, are all the more bound to carry on some kind of non-remunerative work in science, in letters, in art, in exploration, in historical research—work of the type we most need in this country, the successful carrying out of which reflects most honor upon the nation. We do not admire the man of timid peace. We admire the man who embodies victorious effort; the man who never wrongs his neighbor, who is prompt to help a friend, but who has those virile qualities necessary to win in the stern strife of actual life. It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. In this life we get nothing save by effort. Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been stored up effort in the past. A man can be freed from the necessity of work only by the fact that he or his fathers before him have worked to good purpose. If the freedom thus purchased is used aright, and the man still does actual work, though of a different kind, whether as a writer or a general, whether in the field of politics or in the field of exploration and adventure, he shows he deserves his good fortune. But if he treats this period of freedom from the need of actual labor as a period, not of preparation, but of mere enjoyment, even though perhaps not of vicious enjoyment, he shows that he is simply a cumberer of the earth's surface, and he surely unfits himself to hold his own with his fellows if the need to do so should again arise.
“I pay no attention whatever to anybody's praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings.”
Unsourced in Musician's Little Book of Wisdom (1996) by Scott E. Power, Quote 416.
Misattributed
“Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.”
Man's Search for Meaning
Variant: But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.”
Letter to his son Eduard (5 February 1930), as quoted in Walter Isaacson, Einstein: His Life and Universe (2007), p. 367
1930s
“Do not wait; the time will never be "just right."”
Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.
Source: Think and Grow Rich (1938), p. 127
“When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”
Variant: You can make more friends in two months by being interested in them, than in two years by making them interested in you.
Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), p. 52 (in 1998 edition)
“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
Variant: You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.
“No-one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Attributed quotes
“Either you run the day, or the day runs you.”
Variant: Do not wait: the time will never be 'just right'. Start where you stand, and work whatever tools you may have at your command and better tools will be found as you go along.
Source: Think and Grow Rich (1938), p. 127
Context: Do not wait; the time will never be "just right." Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.
“Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting!”
Variant: Today is your day, your mountain is waiting. So get on your way.
“Action is the foundational key to all success.”
“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.”
Hawthorne and His Mosses (1850)
Context: It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true test of greatness.
Context: It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true test of greatness. And if it be said, that continual success is a proof that a man wisely knows his powers, — it is only to be added, that, in that case, he knows them to be small. Let us believe it, then, once for all, that there is no hope for us in these smooth pleasing writers that know their powers.
“All you need is the plan, the road map, and the courage to press on to your destination.”
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
Ch. IX : Outdoors and Indoors, p. 336; the final statement "quoted by Squire Bill Widener" as well as variants of it, are often misattributed to Roosevelt himself.
Variant: Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Attributed to Roosevelt in Conquering an Enemy Called Average (1996) by John L. Mason, Nugget # 8 : The Only Place to Start is Where You Are. <!-- The Military Quotation Book, Revised and Expanded: More than 1,200 of the Best Quotations About War, Leadership, Courage, Victory, and Defeat (2002) by James Charlton -->
Variant: Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are.
Context: There are many kinds of success in life worth having. It is exceedingly interesting and attractive to be a successful business man, or railroad man, or farmer, or a successful lawyer or doctor; or a writer, or a President, or a ranchman, or the colonel of a fighting regiment, or to kill grizzly bears and lions. But for unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly makes all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison. It may be true that he travels farthest who travels alone; but the goal thus reached is not worth reaching. And as for a life deliberately devoted to pleasure as an end — why, the greatest happiness is the happiness that comes as a by-product of striving to do what must be done, even though sorrow is met in the doing. There is a bit of homely philosophy, quoted by Squire Bill Widener, of Widener's Valley, Virginia, which sums up one's duty in life: "Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are."
Frequently attributed to Nin, but without cited source in her work (possibly due to a quotation in Living on Purpose: Straight Answers to Universal Questions (2000) by Dan Millman that attributed the quote to Nin without source).
In March 2013, a former Director of Public Relations at John F. Kennedy University in Orinda, Elizabeth Appell, claimed she had authored the quote in 1979 for an inspirational header on a class schedule: http://anaisninblog.skybluepress.com/2013/03/who-wrote-risk-is-the-mystery-solved/
Disputed
Variant: The day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
Source: The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt
“He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life”
“I've failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.”
“Strength does not come from winning.”
From a 1982 interview with Boston Globe journalist Marian Christy. Christy, Marian. "Winning according to Schwarzenegger." https://secure.pqarchiver.com/boston/doc/294151457.html Boston Globe: Boston, MA. 9 May 1982: p 51. Accessed 25 Jun 2016.
1980s
Context: Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength. When you make an impasse passable, that is strength. But you must have ego, the kind of ego which makes you think of yourself in terms of superlatives. You must want to be the greatest. We are all starved for compliments. So we do things that get positive feedback.
“Creativity is intelligence having fun.”
“In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.”
“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”
“There is another world, but it is in this one.”
Il y a assurément un autre monde, mais il est dans celui-ci...
Œuvres complètes, vol. 1, Gallimard, 1968.
“We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.”
“You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.”
Variant: You must expect great things of yourself before you can do them.
“It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”
Source: Alice in Wonderland
“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”
E quando você quer alguma coisa, todo o Universo conspira para que você realize seu desejo.
Variant: And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
Source: The Alchemist (1988), p. 22; a variant of this has become attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen" — but no occurrence of this a statement has been located prior to in The Gift of Depression : Twenty-one Inspirational Stories Sharing Experience, Strength, and Hope (2001) by John F. Brown, p. 56
“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
Variant: Never let your schooling interfere with your education.
“Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”
Variant: Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
“The secret of success is constancy to purpose.”
Source: Speech at banquet of the National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations, Crystal Palace, London (24 June 1872), cited in "Mr. Disraeli at Sydenham," The Times (25 June 1872), p. 8.
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
Attributed to Winston Churchill in The Prodigal Project : Book I : Genesis (2003) by Ken Abraham and Daniel Hart, p. 224 and other places, though no source attribution is given. It actually derives from an advertising campaign for Budweiser beer in the late 1930s.
Misattributed
Variant: Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
Source: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/09/03/success-final/
“When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.”
Source: The Alchemist
“Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.”
Variant: Look Toward the stars but keep your feet firmly on the ground.
Source: The Greatest American President: The Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt
“The trouble is, you think you have time.”
Source: Buddha's Little Instruction Book
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
Source: Anne Frank's Tales from the Secret Annex
“What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise”
“The best way to predict your future is to create it.”
“Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.”
Variant: Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living out fears.
“To succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone and a funnybone.”
“Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you.”
This has become attributed to both Walt Whitman and Helen Keller, but has not been found in either of their published works, and variations of the quote are listed as a proverb commonly used in both the US and Canada in A Dictionary of American Proverbs (1992), edited by Wolfgang Mieder, Kelsie B. Harder and Stewart A. Kingsbury.
Misattributed
“Life is what you make it. Always has been, always will be.”
“The secret of your future is hidden in your daily routine.”
“You were born to win, but to be a winner you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win.”
“There is no reality, only perception.”
“Happiness is not pleasure — it is victory.”
See You at the Top (2000)
As quoted in Blackthink: My Life as Black Man and White Man https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0688011632 (1970)
1970s
“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.”
“Most people are real nice, when you finally see them.”
Pt. 2, ch. 31
Jean Louise (Scout) Finch & Atticus Finch
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Context: "An' they chased him 'n' never could catch him 'cause they didn't know what he looked like, an' Atticus, when they finally saw him, why he hadn't done any of those things... Atticus, he was real nice..."
"Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them."
Source: Kabir, Hajara Muhammad (2010). Northern women development. [Nigeria]. ISBN 978-978-906-469-4. OCLC 890820657 note: 1940s, Male and Female (1949)
“Dream beautiful dreams and then work to make those dreams come true.”
“The season of failure is the best time for sowing the seeds of success.”
Where Is Science Going? (1932)
Source: Where is Science Going?
“That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.”
March 11, 1856
Journals (1838-1859)
“Success is getting what you want..
Happiness is wanting what you get.”
Variant: Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.
“Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.”
“The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success”
