220 Timeless Motivation & Mindset Quotes for Life and Success

The Best All-Time Advice and Sayings

This curated compilation features 220 timeless quotes from philosophers, leaders, authors, motivators, and high performers. Organized for clarity and flow, this collection supports motivation, mindset, success, purpose, resilience, discipline, and self-growth.

Structure: Action → Success → Mindset → Life & Meaning → Vulnerability & Self-Acceptance

I. On Action, Perseverance, and Courage

1. "The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity." — Amelia Earhart
2. "It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop." — Confucius
3. "Believe you can and you're halfway there." — Theodore Roosevelt
4. "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." — Wayne Gretzky
5. "The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing." — Walt Disney
6. "Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes but they don't quit." — Conrad Hilton
7. "I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do." — Leonardo da Vinci
8. "Fall seven times and stand up eight." – Japanese Proverb
9. "The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." — Nelson Mandela
10. "Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game." — Babe Ruth
11. "Everything you've ever wanted is on the other side of fear." — George Addair
12. "I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear." — Rosa Parks
13. "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all." — Helen Keller
14. "You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore." — Christopher Columbus
15. "If the wind will not serve, take to the oars." – Latin Proverb
16. "To reach a port, we must sail—sail, not tie at anchor—sail, not drift." — Franklin D. Roosevelt
17. "When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it." — Henry Ford
18. "The only impossible journey is the one you never begin." — Tony Robbins
19. "If you genuinely want something, don't wait for it—teach yourself to be impatient." — Gurbaksh Chahal
20. "Either you run the day, or the day runs you." – Jim Rohn
21. "Do what you can, where you are, with what you have." – Teddy Roosevelt
22. "The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don't wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope." — Barack Obama
23. "I'm really very self-confident when it comes to my work. When I take on a project, I believe in it 100%. I really put my soul into it. I'd die for it. That's how I am." — Michael Jackson
24. "Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all the time thing." — Vince Lombardi
25. "Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is." – Vince Lombardi
26. "The battles that count aren't the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself--the invisible battles inside all of us--that's where it's at." – Jesse Owens
27. "The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus." — Bruce Lee
28. "Grit is living life like it’s a marathon, not a sprint." — Angela Duckworth
29. "Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most." — Abraham Lincoln

II. On Success, Failure, and Learning

30. "Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts." — Winston Churchill
31. "Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm." — Winston Churchill
32. "I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse." — Florence Nightingale
33. "I never dreamed about success. I worked for it." — Estee Lauder
34. "I didn't fail the test. I just found 100 ways to do it wrong." — Benjamin Franklin
35. "Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing." – Benjamin Franklin
36. "A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new." – Albert Einstein
37. "Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value." – Albert Einstein
38. "I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." – Michael Jordan
39. "Every strike brings me closer to the next home run." – Babe Ruth
40. "I failed my way to success." — Thomas Edison
41. "Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." — Thomas Edison
42. "The secret of success is to do the common thing uncommonly well." — John D. Rockefeller
43. "Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great." — John D. Rockefeller
44. "There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work and learning from failure." — Colin Powell
45. "Before anything else, preparation is the key to success." — Alexander Graham Bell
46. "The key to success is to develop a winning edge." — Brian Tracy
47. "Success is a matter of sticking to a set of common-sense principles anyone can master." — Earl Nightingale
48. "We become what we think about." – Earl Nightingale
49. "The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same." — Colin R. Davis
50. "If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time." — Steve Jobs
51. "The only way to do great work is to love what you do." – Steve Jobs
52. "Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life." – Steve Jobs
53. "You never achieve real success unless you like what you're doing." — Dale Carnegie
54. "Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do." — Pele
55. "Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard." — Tim Notke
56. "I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have." — Thomas Jefferson
57. "Luck? I don't know anything about luck. I've never banked on it and I'm afraid of people who do. Luck to me is something else: Hard work - and realizing what is an opportunity and what isn't." — Lucille Ball
58. "Great things come from hard work and perseverance. No Excuses." — Kobe Bryant
59. "Success isn't always about greatness. It's about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come." — Dwayne Johnson
60. "The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary." — Vidal Sassoon
61. "Eighty percent of success is showing up." – Woody Allen
62. "A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him." — David Brinkley
63. "The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person who is doing it." – Chinese Proverb
64. "There are no traffic jams along the extra mile." – Roger Staubach
65. "Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better." — Maya Angelou
66. "Unless you're continually improving your skills, you're quickly becoming irrelevant." — Stephen Covey
67. "The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won't. It's whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere." — Barack Obama
68. "If you set your goals ridiculously high and it's a failure, you will fail above everyone else's success." — James Cameron
69. "It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation." — Herman Melville

III. On Mindset, Belief, and Self-Determination

70. "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." — Napoleon Hill
71. "The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be." — Ralph Waldo Emerson
72. "The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me." — Ayn Rand
73. "Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve." — Napoleon Hill
74. "Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle." — Christian D. Larson
75. "You become what you believe." — Oprah Winfrey
76. "If you look at what you have in life, you'll always have more. If you look at what you don't have in life, you'll never have enough." — Oprah Winfrey
77. "You know you are on the road to success if you would do your job and not be paid for it." — Oprah Winfrey
78. "The mind is everything. What you think you become." – Buddha
79. "Change your thoughts and you change your world." – Norman Vincent Peale
80. "We tend to get what we expect." — Norman Vincent Peale
81. "The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today." — Franklin D. Roosevelt
82. "I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions." – Stephen Covey
83. "Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right." – Henry Ford
84. "Your attitude is either the lock on or key to your door of success." — Denis Waitley
85. "Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do. Don't wish it were easier; wish you were better." — Jim Rohn
86. "If you are not willing to risk the usual, you will have to settle for the ordinary." — Jim Rohn
87. "Don’t let the fear of losing be greater than the excitement of winning." — Robert Kiyosaki
88. "In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure." – Bill Cosby
89. "The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any." – Alice Walker
90. "Whatever we believe about ourselves and our ability comes true for us." — Susan L. Taylor
91. "Limitations live only in our minds. But if we use our imaginations, our possibilities become limitless." – Jamie Paolinetti
92. "We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained." – Marie Curie
93. "When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be." – Lao Tzu
94. "If you hear a voice within you say “you cannot paint,” then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced." – Vincent Van Gogh
95. "I would rather die of passion than of boredom." — Vincent van Gogh
96. "You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose." — Dr. Seuss
97. "I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday." — Eleanor Roosevelt

IV. On Life, Purpose, and Meaning

98. "Life is about making an impact, not making an income." — Kevin Kruse
99. "Life isn't about getting and having, it's about giving and being." – Kevin Kruse
100. "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans." — John Lennon
101. "When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life." – John Lennon
102. "The unexamined life is not worth living." — Socrates
103. "Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood." — Ralph Waldo Emerson
104. "Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." — Ralph Waldo Emerson
105. "The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why." – Mark Twain
106. "Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So, throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." — Mark Twain
107. "Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it." — Charles Swindoll
108. "In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years." — Abraham Lincoln
109. "How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." — Anne Frank
110. "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." – Martin Luther King Jr.
111. "Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away." – Maya Angelou
112. "You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough." — Mae West
113. "Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be." – Grandma Moses
114. "Life is trying things to see if they work." — Ray Bradbury
115. "Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself." — George Bernard Shaw
116. "Happy is the man who can make a living by his hobby." — George Bernard Shaw
117. "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on." — Robert Frost
118. "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference." – Robert Frost
119. "Love the life you live. Live the life you love." — Bob Marley
120. "What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do." – Bob Dylan
121. "Do not let making a living prevent you from making a life." — John Wooden
122. "Things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out." — John Wooden
123. "Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny." — C.S. Lewis
124. "The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain." — Dolly Parton
125. "Education costs money. But then so does ignorance." – Sir Claus Moser
126. "Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears." — Les Brown
127. "Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning." — Gloria Steinem
128. "Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs." – Farrah Gray
129. "If you're offered a seat on a rocket ship, don't ask what seat! Just get on." — Sheryl Sandberg
130. "Bad things are not the worst thing that can happen to us. Nothing is the worst thing that can happen to us." — Richard Bach
131. "Nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart." — Seneca
132. "When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us." – Helen Keller
133. "Keep smiling, because life is a beautiful thing and there's so much to smile about." — Marilyn Monroe
134. "Life is a long lesson in humility." — James M. Barrie
135. "Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated." — Confucius
136. "Everything has beauty, but not everyone can see." – Confucius
137. "Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale." — Hans Christian Andersen
138. "You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have." – Maya Angelou
139. "Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort." — John Ruskin
140. "It's fun to do the impossible." — Walt Disney
141. "Nothing is impossible, the word itself says, “I’m possible!” – Audrey Hepburn
142. "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now." – Chinese Proverb
143. "You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try." — Beverly Sills
144. "It is never too late to be what you might have been." – George Eliot
145. "You take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing, no one to blame." – Erica Jong
146. "If life were predictable, it would cease to be life and be without flavor." — Eleanor Roosevelt
147. "Ask and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you." – Jesus
148. "Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck." – Dalai Lama
149. "Happiness is not something readymade. It comes from your own actions." – Dalai Lama
150. "The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any." – Alice Walker
151. "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." – Anais Nin
152. "You put your intention and your attention on what it is that you want to shift and change." — Wayne Dyer
153. "No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it to anyone else." — Charles Dickens
154. "Life is made of ever so many partings welded together." — Charles Dickens
155. "Certain things catch your eye, but pursue only those that capture the heart." – Ancient Indian Proverb
156. "Teach thy tongue to say, "I do not know," and thous shalt progress." – Maimonides
157. "First, have a definite, clear practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end." – Aristotle
158. "There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing." – Aristotle
159. "We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light." – Plato
160. "No one would have crossed the ocean if he could have gotten off the ship in the storm." — Charles Kettering
161. "Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful." – Joshua J. Marine
162. "If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten." – Tony Robbins
163. "People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing. That’s why we recommend it daily." – Zig Ziglar
164. "If you can dream it, you can achieve it." – Zig Ziglar
165. "Don't be distracted by criticism. Remember—the only taste of success some people get is to take a bite out of you." — Zig Ziglar
166. "Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him." – Booker T. Washington
167. "If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else." – Booker T. Washington
168. "Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air." — Ralph Waldo Emerson
169. "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined." — Henry David Thoreau
170. "Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it." — Henry David Thoreau
171. "It's your place in the world; it's your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live." – Mae Jemison
172. "It seems as if an age of genius must be succeeded by an age of endeavor; riot and extravagance by cleanliness and hard work." — Virginia Woolf
173. "You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water." — Rabindranath Tagore
174. "Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does." — William James
175. "The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated." — William James
176. "Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going." — Sam Levenson

V. On Vulnerability, Connection, and Self-Acceptance

177. "You are imperfect, you are wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging." – Brené Brown
178. "Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable." – Brené Brown
179. "Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage." – Brené Brown
180. "Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen." – Brené Brown
181. "Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it." – Brené Brown
182. "Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance." – Brené Brown
183. "Numb the dark and you numb the light." – Brené Brown
184. “Talk to yourself like you would to someone you love.” — Brené Brown
185. “Nothing changes until we accept it.” — Carl Jung
186. “The acceptance of oneself is the essence of the whole moral problem.” — Carl Jung
187. “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
188. “The bravest thing is to think for yourself. Aloud.” — Coco Chanel
189. “You are enough just as you are.” — Meghan Markle
190. “You matter because you are you.” — Fred Rogers
191. “The more you know yourself, the more clarity there is.” — Jiddu Krishnamurti
192. “When you say yes to others, make sure you’re not saying no to yourself.” — Paulo Coelho
193. “Self-compassion is simply giving the same kindness to ourselves that we would give to others.” — Christopher Germer
194. “To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.” — David Viscott
195. “Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.” — Buddha
196. “The soul usually knows what to do to heal itself.” — Clarissa Pinkola Estés
197. “Radical self-care is self-respect.” — Audre Lorde
198. “Wholeness is not achieved by cutting off a portion of one’s being.” — Carl Jung
199. “The most powerful relationship you will ever have is the relationship with yourself.” — Steve Maraboli
200. “You are allowed to be both a masterpiece and a work in progress.” — Sophia Bush
201. “The wound is the place where the light enters you.” — Rumi
202. “The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.” — Michel de Montaigne
203. “Being honest with yourself is the highest form of self-respect.”
204. “The only journey is the one within.” — Rainer Maria Rilke
205. “What is essential is invisible to the eye.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
206. “You don’t find yourself. You create yourself.” — George Bernard Shaw
207. “The way to achieve your own success is to be willing to help somebody else get it first.” — Iyanla Vanzant
208. “At the center of your being you have the answer.” — Lao Tzu
209. “The moment you accept yourself, you become beautiful.” — Osho
210. “There is nothing noble about shrinking so that others won’t feel insecure around you.” — Marianne Williamson
211. "Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent." – Eleanor Roosevelt
212. "Age has given me the gift of me; it just gave me what I was always longing for, which was to get to be the woman I've already dreamt of being. Which is somebody who can do rest and do hard work and be a really constant companion, a constant, tender-hearted wife to myself." — Anne Lamott
213. "It is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves, that will make them successful human beings." – Ann Landers
214. "If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them, and half as much money." – Abigail Van Buren
215. "Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile." — Albert Einstein
216. "In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love." — Mother Teresa
217. "I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the water to create many ripples." — Mother Teresa
218. “Become who you are.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
219. “When you are content to be simply yourself, everybody will respect you.” — Lao Tzu
220. “You were born to be real, not perfect.” — Dr. Seuss

 

This collection of 220 timeless quotes serves as a reservoir of wisdom, inspiration, and guidance for every stage of your journey. Whether you seek motivation to act, clarity to define success, resilience to overcome obstacles, insight to cultivate mindset, or courage to embrace vulnerability, these words offer a compass for personal growth and fulfillment. Let them remind you that greatness is built daily, through deliberate action, self-reflection, and unwavering belief in your potential. Revisit them often, share them freely, and let their lessons guide you toward a life of purpose, meaning, and enduring impact.