245 Best Motivational Quotes for Success to Inspire You

Sometimes a powerful motivational quote is all you need to push through a tough challenge. The right words can spark determination when your energy is low or your path seems unclear. So here I have some great motivational quotes for success.

Great leaders and successful people throughout history have shared wisdom that continues to guide us. From Winston Churchill to Maya Angelou, their insights reveal the importance of hard work, persistence, and positive thinking.

As Henry Ford wisely noted, “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” This simple truth highlights how our mindset shapes everything we accomplish.

Inspirational quotes from successful entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and Oprah Winfrey remind us that failures are merely stepping stones to achievement. They faced countless setbacks on their journeys toward great things.

These 249 motivational quotes offer guidance for your personal growth and professional success. Whether you’re building a business, developing a growth mindset, or simply striving to become a better person, these words of wisdom can help you step outside your comfort zone.

Let these powerful thoughts from Albert Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, and other visionaries push you toward becoming the best version of yourself.

245 Best Motivational Quotes for Success

“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill
“If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.” – Henry Ford
“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.” – Edward Everett Hale
“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” – Albert Einstein
“Success depends upon previous preparation, and without such preparation there is sure to be failure.” – Confucius
“However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.” – Stephen Hawking
“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it.” – W.C. Fields
“Action is the foundational key to all success.” – Pablo Picasso
“Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.” – Dale Carnegie
“I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.” – Michael Jordan
“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.” – Abraham Lincoln
“Desire is the key to motivation, but it’s determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal – a commitment to excellence – that will enable you to attain the success you seek.” – Mario Andretti
“There are people who make things happen, there are people who watch things happen, and there are people who wonder what happened. To be successful, you need to be a person who makes things happen.” – Jim Lovell
“The foundation stones for a balanced success are honesty, character, integrity, faith, love and loyalty.” – Zig Ziglar
“Success isn’t a result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.” – Arnold H. Glasow
“Man needs his difficulties because they are necessary to enjoy success.” – A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
“Success is falling nine times and getting up ten.” – Jon Bon Jovi
“Eighty percent of success is showing up.” – Woody Allen
“Success makes so many people hate you. I wish it wasn’t that way. It would be wonderful to enjoy success without seeing envy in the eyes of those around you.” – Marilyn Monroe
“Success isn’t measured by money or power or social rank. Success is measured by your discipline and inner peace.” – Mike Ditka
“Success is not a good teacher, failure makes you humble.” – Shah Rukh Khan
“In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd.” – Miguel de Cervantes
“The real secret of success is enthusiasm.” – Walter Chrysler
“The greatest sign of success for a teacher… is to be able to say, ‘The children are now working as if I did not exist.'” – Maria Montessori
“A champion is afraid of losing. Everyone else is afraid of winning.” – Billie Jean King
“Don’t aim for success if you want it; just do what you love and believe in, and it will come naturally.” – David Frost
“It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.” – Elinor Smith
“Most people give up just when they’re 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.” – Ross Perot
“What is success? I think it is a mixture of having a flair for the thing that you are doing; knowing that it is not enough, that you have got to have hard work and a certain sense of purpose.” – Margaret Thatcher
“Success is the sum of small efforts – repeated day in and day out.” – Robert Collier
“Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.” – Bruce Lee
“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” – Albert Schweitzer
“Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.” – John F. Kennedy
“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.” – Mark Twain
“Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.” – Booker T. Washington
“Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.” – Bill Gates
“Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.” – Jim Rohn
“Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.” – George S. Patton
“Success is not measured by what you accomplish, but by the opposition you have encountered, and the courage with which you have maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds.” – Orison Swett Marden
“If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.” – Maya Angelou
“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life – think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.” – Swami Vivekananda
“Invincibility lies in the defence; the possibility of victory in the attack.” – Sun Tzu
“The thermometer of success is merely the jealousy of the malcontents.” – Salvador Dali
“Success is dependent on effort.” – Sophocles
“The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire; the size of your dream; and how you handle disappointment along the way.” – Robert Kiyosaki
“A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.” – David Brinkley
“There is little success where there is little laughter.” – Andrew Carnegie
“Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.” – William Feather
“Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.” – Saint Augustine
“Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result.” – Oscar Wilde
“When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.” – John Ruskin
“We should measure welfare’s success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added.” – Ronald Reagan
“There is only one success – to be able to spend your life in your own way.” – Christopher Morley
“Success consists of getting up just one more time than you fall.” – Oliver Goldsmith
“Formula for success: rise early, work hard, strike oil.” – J. Paul Getty
“Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity.” – Louis Pasteur
“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
“To be successful, you have to have your heart in your business and your business in your heart.” – Thomas J. Watson
“Find something you’re passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it.” – Julia Child
“Learn as if you will live forever, live like you will die tomorrow.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“Successful people are not gifted; they just work hard, then succeed on purpose.” – G.K. Nielson
“Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come.” – Dwayne Johnson
“The only thing standing between you and outrageous success is continuous progress.” – Dan Waldschmidt
“I never dreamt of success. I worked for it.” – Estée Lauder
“Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit.” – Conrad Hilton
“Success in business requires training and discipline and hard work. But if you’re not frightened by these things, the opportunities are just as great today as they ever were.” – David Rockefeller
“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved.” – Helen Keller
“I’ve come to believe that each of us has a personal calling that’s as unique as a fingerprint and that the best way to succeed is to discover what you love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of service, working hard and also allowing the energy of the universe to lead you.” – Oprah Winfrey
“The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” – Thomas Edison
“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.” – Pelé
“Talent is nothing without persistence.” – Dean Crawford
“Persistence is the twin sister of excellence. One is a matter of quality; the other, a matter of time.” – Marabel Morgan
“You never know what’s around the corner. It could be everything. Or it could be nothing. You keep putting one foot in front of the other, and then one day you look back and you’ve climbed a mountain.” – Tom Hiddleston
“A little more persistence, a little more effort and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success.” – Elbert Hubbard
“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.” – Dale Carnegie
“Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did.” – Newt Gingrich
“It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.” – Confucius
“Continuous effort—not strength or intelligence—is the key to unlocking our potential.” – Winston Churchill
“If you get tired, learn to rest, not to quit.” – Banksy
“Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other.” – Walter Elliot
“Motivation will almost always beat mere talent.” – Norman Ralph Augustine

“Dreams are lovely. But they are dreams. Fleeting, ephemeral, pretty. But dreams do not come true just because you dream them. It’s hard work that makes things happen. It’s hard work that makes things happen.” – Shonda Rhimes
“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeated, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.” – Maya Angelou
“Obstacles can’t stop you. Problems can’t stop you. Most of all, other people can’t stop you. Only you can stop you.” – Jeffrey Gitomer
“Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later.” – Og Mandino
“Instead of looking at the past, I put myself ahead 20 years and try to look at what I need to do now in order to get there then.” – Diana Ross
“Without hustle, talent will only carry you so far.” – Gary Vaynerchuk
“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” – Arthur Ashe
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky
“Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.” – Tony Robbins
“Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most.” – Augusta F. Kantra
“Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.” – Peter Drucker
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” – Walt Disney
“Do not whine. Do not complain. Work harder.” – Joan Didion
“Developing a good work ethic is key. Apply yourself at whatever you do, whether you’re a janitor or taking your first summer job, because that work ethic will be reflected in everything you do in life.” – Tyler Perry
“The future depends on what you do today.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“Work harder than you think you did yesterday.” – Alex Elle
“All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.” – Calvin Coolidge
“Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work.” – Booker T. Washington
“If you work really hard, and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.” – Conan O’Brien
“Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don’t recognize them.” – Ann Landers
“There will be obstacles. There will be doubters. There will be mistakes. But with hard work, there are no limits.” – Michael Phelps
“You’re not obligated to win. You’re obligated to keep trying to do the best you can every day.” – Marian Wright Edelman
“I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.” – Thomas Jefferson
“I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top, but should get you pretty near.” – Margaret Thatcher
“When you live for a strong purpose, then hard work isn’t an option. It’s a necessity.” – Steve Pavlina
“It’s not about money or connections. It’s the willingness to outwork and outlearn everyone.” – Mark Cuban
“Always go with the choice that scares you the most, because that’s the one that is going to require the most from you.” – Caroline Myss
“Happiness is the real sense of fulfillment that comes from hard work.” – Joseph Roland Barbera
“This is the real secret of life—to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. Instead of calling it work, realize it is play.” – Alan Wilson Watts
“Don’t settle for average. Bring your best to the moment. Then, whether it fails or succeeds, at least you know you gave all you had. We need to live the best that’s in us.” – Angela Bassett
“The only thing that overcomes hard luck is hard work.” – Harry Golden
“A man can make what he wants of himself if he truly believes that he must be ready for hard work and many heartbreaks.” – Thurgood Marshall
“Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.” – Og Mandino
“Things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out.” – John Wooden
“Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.” – Zig Ziglar
“Every moment is a fresh beginning.” – T.S. Eliot
“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” – Lao Tzu
“If you are not willing to risk the usual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.” – Jim Rohn
“Life has no limitations, except the ones you make.” – Les Brown
“Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.” – Gloria Steinem
“We become what we think about most of the time.” – Earl Nightingale
“Do today what others won’t and achieve tomorrow what others can’t.” – Jerry Rice
“The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success.” – Bruce Feirstein
“I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse.” – Florence Nightingale
“Don’t let the fear of losing be greater than the excitement of winning.” – Robert Kiyosaki
“The secret of success is to do the common thing uncommonly well.” – John D. Rockefeller Jr.
“Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.” – Joshua J. Marine
“We cannot solve problems with the kind of thinking we employed when we came up with them.” – Albert Einstein
“And when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it.” – Paulo Coelho
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.” – Herman Melville
“Don’t worry about failure, you only have to be right once.” – Drew Houston
“Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards.” – Vernon Sanders Law
“Dream big and dare to fail.” – Norman Vaughan
“Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.” – Abraham Lincoln
“I’m not going to continue knocking on that old door that doesn’t open for me. I’m going to create my own door and walk through that.” – W.P. Kinsella
“For the great doesn’t happen through impulse alone, and is a succession of little things that are brought together.” – Vincent Van Gogh
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” – Thomas A. Edison
“Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.” – Babe Ruth
“To succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone, and a funnybone.” – Reba McEntire
“You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need.” – Vernon Howard
“Success is where preparation and opportunity meet.” – Bobby Unser
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas Edison
“Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.” – Henry Ford
“The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of knowledge, but a lack of will.” – Vince Lombardi Jr.
“There’s no elevator to success. You have to take the stairs.” – Zig Ziglar
“Success is not the absence of failure, it’s persistence through failure.” – Aisha Tyler
“Success is the good fortune that comes from aspiration, desperation, perspiration and inspiration.” – Evan Esar
“Great achievement is usually born of great sacrifice, and is never the result of selfishness.” – Napoleon Hill
“For success, attitude is equally as important as ability.” – Harry F. Banks
“To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.” – Mark Twain
“Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.” – Abraham Lincoln
“The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.” – Stephen McCranie
“Every accomplishment starts with a decision to try.” – John F. Kennedy
“Positive action combined with positive thinking results in success.” – Shiv Khera
“If it doesn’t scare you, you’re probably not dreaming big enough.” – Tory Burch
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill
“The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment in which you first find yourself.” – Mark Caine
“It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up.” – Vince Lombardi
“The question isn’t who is going to let me, it’s who is going to stop me.” – Ayn Rand
“Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.” – John D. Rockefeller
“I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.” – Thomas Jefferson

“Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value.” – Albert Einstein
“Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do. Don’t wish it were easier; wish you were better.” – Jim Rohn
“The road to success is always under construction.” – Lily Tomlin
“Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.” – Napoleon Hill
“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
“Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.” – Henry David Thoreau
“You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” – Zig Ziglar
“Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.” – George Bernard Shaw
“The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.” – Vidal Sassoon
“Today’s accomplishments were yesterday’s impossibilities.” – Robert H. Schuller
“For every reason it’s not possible, there are hundreds of people who have faced the same circumstances and succeeded.” – Jack Canfield
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.” – Samuel Beckett
“You know you are on the road to success if you would do your job, and not be paid for it.” – Oprah Winfrey
“There is a powerful driving force inside every human being that, once unleashed, can make any vision, dream, or desire a reality.” – Anthony Robbins
“The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.” – Bruce Lee
“Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.” – Alexander Graham Bell
“Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in.” – Bill Bradley
“If you don’t have any shadows you’re not in the light.” – Lady Gaga
“There are no regrets in life. Just lessons.” – Jennifer Aniston
“If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it.” – Margaret Fuller
“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” – Albert Einstein
“How dare you settle for less when the world made it so easy for you to be remarkable?” – Seth Godin
“It is always the simple that produces the marvelous.” – Amelia Barr
“You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.” – Margaret Thatcher
“You become what you believe.” – Oprah Winfrey
“I find that when you have a real interest in life and a curious life, that sleep is not the most important thing.” – Martha Stewart
“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” – Henry David Thoreau
“The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same.” – Colin R. Davis
“Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.” – Maya Angelou
“As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.” – Bill Gates
“A real entrepreneur is somebody who has no safety net underneath them.” – Henry Kravis
“The successful man will profit from his mistakes and try again in a different way.” – Dale Carnegie
“I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure–It is: Try to please everybody.” – Herbert Bayard Swope
“Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill
“Whenever you see a successful person, you only see the public glories, never the private sacrifices to reach them.” – Vaibhav Shah
“If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work.” – Thomas J. Watson
“All progress takes place outside the comfort zone.” – Michael John Bobak
“People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.” – Dale Carnegie
“If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time.” – Steve Jobs
“When you stop chasing the wrong things, you give the right things a chance to catch you.” – Lolly Daskal
“I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.” – G.K. Chesterton
“I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.” – Diane Ackerman
“Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.” – Dale Carnegie
“Success is not how high you have climbed, but how you make a positive difference to the world.” – Roy T. Bennett
“Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle.” – Christian D. Larson
“The path to success is to take massive, determined action.” – Tony Robbins
“Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.” – Zig Ziglar
“Success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you get.” – W.P. Kinsella
“What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.” – Oscar Wilde
“The whole secret of a successful life is to find out what is one’s destiny to do, and then do it.” – Henry Ford
“Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.” – Dalai Lama
“Some people dream of success, while others wake up and work hard at it.” – Napoleon Hill
“The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
“Success is focusing the full power of all you are on what you have a burning desire to achieve.” – Wilfred Peterson
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” – Steve Jobs
“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” – Albert Schweitzer
“The harder you work for something, the greater you’ll feel when you achieve it.” – Unknown
“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome.” – Arthur Ashe
“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.” – Zig Ziglar
“You learn more from failure than from success. Don’t let it stop you. Failure builds character.” – Unknown
“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” – Michael Altshuler
“Patience, persistence, and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.” – Napoleon Hill
“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
“The only way to do great work is to love what you do.” – Steve Jobs
“If you don’t build your dream, someone else will hire you to help them build theirs.” – Dhirubhai Ambani
“Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do.” – Jeff Olson
“The starting point of all achievement is desire.” – Napoleon Hill
“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” – Confucius
“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” – Socrates
“The mind is everything. What you think you become.” – Buddha
“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” – Peter Drucker
“If you can dream it, you can do it.” – Walt Disney
“The secret of success is constancy to purpose.” – Benjamin Disraeli
“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” – Napoleon Hill
“Opportunities don’t happen. You create them.” – Chris Grosser
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
“Action is the foundational key to all success.” – Pablo Picasso
“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” – Nelson Mandela
“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” – Mark Twain
“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” – Alice Walker
“The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.” – Bruce Lee
“The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.” – Vince Lombardi

Final Thoughts

I hope these quotes have ignited a spark within you. As Theodore Roosevelt said, “Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” The journey to success begins with believing in yourself.

Remember that setting goals is just the starting point. The path ahead requires persistence, determination, and a willingness to learn from failure. Muhammad Ali didn’t become a champion by avoiding challenges – he faced them head-on.

Keep these powerful motivational quotes nearby for those moments when doubt creeps in. The wisdom of Michelle Obama, Zig Ziglar, and Paulo Coelho can be a powerful tool to redirect your thinking when obstacles appear.

Success rarely happens overnight. Marie Curie worked for years before her groundbreaking discoveries. Dolly Parton faced countless rejections before becoming an icon. Their stories remind us that patience is essential for personal development.

As you pursue your dreams, remember Coco Chanel’s advice: “The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.” Trust your instincts while remaining open to growth.

These words from successful individuals across history offer timeless guidance. Let them inspire you to make your own positive difference in the world – starting today.

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Jeff Campbell

Jeff Campbell is a dedicated father to 3 amazing kids, former leader for Whole Foods Market for 20+ years, and practicing martial artist.

245 Best Motivational Quotes for Success

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