87 Best Inspirational Quotes to Keep You Motivated
Klaus Vedfelt
We're all about looking ahead, dreaming big, and trying your best. When challenges arise and you feel doubt creeping in, turn to the best inspirational quotes. These pearls of wisdom will help you stay focused, positive, and determined, no matter what life throws at you. Ahead, discover 87 positive inspirational quotes from icons and leaders around the globe.
1. “No matter what happens in life, be good to people. Being good to people is a wonderful legacy to leave behind.” —Taylor Swift
2. “Success is nothing if you don't have the right people to share it with; you're just gonna end up lonely.”—Selena Gomez
3. “If not us, then who? If not now, then when?”—John Lewis
4. “Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.”—Thomas Edison
5. “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” —Confucius
6. “Change takes courage.”—Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
7. "The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do."
—Steve Jobs
8. "Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you."
—Ruth Bader Ginsburg
9. “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”—Walt Disney
10. “Don't just get involved. Fight for your seat at the table. Better yet, fight for a seat at the head of the table.”—Barack Obama
11. "If you can do your best and be happy, you are further along in life than most people."
—Leonardo DiCaprio
12. “In a gentle way, you can shake the world.”—Mahatma Gandhi
13. “If you want to fly, give up everything that weighs you down.”—Buddha
14. “In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.”—Albert Einstein
15. "There are still many causes worth sacrificing for, so much history yet to be made."
—Michelle Obama
16. “No pressure, no diamonds.”—Thomas Carlyle
17. “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.”—Helen Keller
18. “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.”—Robert Frost
19. “Everything you can imagine is real.”—Pablo Picasso
20. “If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.”—Lao Tzu
21. “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”—Mark Twain
22. “It's hard to beat a person who never gives up.”—Babe Ruth
23. “Don't ever doubt yourself or waste a second of your life. It's too short and you're too special."—Ariana Grande
24. “I’ve missed more than 9,000 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
25. “The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”—Nelson Mandela
26. “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”—Eleanor Roosevelt
27. “Ignore the naysayers. Really the only option is head down and focus on the job.”—Chris Pine
28. “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any."
—Alice Walker
29. "Whatever you are, be a good one."
—Abraham Lincoln
30. “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”—Mother Teresa
31. “Being realistic is the most commonly traveled road to mediocrity.”—Will Smith
32. “Everything you want is on the other side of fear.”—George Addair
33. “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”—Oscar Wilde
34. “At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.”—Frida Kahlo
35. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”—Aristotle
36. "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
37. "You don't need to see the whole staircase, just take the first step."
—Martin Luther King Jr.
38. "I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.”—Muhammad Ali
39. “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.”—C.S. Lewis
40. “Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help you create the fact.”—William James
41. “I really think a champion is defined not by their wins but by how they can recover when they fall.”—Serena Williams
42. “I’m continually trying to make choices that put me against my own comfort zone. As long as you’re uncomfortable, it means you’re growing.”—Ashton Kutcher
43. “People with goals succeed because they know where they're going.”—Earl Nightingale
44. “Make each day your masterpiece.”—John Wooden
45. “Magic is believing in yourself. If you can make that happen, you can make anything happen.”—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
46. “You see things; you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say 'Why not?” —George Bernard Shaw
47. “It is never too late to be what you might have been.”—George Eliot
48. “You can never be the best. The only thing you can be the best at is developing yourself.” —Natalie Portman
49. “To find yourself, think for yourself.”—Socrates
50. “You can do anything you set your mind to.”—Benjamin Franklin
51. “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost. That is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”—Henry David Thoreau
52. “Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.”—Zig Ziglar
53. “Believe you can and you're halfway there.”—Theodore Roosevelt
54. “ Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.”—Winston Churchill
55. “Start from wherever you are and with whatever you've got.”—Jim Rohn
56. "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
57. “The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.”—Vince Lombardi
58. “If you don’t fall, how are you going to know what getting up is like?”—Stephen Curry
59. “Have no fear of perfection. You’ll never reach it.”—Salvador Dali
60. “The minute you start caring about what other people think, is the minute you stop being yourself.”—Meryl Streep
61. “To bring about change, you must not be afraid to take the first step. We will fail when we fail to try.”—Rosa Parks
62. “Ultimately, you just have one life. You never know unless you try. And you never get anywhere unless you ask.”—Kate Winslet
63. “Forever is composed of nows.”—Emily Dickinson
64. “It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.”—Paulo Coehlo
65. "The most difficult thing is the decision to act; the rest is merely tenacity." —Amelia Earhart
66. "It is often the small steps, not the giant leaps, that bring about the most lasting change." —Queen Elizabeth II
67. “The achievement of one goal should be the starting point of another.”—Alexander Graham Bell
68. “You can’t master your future if you’re still a slave to your past.”—Rihanna
69. "In the long run, you make your own luck — good, bad, or indifferent." —Loretta Lynn
70. "Let us make our future now, and let us make our dreams tomorrow's reality." —Malala Yousafzai
71. “Champions keep playing until they get it right.”—Billie Jean King
72. “What we do is more important than what we say or what we say we believe.”—bell hooks
73. “Better to die fighting for freedom than be a prisoner all the days of your life.”—Bob Marley
74. “Where there's hope, there's life. It fills us with fresh courage and makes us strong again.”—Anne Frank
75. “The Sun himself is weak when he first rises, and gathers strength and courage as the day gets on.”—Charles Dickens
76. “Always work hard and have fun in what you do because I think that's when you're more successful. You have to choose to do it.”—Simone Biles
77. “The best revenge is massive success.”—Frank Sinatra
78. “There is always light. If only we're brave enough to see it. If only we're brave enough to be it.”—Amanda Gorman
79. "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." —Nelson Mandela
80. “Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.”—John Wayne
81. “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”—Alice Walker
82. “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain.”—Vivian Greene
83. "If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities." —Maya Angelou
84. "Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment." —Oprah Winfrey
85. “Never burn bridges. Today’s junior jerk, tomorrow’s senior partner.”—Sigourney Weaver
86. “Be your own leader, be your own self, step out of my shadows and be your own person.”—Snoop Dogg
87. “You can’t achieve anything in life without a small amount of sacrifice.”—Shakira
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Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue
