40 Top Motivational Quotes to Inspire You to Greater Determination and Perseverance

Looking for a burst of motivation when the going gets tough? These inspirational quotes will help you keep pursuing your dreams.

Without a doubt, a key quality every successful person has is perseverance: the grit and drive and will to keep pushing forward in spite of challenges and obstacles.

Luckily, if you’re trying to do big things, determination and willpower are qualities you can develop. Perseverance is something we can all develop.

But developing grit also takes time. So, if you need a quick shot of determination, here are some great motivational quotes to inspire you to dig deep and persevere:

1. “Confidence comes not from always being right, but from not fearing to be wrong.” –Peter T. McIntyre

 

2. “Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sail. Explore. Dream. Discover.” –Sarah Frances Brown

 

3. “When someone tells me ‘no,’ it doesn’t mean I can’t do it, it simply means I can’t do it with them. –Karen E. Quinones Miller

 

4. “Pride is holding your head up when everyone around you has theirs bowed. Courage is what makes you do it.” –Bryce Courtenay

 

5. “When you’re different, sometimes you don’t see the millions of people who accept you for what you are. All you notice is the person who doesn’t.” –Jodi Picoult

 

6. “You cannot be lonely if you like the person you’re alone with.” –Wayne Dyer

 

7. “Don’t waste your energy trying to change opinions…do your thing, and don’t care if they like it.” –Tina Fey

 

8. “The way to develop self-confidence is to do the thing you fear and get a record of successful experiences behind you.” –William Jennings Bryan

 

9. “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

 

10. “Don’t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles, and less-than-perfect conditions. So what? Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident, and more and more successful.” –Mark Victor Hansen

 

11. “Low self-confidence isn’t a life sentence. Self-confidence can be learned, practiced, and mastered–just like any other skill. Once you master it, everything in your life will change for the better.” –Barrie Davenport

 

12. “Always be yourself and have faith in yourself. Do not go out and look for a successful personality and try to duplicate it.” –Bruce Lee

 

13. “Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.” –Golda Meir

 

14. “One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation.” –Arthur Ashe

 

15. “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

16. “People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within.” –Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

 

17. “Argue for your limitations and, sure enough, they’re yours.” –Richard Bach

 

18. “The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable.” –Paul Tillich

 

19. “If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.” –Thomas Alva Edison

 

20. “Shyness has a strange element of narcissism, a belief that how we look, how we perform, is truly important to other people.” –Andre Dubus

 

21. “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be?” –Marianne Williamson

 

22. “Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.” –Dr. Benjamin Spock

 

23. “Successful people have fear, successful people have doubts, and successful people have worries. They just don’t let these feelings stop them.” –T. Harv Eker

 

24. “You can have anything you want if you are willing to give up the belief that you can’t have it.” –Dr. Robert Anthony


25. “It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.” –Sir Edmund Hillary

 

26. “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” –Oscar Wilde

 

27. “Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.” –Dale Carnegie

 

28. “Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.” –attributed to Thomas Jefferson

 

29. “Confidence is a habit that can be developed by acting as if you already had the confidence you desire to have.” –Brian Tracy

 

30. “If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is too. Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think.” –T. Harv Eker

 

31. “To anyone that ever told you you’re no good…. They’re no better.” –Hayley Williams


32. “Always remember you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” –Christopher Robin

 

33. “You have no control over other people’s taste, so focus on staying true to your own.” –Tim Gunn

 

34. “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” –Eleanor Roosevelt

 

35. “The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it.” –J.M. Barrie

 

36. “It’s a dead-end street if you sit around waiting for someone else to tell you you’re OK.” –Michael Pitt

 

37. “I think that the power is the principle. The principle of moving forward, as though you have the confidence to move forward, eventually gives you confidence when you look back and see what you’ve done.” –Robert Downey Jr.

 

38. “Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.” –Rumi  



39. “We avoid the things that we’re afraid of because we think there will be dire consequences if we confront them. But the truly dire consequences in our lives come from avoiding things that we need to learn about or discover.” –Shakti Gawain

 

40. “Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many–not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.” –Charles Dickens