150 Motivational Quotes To Get You Out Of That Mental Rut
Cheer up, buttercup! Motivation is on the way!
Change isn't always easy, but in retrospect, it can turn out to be the best thing that's ever happened to you. It can inspire you to try new things or take exciting new risks.
When you find yourself stuck in a rut that you can't seem to dig yourself out of, sometimes change is exactly what you need, even when it's scary.
When it comes time for you to change gears, motivational quotes can help you get into the right mindset.
The best motivational quotes offer us tremendous insight into what it truly means to throw yourself into life with every ounce of strength you can muster in the hopes of achieving something better.
The most motivating quotes are those that speak for you (and to you) when you're at a loss for words. They reveal every little feeling you are trying to express.
So if you're having trouble finding the right words to express how you feel or you're just in need of a motivational pick-me-up, the inspirational quotes and sayings below will help you remember that change can be a beautiful thing.
Motivational quotes to inspire you
Motivational life quotes
1. "You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody." — Maya Angelou
2. "Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow know what you truly want to become." — Steve Jobs
3. "If you cannot do great things yourself, remember that you may do small things in a great way." — Napoleon Hill
4. "Time will pass anyway, you can either spend it creating the life you want or spend it living the life you don't want. The choice is yours." — Anonymous
5. “Courage is more exhilarating than fear and in the long run it is easier. We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just one step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
6. "You've got to get up every morning with determination if you're going to go to bed with satisfaction." — George Lorimer
7. "If you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely." — Roald Dahl
8. "If you're gonna make a change, you're gonna have to operate from a new belief that says life happens not to me but for me." — Tony Robbins
9. "Maybe there's something you're afraid to do today, someone you're afraid to love, or somewhere you're afraid it's gonna hurt. It's gonna hurt because it matters." — John Green
10. "Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything." — George Bernard Shaw
11. "They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself." — Andy Warhol
12. "I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find you're not, I hope you have the strength to start over all over again." — F. Scott Fitzgerald
13. "Each morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most." — Jack Kornfield
14. "When a man says I cannot, he has made a suggestion to himself. He has weakened his power of accomplishing that which otherwise would have been accomplished." — Muhammad Ali
15. "And suddenly you know: It's time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings." — Meister Eckhart
16. "You are not judged by the height you have risen, but from the depth you have climbed." — Frederick Douglass
17. "When we deny our stories, they define us. When we own our stories, we get to write a brave new ending." — Brené Brown
18. "When you come out of the storm, you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about." — Haruki Murakami
19. "You've got to kick fear to the side, because the payoff is huge." — Mariska Hargitay
20. "Stop letting people who do so little for you control so much of your mind, feelings and emotions." — Will Smith
21. "Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future." — John F. Kennedy, Jr.
22. "Remember that just because you hit bottom doesn't mean you have to stay there." — Robert Downey Jr.
23. "You will have bad times, but they will always wake you up to the stuff you weren't paying attention to." — Robin Williams
24. "The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are." — JP Morgan
25. "I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept." — Angela Davis
26. "We are born in one day. We die in one day. We can change in one day. And we can fall in love in one day. Anything can happen in just one day." — Gayle Forman
27. "You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream." — Les Brown
28. "Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me." — Carol Burnett
29. "Where there is a will, there is a way. If there is a chance in a million that you can do something, anything, to keep what you want from ending, do it. Pry the door open or, if need be, wedge your foot in that door and keep it open." — Pauline Kael
30. "Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it." — Dwight D. Eisenhower
31. "You simply have to put one foot in front of the other and keep going. Put blinders on and plow right ahead." — George Lucas
32. "Whatever you want in life, other people are going to want it too. Believe in yourself enough to accept the idea that you have an equal right to it." — Diane Sawyer
33. "When you fail you learn from the mistakes you made and it motivates you to work even harder." — Natalie Gulbis
34. "Motivation will almost always beat mere talent." — Norman Ralph Augustine
35. "If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much." — Jim Rohn
36. "Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it." — Charles R. Swindoll
37. "Life is a series of baby steps along the way and if you add up these tiny little steps you take toward your goal, whatever it is, whether it’s giving up something, a terrible addiction or trying to work your way through an illness." — Hoda Kotb
38. "You make a choice: continue living your life feeling muddled in this abyss of self-misunderstanding, or you find your identity independent of it. You draw your own box." — Meghan, Duchess of Sussex
39. "If you make your internal life a priority, then everything else you need on the outside will be given to you and it will be extremely clear what the next step is." — Gabrielle Bernstein
40. "Learning how to be still, to really be still and let life happen—that stillness becomes a radiance." — Morgan Freeman
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Motivational quotes for success
41. "You'll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine." — John C. Maxwell
42. “It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.” — Theodore Roosevelt
43. "Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it." — Henry David Thoreau
44. "Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't quit." — Conrad Hilton
45. "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." — Anonymous
46. "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
47. "Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time." — Thomas A. Edison
48. "Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy." — Norman Vincent Peale
49. "Opportunity does not knock, it presents itself when you beat down the door." — Kyle Chandler
50. "In order to succeed, we must first believe that we can." — Nikos Kazantzakis
51. "The will to succeed is important, but what's more important is the will to prepare." — Bobby Knight
52. "I really believe that everyone has a talent, ability, or skill that he can mine to support himself and to succeed in life." — Dean Koontz
53. "If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success." — John D. Rockefeller
54. "The hardships that I encountered in the past will help me succeed in the future." — Philip Emeagwali
55. "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
56. "Do your work with your whole heart, and you will succeed - there's so little competition." — Elbert Hubbard
57. "I attribute my success to this - I never gave or took any excuse." — Florence Nightingale
58. "To be wholly devoted to some intellectual exercise is to have succeeded in life." — Robert Louis Stevenson
59. "The secret of getting ahead is getting started." — Mark Twain
60. "Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking: 'What’s in it for me?'" — Brian Tracy
61. “I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.” — Michael Jordan
62. "Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." — Winston Churchill
63. "To succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone, and a funny bone." — Reba McIntire
64. "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
65. "Success is the sum of small efforts - repeated day in and day out." — Robert Collier
66. "Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." — Winston Churchill
67. "Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming." — John Wooden
68. "Action is the foundational key to all success." — Pablo Picasso
69. "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
70. "However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at." — Stephen Hawking
71. "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
72. "Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other." — Abraham Lincoln
73. "Success isn't a result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire." — Andrew H. Glasgow
74. "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
75. "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
76. "Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom." — George S. Patton
77. "Eighty percent of success is showing up."
78. "There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way." — Christopher Morley
79. "Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go." — WIlliam Feather
80. "Success consists of getting up just one more time than you fall." — Oliver Goldsmith
Motivational quotes for work
81. "Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard." — Tim Notke
82. "Do each day all that can be done that day. You don't need to overwork or to rush blindly into your work trying to do the greatest possible number of things in the shortest possible time." — Earl Nightingale
83. "Decide what you want, decide what you are willing to exchange for it. Establish your priorities and go to work." — H.L. Hunt
84. "Without hard work, nothing grows but weeds." — Gordon B. Hinckley
85. "Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success." — Edward Everett Hale
86. “Your talent determines what you can do. Your motivation determines how much you’re willing to do. Your attitude determines how well you do it.” — Lou Holtz
87. “The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.” — Steve Jobs
88. “The more I want to get something done the less I call it work.” — Richard Bach
89. “You are not your resume, you are your work.” — Seth Godin
90. “Be humble. Be hungry. And always be the hardest worker in the room.” — Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
91. “Work hard and be kind and amazing things will happen.” — Conan O’Brien
92. “Nothing will work unless you do.” — Maya Angelou
93. “Work hard in silence, let your success be your noise.” — Frank Ocean
94. "The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today." — Elbert Hubbard
95. "The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary." — Vince Lombardi
96. "Laziness may appear attractive, but work gives satisfaction." — Anne Frank
97. "Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing." — Theodore Roosevelt
98. "Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work." — Booker T. Washington
99. "The only thing that overcomes hard luck is hard work." — Harry Golden
100. "Once you start a working on something, don’t be afraid of failure and don’t abandon it. People who work sincerely are the happiest." — Chanakya
101. "To find joy in work is to discover the fountain of youth." — Pearl S. Buck
102. "Life grants nothing to us mortals without hard work." — Horace
103. "Find a job you like and you add five days to every week." — H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
104. "No one can arrive from being talented alone, work transforms talent into genius." — Anna Pavlova
105. "Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did." — Newt Gingrich
106. “Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work in hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.“ — Alexander Graham Bell
107. "Work and you’ll get what you need; work harder and you’ll get what you want.” — Prabakaran Thirumalai
108. “A dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it takes a lot of hard work.” — Ozwald Boateng
109. “Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.” — Aristotle
110. "It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste." — Henry Ford
111. "The big secret in life is that there is no big secret. Whatever your goal, you can get there if you’re willing to work." — Oprah Winfrey
112. "The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying." — Steven Pressfield
113. "If you don’t build your dream, someone else will hire you to help them build theirs." — Dhirubhai Ambani
114. "Work takes on new meaning when you feel you are pointed in the right direction. Otherwise, it's just a job, and life is too short for that." — Tim Cook
115. "Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value." — Albert Einstein
116. "Greatness only comes before hustle in the dictionary." — Ross Simmonds
117. "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." — Aristotle
118. "Very often, a change of self is needed more than a change of scene." — A.C. Benson
119. "It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it." — Lou Holtz
120. "The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one." — Oscar Wilde
Short motivational quotes
121. "Always do what you are afraid to do." — Ralph Waldo Emerson
122. “A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.” — Ayn Rand
123. "When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on." — Abraham Lincoln
124. "It always seems impossible until it's done." — Nelson Mandela
125. "Don't feel stupid if you don't like what everyone else pretends to love." — Emma Watson
126. "Only do what your heart tells you." — Princess Diana
127. "The final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands." — Anne Frank
128. "Better to fight for something than to live for nothing." — George Patton
129. "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with BS." — W.C. Fields
130. "You must learn a new way to think before you can master a new way to be." — Marianne Williamson
131. "Well-behaved women rarely make history." — Marilyn Monroe
132. "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." — Albert Einstein
133. "We always may be what we might have been." — Adelaide Anne Procter
134. "You don't worry 'bout fitting in when you custom made." — Drake, "Views"
135. "'Where you movin'?' I said, 'Onto better things.'" — Drake, "10 Bands"
136. "There are no regrets in life, just lessons." — Jennifer Aniston
137. "If you see someone without a smile, give them one of yours." — Dolly Parton
138. "Nevertheless, she persisted." — Mitch McConnell
139. "Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change." — Stephen Hawking
140. "With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts." — Eleanor Roosevelt
141. "Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines." — Robert H. Schuller
142. "Every exit is an entry somewhere else." — Tom Stoppard
143. "Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned." — Peter Marshall
144. "One finds limits by pushing them." — Herbert A. Simon
145. “Make each day your masterpiece.” — John Wooden
146. “Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” — Theodore Roosevelt
147. "If you're going through hell, keep going." — Winston Churchill
148. "I could either watch it happen or be a part of it." — Elon Musk
149. "Live life as if everything is rigged in your favor." — Rumi
150. "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." — Theodore Roosevelt
Tabitha Blaisdell is a freelance writer whose work can be found all across the web on websites such as BuzzFeed, Elite Daily, Thought Catalog, YourTango, Psych Central and more.