101 Motivating Quotes on

Success
by HENRIK EDBERG
Success.

We all want it in some way.

In school or in our careers. In relationships with our children, partner, friends,

But how do you find success? And what is success?

This week Id like to get help from the people who walked this earth before us (and
from some who are still here).

Id like to share timeless advice that was as helpful 2000 years ago as it is now.

This is 101 thought-provoking, motivating, useful and sometimes funny quotes on

1. Success means doing the best we can with what we have. Success is the doing, not
the getting; in the trying, not the triumph. Success is a personal standard, reaching
for the highest that is in us, becoming all that we can be.
Zig Ziglar

2. Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what
you are doing, you will be successful.
Herman Cain

3. Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.
Richard Branson

4. Success is simple. Do whats right, the right way, at the right time.
Arnold H. Glasgow

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5. Victory is sweetest when youve known defeat.
Malcolm S. Forbes

6. Action is the foundational key to all success.

7. The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your
own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You
realize that you control your own destiny.
Albert Ellis

8. I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure
which is: Try to please everybody.
Herbert B. Swope

9. Youve got to get up every morning with determination if youre going to go to bed
with satisfaction.
George Lorimer

10. Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.

11. If you want to make an easy job seem mighty hard, just keep putting off doing it.
Olin Miller

12. The successful man is the one who finds out what is the matter with his business
before his competitors do.
Roy L. Smith

13. Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself
to get anything done in this world.
Lucille Ball

14. 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

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15. Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same
one a second time.
George Bernard Shaw

16. I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse.

17. Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much
performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.
Vincent Van Gogh

18. Follow effective actions with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come
even more effective action.
Peter Drucker

19. You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than
anyone else.
Albert Einstein

20. Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.
Stephen King

21. Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.
Abraham Lincoln

22. Dont let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
John R. Wooden

23. Life isnt about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
George Bernard Shaw

24. Not he who has much is rich, but he who gives much.
Erich Fromm

25. Spend eighty percent of your time focusing on the opportunities of tomorrow rather
than the problems of yesterday.
Brian Tracy

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26. If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
Abraham Maslow

27. Keep on going, and the chances are that you will stumble on something, perhaps
when you are least expecting it. I never heard of anyone ever stumbling on something
sitting down.
Charles F. Kettering

28. The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success.
Bruce Feirstein

29. Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the
person you believe you were meant to be.
George Sheehan

30. Never limit yourself because of others limited imagination; never limit others
because of your own limited imagination.
Mae Jemison

31. Whenever youre in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the
difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is
attitude.
William James

32. To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.
Mark Twain

33. 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, that is way great spiritual
giants are produced.
Swami Vivekananda

34. The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it
comes.
Benjamin Disraeli

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35. There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in
this world: those who are afraid to try and those who are afraid you will succeed.
Ray Goforth

36. Dont wait. The time will never be just right.

37. You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by
creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.
Clay P. Bedford

38. After every difficulty, ask yourself two questions: What did I do right? and What
would I do differently?
Brian Tracy

39. Dont brood. Get on with living and loving. You dont have forever.
Leo Buscaglia

40. Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.
Oprah Winfrey

41. Lifes real failure is when you do not realize how close you were to success when you
gave up.
Unknown

42. If youre going through hell, keep going.

43. Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, its always your
choice.
Wayne Dyer

44. 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

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45. In a moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing to do, the next
best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.
Theodore Roosevelt

46. Never idealize others. They will never live up to your expectations. Dont over-
analyze your relationships. Stop playing games. A growing relationship can only be
nurtured by genuineness.
Leo F. Buscaglia

47. For success, attitude is equally as important as ability.

48. Nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance. Talent will not; nothing is
more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded
genius is almost legendary. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Perseverance and determination alone are omnipotent.
Calvin Coolidge

49. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
Dalai Lama

50. Your work is discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.
Buddha

51. People who succeed have momentum. The more they succeed, the more they want to
succeed, and the more they find a way to succeed. Similarly, when someone is failing,
the tendency is to get on a downward spiral that can even become a self-fulfilling
prophecy.
Tony Robbins

52. Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.
Henry David Thoreau

53. You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people
than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.
Dale Carnegie

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54. Success is largely a matter of holding on after others have let go.
Unknown

55. Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then
you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life.
Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism.
David M. Burns

56. Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.
Arthur Ashe

57. Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They
make mistakes, but they dont quit.
Conrad Hilton

58. 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

59. Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do
that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
Mark Twain

60. Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.
George S. Patton

61. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.
Samuel Beckett

62. What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.

63. Dont 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

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64. Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.
Zig Ziglar

65. If you dont value your time, neither will others. Stop giving away your time and
talents. Value what you know and start charging for it.
Kim Garst

66. The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.
Bruce Lee

67. Some of the biggest challenges in relationships come from the fact that most people
enter a relationship in order to get something: theyre trying to find someone whos
going to make them feel good. In reality, the only way a relationship will last is if you
see your relationship as a place that you go to give, and not a place that you go to
take.
Anthony Robbins

68. Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at
all.
Peter Drucker

69. Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
Mahatma Gandhi

70. Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value.
Albert Einstein

71. Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.

72. The road to success is always under construction.

73. If people did not do silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

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74. Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you
the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.
Harriet Tubman

75. I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.
Thomas Jefferson

76. If you dont design your own life plan, chances are youll fall into someone elses
plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.
Jim Rohn

77. Procrastination is the fear of success. People procrastinate because they are afraid of
the success that they know will result if they move ahead now. Because success is
heavy, carries a responsibility with it, it is much easier to procrastinate and live on
the someday Ill philosophy.
Denis Waitley

78. Dont let the fear of losing be greater than the excitement of winning.
Robert Kiyosaki

79. Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you havent
planted.
David Bly

80. Success is focusing the full power of all you are on what you have a burning desire to
achieve.
Wilfred Peterson

81. Whenever you see a successful person, you only see the public glories, never the
private sacrifices to reach them.
Vaibhav Shah

82. For most of life, nothing wonderful happens. If you dont enjoy getting up and
working and finishing your work and sitting down to a meal with family or friends,
then the chances are youre not going to be very happy. If someone bases his/her
happiness on major events like a great job, huge amounts of money, a flawlessly
happy marriage or a trip to Paris, that person isnt going to be happy much of the
time.

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 If, on the other hand, happiness depends on a good breakfast, flowers in the yard, a
drink or a nap, then we are more likely to live with quite a bit of happiness.
Andy Rooney

83. Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day-in and day-out.
Robert Collier

84. Ive missed more than 9000 shots in my career. Ive lost almost 300 games. 26
times, Ive been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. Ive failed over
and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.
Michael Jordan

85. The best revenge is massive success.

86. Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go
in.
Napoleon Bonaparte

87. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didnt
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 sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Mark Twain

88. Success comes in cans; failure in cants.

89. Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for

90. Life will bring you pain all by itself. Your responsibility is to create joy.
Milton Erickson

91. The question isnt who is going to let me; its who is going to stop me.
Ayn Rand

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92. If A equals success, then the formula is A equals X plus Y and Z, with X being work,
Y play, and Z keeping your mouth shut.
Albert Einstein

93. If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, Id spend six hours sharpening my ax.
Abraham Lincoln

94. If you are not willing to risk the usual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.
Jim Rohn

95. The best way to succeed in this world is to act on the advice you give to others.
Unknown

96. Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
Winston Churchill

97. You dont have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

98. We become what we think about most of the time, and thats the strangest secret.
Earl Nightingale

99. Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that
dont really matter.
Francis Chan

100. A year from now you may wish you had started today.
Karen Lamb

101. To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the
affection of children to leave the world a better place to know even one life has
breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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