Inspirational and Motivational Quotes for Success
Inspirational and Motivational Quotes for all Occasions.
Inspiring Quotes can be invaluable in speeches, presentations, reports, team emails and any occasion that requires you to be inspiring or motivational. Below is our list of the best quotes by various categories:
- Inspirational Leadership Quotes
- Funny Leadership Quotes
- Motivational Quotes
- Quotes About Leaders
- Quotes About Teamwork
- Quotes about Change
- Quotes about Business
- Quotes for Students
- Quotes for Entrepreneurs
- Sports Leadership Quotes
- Military Leadership Quotes
- Political Leadership Quotes
- Quotes about Service and Leadership
- Everyone is a Leader Quote
- Leadership Quotes from Chinese Philosophy
Inspirational Leadership Quotes
“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” —Henry Ford
“If you want to achieve greatness stop asking for permission.” – Anonymous
“Energy and persistence conquer all things.” – Benjamin Franklin
“Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.” – Dale Carnegie
“Technology is nothing. What’s important is that you have a faith in people, that they’re basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they’ll do wonderful things with them.” – Steve Jobs
“My philosophy has always been, if you can put staff first, your customer second and shareholders third, effectively, in the end, the shareholders do well, the customers do better, and you’re happy.” – Richard Branson
“True leadership stems from individuality that is honestly and sometimes imperfectly expressed…Leaders should strive for authenticity over perfection.” – Sheryl Sandberg
“What I have learned is that people become motivated when you guide them to the source of their own power and when you make heroes out of employees who personify what you want to see in the organization.” – Anita Roddick
“It’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.” – Warren Buffett
“From my very first day as an entrepreneur, I’ve felt the only mission worth pursuing in business is to make people’s lives better.” – Richard Branson
“People do not care how much you know until they know how much you care.” – John C. Maxwell
“You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you” – Walt Disney
“The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.” – Warren Buffett
“It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.” – Steve Jobs
“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.”
– Henry Ford
Funny Leadership Quotes
“I’m a leader, not a follower. Unless it’s a dark place, then you are going first.” – Unknown
“The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone to blame it on.” – Robert Bloch
“Leadership involves finding a parade and getting in front of it.” – John Naisbitt
“Success in almost any field depends more on energy and drive than it does on intelligence. This explains why we have so many stupid leaders.” – Sloan Wilson
“There go my people. I must find out where they are going so I can lead them.” – Alexandre Ledru-Rollin
“Would I rather be feared or loved? Easy. Both. I want people to be afraid of how much they love me.” – Michael Scott, The Office
“In my country, we go to prison first and then become President.” – Nelson Mandela
“Always drink upstream from the herd.” – Will Rogers
“The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from those who are still undecided.” – Casey Stengel
“If you make people think they’re thinking, they’ll love you. If you really make them think, they’ll hate you.” – Don Marquis
“Delegating work works provided the one delegating works, too.” – Robert Half
“Life is like a dogsled team. If you ain’t the lead dog, the scenery never changes.” – Lewis Grizzard
“Don’t waste your energy trying to educate or change opinions; go over, under, through, and opinions will change organically when you’re the boss. Or they won’t.” – Tina Fey
“First rule of leadership: everything is your fault.” – A Bug’s Life
“What Washington needs is adult supervision.” – Barack Obama
“It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it… anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.” – Douglas Adams
“With great power comes great electricity bill.” – Unknown
“Delegating work works provided the one delegating works, too.”
– Robert Half
Motivational Quotes
“I didn’t get there by wishing for it or hoping for it, but by working for it.” – Estée Lauder
“How dare you settle for less when the world has made it so easy for you to be remarkable?” – Seth Godin
“Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later.” – Og Mandino
“Good, better, best. Never let it rest. ‘Til your good is better and your better is best.” – St. Jerome
“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.” – Helen Keller
“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing — that’s why we recommend it daily.” – Zig Ziglar
“Everyone lives by selling something.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
“Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new.” – Brian Tracy
“If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.” – Napoleon Hill
“Without a customer, you don’t have a business — all you have is a hobby.” – Don Peppers
“Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.” – Joshua J. Marine
“Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, ‘Make me feel important.’ Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life.” – Mary Kay Ash
“Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.” – Andy Warhol
“Don’t let the fear of losing be greater than the excitement of winning.” – Robert Kiyosaki
“Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender; it’s holy ground. There’s no greater investment.” – Stephen Covey
“Without hustle, talent will only carry you so far.” – Gary Vaynerchuk
“Everyone lives by selling something.”
– Robert Louis Stevenson
Quotes About Leadership
“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way.” – John C. Maxwell
“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want to be done because he wants to do it.” – Dwight Eisenhower
“The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.” – Ray Kroc
“Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.” -George Eliot
“The challenge of leadership is to be strong but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not a bully; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor but without folly.” – Jim Rohn
“Management is nothing more than motivating other people” – Lee Iacocca
“Management is about arranging and telling. Leadership is about nurturing and enhancing.” – Tom Peters
“People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything.” – Thomas Sowell
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” – Warren Buffett
“Divide and rule, a sound motto. Unite and lead, a better one.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“The old adage ‘people are our greatest asset’ is wrong; ‘the right people are your greatest asset’ is more accurate.” – Jim Collins
“Hire character. Train skill.” – Peter Schutz
“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want to be done because he wants to do it.”
– Dwight Eisenhower
Quotes About Leadership and Teamwork
“Great things in business are never done by one person; they’re done by a team of people.” – Steve Jobs
“My job is not to be easy on people. My job is to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better.” – Steve Jobs
“Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success.” – Henry Ford
“It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed.” – Napolean Hill
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” – Helen Keller
“If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.” – Booker T. Washington
“Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than the one where they sprang up.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes
“If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.” – Henry Ford
“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.” – Michael Jordan
“Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.” – Andrew Carnegie
“Great things in business are never done by one person; they’re done by a team of people.”
– Steve Jobs
Quotes about Leadership and Change
“Change before you have to.” – Jack Welch
“Our only security is our ability to change.” – John Lilly
“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence – it is to act with yesterday’s logic.” – Peter Drucker
“The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress.” – Charles Kettering
“If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.” – Jim Rohn
“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do.” – Amelia Earhart
“Change your thoughts and you change your world.” – Norman Vincent Peale
“Next to doing the right thing, the most important thing is to let people know you are doing the right thing.” – John D. Rockefeller
“The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails.” – John Maxwell
“People don’t resist change. They resist being changed!” – Peter Senge
“Trust because you are willing to accept the risk, not because it’s safe or certain.” – Anonymous
“Change before you have to.”
– Jack Welch
Business Leadership Quotes
“Before you become a leader, success is all about growing yourself. After you become a leader, success is about growing others.” – Jack Welch
“It is not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results.” – Warren Buffett
“If we win the hearts and minds of employees, we’re going to have better business success.” – Mary Barra,
“Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish.” Sam Walton
“Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.” – Stephen R. Covey
“No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it.” – Andrew Carnegie
“Outstanding people have one thing in common: An absolute sense of mission.” – Zig Ziglar
“Waiting for perfect is never as smart as making progress.” – Seth Godin
“People trust people more than they trust institutions.” – Joe Chernov
“Every worthwhile accomplishment, big or little, has its stages of drudgery and triumph: a beginning, a struggle and a victory.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“Good things come to people who wait, but better things come to those who go out and get them.” – Anonymous
“No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it.”
– Andrew Carnegie
Leadership Quotes for Students
“Education is the most powerful weapon, which you can use to change the world.” – Nelson Mandela
“Just when the caterpillar thought the world was ending, she turned into a butterfly.” – Proverb
“Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.” – John Wooden
“Successful and unsuccessful people do not vary greatly in their abilities. They vary in their desires to reach their potential.” – John Maxwell
“He who cannot be a good follower cannot be a good leader.” – Aristotle
“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” – Thomas A. Edison
“If there is no wind, row.” – Latin Proverb
“To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.” – Anonymous
“Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.” – Albert Schweitzer
“The secret of success is to do the common things uncommonly well.” – John D. Rockefeller
“There is no substitute for hard work.” – Thomas Edison
“Life is not always a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes playing a poor hand well.” – Jack London
“Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.” – Henry Ford
“Education is the most powerful weapon, which you can use to change the world.”
– Nelson Mandela
Quotes for Entrepreneurs
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas A. Edison
“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.” – Henry Ford
“Successful entrepreneurs are givers and not takers of positive energy.” – Anonymous
“Opportunities don’t happen, you create them.” – Chris Grosser
“Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard.” – Guy Kawasaki
“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
“Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.” – Japanese Proverb
“If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.” – Reid Hoffman, CEO LinkedIn
“You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing and falling over.” –Richard Branson, Founder Virgin
“I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying.” – Jeff Bezos, CEO Amazon
“Ideas are commodity. Execution of them is not.” – Michael Dell, CEO Dell
“The secret to successful hiring is this: look for the people who want to change the world.” – Marc Benioff, CEO Salesforce
“Chase the vision, not the money; the money will end up following you.” – Tony Hsieh, CEO Zappos
“You shouldn’t focus on why you can’t do something, which is what most people do. You should focus on why perhaps you can, and be one of the exceptions.” – Steve Case, Co-Founder, AOL
“Don’t worry about failure; you only have to be right once.” – Drew Houston, CEO Dropbox
“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.”
– Henry Ford
Sports Leadership Quotes
“If you fail to prepare, you’re prepared to fail.” – Mark Spitz
“I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” – Wayne Gretzy
“Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal or any goal.” – Vince Lombardi
“Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.” – Babe Ruth
“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six 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
“Some people say I have attitude – maybe I do…but I think you have to. You have to believe in yourself when no one else does – that makes you a winner right there. ” – Venus Williams
“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
“Always make a total effort, even when the odds are against you.” – Arnold Palmer
“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
“Champions keep playing until they get it right.” – Billie Jean King
“If you don’t have confidence, you’ll always find a way not to win.” – Carl Lewis
“You’ve got to take the initiative and play your game. In a decisive set, confidence is the difference.” – Chris Evert
“You just can’t beat the person who never gives up.” – Babe Ruth
“You can’t put a limit on anything. The more you dream, the farther you get.” – Michael Phelps
“It is not the size of a man but the size of his heart that matters.” – Evander Holyfield
“It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up.” – Vince Lombardi
“If you fail to prepare, you’re prepared to fail.”
– Mark Spitz
Military Leadership Quotes
“A man does not have himself killed for a half-pence a day or for a petty distinction. You must speak to the soul in order to electrify him.” – Napoleon Bonaparte
“Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.” – George S. Patton
“The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.” – General Dwight D. Eisenhower
“Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul.” – Douglas MacArthur
“We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.” – Omar Bradley
“Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.” – Colin Powell
“It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience.” – Julius Caesar
“In every battle, there comes a time when both sides consider themselves beaten; then he who continues the attack wins.” – General Ulysses S. Grant
“Never give an order that can’t be obeyed.” – General Douglas MacArthur
“If you are going to win any battle, you have to do one thing. You have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do… the body is never tired if the mind is not tired.” – General George S. Patton Jr.
“It is well that war is so terrible, else we should grow too fond of it.” – General Robert E. Lee
“The most important thing I learned is that soldiers watch what their leaders do. You can give them classes and lecture them forever, but it is your personal example they will follow.” – General Colin Powell
“PowerPoint makes us stupid.” – General James Mattis
“Never give an order that can’t be obeyed.”
– Douglas MacArthur
Political Leadership Quotes
“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” – Winston Churchill
“A leader is a dealer in hope.” -Napoleon Bonaparte
“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” – Solomon in Proverbs
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” – John Quincy Adams
“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” – Winston Churchill
” I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.” – Thomas Jefferson
“We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat; they do not exist.” – Queen Victoria
“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill
“When you can’t make them see the light, make them feel the heat.” – Ronald Reagan
“It is a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead — and find no one there.” – Franklin Roosevelt
“The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes.” – Tony Blair
“Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t!” – Margaret Thatcher
“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” – John F. Kennedy
“You can build a throne with bayonets, but you can’t sit on it for long.” – Boris Yeltsin
“Whatever is begun in anger, ends in shame.” – Benjamin Franklin
“If you want to make enemies, try to change something.” – Woodrow Wilson
“Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill
“The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” – Theodore Roosevelt
“The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.” Ronald Reagan
“I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles, but today it means getting along with people.” – Mohandas K. Ghandi
“Do you know that one of the great problems of our age is that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than they do about thoughts and ideas?” – Margaret Thatcher
“Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.” – Winston Churchill
“All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: It was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This and not much else is the essence of leadership.” – John Kenneth Galbraith
” I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.”
– Thomas Jefferson
Quotes about Service and Leadership
“Organizations exist to serve. Period. Leaders live to serve. Period.” – Tom Peters
“Ultimately, a leader is not judged so much by how well he or she leads, but by how well he or she serves.” – Kevin Cashman
“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better.” – Jim Rohn
“Servant-leadership is all about making the goals clear and then rolling your sleeves up and doing whatever it takes to help people win. In that situation, they don’t work for you, you work for them.” – Ken Blanchard,
“Not everybody can be famous. But everybody can be great because greatness is determined by service” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Good leaders must first become good servants.” – Robert K. Greenleaf
“The single biggest way to impact an organization is to focus on leadership development. There is almost no limit to the potential of an organization that recruits good people, raises them up as leaders and continually develops them.” – John Maxwell
“Servant-leadership is more than a concept, it is a fact. Any great leader, by which I also mean an ethical leader of any group, will see herself or himself as a servant of that group and will act accordingly.” – M. Scott Peck
“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Everyone is a Leader Quote
“Leadership is the challenge to be something more than average.” – Jim Rohn
“Become the kind of leader that other people would follow voluntarily; even if you had no title or position.” – Brian Tracy
“Leadership is solving problems.” – Colin Powell
“Ninety percent of leadership is the ability to communicate something people want.” – Dianne Feinstein
“Leadership is not about a title or a designation. It’s about impact, influence, and inspiration.” – Robin S. Sharma
“Leadership is the challenge to be something more than average.”
– Jim Rohn
Leadership Quotes from Chinese Philosophy
“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” – Confucius
“A leader is best when people barely know he exists when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.” – Lao Tzu
“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” – Confucius
“Leadership has been defined as the ability to hide your panic from others.” – Lao Tzu
“Revolutions always mean the breakdown of old authority.” – Hu Shih
“Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.” – Confucius
“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.” – Lao Tzu
“If you make a mistake and do not correct it, this is called a mistake.” – Confucius
“A ruler makes use of the majority and neglects the minority, and so he does not devote himself to virtue but to law.” – Han Fei
“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.”
– Lao Tzu
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“Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal or any goal.”
– Vince Lombardi
Image Credit: Image by Kishan Ghaley from Pixabay photos/mug-quotes-text-phrase-word-2667959/
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