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80+ Short Inspirational Quotes for Motivation

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By Nick Hall - Entertainment

Published: 2 June 2023, Last Updated: 15 July 2024

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Inspirational quotes and motivational sayings have a way of bringing us up when we’re at our lowest. The power of positive speech can help to remind us of the important parts of life. Whether it’s short inspirational quotes about life, a framework for success or simply the quote of the day, taking a few minutes out to reflect is critical to staying in-tune with your body and on top of your mental health. In fact, inspirational affirmations have become common practice in psychology and intra-personal development. Scholars, musicians, philosophers and celebrities have put their thoughts on the line and we could learn a thing or two from their success. But there’s more to motivation than simply a good quote. Like any affirmation, you need to know what you’re looking for and where to find it. If you’re ready for some inspiration, strap in. Here is a list of short inspirational quotes and motivational sayings to help you on your life’s journey.

Inspirational Quotes

1. Every strike brings me closer to the next home run. – Babe Ruth
2. I don’t walk away from things I think are unfinished. – Arnold Schwarzenegger
3. Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right. –Henry Ford
4. I’ve missed more than 9000 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
5. I didn’t fail the test. I just found 100 ways to do it wrong. –Benjamin Franklin
6. A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. – Albert Einstein
7. It is never too late to be what you might have been. –George Eliot
8. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do, so throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails.  Explore, Dream, Discover. –Mark Twain
9. The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any. –Alice Walker
10. The mind is everything. What you think you become.  –Buddha
11. Either you run the day, or the day runs you. –Jim Rohn
12. Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage. –Anais Nin
13. You can’t fall if you don’t climb.  But there’s no joy in living your whole life on the ground. –Unknown
14. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained. –Marie Curie
15. Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears. –Les Brown
16. Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful. –Joshua J. Marine
17. If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else. –Booker T. Washington
18. I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do. –Leonardo da Vinci
19. Limitations live only in our minds.  But if we use our imaginations, our possibilities become limitless. –Jamie Paolinetti
20. You become what you believe. –Oprah Winfrey
21. A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty. –Unknown

Motivational Quotes

1. The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why. – Mark Twain
2. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. –Wayne Gretzky
3. People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing.  That’s why we recommend it daily. –Zig Ziglar
4. There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing. –Aristotle
5. Believe you can and you’re halfway there. –Theodore Roosevelt
6. Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear. –George Addair
7. Definiteness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement. –W. Clement Stone
8. 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
9. Ask and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you. –Jesus
10. If the wind will not serve, take to the oars. –Latin Proverb
11. Dream big and dare to fail. –Norman Vaughan
12. Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. –Martin Luther King Jr.
13. You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try. –Beverly Sills

Life Quotes

1. Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.  –Robert Frost
2. Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
3. Every child is an artist.  The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. –Pablo Picasso
4. We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. –Plato
5. Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. –Charles Swindoll
6. An unexamined life is not worth living. –Socrates
7. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. –Steve Jobs
8. I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. –Maya Angelou
9. Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him.  –Booker T. Washington
10. Certain things catch your eye, but pursue only those that capture the heart. – Ancient Indian Proverb
11. Start where you are. Use what you have.  Do what you can. –Arthur Ashe
12. When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, I used everything you gave me. –Erma Bombeck
13. How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. –Anne Frank
14. When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. –Lao Tzu
15. Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. –Maya Angelou
16. Happiness is not something readymade.  It comes from your own actions. –Dalai Lama
17. In order to write about life first you must live it.– Ernest Hemingway
18. The big lesson in life, baby, is never be scared of anyone or anything.– Frank Sinatra
19. You take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing, no one to blame. –Erica Jong

Positive Quotes

1. The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. –Amelia Earhart
2. The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be. –Ralph Waldo Emerson
3. Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.  Live the life you have imagined. –Henry David Thoreau
4. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. –Chinese Proverb
5. When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us. –Helen Keller
6. Everything has beauty, but not everyone can see. –Confucius
7. You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. — Mae West
8. Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.– Thomas A. Edison
9. If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.– Albert Einstein
10. Money and success don’t change people; they merely amplify what is already there. — Will Smith
11. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. – Steve Jobs
12. Not how long, but how well you have lived is the main thing. — Seneca
13. If life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavour. – Eleanor Roosevelt

Strength Quotes

1. The best revenge is massive success. –Frank Sinatra
2. The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person who is doing it. –Chinese Proverb
3. Fall seven times and stand up eight. –Japanese Proverb
4. Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.– Babe Ruth
5. You can’t use up creativity.  The more you use, the more you have. –Maya Angelou

Success Quotes

1. I would rather die of passion than of boredom. –Vincent van Gogh
2. Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. –Napoleon Hill
3. Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value. –Albert Einstein
4. What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do. –Bob Dylan
5. I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse. –Florence Nightingale
6. There are no traffic jams along the extra mile. –Roger Staubach
7. Teach thy tongue to say, “I do not know,” and thous shalt progress. –Maimonides
8. We become what we think about. –Earl Nightingale
9. Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is. –Vince Lombardi
10. I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions. –Stephen Covey
11. If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat! Just get on. –Sheryl Sandberg
12. The whole secret of a successful life is to find out what is one’s destiny to do, and then do it.– Henry Ford

80+ Best Short Inspirational Quotes and Motivational Sayings

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