Success.

We all want it in some way.

In school or in our careers. In relationships with our children, partner, friends, someone we just started seeing and with ourselves. With our mental and physical health.

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

Today I’d like to share timeless advice from the people who walked this earth before us (and from some who are still here).

This is 115 thought-provoking, useful, sometimes funny and always motivating quotes on success.

And if you want more inspirational quotes like these check out this collection of quotes on having a growth mindset and this one filled with quotes on moving forward in life.

115 Motivational Quotes on Success

“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

“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

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

“Success is simple. Do what’s right, the right way, at the right time.”
– Arnold H. Glasgow

“Victory is sweetest when you’ve known defeat.”
– Malcolm S. Forbes

“Action is the foundational key to all success.”
– Pablo Picasso

“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

“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

“You’ve got to get up every morning with determination if you’re going to go to bed with satisfaction.”
– George Lorimer

“Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.”
– Winston Churchill

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

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

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

“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

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

“I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse.”
– Florence Nightingale

“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

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

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

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

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

“Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”
– John R. Wooden

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
– George Bernard Shaw

“Not he who has much is rich, but he who gives much.”
– Erich Fromm

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

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

“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

“The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success.”
– Bruce Feirstein

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

“Never limit yourself because of others’ limited imagination; never limit others because of your own limited imagination.”
– Mae Jemison

“Whenever you’re 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

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

“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

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

“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

“Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.”
– Napoleon Hill

“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

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

“Don’t brood. Get on with living and loving. You don’t have forever.”
– Leo Buscaglia

“Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.”
– Oprah Winfrey

“Life’s real failure is when you do not realize how close you were to success when you gave up.”
– Unknown

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
– Winston Churchill

“Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.”
– Wayne Dyer

“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

“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

“Never idealize others. They will never live up to your expectations. Don’t over-analyze your relationships. Stop playing games. A growing relationship can only be nurtured by genuineness. “
– Leo F. Buscaglia

“For success, attitude is equally as important as ability.”
– Harry F. Banks

“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

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

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

“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

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

“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

“Success is largely a matter of holding on after others have let go.”
– Unknown

“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

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”
– Arthur Ashe

“Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit.”
– Conrad Hilton

“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

“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

“Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.”
– George S. Patton

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”
– Samuel Beckett

“What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.”
– Oscar Wilde

“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

“Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.”
– Zig Ziglar

“If you don’t value your time, neither will others. Stop giving away your time and talents. Value what you know and start charging for it.”
– Kim Garst

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

“Some of the biggest challenges in relationships come from the fact that most people enter a relationship in order to get something: they’re trying to find someone who’s 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

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

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
– Mahatma Gandhi

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

“Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.”
– Alexander Graham Bell

“The road to success is always under construction.”
– Lily Tomlin

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

“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

“I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.”
– Thomas Jefferson

“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

“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 I’ll’ philosophy.”
– Denis Waitley

“Don’t let the fear of losing be greater than the excitement of winning.”
– Robert Kiyosaki

“Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you haven’t planted.”
– David Bly

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

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

“For most of life, nothing wonderful happens. If you don’t enjoy getting up and working and finishing your work and sitting down to a meal with family or friends, then the chances are you’re 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 isn’t going to be happy much of the time.
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

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

“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

“The best revenge is massive success.”
– Frank Sinatra

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

“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 the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
– Mark Twain

“Success comes in cans; failure in can’ts.”
– Unknown

“Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.”
– Napoleon Hill

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

“The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.”
– Ayn Rand

“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

“If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six hours sharpening my ax.”
– Abraham Lincoln

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

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

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

“You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

“We become what we think about most of the time, and that’s the strangest secret.”
– Earl Nightingale

“Our greatest fear should not be of failure … but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.”
– Francis Chan

“A year from now you may wish you had started today.”
– Karen Lamb

“If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.”
– Henry Ford

“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.”
– Steve Jobs

“All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me… 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

“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.”
– Herman Melville

“Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.”
– Albert Einstein

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”
– Helen Keller

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.”
– Nelson Mandela

“Success is often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable.”
Coco Chanel

“For our own success to be real, it must contribute to the success of others.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt

“I never dreamed about success. I worked for it.”
Estee Lauder

“Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.”
– Maya Angelou

“Singleness of purpose is one of the chief essentials for success in life, no matter what may be one’s aim.”
– John D. Rockefeller

“What is success? It is being able to go to bed each night with your soul at peace.”
– Paulo Coelho

“There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.”
– Colin Powell

“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

What is your favorite success quotes? Feel free to share the best one(s) you have found in this article or in your life in the comments section below.

“Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement.”
C. S. Lewis

“I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.”
Michael Jordan

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

Oftentimes things go OK or even better than that.

But on some days they don’t.

You make a mistake, have setback or you simply fail. It’s no fun. But you can’t avoid it either unless you avoid doing anything at all.

So what’s needed is a smart and self-kind way to handle such situations instead of letting them lead to vicious self-beatings and to them dragging you down into negativity for the day or month.

[continue reading…]

It starts with just a few words coming out of someone else’s mouth.

But as they pour out you may start to feel stupid or perhaps rejected and like you’re getting smaller.

Being criticized can be a tough thing to handle (even though it sometimes can be very useful to help you grow or improve something you do).

So this week I’d like to share 60 of my favorite timeless thoughts from the past 2500 years about how to not only receive criticism but also what to think about once or twice before deciding to give it.

[continue reading…]

“How soon ‘not now’ becomes ‘never’.”
Martin Luther

When I was younger, in my early twenties, I was often lazy.

Too often actually.

And so I didn’t:

• Get my school work done in a good way and had to cram and stress out a few days before an exam.
• Work out or cook healthy food because it felt too hard and I gained 30+ pounds of weight while my fitness levels went down.
• Take care of my personal growth and dreams but mostly just let all that slide to “someday” as those things remained daydreams.

10+ years later I still love lazying around and not doing much at all.

But I’ve also learned how to keep that lazy time to a moderate and healthy amount instead of letting it hold me back and stuck in the same place of excuses for years like it used to.

Bonus: Download a free step-by-step checklist that will show you how to stop being so lazy (including 2 bonus steps that are not in this post). It’s easy to save as a PDF or print out for whenever you need it during your day or week.

[continue reading…]

In this post I’d like to share the best friendship quotes I’ve found in the past 10+ years.

Because few things have such a huge impact on happiness and the enjoyment, depth and plain fun of life as the friendships we have.

It could be the friendships with our partners, family members, co-workers and the people we have known for a few years now or since we were kids.

Or even with people we have never even met at the other side of the world or the pets we love.

So I’d like to start this year by looking back and share some of the best advice on this topic from the people who have walked this earth over the past hundreds and thousands of years.

This is 172 thought-provoking, beautiful, sometimes poignant and sometimes funny quotes on friendship.

And if you want even more inspiration then I’d recommend this collection of quotes on self-care and this one filled with quotes on never giving up. [continue reading…]