75 Motivational Success Quotes To Inspire In 2024 [Updated]

What is your definition of success? Does it mean being rich, famous, and influential, or just doing what you love and pursuing your potential? Whatever your answer, let’s face it—everyone wants to succeed in life. However, sometimes we lack the motivation to keep moving forward with our goals. In such situations, you can find inspiration in motivational quotes for success from famous people who are role models for many.

To help you stay motivated, we’ve compiled a list of the 50 best success quotes. We believe that at least one of them will spark your enthusiasm to keep chasing your dreams. So, let’s dive in!

What you will find in this article:

Motivational quotes for success

1. “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

2. “People think that at the top there isn’t much room. They tend to think of it as an Everest. My message is that there is tons of room at the top.” — Margaret Thatcher

3. “Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple, really: Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t at all. You can be discouraged by failure or you can learn from it, so go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because remember that’s where you will find success.“ — Thomas J. Watson

4. “Success is blocked by concentrating on it and planning for it… Success is shy—it won’t come out while you’re watching.” — Tennessee Williams

5. “Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.” ― H. Jackson Brown Jr.

6. “Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come.” — Dwayne Johnson

7. “The fishing is best where the fewest go and the collective insecurity of the world makes it easy for people to hit home runs while everyone is aiming for base hits.” — Tim Ferriss

8. “I know of no single formula for success. But over the years I have observed that some attributes of leadership are universal and are often about finding ways of encouraging people to combine their efforts, their talents, their insights, their enthusiasm and their inspiration to work together.” — Queen Elizabeth II

9. “Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it.” ― Viktor E. Frankl

Ever wondered what truly drives you? Find out more about different types of motivation in our article Intrinsic vs Extrinsic Motivation: Differences & Examples.

Famous quotes about success

10. “The secret of success is to do the common thing uncommonly well.” — John D. Rockefeller

11. “My powers are ordinary. Only my application brings me success.” — Isaac Newton

12. “Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.” — Bill Gates

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

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

15. “80% of success is showing up.” — Woody Allen

16. “If you can dream it, you can do it.” — Walt Disney

17. “Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.” — Dale Carnegie

Inspirational quotes for success in life

18. “Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.” — Bruce Lee

19. “Don’t settle for average. Bring your best to the moment. Then, whether it fails or succeeds, at least you know you gave all you had. We need to live the best that’s in us.“ — Angela Bassett

20. “Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” — Albert Einstein

21. “The adventure of life is to learn. The purpose of life is to grow. The nature of life is to change. The challenge of life is to overcome. The essence of life is to care. The opportunity of life is to serve. The secret of life is to dare. The spice of life is to befriend. The beauty of life is to give.” ― William Arthur Ward

22. “Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt

23. “You are a product of your environment. So choose the environment that will best develop you toward your objective. Analyze your life in terms of its environment. Are the things around you helping you toward success – or are they holding you back?” — W. Clement Stone

24. “If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.” — Maya Angelou

25. “You never know what’s around the corner. It could be everything. Or it could be nothing. You keep putting one foot in front of the other, and then one day you look back and you’ve climbed a mountain.“ — Tom Hiddleston

26. “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

27. “You are loved just for being who you are, just for existing. You don’t have to do anything to earn it. Your shortcomings, your lack of self-esteem, physical perfection, or social and economic success – none of that matters. No one can take this love away from you, and it will always be here.” — Ram Dass

28. “The most glorious moments in your life are not the so-called days of success, but rather those days when out of dejection and despair you feel rise in you a challenge to life, and the promise of future accomplishments.” — Gustave Flaubert

Motivational quotes for work success

29. “If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success.” — James Cameron

30. “Forward, as occasion offers. Never look round to see whether any shall note it… Be satisfied with success in even the smallest matter, and think that even such a result is no trifle.” — Marcus Aurelius

31. “Success isn’t about the end result, it’s about what you learn along the way.” — Vera Wang

32. “Never continue in a job you don’t enjoy. If you’re happy in what you’re doing, you’ll like yourself, you’ll have inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you will have had more success than you could possibly have imagined.” — Johnny Carson

33. “One of the rewards of success is freedom, the ability to do whatever you like.” — Sting

34. “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” — Thomas Edison

35. “The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don’t define them, or ever seriously consider them as believable or achievable. Winners can tell you where they are going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will be sharing the adventure with them.” — Denis Waitley

36.. “When you do more than you’re paid for, eventually you’ll be paid for more than you do.” — Zig Ziglar

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Positive quotes about success for students

37. “Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So, throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.“ — Mark Twain

38. “Have regular hours for work and play; make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well. Then youth will be delightful, old age will bring few regrets, and life will become a beautiful success.” — Louisa May Alcott

39. “Dreams are lovely. But they are dreams. Fleeting, ephemeral, pretty. But dreams do not come true just because you dream them. It’s hard work that makes things happen. It’s hard work that creates change.“ — Shonda Rhimes

40. “People tell you the world looks a certain way. Parents tell you how to think. Schools tell you how to think. TV. Religion. And then at a certain point, if you’re lucky, you realize you can make up your own mind. Nobody sets the rules but you. You can design your own life.” — Carrie Ann Moss

41. “The greatest sign of success for a teacher… is to be able to say, ‘The children are now working as if I did not exist.’ — Maria Montessori

42. “One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don’t throw it away.” ― Stephen Hawking

43. “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” — Confucius

44. “There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.” — Martha Graham

45. “We learned about gratitude and humility – that so many people had a hand in our success, from the teachers who inspired us to the janitors who kept our school clean… and we were taught to value everyone’s contribution and treat everyone with respect.” — Michelle Obama

Short success quotes

46. “Failure is success if we learn from it.” — Malcolm Forbes

47. “The starting point of all achievement is desire.” — Napoleon Hill

48. “The best way to predict your future is to create it.” — Abraham Lincoln

49. “For success, attitude is equally as important as ability.” — Walter Scott

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

51. “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” — Winston Churchill

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

53. “In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.” — Sun Tzu

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

55. “To be prepared is half the victory.” — Miguel de Cervantes

Powerful success quotes for business

56. “An empowered organization is one in which individuals have the knowledge, skill, desire, and opportunity to personally succeed in a way that leads to collective organizational success.” — Stephen Covey

57. “We need to accept that we won’t always make the right decisions, that we’ll screw up royally sometimes — understanding that failure is not the opposite of success, it’s part of success.” — Arianna Huffington

58. “In a world that’s changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.” — Mark Zuckerberg

59. “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On!’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” — Calvin Coolidge

60. “Overcoming fear is the first step to success for entrepreneurs. The winners all exemplify that, and the hard work and commitment they have shown underlines what is needed to set up a business.” — Richard Branson

61. “I always did something I was a little not ready to do. I think that’s how you grow. When there’s that moment of ‘Wow, I’m not really sure I can do this’ and you push through those moments, that’s when you have a breakthrough.” ― Marissa Mayer

62. “More than half of people who leave their jobs do so because of their relationship with their boss. Smart companies make certain their managers know how to balance being professional with being human. These are the bosses who celebrate an employee’s success, empathize with those going through hard times, and challenge people, even when it hurts.” — Travis Bradberry

63. “Don’t run before you can crawl. It’s a very hard business, full of many, many extremely creative, talented people who work hard and still fail. If you have the basic building blocks behind you, you’re much more likely to do well.” — Anna Wintour

64. “If you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money. But if you hire people who believe what you believe, they’ll work for you with blood and sweat and tears.” ― Simon Sinek

65. “If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.” — Henry Ford

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Inspirational quotes about success and achievement

66. “If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.

67. “As much as I would really like to have saved myself heartache, embarrassment or gossip, I also know that my biggest mistakes have turned into my best lessons. And sometimes my greatest career triumphs. If my life had been turbulence-free, maybe my music would be beige, maybe the stadiums wouldn’t be full and the mantle would be a little more empty.” — Taylor Swift

68. “The only thing standing between you and your goal is the story you keep telling yourself as to why you can’t achieve it.” — Jordan Belfort

69. “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.” — Swami Vivekananda

70. “The scariest moment is always just before you start.” — Stephen King

71. “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 which has been opened for us.” ― Helen Keller

72. “Whenever I’ve had success, I never learn from it. Success usually breeds a degree of hubris. When you fail, that’s when you learn.” — Moby

73. “Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.” — Oprah Winfrey

74. “I happen to believe the world will change only when we change ourselves. And that starts with finding ourselves: learning to quiet the clamor in our minds and the voices of everyone around us and move toward what feels right toward the things we know, for reasons we can’t explain, that we’re mean to do, the things that makes us feel alive.” — Kelly Cutrone

75. “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. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” — Steve Jobs

What are the best quotes for success?

The best success quotes are those that give you inspiration and make you believe in achieving anything you dream of. Many of the quotes on our list have a common idea: it all depends on you and your perseverance. So, keep moving forward, and don’t compare yourself to anyone but the you of today to the you of yesterday. Remember that every step you take towards your goal is your path to success.