Kids love quotes, so what better way to motivate them than with these wise words about success? We selected quotes from talented writers, musicians, actors, scientists, philosophers, and world leaders. You’ll find quotes from modern times as well as those that still apply despite being centuries old. Begin your next class with one of these quotes about success to start your students’ day off on the right foot!
Quotes About Success by Writers
Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work. – Stephen King
You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That’s why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence. – Octavia E. Butler
Focus more on your desire than on your doubt, and the dream will take care of itself. – Mark Twain
We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down. – Kurt Vonnegut
I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re doing something. – Neil Gaiman
The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any. – Alice Walker
How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. – Anne Frank
Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it’s the only way you can do anything really good. – William Faulkner
It is never too late to be what you might have been. – George Eliot
A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit. – Richard Bach
Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens. Most of my friends who are put on that diet have very pleasant careers. – Ray Bradbury
Quotes About Success by Entrepreneurs
When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it. – Henry Ford
The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing. – Walt Disney
I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. – Thomas Edison
Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great. – John D. Rockefeller
The best customer service is if the customer doesn’t need to call you, doesn’t need to talk to you. It just works. – Jeff Bezos
In a world that’s changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks. – Mark Zuckerberg
All humans are entrepreneurs, not because they should start companies, but because the will to create is encoded in human DNA, and creation is the essence of entrepreneurship. – Reid Hoffman
Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you. – Oprah Winfrey
An idea can only become a reality once it is broken down into organized, actionable elements. – Scott Belsky
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
As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others. – Bill Gates
Quotes About Success by Athletes
Don’t be afraid of failure. This is the way to succeed. – LeBron James
You must not only have competitiveness but ability, regardless of the circumstance you face, to never quit. – Abby Wambach
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
It doesn’t matter what you’re trying to accomplish. It’s all a matter of discipline. – Wilma Rudolph
It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up. – Babe Ruth
Never say never because limits, like fears, are often just an illusion. – Michael Jordan
It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up. – Vince Lombardi
The more difficult the victory, the greater the happiness in winning. – Pele
You can’t put a limit on anything. The more you dream, the further you get. – Michael Phelps
I never worry about the problem. I worry about the solution. – Shaquille O’Neal
Quotes About Success by Astronauts
Your mind is like a parachute: If it isn’t open, it doesn’t work. – Buzz Aldrin
We are more fulfilled when we are involved in something bigger than ourselves. – John Glenn
Greatness can be captured in one word: lifestyle. Life is God’s gift to you, style is what you make of it. – Mae Jemison
That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind. – Neil Armstrong
Almost everything worthwhile carries with it some sort of risk. – Chris Hadfield
Be thankful for problems. If they were less difficult, someone with less ability might have your job. – Jim Lovell
Never limit yourself because of others’ limited imagination; never limit others because of your own limited imagination. – Mae Jemison
If we adopt the same collaborative mindset and practices that got to the moon and back, and that built the International Space Station, we can alleviate poverty—and do much more. –
There are great ideas undiscovered, breakthroughs available to those who can remove one of truth’s protective layers. There are places to go beyond belief. – Neil Armstrong
All adventures, especially into new territory, are scary. – Sally Ride
Quotes About Success by World Leaders
Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understand the problems of running a country. – Margaret Thatcher
The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it. – Theodore Roosevelt
If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause and say, “here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done. – Dwight D. Eisenhower
To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace. – George Washington
Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. – John F. Kennedy
It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership. – Nelson Mandela
Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential. – Barack Obama
Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better. – Harry S. Truman
Quotes About Success by Actors
Life is very interesting … in the end, some of your greatest pains become your greatest strengths. – Drew Barrymore
If you risk nothing, then you risk everything. – Geena Davis
Be nice to people on the way up, because you may meet them on the way down. – Jimmy Durante
Sometimes you can have the smallest role in the smallest production and still have a big impact. – Neil Patrick Harris
I live my life through fear. If I’m afraid of it, I’ll do it just so I’m not afraid of it anymore. – Jeremy Renner
If you’re the type of person who has to fulfill your dreams, you’ve gotta be resourceful to make sure you can do it. I came out to California when I was 21, thinking my New York credentials would take me all the way. I came back home a year later all dejected and a failure. – Vin Diesel
We all keep dreaming, and luckily, dreams really do come true. – Katie Holmes
As a young man I prayed for success. Now I just pray to be worthy of it. – Brendan Fraser
I believe you make your day. You make your life. So much of it is all perception, and this is the form that I built for myself. I have to accept it and work within those compounds, and it’s up to me. – Brad Pitt
I’m continually trying to make choices that put me against my own comfort zone. As long as you’re uncomfortable, it means you’re growing. – Ashton Kutcher
Quotes About Success by Philosophers
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. – Aristotle
Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly. – Francis Bacon
The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. – Epicurus
Success depends on previous preparation, and without such preparation there is sure to be failure. – Confucius
Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life. – Confucius
In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity. – Sun Tzu
Haste in every business brings failures. – Herodotus
Better a little which is well done, than a great deal imperfectly. – Plato
Apply yourself both now and in the next life. Without effort, you cannot be prosperous. Though the land be good, you cannot have an abundant crop without cultivation. – Plato
Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises. – Demosthenes
After I’m dead, I’d rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one. – Marcus Porcius Cato
Quotes About Success by Singers
Lose your dreams and you might lose your mind. – Mick Jagger
Imagination creates reality – Richard Wagner
When things go wrong, don’t go with them. – Elvis Presley
You get what you give. What you put into things is what you get out of them. – Jennifer Lopez
I don’t want to think about what I’m doing in 20 years. All I want is I want to be happy, and I hope my family are healthy. And that’s all, really. – Sam Smith
If people take anything from my music, it should be motivation to know that anything is possible as long as you keep working at it and don’t back down. – Eminem
You can’t mastermind everything. You’ll go crazy. Just show up and play. – Eric Clapton
After you reach a certain age, they think you’re over. Well, I will never be over, I’ll be making records, if I have to sell them out of the trunk of my car, I have done that in my past and I’d do it again. – Dolly Parton
One thing I have learned is that I am not the owner of my talent, I am the manager of it. – Madonna
You can’t knock on opportunity’s door and not be ready. – Bruno Mars
Quotes About Success by Scientists and Great Thinkers
We cannot solve problems with the kind of thinking we employed when we came up with them. – Albert Einstein
It is strange that only extraordinary men make the discoveries, which later appear so easy and simple. – Georg C. Lichtenberg
A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life. – Charles Darwin
You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him discover it in himself. – Galileo
If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. – Isaac Newton
Shall I refuse my dinner because I do not fully understand the process of digestion? – Oliver Heaviside
Everything is theoretically impossible, until it is done. – Robert A. Heinlein
If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign? – Albert Einstein
In science the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurs. – Sir William Osler
All outstanding work, in art as well as in science, results from immense zeal applied to a great idea. – Santiago Ramón y Cajal
Anonymous Quotes About Success
There is no elevator to success. You have to take the stairs. – Anonymous
Good things come to people who wait, but better things come to those who go out and get them. – Anonymous
The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away. – Anonymous
Never let your doubt blind your goals, for your future lies in your ability, not your failure. – Anonymous
Don’t go into something to test the waters, go into things to make waves. – Anonymous
The winner always has a plan; the loser always has an excuse. – Anonymous
Your only limitation is your imagination. – Anonymous
Life is like a piano. Anyone can play a song through meaningless repetition, but it takes passion to play a masterpiece. – Anonymous
Successful entrepreneurs are givers and not takers of positive energy. – Anonymous
Don’t raise your voice, improve your argument. – Anonymous
What’s the point of being alive if you don’t at least try to do something remarkable. – Anonymous
Like these quotes about success? Check out these motivational quotes for students too!
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