A little encouragement

Motivational quotes

Encouragement from books, speeches, and lives well lived. Every quote includes its available source and attribution.

Find motivation for how you feel

Sad Anxious Lonely Overwhelmed Discouraged Grieving

458 motivational quotes to explore Recommended first

You don't need more time to chase your dreams. You need to spend less time on people and things that aren't supporting your growth. You don't need to rush. Just shift your focus away from distractions. Time is precious. Invest it on the right things.

Spread Cheer / Motivational Quotes (@spreadcheer1)·Post attributed to @spreadcheer1 (user-supplied transcription)unverified

Unverified attribution

Account attribution and wording were supplied by a user. The account is identified as the reported sharer; original authorship and the direct post have not been independently verified. The publication date is unknown.

Your life isn't meant to be a checklist given by others. Give yourself permission to experience life beyond accomplishing something. It's a delicate balance of achieving goals and being present to enjoy the moment. Do good and feel alive.

Spread Cheer / Motivational Quotes (@spreadcheer1)·Post attributed to @spreadcheer1 (user-supplied transcription)unverified

Unverified attribution

Your struggles are making way for rewards. Something awesome is lined up for you. Believe that the best blessings you can receive will show up. Time is not running out. The future holds more gifts than the grief held in the past. You aren't too late for your dreams.

Spread Cheer / Motivational Quotes (@spreadcheer1)·Post attributed to @spreadcheer1 (user-supplied transcription)unverified

Unverified attribution

The good plan itself, this comes not of its own accord; it is the fruit of “genius” (which means transcendent capacity of taking trouble, first of all)

Thomas Carlyle·History of Friedrich II of Prussia, Volume 4·1858disputed

Book IV, chapter I, on the ten years Friedrich Wilhelm spent dragging Prussian finance onto a rational footing.

Attribution contested

Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains is one of the most quoted sentences in English and Carlyle did not write it. This is what he wrote, and the differences are real: transcendent, not infinite; trouble, not pains; and first of all, which concedes that taking trouble is only where genius starts. The familiar wording appears later in the century in other hands and is usually traced to Jane Ellice Hopkins in 1870. Carlyle got the credit because he got there first with the thought.

Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results! I know several thousand things that won't work.

Thomas A. Edison·Edison: His Life and Inventions, by Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin·1910disputed

Recalled by Walter S. Mallory, who had just commiserated with Edison over nine thousand failed storage-battery experiments.

Attribution contested

The famous form -- I have not failed, I have just found ten thousand ways that won't work -- has no source in Edison. The earliest record of the remark is this one, in the authorised 1910 biography, and it is a colleague's recollection of a conversation, not Edison writing. Note what changes in the retelling: several thousand becomes ten thousand, and a man cheerfully counting negative results becomes a man defending himself against failure.

It is never wrong to do the right thing.

Traditional·Common sayingtraditional

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

Traditional·Described as an African proverbtraditional

Better late than never.

Widely circulated·A Dictionary of English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, compiled by Thomas Preston·1881traditional

Entry 920 in Preston's alphabetical collection, under Late.

Fortune favours the brave.

Widely circulated·A Dictionary of English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, compiled by Thomas Preston·1881traditional

Entry 624 in Preston's alphabetical collection, under Fortune.

Practice makes perfect.

Widely circulated·A Dictionary of English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, compiled by Thomas Preston·1881traditional

Entry 1280 in Preston's alphabetical collection, under Practice.

Drive thy business, let not that drive thee; and early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise, as Poor Richard says.

Benjamin Franklin·Franklin's Way to Wealth; or, Poor Richard Improved·1758disputed

Attribution contested

Franklin made the proverb famous and is now given it outright, but he did not write it. It is recorded in English more than a century before he was born, in the Book of St Albans in 1496 and in John Clarke's proverb collection of 1639. Franklin's own contribution is the half nobody quotes: drive thy business, let not that drive thee.

I learned that assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; and that oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak.

Booker T. Washington·Up from Slavery·1901disputed

What Washington took from General Armstrong's example, in the paragraph before he resolves never to let anyone make him hate.

Attribution contested

Circulated everywhere as if you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else, which appears in none of Washington's books, addresses or letters. This is the sentence in Up from Slavery it compresses. The paraphrase is not unfair, but it is not a quotation, and it drops the second half -- the claim that oppressing the unfortunate makes the oppressor weak -- which is the part he was actually arguing.