200+ Motivational Quotes to Inspire You in 2023

‘Tis the time of the year to draw new plans and resolutions so we can achieve our goals. With that in mind, we from Shoplazza have compiled a list of 200+ motivational quotes to help you develop success and live a fulfilling, happy life.

We have arranged our favorite inspirational quotes based on the kind of positive energy you’re looking for. Whether you want to build self-confidence, stay motivated, start selling online, change the world or just find the strength to go through those darkest moments, we’ve got you covered.

While making our selection of motivational quotes, we tried to stay away from those cheesy, cliché ones. We figured you’ve heard them before somewhere else. Yes, there are some positive quotes by Martin Luther King Jr. and Albert Einstein here and there, but we also wanted to give voice to a more diverse group of successful people who have a thing or two to say about life.

Develop success: motivational quotes for success

We want to help you in your journey to become a successful person, regardless of what success means to you. Here are a few motivational quotes by brilliant, successful people:

• “True courage is going after your dreams even when everyone says they’re impossible.” — Cora Coralina
• “Pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can't take their eyes off you.” — Maya Angelou
• “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” ― Winston S. Churchill
• “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” ― Mother Teresa
• “Failure is not falling down but refusing to get up.”― Chinese proverb
• “Let your tears roll tonight, but tomorrow you will start the battle again. What defeats us, always, is just our own sorrow.” — Amin Maalouf
• “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” ― Anne Frank
• “The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won't. It's whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere.” — Barack Obama
• “I’m intimidated by the fear of being average.”― Taylor Swift
• “The only free person is the one who isn’t afraid of the ridicule.” — Luiz Fernando Veríssimo
• “Do not judge me by my success; judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.” — Nelson Mandela
• “Success is a collection of problems solved.” ― I.M. Pei
• “Can't nobody fly with all that sh*t. Wanna fly, you got to give up the sh*t that weighs you down.” ― Toni Morrison
• “Define success on your own terms, achieve it by your own rules, and build a life you’re proud to live.” ― Anne Sweeney
• “A champion needs a motivation above and beyond winning.” — Pat Riley
• “Success is an exception, so be exceptional.” — Malti Bhojwani
• “To soar toward what's possible, you must leave behind what's comfortable.” — Cicely Tyson
• “Be careful what you water your dreams with. Water them with worry, and fear and you will produce weeds that choke the life from your dream. Water them with optimism and solutions, and you will cultivate success. Always be on the lookout for ways to turn a problem into an opportunity for success. Always be on the lookout for ways to nurture your dream.” ― Lao Tzu
• “The size of your dreams must always exceed your current capacity to achieve them. If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough.” — Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

Motivational quotes to build self-confidence

• “Someone’s opinion of you does not have to become your reality.” — Les Brown
• “Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and, above all, confidence in ourselves. We must believe we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.” — Marie Curie
• “The bullets will not go toward you. The prairie is large and the bullets will not go toward you.” ― Yellow Bird
• “Whenever you find yourself doubting how far you can go, just remember how far you have come. Remember everything you have faced, all the battles you have won, and all the fears you have overcome.” — N. R. Walker
• “Take criticism seriously, but not personally. If there is truth or merit in the criticism, try to learn from it. Otherwise, let it roll right off you.” — Hillary Clinton
• “The worst walls are never the ones you find in your way. The worst walls are the ones you put there.” — Ursula K. Le Guin
• “If you’re lucky enough to be different, don’t ever change.” — Taylor Swift
• “If I don't poke my head out of my shell and show people who I am, all anyone will ever think I am is my shell.” — Shonda Rhimes
• “When you don’t know your true value, you see the world through the lens of how you don't measure up.” — Cicely Tyson
• “Don’t be intimidated by what you don’t know. That can be your greatest strength and ensure that you do things differently from everyone else." — Sara Blakely
• “You are not the work you do; you are the person you are.” — Toni Morrison
• “There’s power in looking silly and not caring that you do.” — Amy Poehler
• “If you don’t get out there and define yourself, you’ll be quickly and inaccurately defined by others.” — Michelle Obama
• “We realize the importance of our voices only when we are silenced.” – Malala Yousafzai
  
  

Good morning inspirational quotes

• “The sun is a daily reminder that we too can rise again from the darkness, that we too can shine our own light.” — S. Ajna
• When I’m tempted to skip my morning routine or another form of self-care, I remind myself that I can better serve the people I love and the projects I care about when I start with me.” — Courtney Carver
• “Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
• "One day you will wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the things you’ve always wanted. Do it now." — Paulo Coelho
• “There is enormous power in nailing your morning routine, but there’s even more power in adapting to it when it doesn’t happen as we’d like.” — Terri Schneider
• “Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I’m not going to make it, but you laugh inside—remembering all the times you’ve felt that way.” — Charles Bukowski
• “She woke up every morning with the option of being anyone she wished. How beautiful it was that she always chose herself.” — Tyler Kent White
• “Someday is not a day of the week.” — Denise Brennan-Nelson

Leadership inspirational quotes

What makes a good leader? If you want to inspire others and become a great leader, here are some motivational quotes to help you get there:

• “Work for a cause, not for applause. Live life to express, not to impress. Don’t strive to make your presence noticed, just make your absence felt.” — Grace Lichtenstein
• “I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?” — Benjamin Disraeli
• “Leadership is not a person or a position. It is a complex moral relationship between people based on trust, obligation, commitment, emotion, and a shared vision of the good.” — Joanne Ciulla
• “The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.” — Kenneth Blanchard
• “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” — Jack Welch
• “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” — Muriel Strode
• “The ability to learn is the most important quality a leader can have.” — Padmasree Warrior
• "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
• “A great person attracts great people and knows how to hold them together.” — Goethe
• “Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily, even if you had no title or position.” — Brian Tracy
• “Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence, and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.” — Sheryl Sandberg
• “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader.” — John Quincy Adams
• “As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.” — Bill Gates
• “A leader is best when people barely know he exists; when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.” — Lao Tzu
• “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” — John F. Kennedy
• “Failing organizations are usually over-managed and under-led.” — Stephen Covey
• “Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.” — Publilius Syrus

Inspirational quotes about life

Find out what some super inspirational people have to say about life through these motivational quotes:

• “When life forces you to face yourself, what awaits in the mirror is a gift: vulnerability.” — Alicia Keys
• “When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life.  When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up.  I wrote down ‘happy’.  They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.” — John Lennon
• “There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” — Zora Neale Hurston
• “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.” ― H. Jackson Brown Jr.
• “Stop leaving and you will arrive. Stop searching and you will see. Stop running away and you will be found.” ― Lao Tzu
• “Life is 10 percent what you experience and 90 percent how you respond to it.” ― Dorothy M. Neddermeyer
• “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
• “Life isn’t perfect; any failures you have are actually learning moments. They teach us how to grow and evolve.” ― Phillipa Soo
• “Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.” ― The Dalai Lama
• “Sometimes the bad things that happen in our lives put us directly on the path to the best things that will ever happen to us.” — Paul Millsap
• “It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.” ― Paulo Coelho
  
• “The impatient idealist says: ‘Give me a place to stand and I shall move the earth.’ But such a place does not exist. We all have to stand on the earth itself and go with her at her pace.” — Chinua Achebe
• “Your story is what you have, what you will always have. It is something to own.” — Michelle Obama
• “Time flows in the same way for all human beings; every human being flows through time in a different way.” — Yasunari Kawabata
• “At every moment, we always have a choice, even if it feels as if we don’t. Sometimes that choice may simply be to think a more positive thought.” — Tina Turner
  
  

Motivational quotes for working hard

Sometimes it’s hard to find the determination to go after the things we want. That’s why we’ve selected a few motivational quotes to help you stay motivated:

• “Don't sell yourself short. You will meet people along the way who will be lining up to place limits on you. You don't need to beat them to the punch.” — Leslie Odom Jr.
• “First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won’t. Habit is persistence in practice.” ― Octavia E. Butler
• “Forget all the reasons why it won’t work and believe the one reason why it will!” — Ain Eineziz
• “If you can’t stop thinking about it, don’t stop working for it.” — Michael Jordan
• “I've never been a natural, all I do is try, try, try.” – Taylor Swift
• “There are dreams that need to be redreamed, projects that cannot be forgotten.” — Hilda Hilst
• “Growth is painful. Change is painful. But nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you don’t belong.” — Mandy Hale

• “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.
• “Sometimes you face difficulties not because you’re doing something wrong, but because you’re doing something right.” — Joel Osteen
• “We will either find a way, or make one.” — Hannibal Barca

Courage and strength motivational quotes

There’s so much power in knowing you have the power you need within you. Here are some inspirational quotes to remind you of your strength and courage:

• “I am stronger than I am broken.” — Roxane Gay
• “When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.” — Audre Lorde
• “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” — Khalil Gibran
• “One of the criticisms I’ve faced over the years is that I’m not aggressive enough or assertive enough or maybe somehow, because I’m empathetic, it means I’m weak. I totally rebel against that. I refuse to believe that you cannot be both compassionate and strong.” – Jacinda Ardern
• “Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.” — Arnold Schwarzenegger
• “I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.” —Maya Angelou
• “Courage does not always roar.” — Tomi Adeyemi
• “Some people don’t like you just because your strength reminds them of their weakness. Don’t let the hate slow you down.” — Thema Davis
• “Storms make trees take deeper roots.” — Dolly Parton
• “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” ― e.e. cummings
• “When your dreams are bigger than the places you find yourself in, sometimes you need to seek out your own reminders that there is more. And there is always more waiting for you on the other side of fear.” — Elaine Welteroth
• “Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent.” — Marilyn Vos Savant
• “We don’t even know how strong we are until we are forced to bring that hidden strength forward.” — Isabel Allende
• “I’ve never met a strong person with an easy past.” — Atticus
• “You never realize how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have.” — Bob Marley
• “The struggle you’re in today is developing the strength you need for tomorrow.” — Robert Tew
• “Stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone ought to be. ” — Elizabeth Gilbert
• “Don’t do what you want. Do what you don’t want. Do what you’re trained not to want. Do the things that scare you the most.” ― Chuck Palahniuk
• “There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.” — Jane Austen

Motivational quotes for depression and anxiety

Mental health is a topic that shouldn’t be brushed under the carpet. Find out below what these notable people have to say about depression and anxiety. We hope their inspirational quotes can help you see the beauty within you.

• “You say you’re ‘depressed’—all I see is resilience. You are allowed to feel messed up and inside out. It doesn't mean you're defective—it just means you're human.” — David Mitchell
• “Depression doesn't take away your talents—it just makes them harder to find.” – Lady Gaga
• “There is hope, even when your brain tells you there isn’t.” — John Green
• “Our stresses, anxieties, pains and problems arise because we do not see the world, others or even ourselves as worthy of love.” — Prem Prakash
• “In the middle of winter I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer.” — Albert Camus
• “Some days, doing ‘the best we can’ may still fall short of what we would like to be able to do, but life isn’t perfect—on any front—and doing what we can with what we have is the most we should expect of ourselves or anyone else.” — Fred Rogers
• “We are not to blame for our illness, but we are responsible for our health.” — Victoria Maxwell
• “We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.” — Mother Teresa
• “Worrying is carrying tomorrow’s load with today's strength—carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn’t empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.” — Corrie Ten Boom
• “Anxiety happens when you think you have to figure out everything all at once. Breathe. You’re strong. You got this. Take it day by day.” — Karen Salmansohn
• “When you are depressed, you need the love of other people, and yet depression fosters actions that destroy that love. Depressed people often stick pins into their own life rafts. The conscious mind can intervene. One is not helpless.” — Andrew Solomon
• “I understand your pain. Trust me, I do. I’ve seen people go from the darkest moments in their lives to living a happy, fulfilling life. You can do it too. I believe in you. You are not a burden. You will never be a burden.” — Sophie Turner
• “Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important.” — Natalie Goldberg
• “You don’t have to control your thoughts; you just have to stop letting them control you.” — Dan Millman
• “You have dug your soul out of the dark, you have fought to be here; do not go back to what buried you.” — Bianca Sparacino
• “What else does anxiety about the future bring you but sorrow upon sorrow?” —Thomas à Kempis
• “You are the one thing in this world, above all other things, that you must never give up on… Asking for help is the first step. You are more precious to this world than you’ll ever know.” — Lili Reinhart

Motivational quotes for a team

Build a solid team, whether in your professional or personal life, with these brilliant motivational quotes:

• “If you light a lamp for somebody, it will also brighten your path.” ― The Buddha
• “Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.” ― Ryunosuke Satoro
• “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.” — Michael Jordan
• “Cooperation is the thorough conviction that nobody can get there unless everybody gets there.” ― Virginia Burden
• “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
• “Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life forever.” ― Amy Poehler
• “You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.” ― Indira Gandhi
• “To build a strong team, you must see someone else’s strength as a complement to your weakness and not a threat to your position or authority.” ― Christine Caine
• “For every door that’s been opened to me, I’ve tried to open my door to others. And here is what I have to say, finally: let’s invite one another in.” — Michelle Obama
• “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” — Margaret Mead
• “A team is not a group of people who work together, but a team is a group of people who trust each other.” — Simon Sinek
• “Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That’s why it’s a comfort to go hand in hand.” — Emily Kimbrough
• “Don't blow off another's candle for it won't make yours shine brighter.” ― Jaachynma N.E. Agu
• "When you can’t find someone to follow, you have to find a way to lead by example." — Roxane Gay

Funny motivational quotes

Get inspired and laugh a little while you’re at it. We’ve selected some funny motivational quotes for you to break a smile:

• “Confidence is 10% work and 90% delusion.” ― Tina Fey
• “I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.” ― Oscar Wilde
• “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” ― Thomas A. Edison
• “So long as your desire to explore is greater than your desire to not screw up, you’re on the right track.” — Ed Helms
• “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.” ― Douglas Adams
• “Tell the negative committee that meets inside your head to sit down and shut up.” — Ann Bradford
• “The road to success is always under construction.” — Lily Tomlin
• “Age is of no importance unless you’re a cheese.” — Billie Burke
• “Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger.” — Franklin P. Jones
• “You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” — Jack London
• “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing—that’s why we recommend it daily.” — Zig Ziglar
• “You can’t have everything. Where would you put it?” — Steven Wright
• “Life is like a sewer… what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.” — Tom Lehrer
• “You must learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t possibly live long enough to make them all yourself.” — Sam Levenson
• “Don’t call me lucky. Call me a badass.” — Shonda Rhimes

Motivational quotes to study and learn

Read the following motivational quotes and find the motivation you need to study and persevere, whether in your formal education or in your self-education:

• “I don’t study to know more, but to ignore less.” — Juana Inés de la Cruz
• “To know how much there is to know is the beginning of learning to live.” — Dorothy West
• “Steal as much wisdom from other people as you can.” ― Aziz Ansari
• “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” ― Mahatma Gandhi
• “If you are not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you.” — Zig Ziglar

• “There is no shame in not knowing; the shame lies in not finding out.” — Russian proverb
• “Education is what allows you to stand out” — Ellen Ochoa
• “Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.”― The Dalai Lama
• “When you learn something from people, or from a culture, you accept it as a gift, and it is your lifelong commitment to preserve it and build on it.” ― Yo-Yo Ma
• “Discomfort is always a necessary part of enlightenment.” ― Pearl Cleage
• “Anything worth doing well is worth doing poorly at first.” — Ray Congdon
• “Success isn’t about the end result, it’s about what you learn along the way.” ― Vera Wang
• “I’ve been making a list of the things they don’t teach you at school. They don’t teach you how to love somebody. They don’t teach you how to be famous. They don’t teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don’t teach you how to walk away from someone you don’t love any longer. They don’t teach you how to know what’s going on in someone else’s mind. They don’t teach you what to say to someone who’s dying. They don’t teach you anything worth knowing.” ― Neil Gaiman
• “The beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take it away from you.” ― B.B. King
• “We’re all waiting until we have deep knowledge, wisdom, and a sense of certainty before we venture forth. But we’ve got it backward—venturing forth is how we gain the knowledge.” — Will Smith

Motivational quotes for women

Find your power as a woman through the words of powerful women. Here are some motivational quotes to get you fired up:

• “They said, ‘You are a savage and dangerous woman.’ I am speaking the truth. And the truth is savage and dangerous.” — Nawal El Saadawi
• “I have heard all of the stories about girls like me, and I am unafraid to make more of them.” — Carmen Maria Machado

• “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” — Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
• “When the world tells you to shrink, expand.” — Elaine Welteroth
• “A woman who writes has power, and a woman with power is feared.” — Gloria Anzaldúa
• “I figure, if a girl wants to be a legend, she should go ahead and be one.” — Martha Jane Cannary
• “No woman has to be respectable to be valuable.” — Mikki Kendall
• “The woman who does not require validation from anyone is the most feared individual on the planet.” — Mohadesa Najumi
• “She builds others up because she knows what it’s like to be torn down.” — Shannon L. Alder
• “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”― Charlotte Brontë
• “A strong woman looks a challenge dead in the eye and gives it a wink.” — Gina Carey
• “Decipher me but don’t conclude me, I might surprise you.” – Clarice Lispector
• “No one ever told her how to get her heart to abandon a dream once the dreamer stops dreaming.” — Kaia Alderson
• “I can promise you that women working together — linked, informed and educated — can bring peace and prosperity to this forsaken planet.” — Isabel Allende

Inspirational quotes about creativity and imagination

• “Creativity is a wild mind and a disciplined eye.” — Dorothy Parker
• ​​“Everything you can imagine is real.” ― Pablo Picasso
• “You need imagination in order to imagine a future that doesn’t exist.” — Azar Nafisi
• “Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.” — Gloria Steinem
• “We all have an obligation to daydream. We have an obligation to imagine. It is easy to pretend that nobody can change anything, that society is huge and the individual is less than nothing. But the truth is individuals make the future, and they do it by imagining that things can be different.” — Neil Gaiman
• “When you do not know what you are doing and what you are doing is the best — that is inspiration.” — Robert Bresson
• “Adults are bad at remembering how powerful they can be because somewhere along the line, they were shamed for their imagination.” — Stephen Chbosky
• “Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.” ― Albert Einstein
• “Failure and invention are inseparable twins. To invent you have to experiment, and if you know in advance that it’s going to work, it’s not an experiment.” — Scott Galloway
• “If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.” — Maya Angelou
• “What is now proved was once only imagined.” — William Blake
• “Imperfection inspires invention, imagination, creativity. It stimulates. The more I feel imperfect, the more I feel alive.” — Jhumpa Lahiri
• “You need to be a little bit crazy. Crazy is the price you pay for having an imagination. It’s your superpower. Tapping into the dream. It’s a good thing, not a bad thing.” — Ruth Ozeki
• “Your imagination is your preview of life’s coming attractions.” — Albert Einstein
• “In a time of destruction, create something.” ― Maxine Hong Kingston
• “Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.” — Terry Pratchett

Movie motivational quotes

We find inspiration anywhere, including on the big screen. Here are our favorite motivational quotes from movies:

• “How many times do I have to teach you: just because something works doesn’t mean it can’t be improved.” — from Black Panther
• “To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, to draw closer, to find each other and to feel. That is the purpose of life.” — from The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
• “Sometimes it is the people who no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.” — from The Imitation Game
• “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?” — from Coach Carter
• “Just because someone stumbles and loses their path, doesn’t mean they’re lost forever.” — from X-Men: Days of Future Past
• “Nobody is gonna hit as hard as life, but it ain’t how hard you can hit. It’s how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. It’s how much you can take, and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done.” — from Rocky Balboa
• “Me, I still believe in paradise. But now at least I know it’s not some place you can look for because it’s not where you go. It’s how you feel for a moment in your life when you’re a part of something, and if you find that moment, it lasts forever.” — from The Beach
• “The more you know who you are and what you want, the less you let things upset you.” — from Lost in Translation
• “Don’t let anyone ever make you feel like you don’t deserve what you want.” — from 10 Things I Hate About You
• “Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss.” – from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button