Motivational quotes and aphorisms | The World of English

Motivational quotes and aphorisms, phrases, ideas, reflections and thoughts by various famous authors to stimulate your motivation and strengthen your resilience.

Motivational and inspirational quotes have similar goals but differ in nuances of meaning and emotional impact. In short, while motivational quotes stimulate energy and movement toward a goal, inspirational quotes spark imagination and encourage reflection.

Motivational quotes have a more practical and direct purpose, often aiming to stimulate concrete actions. They are used to give the push needed to face challenges, to maintain focus on specific goals and to persevere in the face of difficulties. Motivational phrases tend to be pragmatic, energetic and results-oriented, inviting us to take action. These nuggets of wisdom encourage us to always do better, to never give up and to always move forward no matter what happens.

These short reflections, quotes and thoughts, often written by famous authors, well-known figures or successful entrepreneurs, thanks to their incisive structure are able to inspire and encourage people, pushing them to believe in themselves, to improve themselves and to face change. They thus become a sort of mantra or personal motto, to be repeated daily or in moments of greatest need, to find motivation and inner strength.

Inspirational quotes and sayings are designed to stimulate deep thought and awaken emotions or intuitions. They are often based on universal concepts, moral values, or the beauty of life, and help connect with a broader sense of purpose or meaning. Inspirational quotes tend to suggest a higher or spiritual view of life, encouraging inner growth and connection with ideals.

However, all aphorisms in general, precisely because they are flashes of intellect of a very often poetic, philosophical and pragmatic nature, are favorable both to inspire the people who read them with new ideas, wise advice and motivational charges, moreover they are so numerous, that everyone can find those most suited to their own character, their own personality and their own intentions.

The secret of human motivation lies in purpose, autonomy, and mastery. These elements drive people to engage, persist, and excel in their endeavors. Motivation is influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. While genetic predispositions can affect baseline levels of drive and persistence, motivation can also be significantly cultivated and enhanced through learning, experiences, and the environment.

Money is important for providing motivation, especially for meeting basic needs and achieving financial security. However, its effectiveness as a motivator diminishes once these needs are met. Intrinsic motivators, such as personal growth, autonomy, and a sense of purpose, often play a more significant role in sustained motivation and job satisfaction.

It is up to us to be one way or another. Our body is a garden, our will is the gardener. You can plant nettles or sow lettuce, put in hyssop and uproot thyme, grow one kind of herb or several kinds, leave the ground barren through laziness or fertilize it with work. Power and authority depend on us.
William Shakespeare

To be motivated you have to find a goal, pursue a goal, stimulate desire, cultivate passion and not just think about satisfying your physiological needs, and filling the sewers.
Carl William Brown

Infuse your life with action. Don’t wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Make your own future. Make your own hope. Make your own love. And whatever your beliefs, honor your creator, not by passively waiting for grace to come down from upon high, but by doing what you can to make grace happen… yourself, right now, right down here on Earth.
Bradley Whitford

Life is a game, we can’t undo a move, but we can make the next one better.
Anonymous

To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man’s life.
T.S. Eliot

If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or objects.
Albert Einstein

Nothing I have found more powerful than Necessity, she is the only goddess, without altar or image to pray before. She cares not for sacrifices.
Euripides

Motivation will almost always beat mere talent.
Norman Ralph Augustine

Unfortunately for the muses it is not a great satisfaction that too many people think only of satisfying their physiological needs and of filling the sewers more and more.
Carl William Brown

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

Once something is a passion, the motivation is there.
Michael Schumacher

You will always have problems. Learn to enjoy life while solving them.
Anonymous

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

One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation.
Arthur Ashe

You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can’t get them across, your ideas won’t get you anywhere.
Lee Iacocca

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.
Benjamin Franklin

There is no substitute for hard work.
Thomas Edison

Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Lao Tzu

Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

Some scholars wonder why I am so motivated to attack stupidity, and they do not know that my motivation comes from the very kinds of questions they are used to asking.
Carl William Brown

Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.
Margaret Fuller

Learning is like rowing upstream, not to advance is to drop back.
Chinese Proverb

The best way to predict the future is to create it.
Abraham Lincoln

The limits of my language are the limits of my world.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
Gandhi

The world is beautiful, but has a disease called man.
Friedrich Nietzsche

The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.
Leonardo da Vinci

Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.
Harriet Beecher Stowe

True happiness involves the full use of one’s power and talents.
John W. Gardner

One very important aspect of motivation is the willingness to stop and to look at things that no one else has bothered to look at. This simple process of focusing on things that are normally taken for granted is a powerful source of creativity.
Edward de Bono

What everyone in the astronaut corps shares in common is not gender or ethnic background, but motivation, perseverance, and desire – the desire to participate in a voyage of discovery.
Ellen Ochoa

People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.
Zig Ziglar

If someone is going down the wrong road, he doesn’t need motivation to speed him up. What he needs is education to turn him around.
Jim Rohn

Deficiency motivation doesn’t work. It will lead to a life-long pursuit of try to fix me. Learn to appreciate what you have and where and who you are.
Wayne Dyer

One finds limits by pushing them.
Herbert A. Simon

Don’t underestimate yourself, don’t be a fanatic or a fan, not even of heroes, always remember that man is not a superior animal at all, in fact he is the most squalid of all.
Carl William Brown

There’s always the motivation of wanting to win. Everybody has that. But a champion needs, in his attitude, a motivation above and beyond winning.
Pat Riley

Wanting something is not enough. You must hunger for it. Your motivation must be absolutely compelling in order to overcome the obstacles that will invariably come your way.
Les Brown

Slow, steady progress is better than daily excuses.
Robin Sharma

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable. Every step toward the goals requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.
Martin Luther King

Your knowledge is far more important than your degree.
Paul Dirac

The secret of getting ahead is getting started.
Mark Twain

Desire is the key to motivation, but it’s determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal – a commitment to excellence – that will enable you to attain the success you seek.
Mario Andretti

If you can dream it, you can do it.
Walt Disney

It doesn’t matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.
Confucius

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

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.
Benjamin Franklin

Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.
Chinese Proverb

Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.
Lou Holtz

When I lose the sense of motivation and the sense to prove something as a basketball player, it’s time for me to move away from the game.
Michael Jordan

If you must have motivation, think of your paycheck on Friday.
Noel Coward

Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.
Jim Ryun

Money is not a motivating factor. Money doesn’t thrill me or make me play better because there are benefits to being wealthy. I’m just happy with a ball at my feet. My motivation comes from playing the game I love. If I wasn’t paid to be a professional footballer I would willingly play for nothing.
Lionel Messi

When you look at people who are successful, you will find that they aren’t the people who are motivated, but have consistency in their motivation.
Arsene Wenger

I’ll always use the negativity as more motivation to work even harder and become even stronger.
Tim Tebow

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

Good, better, best. Never let it rest. ‘Til your good is better and your better is best.
St. Jerome

When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.
Elon Musk

Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines.
Robert H. Schuller

No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.
William Blake

Don’t let yourself be discouraged, move, think, read, listen to music, exercise, learn something, take action, stay calm, strengthen your concentration, and trust yourself as you continue your fight.
Carl William Brown

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

Every exit is an entry somewhere else.
Tom Stoppard

You will never win if you never begin.
Helen Rowland

You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.
Les Brown

The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.
Walt Disney

I’d rather attempt to do something great and fail than to attempt to do nothing and succeed.
Robert H. Schuller

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

There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.
Nelson Mandela

Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.
John F. Kennedy

Motivation will almost always beat mere talent.
Norman Ralph Augustine

When you fail you learn from the mistakes you made and it motivates you to work even harder.
Natalie Gulbis

What you do today can improve all your tomorrows.
Ralph Marston

There is always room at the top.
Daniel Webster

Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another.
John Dewey

We should not give up and we should not allow the problem to defeat us.
A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

I know where I’m going and I know the truth, and I don’t have to be what you want me to be. I’m free to be what I want.
Muhammad Ali

The role of good literature is certainly to induce temptation. It is like the magical power of taboo, it is an attempt at persuasion so that the stimulus and motivation to claim one’s own happiness develops.
Carl William Brown

The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
Thomas Paine

Learn from the past, set vivid, detailed goals for the future, and live in the only moment of time over which you have any control: now.
Denis Waitley

Success is the only motivational factor that a boy with character needs.
Woody Hayes

Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.
Theodore Roosevelt

The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But… the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’
Martin Luther King, Jr.

If you don’t have a conscience, create it, then always act in the best way, so that you can contribute to alleviate ignorance and fight human stupidity, otherwise you will always be a supporter of them.
Carl William Brown

The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large.
Confucius

In the long run, men hit only what they aim at.
Henry David Thoreau

Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience.
Henry David Thoreau

You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.
C.S.Lewis

Is it not enjoyable to learn and practise what you learn?
Confucius

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.
Joseph Addison

You never know what motivates you.
Cicely Tyson

How do you know you’re going to do something, untill you do it?
J. D. Salinger

Do whatever you do intensely.
Robert Henri

Poverty was the greatest motivating factor in my life.
Jimmy Dean

Be thine own palace, or the world’s thy jail.
John Donne

If you’ve got a talent, protect it.
Jim Carrey

You must take action now that will move you towards your goals. Develop a sense of urgency in your life.
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

God always strives together with those who strive.
Aeschylus