Motivation quotes
2.8K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside motivation — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"Wherever I see people doing something the way it's always been done, the way it's "supposed" to be done, following the same old trends, well, that's just a big red flag to me to go look somewhere else."
"Here we are, arguably the most intelligent being that's ever walked planet Earth, with this extraordinary brain ... and yet we're destroying the only home we have."
"You could be the world's best garbage man, the world's best model; it don't matter what you do if you're the best."
"Communication always makes demands. It always demands that the recipient become somebody, do something, believe something. It always appeals to motivation."
"When on the brink of complete discouragement, success is discerning that...the line between failure and success is so fine that often a single extra effort is all that is needed to bring victory out of defeat."
"Gain may be temporary and uncertain; but ever while you live, expense is constant and certain: and it is easier to build two chimneys than to keep one in fuel."
"Motivation is an inner force that compels behavior. Your inner drives will propel you further and faster than external perks."
"Be not ashamed of mistakes and thus make them crimes."
"Desire is the key to motivation. It is the key to develop a healthy personality and a positive attitude towards oneself and others."
"Genocide, the physical extinction of a people, is universally condemned, but ethnocide, the destruction of people's way of life, is not only not condemned, it's universally celebrated as part of a development strategy."
"If you facilitate your subordinates' steady progress in meaningful work, make that progress salient to them, and treat them well, they will experience the emotions, motivations, and perceptions necessary for great performance."
"If you learn only methods, you'll be tied to your methods, but if you learn principles you can devise your own methods."
"Change is never a matter of ability, it's always a matter of motivation."
"Do you create anything, or just criticize others work and belittle their motivations?"
"If all of your electricity in your lifetime came from nuclear [energy], the waste from that lifetime of electricity would go in a Coke can."
"[Introverts,] the world needs you and it needs the things you carry. So I wish you the best of all possible journeys and the courage to speak softly."
"Why we are here is important, but to know where we are going is imperative. It's not what you've got, it's what you use, that makes a difference in how your life turns out."
"We've got to cut the extraneous out of our lives, and we've got to learn to stem the inflow. We need to think before we buy. Ask ourselves, 'Is that really going to make me happier? Truly?'"
"Communities and countries and ultimately the world are only as strong as the health of their women."
"Everybody thinks this is a tough man's sport. This is not a tough man's sport. This is a thinking man's sport. A tough man is gonna get hurt real bad in this sport."
