The road to greatness is bumpy. As you strive towards your goals and dreams, you will undoubtedly come up against many setbacks and challenges. Unfortunately, these roadblocks will try to steer you away from your path by making you question your abilities.
If you’re currently up against a roadblock and feeling defeated, remember that you hold an infinite amount of power within you. However, something that is not limitless is time. So, the longer you spend feeling down in the dumps and not taking action, the more of your life you are wasting.
Greatness means finding the strength to rise up to any challenge and staying connected to your personal power. Sometimes we need a little encouragement and inspiration to help us persevere, and that’s totally ok. Reading powerful quotes and sayings is an excellent way to find that motivation.
Inspirational words can be enough to empower you to keep moving towards your dreams instead of letting problems hold you back. This list of powerful quotes includes words of advice from some of the most influential people to ever walk this earth. These mighty individuals found courage and perseverance amidst unthinkable challenges.
1. “Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.” — Sigmund Freud
2. “Happiness is holding someone in your arms and knowing you hold the whole world.” – Orhan Pamuk
3. “In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.” – Mother Teresa
4. “Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.” – George Addair
5. “The illumination of a great star is potent and powerful enough to make other stars around it great.” – Ikechukwu Izuakor
6. “It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.” – J.K. Rowling
7. “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 safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, Dream, Discover.” – Mark Twain
8. “Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye.” – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
9. “Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston S. Churchill
10. “Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you.” – Dr. Seuss
11. “There ain’t no problem that some other dude didn’t have 1,000 years ago.” – Will Smith
12. “Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men.” – John F Kennedy
13. “People often become what they believe themselves to be. If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn’t have it in the beginning.” – Mahatma Gandhi
14. “Somewhere in the world someone is training when you are not. When you race him, he will win.” – Tom Fleming
15. “If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.” — Toni Morrison
16. “You will face many defeats in life, but never let yourself be defeated.” – Maya Angelou
17. “Women deeply want men who are competent and powerful. And I don’t mean power in that they can exert tyrannical control over others. That’s not power. That’s just corruption.” – Jordan Peterson
18. “If you are powerful enough, you can bang a nail only at one stroke!” – Mehmet Murat ildan
19. “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” -Thomas A. Edison
20. “Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” — Calvin Coolidge
21. “”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.”” – Marianne Williamson
22. “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
23. “We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty.” — Mother Theresa
24. “I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse.” – Florence Nightingale
25. “Don’t underestimate the power of a mind that is made up.” – Miya Yamanouchi
26. “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
27. “Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.” – Muhammad Ali
28. “When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” – Henry Ford
29. “Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: The potential for greatness lives within each of us.” – Wilma Rudolph
30. “Success usually comes to those who are too busy looking for it.” — Henry David Thoreau
31. “In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” – Abraham Lincoln
32. “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” – Lao Tzu
33. “Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity.” — Henry van Dyke
34. “The human capacity for burden is like bamboo — far more flexible than you’d ever believe at first glance.” — Jodi Picoult
35. “When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure.” — Peter Marshall
36. “Blood, sweat & respect. First two you give. Last one you earn.” – Dwayne Johnson
37. “It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks, to go forward with a great desire forever beating at the door of our hearts as we travel toward our distant goal.” – Helen Keller
38. “The most powerful relationship you will ever have is the relationship with yourself. It is in this relationship that you set the standard for all others.” – Steve Maraboli
39. “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 that has been opened for us.” — Helen Keller
40. “”Let those of us who are well-fed, well-clothed, and well-housed never forget and never overlook those who live on the outskirts of hope.””
Lyndon B. Johnson
41. “Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.” — Viktor Frankl
42. “It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.” – André Gide
43. “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.” — Mary Engelbreit
44. “I start early and I stay late, day after day, year after year, it took me 17 years and 114 days to become an overnight success.” – Lionel Messi
45. “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” – Henry Ford
46. “The only way that we can live is if we grow. The only way we can grow is if we change. The only way we can change is if we learn. The only way we can learn is if we are exposed. And the only way that we are exposed is if we throw ourselves into the open.” — C. Joybell
47. “Some women walk towards a better future. Others have chauffeurs.” – Ljupka Cvetanova
48. “Today I do what others won’t, so that tomorrow I can accomplish what others don’t.” – Jerry Rice
49. “Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” — Hellen Keller
50. “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.” – Robert Frost
51. “Until you get comfortable with being alone, you’ll never know if you’re choosing someone out of love or loneliness.” – Mandy Hale
52. “This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
53. “If you remember me, then I don’t care if everyone else forgets.” – Haruki Murakami
54. “There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time.” – Malcolm X
55. “Mastering others is strength, mastering yourself is true power.” — Lao Tzu
56. “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
57. “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
58. “Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale.” – Hans Christian Andersen
59. “The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
60. “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” – Winston Churchill
61. “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Its that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be?” – Marianne Williamson
62. “Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.” — Joshua J. Marine
63. “I’ve always loved you, and when you love someone, you love the whole person, just as he or she is, and not as you would like them to be.” – Leo Tolstoy
64. “People who succeed have momentum. The more they succeed, the more they want to succeed and the more they find a way to succeed. Similarly, when someone is failing, the tendency is to get on a downward spiral that can even become a self-fulfilling prophecy.” – Tony Robbins
65. “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart.” – Helen Keller
66. “Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.” – Dalai Lama
67. “I have spoken; you have heard; you have the facts; judge.” – Aristotle
68. “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.” – Bernard Baruch
69. “You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice.” – Bob Marley
70. “Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble.” Yehuda Berg
71. “A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
72. “Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
73. “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
74. “It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.” — Vincent Van Gogh
75. “The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.” – Bob Marley
76. “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
77. “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” — Mahatma Gandhi
78. “Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.” – Lucius Annaeus Seneca
79. “Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do. Don’t wish it were easier; wish you were better.” – Jim Rohn
80. “We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
81. “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go and do that, because what the world needs is people that have come alive.” – Howard Thurman
82. “Nothing is more beautiful than the smile that has struggled through the tears.” — Demi Lovato
83. “The power of a thing is not based on the power it actually possesses. Rather, it is much more about the power that we permit it to possess.” – Craig D. Lounsbrough
84. “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
85. “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
86. “I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles.” — Audrey Hepburn
87. “I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.” — Maya Angelou
88. “It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.” – Aristotle
89. “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.” — George Bernhard Shaw
90. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” — Reinhold Niebuhr
We hope the following list of powerful quotes will help you reconnect to your strength and potential. We recommend printing this list and sticking it on your wall. Then, whenever you find yourself in hard times, these powerful quotes will remind you that it’s totally possible to overcome adversity and achieve your dreams no matter what.
Reading about the lives of these influential people will inspire you even more. Many famous people on this list have written autobiographies sharing their life experiences. Learning about their hardships will give you a greater appreciation for your life and keep you focused on the path to greatness.
