Quotes offering encouragement when it all feels too hard

  1. Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed no hope at all. Dale Carnegie
  2. Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance. Samuel Johnson
  3. It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop. Confucius
  4. You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it. Margaret Thatcher
  5. Dreams don’t work unless you do. John C. Maxwell
  6. Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. Thomas Watson
  7. It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. Theodore Roosevelt
  8. Challenges are what make life interesting. Overcoming them is what makes life meaningful. Joshua J. Marine
  9. Most people never run far enough on the first wind to find out they’ve got a second. Give your dreams all you’ve got, and you’ll be amazed at the energy that comes out of you. William James
  10. Don’t tell me how talented you are. Tell me how hard you work. Arthur Rubenstein
  11. If you shoot for the stars and hit the moon, it’s OK. But you’ve got to shoot for something. A lot of people don’t even shoot. Confucius
  12. When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps. Confucius
  13. Before the beginning of brilliance, there must be great chaos. Before a brilliant person begins something great, they must look foolish in the crowd. from I Ching written by Fu Hsi
  14. There has to be this pioneer, the individual with the courage, the ambition to overcome the obstacles that always develop when one tries to do something worthwhile that is new and different. Alfred P. Sloan
  15. When the world says, ‘Give up,’ Hope whispers, ‘Try one more time.’ Unknown
  16. It’s kind of fun to do the impossible. Walt Disney
  17. Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try. Unknown
  18. Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success. Napoleon Hill
  19. How you think when you lose determines how long it will be until you win. Gilbert Keith Chesterton
  20. You can achieve anything you want in life if you have the courage to dream it, the intelligence to make a realistic plan, and the will to see that plan through to the end. Sidney A. Friedman
  21. Security is not the meaning of my life. Great opportunities are worth the risk. Shirley Hurstedler
  22. The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make a mistake. Elbert Hubbard
  23. Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could … Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. Ralph Waldo Emerson
  24. He who wrestles with us, strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skills. Our antagonist is our helper. Edmund Burke
  25. Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm. Winston Churchill
  26. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you did not do than by the ones you did. Mark Twain
  27. The problem human beings face is not that we aim too high and fail, but that we aim too low and succeed. Michelangelo
  28. What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. Viktor E. Frankl
  29. We find comfort among those who agree with us, and growth among those who don’t. Frank A. Clark
  30. No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking. Voltaire
  31. Only he who attempts the absurd is capable of achieving the impossible. Miguel Unamuno
  32. We must get our hearts broken sometimes. This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something. Elizabeth Gilbert
  33. The only true failure lies in the failure to start. Harold Blake Walker
  34. Vision is not enough. It must be combined with venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps; we must also step up the stairs. Vaclac Havel
  35. A genius! For 37 years I’ve practiced fourteen hours a day, and now they call me a genius! Pablo Sarasate
  36. It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer. Albert Einstein
  37. To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing. Unknown
  38. Things don’t go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all that you were intended to be. Samuel Johnson
  39. Failure is success if we learn from it. Malcolm Forbes
  40. A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do. Walter Gagehot
  41. History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heart-breaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats. B.C. Forbes
  42. Don’t worry about failure. Worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try. Sherman Finesilver
  43. Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. Thomas Edison
  44. It takes 20 years to make an overnight success. Eddie Cantor
  45. Unless you’re willing to have a go, fail miserably, and have another go, success won’t happen. Phillip Adams
  46. The worst bankrupt in the world is the man who has lost his enthusiasm. Let a man lose everything else in the world but his enthusiasm and he will come through again to success. H.W. Arnold
  47. What you get by reaching your destination is not nearly as important as what you will become by reaching your destination. Unknown
  48. There are three musts that hold us back: I must do well. You must treat me well. And the world must be easy. Albert Ellis
  49. 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. . .sail away from the safe harbor. Explore. Dream. Discover. Mark Twain
  50. We should open ourselves to the impossible and embrace a psychology of possibility. Ellen Langer
  51. There is always a step small enough from where we are to get us to where we want to be. If we take that small step, there’s always another we can take, and eventually a goal thought to be too far to reach becomes achievable. Ellen Langer
  52. Success comes from knowing that you did your best to become the best that you are capable of being. John Wooden
  53. Nothing will work unless you do. John Wooden
  54. At God’s footstool to confess,
    A poor soul knelt and bowed his head.
    “I failed,” he cried. The Master said,
    “Thou didst thy best, that is success.”
    Unknown, but quoted by John Wooden
  55. There isn’t a person anywhere who isn’t capable of doing more than he thinks he can. Henry Ford
  56. This is hard. This is fun. Carol Dweck summing up the Growth MindsetIf you don’t give anything, don’t expect anything. Success is not coming to you, you must come to it. Marva Collins