Motivational quotes for success: 100 real success quotes
Quotes about success from founders, scientists, writers and athletes, each with a copy button. Every one checked against its source.
KraftyLab TeamUpdated 14 min read
Many lists of motivational quotes for success open with a line Winston Churchill never said, and it gets worse from there. These 100 success quotes were checked one by one against the speaker's own book, speech, letter or interview, or the sourced section of their Wikiquote page. Where the popular wording differs from what the person actually said, we used their words. They're sorted by what you need one for: a kickoff slide, a hard week, a team win or a promotion card. After the quotes you'll find ways to use them at work, six goal-setting prompts, 20 congratulations lines we wrote ourselves and the famous success quotes we left out.
Short success quotes for a slide or a sign
Ten words or fewer, so they fit a slide title, a whiteboard or the team channel topic.
1
Success is the child of audacity.
Benjamin Disraeli, British prime minister
2
Success always demands a greater effort.
Winston Churchill, British prime minister
3
Not failure, but low aim, is crime.
James Russell Lowell, poet
4
Failure is an event, not a person.
Zig Ziglar, motivational speaker
5
Success is a lousy teacher.
Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder
6
Success is counted sweetest by those who ne'er succeed.
Emily Dickinson, poet
7
Self-trust is the first secret of success.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, essayist
8
Our patience will achieve more than our force.
Edmund Burke, statesman and philosopher
9
Little strokes fell great oaks.
Benjamin Franklin, founding father
10
They can because they think they can.
Virgil, Roman poet
11
Easy victories aren't worth winning.
Ursula K. Le Guin, novelist
12
If not excellence, what? If not excellence now, when?
Tom Peters, management writer
Quotes about success: what it really means
Inspirational quotes about success that ask the question before the race starts: success at what, and for whom?
What success really means
Definitions of success from people who had plenty of it, and most of them say it isn't the trophy.
13
There is only one success … to be able to spend your life in your own way.
Christopher Morley, novelist and essayist
14
I must admit that I personally measure success in terms of the contributions an individual makes to her or his fellow human beings.
Margaret Mead, anthropologist
15
If your success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your heart, it is not success at all.
Anna Quindlen, author and columnist
16
He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much.
Bessie Anderson Stanley, poet and essayist
17
To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour.
Robert Louis Stevenson, novelist
18
I fear the popular notion of success stands in direct opposition in all points to the real and wholesome success.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, essayist
19
I coined my own definition of success, which is: Peace of mind attained only through self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do the best of which you're capable.
John Wooden, basketball coach
20
My definition of success is doing what you love.
Tony Hawk, pro skateboarder
21
The great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.
Albert Schweitzer, physician and humanitarian
22
The man of virtue makes the difficulty to be overcome his first business, and success only a subsequent consideration.
Confucius, Chinese philosopher
23
All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then Success is sure.
Mark Twain, author and humorist
24
The virtue lies in the struggle, not the prize.
Richard Monckton Milnes, poet
25
The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult.
Winston Churchill, British prime minister
Success and happiness
On keeping success and a good life in the same plan.
26
Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it.
Viktor Frankl, psychiatrist and author
27
Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement.
Bill Watterson, cartoonist
28
The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?
Henry David Thoreau, essayist
29
A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness.
Albert Einstein, physicist
30
The root of the trouble springs from too much emphasis upon competitive success as the main source of happiness.
Bertrand Russell, philosopher
31
Think about the metric by which your life will be judged, and make a resolution to live every day so that in the end, your life will be judged a success.
Clayton Christensen, business professor
32
What adding well-being to our definition of success means is that, in addition to looking after our financial capital, we need to look after our human capital.
Arianna Huffington, media founder
33
If happiness is on the opposite side of success, your brain never gets there.
Shawn Achor, happiness researcher
34
Let's probe away at our notions of success. Let's make sure our ideas of success are truly our own.
Alain de Botton, philosopher and writer
35
Whenever you see me somewhere succeeding in one area of my life, that almost certainly means I am failing in another area of my life.
Shonda Rhimes, television producer
36
The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being.
Pearl S. Buck, novelist
37
Any vision of success has to admit what it's losing out on, where the element of loss is.
Alain de Botton, philosopher and writer
Inspirational quotes for success: failure and persistence
For the post-mortem, the missed target and the launch that didn't land.
38
It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.
Theodore Roosevelt, US president
39
Failure is only the opportunity to more intelligently begin again. There is no disgrace in honest failure; there is disgrace in fearing to fail.
Henry Ford, automaker
40
I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.
Michael Jordan, basketball champion
41
Even a failure is exciting, and most of my ideas have of course been wrong.
Ivar Giaever, Nobel physicist
42
Many people dream of success. To me success can only be achieved through repeated failure and introspection. In fact, success represents the 1% of your work which results only from the 99% that is called failure.
Soichiro Honda, Honda founder
43
There is the greatest practical benefit in making a few failures early in life.
Thomas Henry Huxley, biologist
44
Attention and activity lead to mistakes as well as to successes; but a life spent in making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
George Bernard Shaw, playwright
45
There is an element of failure in all success.
Simone de Beauvoir, philosopher and writer
46
There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.
Paulo Coelho, novelist
47
Isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?
L. M. Montgomery, novelist
48
Our business in this world is not to succeed, but to continue to fail, in good spirits.
Robert Louis Stevenson, novelist
49
If one cannot have success, the next most agreeable thing is failure.
Jean Ingelow, poet and novelist
50
Half the failures in life arise from pulling in one's horse as he is leaping.
Julius and Augustus Hare, essayists
Persistence
For the long middle of a project, when the finish line isn't visible yet.
51
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed, is more important than any other one thing.
Abraham Lincoln, US president
52
The secret of success is constancy of purpose.
Benjamin Disraeli, British prime minister
53
I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took an excuse.
Florence Nightingale, nursing pioneer
54
Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.
Samuel Johnson, writer and lexicographer
55
Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.
Plutarch, Greek biographer
56
The success of most things depends upon knowing how long it will take to succeed.
Montesquieu, French philosopher
57
Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve.
Leonardo da Vinci, artist and inventor
58
The weakest living creature, by concentrating his powers on a single object, can accomplish something.
Thomas Carlyle, historian and essayist
59
I keep the subject constantly before me, and wait 'till the first dawnings open slowly, by little and little, into a full and clear light.
Isaac Newton, physicist
60
If you want to be successful in a particular field of endeavor, I think perseverance is one of the key qualities.
George Lucas, filmmaker
61
Most of us are good “starters” but poor “finishers” of everything we begin.
Napoleon Hill, self-help author
62
With ordinary talent and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable.
Thomas Fowell Buxton, abolitionist
63
We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again.
George Washington, first US president
Motivational quotes for success at work
Success quotes for work: for a kickoff, a quarterly review or a team that just shipped. More on working together in our teamwork quotes.
Business success quotes
From founders, executives, inventors and the people who studied them.
64
Success always obsoletes the very behavior that achieved it.
Peter Drucker, management thinker
65
Success is more a function of consistent common sense than of genius.
An Wang, computer company founder
66
When it rains, you put up an umbrella. That is the secret of success in business and management.
Konosuke Matsushita, Panasonic founder
67
There is no way of making a business successful that can vie with the policy of promoting those who render exceptional service.
Andrew Carnegie, steel industrialist
68
Nothing is more fatal to success than taking one's job as a matter of course.
Charles M. Schwab, steel executive
69
Business success is less a function of grandiose predictions than it is a result of being able to respond rapidly to real changes as they occur.
Jack Welch, GE chief executive
70
The best augury of a man's success in his profession is that he thinks it the finest in the world.
George Eliot, novelist
71
A culture of discipline is not a principle of business, it is a principle of greatness.
Jim Collins, management writer
72
There is no royal and flower strewn road to success, and if there is I have not found it, for what success I have obtained is the result of many sleepless nights and real hard work.
Madam C. J. Walker, cosmetics entrepreneur
73
I firmly believe that any organization, in order to survive and achieve success, must have a sound set of beliefs on which it premises all its policies and actions.
Thomas J. Watson Jr., IBM chief executive
74
I believe that if you think small, you'll stay small.
Ray Kroc, McDonald's chief executive
75
All serious success in work depends upon some genuine interest in the material with which the work is concerned.
Bertrand Russell, philosopher
76
I believe the real difference between success and failure in a corporation can very often be traced to the question of how well the organization brings out the great energies and talents of its people.
Thomas J. Watson Jr., IBM chief executive
Team success quotes
Nobody succeeds alone at work. For a team win post or a project wrap-up.
77
This feeling of all working together in the same direction is one of the most rewarding experiences of a scientist.
Max Born, physicist
78
We have been singled out as individuals but our work has been part of a collective effort.
Ben Mottelson, physicist
79
In the course of this work, my colleagues and I have been deeply impressed by the powerful constructive forces which are set free when the representatives of many national traditions work harmoniously together for a common purpose.
Cecil Powell, physicist
80
Balance is the key to every team. It is impossible to win a football game with 11 goalkeepers or with a group of people with identical talents.
Alex Ferguson, football manager
81
No organization will succeed without teamwork, no matter how many all-stars you have.
Pat Summitt, basketball coach
82
I believe that when people strive for excellence as a team, everyone's level of performance is elevated.
Mary Kay Ash, cosmetics entrepreneur
83
In each case, people in a good collaboration accomplish more than the group's most talented members could achieve on their own.
Twyla Tharp, choreographer
84
Multipliers are genius makers. Everyone around them gets smarter and more capable.
Liz Wiseman, leadership author
85
Helpfulness sounds really anemic, but it's absolutely core to successful teams, and it routinely outperforms individual intelligence.
Margaret Heffernan, business author
86
In our silos, we can get things done. But when we step back and reach out and reach across, miracles can happen.
Amy Edmondson, management professor
87
Innovation is not about solo genius, it's about collective genius.
Linda Hill, management professor
88
Management is the most noble of professions if it's practiced well. No other occupation offers as many ways to help others learn and grow, take responsibility and be recognized for achievement, and contribute to the success of a team.
Clayton Christensen, business professor
Success quotes from athletes
Champions and coaches on practice, pressure and winning the right way.
89
Winning is an important thing, but to have your own style, to have people copy you, to admire you, that is the greatest gift.
Johan Cruyff, football legend
90
I wasn't the best hitter, Ted Williams was. I wasn't the best fielder, Roberto Clemente was. I wasn't the best base stealer, Maury Wills was. But I was among the best in everything.
Willie Mays, baseball center fielder
91
I hate to lose more than I like to win.
Larry Bird, basketball forward
92
Yes, you stand alone on your side of the net. But your success depends on your team.
Roger Federer, tennis champion
93
I always thought that the most important measure of how good a game I'd played was how much better I'd made my teammates play.
Bill Russell, basketball center
94
Sport at its best means striving for excellence.
Roger Bannister, miler and neurologist
95
I live for big championships, that's where I come alive.
Usain Bolt, Olympic sprinter
96
A champion will notice the details and adapt.
Billie Jean King, tennis champion
97
A victory is a victory, whether you blow your opponent away or come from behind to win.
Rod Laver, tennis champion
98
Winning has always meant much to me, but winning friends has meant the most.
Babe Didrikson Zaharias, Olympian and golfer
99
Winning it once can be a fluke; winning it twice proves that you are the best.
Althea Gibson, tennis champion
100
I firmly believe that success breeds success. Once you have achieved something, your confidence begins to build.
Mia Hamm, soccer champion
How to use success quotes at work
A quote on its own is a poster. A quote tied to a real goal or a real person is a message. Four places it works, with wording you can borrow.
On a kickoff slide. Open with one quote, then say in one sentence what success means for this project. The quote gets attention; the definition is what people remember in week six.“Slide 1: ‘Success always obsoletes the very behavior that achieved it.’ (Peter Drucker). Slide 2: What got us to [last result] won't get us to [goal]. Here's what changes.”
In a goal-setting session. Read a quote about what success means before anyone writes a goal. People set better goals when they've said out loud what they're for. Six ready-made prompts are below.“Before we start: Christopher Morley wrote that there is only one success, to be able to spend your life in your own way. Take two minutes: what would make this year a success for you?”
In a promotion or congratulations note. Put the quote first and the specific thing the person did right after it. Name the result and the habit behind it, not just the new title.“Congratulations, [name]. An Wang said success is more a function of consistent common sense than of genius. Your steady calls on [project] all year are exactly that, and it shows.”
To open a retro or post-mortem. Start with a quote about failure so the room knows it's safe to name what went wrong. Then ask one concrete question and give everyone a turn.“Henry Ford wrote that there is no disgrace in honest failure. So let's be honest: what's one thing we'd do differently on [project]?”
Six quote-and-question prompts for a goal-setting session
Each pairs a quote from this page with a question we wrote. Read the quote, give everyone two minutes to write an answer, then share. To turn the answers into goals, use our SMART goals examples.
Christopher Morley: “There is only one success … to be able to spend your life in your own way.”
What would make this year a success for you, in your own words?
Abraham Lincoln: “Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed, is more important than any other one thing.”
Which goal matters enough that you'll keep going when it gets hard?
Peter Drucker: “Success always obsoletes the very behavior that achieved it.”
What worked for us last year that we should stop doing now?
Montesquieu: “The success of most things depends upon knowing how long it will take to succeed.”
Which goal have we been underestimating, and how long will it really take?
Max Born: “This feeling of all working together in the same direction is one of the most rewarding experiences of a scientist.”
Where do our goals pull in different directions, and how do we line them up?
Bertrand Russell: “All serious success in work depends upon some genuine interest in the material with which the work is concerned.”
Which part of your work interests you most, and how could you do more of it?
20 ways to congratulate someone on a success
For a promotion, a closed deal, a launch or a finished degree. We wrote these, so they carry no name: copy one into a card or a message and add one sentence about what the person actually did.
1
Congratulations. You made the hard part look easy, and we know it wasn't.
2
Well earned. Everyone who worked with you saw this coming.
3
This win has your fingerprints all over it.
4
Congratulations on the promotion. The team is lucky to keep learning from you.
5
You set the goal, did the work and hit it. Congratulations.
6
Huge congratulations. Enjoy this one before the next big thing.
7
From the first draft to the finish line, you never let up. Congratulations.
8
The results speak for themselves, but we'll say it anyway: great work.
9
Congratulations on landing the new client. They chose well.
10
So proud to have had a front-row seat for this.
11
You've earned every bit of this. Celebrate it properly.
12
Congratulations on the launch. Real people are using what you built today.
13
New title, same person we love working with. Congratulations.
14
You took a smart risk, and it worked. Congratulations on making it happen.
15
Congratulations on finishing the degree while doing a full-time job. That's no small thing.
16
This is what persistence looks like. Congratulations.
17
Big goal, big result. Congratulations to you and the whole team.
18
We're cheering for you today, and for whatever comes next.
19
You didn't just hit the target. You raised the bar for all of us.
20
Thank you for making the rest of us look good. Congratulations on a great year.
Famous success quotes we left out
These sit near the top of most lists of notable quotes about success. We left them off because the name under them is wrong or unproven.
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” (usually credited to Winston Churchill)
Wikiquote lists it under misattributed. No one has found it in his speeches or writings; it seems to come from an American advertisement.
“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” (usually credited to Winston Churchill)
Also misattributed. Richard Langworth's Churchill by Himself debunks it, and the earliest close match is a 1953 public-speaking book by David Guy Powers.
“To laugh often and much... This is to have succeeded.” (usually credited to Ralph Waldo Emerson)
Wikiquote lists it under Emerson's misattributed lines. It is a reworked version of Bessie Anderson Stanley's 1905 prize essay on success; Quote Investigator traces the reworded text to a 1951 newspaper column that credited Emerson.
“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” (usually credited to Thomas Edison)
Wikiquote lists it as disputed: the earliest printing is a 1967 magazine article, decades after his death.
“Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing.” (usually credited to Vince Lombardi)
Wikiquote credits it to UCLA football coach Red Sanders. Lombardi denied saying it.
A quote gets people thinking about success. A workshop gets them to define it and plan for it. Both of these run for 60 minutes with a live host on your video call, on Zoom by default (Teams, Google Meet or Webex on request). Goal Setting & Goal Getting is an interactive workshop on setting clear, actionable goals, staying motivated and getting past obstacles, at work and in life. Success Supercharge is about self-mastery: moving with intention instead of overwhelm and putting your energy where it matters most. Teams split across time zones can book two sessions. Book about 2 weeks ahead.
Two hosted workshops for a kickoff or a new year, with today's prices. Get a free quote with your date and headcount.
Anna Quindlen's “If your success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your heart, it is not success at all” is one of the best, from her 1999 Mount Holyoke commencement speech. For something shorter, Christopher Morley wrote that there is only one success: to be able to spend your life in your own way.
What are some short success quotes?
Try “Success is the child of audacity” (Benjamin Disraeli), “Success is a lousy teacher” (Bill Gates) or “Little strokes fell great oaks” (Benjamin Franklin). Every quote in our short list is 10 words or fewer, so it fits a slide title or a whiteboard.
What are good motivational quotes for success at work?
Peter Drucker's “Success always obsoletes the very behavior that achieved it” works well at a kickoff, and An Wang's “Success is more a function of consistent common sense than of genius” suits a team that wins by being steady. For quotes about success and hard work, see our hard work quotes.
Did Winston Churchill say “Success is not final, failure is not fatal”?
No. Wikiquote lists it under misattributed: no one has found it in his speeches or writings, and it seems to come from an American advertising campaign of the late 1930s. A line he did write is “Success always demands a greater effort,” from Their Finest Hour (1949).
Who wrote “To laugh often and much” about success?
Not Ralph Waldo Emerson. It is a reworked version of a prize-winning 1905 essay on success by Bessie Anderson Stanley, and Quote Investigator traces the Emerson credit to a 1951 newspaper column. Stanley's own opening line is in our list: “He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much.”
What does success really mean?
The people on this page mostly agree it isn't the trophy. Margaret Mead measured it by what a person contributes to others, John Wooden by knowing you made the effort to do your best, and Viktor Frankl warned that success, like happiness, can't be pursued directly. Most good definitions are personal, which is why a goal-setting session should start there.
How do you congratulate someone on their success?
Be specific: name the result and the habit or choice that got them there, and say it soon. A short quote can open the note, but the sentence about what they did is what they'll keep. We wrote 20 congratulations lines for this page that you can copy and build on.
Help your team define success, then plan for it
A live host runs a 60-minute goal-setting workshop for your team on your video call. Send your date and headcount for a plan within 24 hours.
