We're all about looking ahead, dreaming big, and trying our best. When challenges arise and you feel doubt creeping in, turn to the best inspirational quotes. These pearls of wisdom will help you stay focused, positive, and determined, no matter what life throws at you. Ahead, discover 70 positive, inspirational quotes from leaders around the globe.
1. "If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities."
—Maya Angelou
2. "Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment."
—Oprah Winfrey
3. "If not us, then who? If not now, then when?"
—John Lewis
4. "When you have a dream, you've got to grab it and never let go."
—Carol Burnett
5. "It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop."
—Confucius
6. "Change takes courage."
—Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
7. "The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do."
—Steve Jobs
8. "Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you."
—Ruth Bader Ginsburg
“Not to spoil the ending but everything is going to be OK”.
9. “When you give joy to other people, you get more joy in return. You should give a good thought to the happiness that you can give out.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt
10. "Don't just get involved. Fight for your seat at the table. Better yet, fight for a seat at the head of the table."
—Barack Obama
11. "If you can do your best and be happy, you are further along in life than most people."
—Leonardo DiCaprio
12. "In a gentle way, you can shake the world."
—Mahatma Gandhi
13. "If you want to fly, give up everything that weighs you down."
—Buddha
14. "In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity."
—Albert Einstein
15. "There are still many causes worth sacrificing for, so much history yet to be made."
—Michelle Obama
16. "No pressure, no diamonds."
—Thomas Carlyle
17. "The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision."
—Helen Keller
18. "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less travelled by, And that has made all the difference."
—Robert Frost
19. "Everything you can imagine is real."
—Pablo Picasso
20. "If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading."
—Lao Tzu
21. "The secret of getting ahead is getting started."
—Mark Twain
22. "It's hard to beat a person who never gives up."
—Babe Ruth
Important reminders to recharge your batteries
23. "The most difficult thing is the decision to act; the rest is merely tenacity."
—Amelia Earhart
24. "I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed."
—Michael Jordan
25. "The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."
—Nelson Mandela
26. "You must do the thing you think you cannot do."
—Eleanor Roosevelt
27. "Ignore the naysayers. Really the only option is head down and focus on the job."
—Chris Pine
28. “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any."
—Alice Walker
29. "Whatever you are, be a good one."
—Abraham Lincoln
30. "Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin."
—Mother Teresa
31. "Being realistic is the most commonly traveled road to mediocrity."
—Will Smith
32. "Everything you want is on the other side of fear."
—George Addair
33. "Be yourself; everyone else is already taken."
—Oscar Wilde
34. "At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can."
—Frida Kahlo
35. "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."
—Aristotle
36. "If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced."
—Vincent Van Gogh
37. "You don't need to see the whole staircase, just take the first step."
—Martin Luther King Jr.
38. "I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.”
—Muhammad Ali
39. "You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream."
—C.S. Lewis
40. "Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help you create the fact."
—William James
The queen of savage.
41. "I really think a champion is defined not by their wins but by how they can recover when they fall."
—Serena Williams
42. "Try to be a rainbow in someone else's cloud."
—Maya Angelou
43. "People with goals succeed because they know where they're going."
—Earl Nightingale
44. "Make each day your masterpiece."
—John Wooden
45. "Magic is believing in yourself. If you can make that happen, you can make anything happen."
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
46. "You see things; you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say 'Why not?"
—George Bernard Shaw
47. "It is never too late to be what you might have been."
—George Eliot
48. "You can never be the best. The only thing you can be the best at is developing yourself."
—Natalie Portman
49. "To find yourself, think for yourself."
—Socrates
50. "You make a choice: continue living your life feeling muddled in this abyss of self-misunderstanding, or you find your identity independent of it. You draw your own box."
—Meghan Markle
51. "If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost. That is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."
—Henry David Thoreau
52. "Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude."
—Zig Ziglar
53. "Believe you can and you're halfway there."
—Theodore Roosevelt
54. "Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment, until it becomes a memory."
—Dr. Seuss
55. "Start from wherever you are and with whatever you've got."
—Jim Rohn
56. "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
57. "The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand."
—Vince Lombardi
58. “Life is short, and it is here to be lived.”
—Kate Winslet
59. “I have standards I don’t plan on lowering for anybody, including myself.”
—Zendaya
60. “I never dreamed about success. I worked for it.”
—Estée Lauder
61. “They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”
—Andy Warhol
62. “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”
—E.E. Cummings
63. “Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius, and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.”
—Marilyn Monroe
64. “Nothing is impossible, the word itself says “I’m possible!”
—Audrey Hepburn
65. “Success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you get.”
–Ingrid Bergman
66. “I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than the things I haven’t done."
—Lucille Ball
67. “Be courageous. Challenge orthodoxy. Stand up for what you believe in. When you are in your rocking chair talking to your grandchildren many years from now, be sure you have a good story to tell.”
—Amal Clooney
68. “Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.”
―Ella Fitzgerald
69. “To bring about change, you must not be afraid to take the first step. We will fail when we fail to try.”
—Rosa Parks
70. “I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.”
―Angela Y. Davis
A version of this article originally appeared on Teen Vogue.
