Top 50 Inspirational Quotes for 2025

Fifty potent lines—classic and contemporary—to set your compass for the year ahead.

• 10 min read

Open book bathed in warm light symbolizing inspiration for the new year

A single sentence can tilt a day. The right line, read at the right moment, has a way of clearing fog, steadying nerves, or nudging us into a braver posture. This curated collection of fifty quotes for 2025 spans themes of resilience, focus, kindness, craft, and courage. Use them as morning cues, meeting primers, or evening reflections. You’ll get more from these words if you pair them with action: choose one quote each day, speak it aloud, and decide on one micro-step it inspires. Over time, you’ll build a personal anthology that reflects your values and amplifies your momentum.

How to get the most from this list

The 50 quotes

  1. “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” — Peter Drucker
  2. “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” — Winston Churchill
  3. “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” — Theodore Roosevelt
  4. “Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.” — Dalai Lama
  5. “Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” — William James
  6. “What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
  7. “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” — Nelson Mandela
  8. “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” — Winston Churchill
  9. “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t—you’re right.” — Henry Ford
  10. “The only way to do great work is to love what you do.” — Steve Jobs
  11. “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” — Arthur Ashe
  12. “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” — Wayne Gretzky
  13. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” — (Attributed to Aristotle)
  14. “Courage is grace under pressure.” — Ernest Hemingway
  15. “Little by little, one travels far.” — J.R.R. Tolkien
  16. “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” — (Often attributed to Plato)
  17. “If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
  18. “Well done is better than well said.” — Benjamin Franklin
  19. “What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.” — Tim Ferriss
  20. “If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” — Milton Berle
  21. “I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.” — Stephen R. Covey
  22. “Discipline equals freedom.” — Jocko Willink
  23. “Make it simple, but significant.” — Don Draper (fictional)
  24. “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” — (Attributed to Leonardo da Vinci)
  25. “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” — Mark Twain
  26. “If you can dream it, you can do it.” — Walt Disney
  27. “Dream big. Start small. Act now.” — Robin Sharma
  28. “Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.” — Suzy Kassem
  29. “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” — (Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi)
  30. “A year from now you may wish you had started today.” — Karen Lamb
  31. “Quality is not an act, it is a habit.” — (Attributed to Aristotle)
  32. “No pressure, no diamonds.” — Thomas Carlyle
  33. “Ships are safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.” — John A. Shedd
  34. “The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” — Confucius
  35. “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” — Thomas Edison
  36. “Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.” — George Addair
  37. “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” — (Attributed to Emerson)
  38. “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” — Lao Tzu
  39. “Either you run the day or the day runs you.” — Jim Rohn
  40. “Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going.” — Sam Levenson
  41. “The only limit to our realization of tomorrow is our doubts of today.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt
  42. “Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.” — Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  43. “If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.” — Booker T. Washington
  44. “In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.” — (Attributed to Albert Einstein)
  45. “What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.” — Zig Ziglar
  46. “To have what you want, deserve what you want.” — Charles H. Spurgeon
  47. “Gratitude turns what we have into enough.” — Anonymous
  48. “Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
  49. “If not now, when?” — Hillel the Elder
  50. “Leave the world better than you found it.” — Anonymous
  51. “Make progress, not excuses.” — Anonymous

Put a quote to work today

Pick one line that resonates. Speak it once. Then define the smallest step it suggests—send the email, write the paragraph, ask for the meeting, or take the five-minute walk. Wisdom becomes momentum the moment it meets action.

“Well done is better than well said.” — Benjamin Franklin

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