You may have come across some people who are confident and are self-motivated, but the reality is not all of us are like that. However, it shouldn’t be a hindrance for you to try and develop your self-confidence. Here are some of the most beautiful self-motivation quotes to inspire and remind you that you are already pretty incredible, all you have to do is acknowledge it.
Self-Motivation Quotes
1. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection. – Buddha
2. Until you value yourself, you won’t value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it. – M. Scott Peck
3. A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval. – Mark Twain
4. Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life, but define yourself. – Harvey Fierstein
5. Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world. – Lucille Ball
6. Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one. – Eleanor Roosevelt
7. If only you could sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person. – Fred Rogers
8. Low self-esteem is like driving through life with your hand-break on. – Maxwell Maltz
9. What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
10. When you recover or discover something that nourishes your soul and brings joy, care enough about yourself to make room for it in your life. – Jean Shinoda Bolen
11. Self-care is never a selfish act—it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer to others. – Parker Palmer
12. When you adopt the viewpoint that there is nothing that exists that is not part of you, that there is no one who exists who is not part of you, that any judgment you make is self-judgment, that any criticism you level is self-criticism, you will wisely extend to yourself an unconditional love that will be the light of the world. – Harry Palmer
13. Why should we worry about what others think of us? Do we have more confidence in their opinions than we do our own? – Brigham Young
14. The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated. – William James
15. To fall in love with yourself is the first secret to happiness. – Robert Morley
16. Don’t waste your energy trying to change opinions. Do your thing, and don’t care if they like it. – Tina Fey
17. So then, the relationship of self to other is the complete realization that loving yourself is impossible without loving everything defined as other than yourself. – Alan Watts
18. Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we’ll ever do. – Brené Brown
19. One of the greatest regrets in life is being what others would want you to be, rather than being yourself. – Shannon L. Alder
20. Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy. – Dale Carnegie
21. Once you embrace your value, talents, and strengths, it neutralizes when others think less of you. – Rob Liano
22. To accept ourselves as we are means to value our imperfections as much as our perfections. – Sandra Bierig
23. I don’t want everyone to like me; I should think less of myself if some people did. – Henry James
24. To establish true self-esteem we must concentrate on our successes and forget about the failures and the negatives in our lives. – Denis Waitley
25. A healthy self-love means we have no compulsion to justify to ourselves or others why we take vacations, why we sleep late, why we buy new shoes, why we spoil ourselves from time to time. We feel comfortable doing things which add quality and beauty to life. – Andrew Matthews
26. Our self-respect tracks our choices. Every time we act in harmony with our authentic self and our heart, we earn our respect. It is that simple. Every choice matters. – Dan Coppersmith
27. People may flatter themselves just as much by thinking that their faults are always present to other people’s minds, as if they believe that the world is always contemplating their individual charms and virtues. – Elizabeth Gaskell
28. Don’t rely on someone else for your happiness and self-worth. Only you can be responsible for that. If you can’t love and respect yourself, no one else will be able to make that happen. Accept who you are completely, the good and the bad, and make changes as you see fit, not because you think someone else wants you to be different. – Stacey Charter
29. 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 who have come alive. – Howard Washington Thurman
30. If you don’t love yourself, nobody will. Not only that, you won’t be good at loving anyone else. Loving starts with the self. – Wayne Dyer
31. The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself. – Mark Twain
32. It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves. – Sir Edmund Hillary
33. One’s dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but it can never be taken away unless it is surrendered. – Michael J. Fox
34. My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me. – Henry Ford
35. No other love no matter how genuine it is, can fulfill one’s heart better than unconditional self-love. – Edmond Mbiaka
36. Loving yourself isn’t vanity. It’s sanity. – Katrina Mayer
37. Lighten up on yourself. No one is perfect. Gently accept your humanness. – Deborah Day
38. It’s all about falling in love with yourself and sharing that love with someone who appreciates you, rather than looking for love to compensate for a self-love deficit. – Eartha Kitt
39. Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are. – Malcolm S. Forbes
40. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
41. Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the face. – Helen Keller
42. You have been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens. – Louise L. Hay
43. To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance. – Oscar Wilde
44. Be faithful to that which exists within yourself. – André Gide
45. Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. – William James
46. The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen. – Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
47. I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence. – Frederick Douglass
48. You have to believe in yourself when no one else does – that makes you a winner right here. – Venus Williams
49. If you do not respect your own wishes, no one else will. You will simply attract people who disrespect you as much as you do. – Vironika Tugaleva
50. Dare to love yourself as if you were a rainbow with gold at both ends. – Aberjhan
51. Most people can motivate themselves to do things simply by knowing that those things need to be done. But not me. For me, motivation is this horrible, scary game where I try to make myself do something while I actively avoid doing it. If I win, I have to do something I don’t want to do. And if I lose, I’m one step closer to ruining my entire life. And I never know whether I’m going to win or lose until the last second. – Allie Brosh
52. Never surrender your hopes and dreams to the fateful limitations others have placed on their own lives. The vision of your true destiny does not reside within the blinkered outlook of the naysayers and the doom prophets. Judge not by their words, but accept advice based on the evidence of actual results. Do not be surprised should you find a complete absence of anything mystical or miraculous in the manifested reality of those who are so eager to advise you. Friends and family who suffer the lack of abundance, joy, love, fulfillment and prosperity in their own lives really have no business imposing their self-limiting beliefs on your reality experience. – Anthon St. Maarten
53. Edit your life frequently and ruthlessly. It’s your masterpiece after all. – Nathan W. Morris
54. Always choose the future over the past. What do we do now? – Brian Tracy
55. We do not get to choose how we start out in life. We do not get to choose the day we are born or the family we are born into, what we are named at birth, what country we are born in, and we do not get to choose our ancestry. All these things are predetermined by a higher power. By the time you are old enough to start making decisions for yourself, a lot of things in your life are already in place. It’s important, therefore, that you focus on the future, the only thing that you can change. – Idowu Koyenikan
56. You must have a level of discontent to feel the urge to want to grow. – Idowu Koyenikan
57. You are your master. Only you have the master keys to open the inner locks. – Amit Ray
58. Whenever I am in a difficult situation where there seems to be no way out, I think about all the times I have been in such situations and say to myself, “I did it before, so I can do it again. – Idowu Koyenikan
59. Forget about self-image and self-judgment. It’s about self-love, and no one teaches you that at school. No one teaches you that if you accept and love yourself, nothing and no one can touch you. This is the only face and body you’re ever going to get, so be comfortable and happy in it. Own it. Own every aspect of who you are and present it to the world with the utmost pride. – Connor Franta
60. Never allow your mind to wander untamed like a wild animal that exists on the basis of survival of the fittest. Tame your mind with consistent focus on your goals and desires. – Stephen Richards
61. Depression weighs you down like a rock in a river. You don’t stand a chance. You can fight and pray and hope you have the strength to swim, but sometimes, you have to let yourself sink. Because you’ll never know true happiness until someone or something pulls you back out of that river–and you’ll never believe it until you realize it was you, yourself who saved you. – Alysha Speer
62. Grateful souls focus on the happiness and abundance present in their lives and this in turn attracts more abundance and joy towards them. – Stephen Richards
63. Do not depend on good motivator. Find your words of self-motivation. – Toba Beta
64. The way to develop self-confidence is to do the thing you fear and get a record of successful experiences behind you. – William Jennings Bryan
65. 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
66. Always be yourself and have faith in yourself. Do not go out and look for a successful personality and try to duplicate it. – Bruce Lee
67. Don’t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles, and less than perfect conditions. So what? Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident, and more and more successful. – Mark Victor Hansen
68. You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do. – Eleanor Roosevelt
69. Low self-confidence isn’t a life sentence. Self-confidence can be learned, practiced, and mastered–just like any other skill. Once you master it, everything in your life will change for the better. – Barrie Davenport
70. Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit. – E.E. Cummings
71. Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement. – Golda Meir
72. One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation. – Arthur Ashe
73. It is confidence in our bodies, minds, and spirits that allows us to keep looking for new adventures. – Oprah Winfrey
74. But failure has to be an option in art and in exploration–because it’s a leap of faith. And no important endeavor that required innovation was done without risk. You have to be willing to take those risks. – James Cameron
75. People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within. – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
76. Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong. – Peter T. Mcintyre
77. Argue for your limitations and, sure enough, they’re yours. – Richard Bach
78. The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable. – Paul Tillich
79. If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves. – Thomas Alva Edison
80. Talk to yourself like you would to someone you love. – Brene Brown
81. Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do. – Dr. Benjamin Spock
82. Successful people have fear, successful people have doubts, and successful people have worries. They just don’t let these feelings stop them. – T. Harv Eker
83. You can have anything you want if you are willing to give up the belief that you can’t have it. – Dr. Robert Anthony
84. It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves. – Sir Edmund Hillary
85. To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance. – Oscar Wilde
86. I had to grow to love my body. I did not have a good self-image at first. Finally, it occurred to me, I’m either going to love me or hate me. And I chose to love myself. Then everything kind of sprung from there. Things that I thought weren’t attractive became sexy. Confidence makes you sexy. – Queen Latifah
87. Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude. – Thomas Jefferson
88. Confidence is a habit that can be developed by acting as if you already had the confidence you desire to have. – Brian Tracy
89. When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around. – Willie Nelson
90. If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is, too. Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think. – T. Harv Eker
91. Wouldn’t it be powerful if you fell in love with yourself so deeply that you would do just about anything if you knew it would make you happy? This is precisely how much life loves you and wants you to nurture yourself. The deeper you love yourself, the more the universe will affirm your worth. Then you can enjoy a lifelong love affair that brings you the richest fulfillment from inside out. – Alan Cohen
92. To anyone that ever told you you’re no good, they’re no better. – Hayley Williams
93. Always remember you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. – Christopher Robin
94. You have no control over other people’s taste, so focus on staying true to your own. – Tim Gunn
95. No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. – Eleanor Roosevelt
96. The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it. – J.M. Barrie
97. It’s a dead-end street if you sit around waiting for someone else to tell you you’re okay. – Michael Pitt
98. Unlike a drop of water which loses its identity when it joins the ocean, man does not lose his being in the society in which he lives. Man’s life is independent. He is born not for the development of the society alone, but for the development of his self. – B. R. Ambedkar
99. Choose to focus your time, energy and conversation around people who inspire you, support you and help you to grow you into your happiest, strongest, wisest self. – Karen Salmansohn
100. If we lose love and self-respect for each other, this is how we finally die. – Maya Angelou
101. There is an amazing power getting to know your inner self and learning how to use it and not fight with the world. If you know what makes you happy, your personality, interests and capabilities, just use them, and everything else flows beautifully. – Juhi Chawla
102. My story is a freedom song of struggle. It is about finding one’s purpose, how to overcome fear and to stand up for causes bigger than one’s self. – Coretta Scott King
103. Loving oneself isn’t hard, when you understand who and what ‘yourself’ is. It has nothing to do with the shape of your face, the size of your eyes, the length of your hair or the quality of your clothes. It’s so beyond all of those things and it’s what gives life to everything about you. Your own self is such a treasure. – Phylicia Rashad
104. There can be no failure to a man who has not lost his courage, his character, his self respect, or his self-confidence. He is still a King. – Orison Swett Marden
105. Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement. – Golda Meir
106. The ego is only an illusion, but a very influential one. Letting the ego-illusion become your identity can prevent you from knowing your true self. Ego, the false idea of believing that you are what you have or what you do, is a backwards way of assessing and living life. – Wayne Dyer
107. Singing is my passion, my first love and the secret of my energy. Music to me is like finding my inner self, my soul. It gives me a great joy to see audiences enjoying with me. I have given my heart to singing. When I sing, I can feel romance in everything around me. – Kailash Kher
108. There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self. – Ernest Hemingway
109. The real power of the Buddha was that he had so much love. He saw people trapped in their notions of small separate self, feeling guilty or proud of that self, and he offered revolutionary teachings that resounded like a lion’s roar, like a great rising tide, helping people to wake up and break free from the prison of ignorance. – Thich Nhat Hanh
110. Fishing provides that connection with the whole living world. It gives you the opportunity of being totally immersed, turning back into yourself in a good way. A form of meditation, some form of communion with levels of yourself that are deeper than the ordinary self. – Ted Hughes
111. The ‘self-image’ is the key to human personality and human behavior. Change the self image and you change the personality and the behavior. – Maxwell Maltz
112. I always encourage people to get out there, travel the world, see new things, experience new people, experience new food, experience new culture. What happens is that it helps you to grow and be your best self. – Karamo Brown
113. We all have a dark side. Most of us go through life avoiding direct confrontation with that aspect of ourselves, which I call the shadow self. There’s a reason why it carries a great deal of energy. – Lorraine Toussaint
114. As others have recently suggested, the term ‘gamer’ is no longer useful as an identity because games are for everyone. These days, even my mom spends an inordinate amount of time gaming on her iPad. So I’ll take a cue from my younger self and say I don’t care about being a ‘gamer,’ but I sure do love video games. – Anita Sarkeesian
115. In the egoic state, your sense of self, your identity, is derived from your thinking mind – in other words, what your mind tells you about yourself: the storyline of you, the memories, the expectations, all the thoughts that go through your head continuously and the emotions that reflect those thoughts. All those things make up your sense of self. – Eckhart Tolle
116. We need to make friends with ourselves. We are stuck with our self all day, so let’s be kinder, gentler, more amusing company. Let’s take our own hand and say, ‘There, there, sister. You’re doing a good job. I’m proud of how you’re handling all this craziness down here. Don’t give up. Carry on, warrior.’ – Glennon Doyle Melton
117. Sometimes you’ve got to let everything go – purge yourself. If you are unhappy with anything whatever is bringing you down, get rid of it. Because you’ll find that when you’re free, your true creativity, your true self comes out. – Tina Turner