101 Motivational Quotes for Students and Learners

Motivational Quotes for students are like pills for learners to energize their inner being. Just as technology tools are necessary to get by in our daily lives, so are motivational quotes. As a student and a learner, a simple, short sentence can go a long way to brighten your day and ignite a spark in your daily activity when digested subconsciously. A quote can bring that ‘Aha moment’ when the words speak to your soul. That’s about how powerful short quotes can be—words that live longer than the lips that utter them. Technology tools become obsolete at some point, but these words live for ages.

Below is a list of 101 motivational quotes for students and learners. Enjoy and share!

Studying

1.       If you believe everything you read, better not read.

Japanese Proverb

2.       Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled ‘This could change your life’.

Helen Exley

3.       Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket: and do not pull it out and strike it, merely to show that you have one.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

4.       He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.

Chinese Proverb

5.       Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.

Alexander Graham Bell

6.       Study while others are sleeping; work while others are loafing; prepare while others are playing; and dream while others are wishing.

William Arthur Ward

7.       Wise people learn when they can; fools learn when they must.

Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

8.       Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning.

Albert Einstein

9.       It’s not that I’m so smart; it’s just that I stay with problems longer.

Albert Einstein

10.     I am often amazed at how much more capability and enthusiasm for science there is among elementary school youngsters than among college students.

Carl Sagan

11.     Students now arrive at the university ignorant and cynical about our political heritage, lacking the wherewithal to be either inspired by it or seriously critical of it.

Allan Bloom

12.     No man can teach another self-knowledge. He can only lead him or her up to self-discovery – the source of truth.

Barry Long

13.     If we make a couple of discoveries here and there we need not believe things will go on like this for ever. Just as we hit water when we dig in the earth, so we discover the incomprehensible sooner or later.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

14.     Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.

Socrates

Success

15.     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

16.     Keep steadily before you the fact that all true success depends at last upon yourself.

Theodore T. Hunger

17.     The surest way not to fail is to determine to succeed.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

18.     Success is sweet: the sweeter if long delayed and attained through manifold struggles and defeats.

A. Branson Alcott

19.     The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack in will.

Vince Lombardi

20.     Everyone has a fair turn to be as great as he pleases.

Jeremy Collier

21.     I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure–which is: Try to please everybody.

Herbert Bayard Swope

22.     To climb steep hills requires a slow pace at first.

William Shakespeare

23.     Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.

Robert Collier

24.     The ability to concentrate and to use your time well is everything if you want to succeed in business–or almost anywhere else for that matter.

Lee Iacocca

Action

25.     It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, “Always do what you are afraid to do.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

26.     The most important thing is to keep the most important thing the most important thing.

From the book “Foundation design”, by Coduto, Donald P.

27.     Nothing’s ever built to last but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth building

Unknown

28.     Without inspiration the best powers of the mind remain dormant. There is a fuel in us which needs to be ignited with sparks.

Johann Gottfried Von Herder

29.     We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.

Aristotle

30.     You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

Eleanor Roosevelt

31. 
        Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

Albert Einstein

32.     Believe with all of your heart that you will do what you were made to do.

Orison Swett Marden

33.     Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

34.     You cannot dream yourself into a character: you must hammer and forge yourself into one.

Henry D. Thoreau

35.     The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.

Paul Valery

36.     Press on – nothing can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Perseverance and determination alone are omnipotent.

Calvin Coolidge

37.     You will never leave where you are, until you decide where you’d rather be.

Dexter Yager

Destination and Confidence

38.     Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is.

Vince Lombardi

39.     Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.

Harriet Tubman

40.     If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.

Yogi Berra

41.     Some men give up their designs when they have almost reached the goal; while others, on the contrary, obtain a victory by exerting, at the last moment, more vigorous efforts than before.

Polybius

42.     The virtue lies in the struggle, not in the prize.

Richard Monckton Milnes

43.     To reach a port, we must sail—Sail, not tie at anchor—Sail, not drift.

Franklin Roosevelt

44.     Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.

Seneca

45.     Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

Confucius

46.     Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.

Lanston Hughes

47.     There are two things to aim at in life; first to get what you want, and after that to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind has achieved the second.

Logan Pearsall Smith

48.     You will never be the person you can be if pressure, tension, and discipline are taken out of your life.

Dr. James G. Bilkey

49.     You see things, and you say, “Why?” But I dream things that never were, and I say, “Why not?”

George Bernard Shaw

50.     Your imagination, my dear fellow, is worth more than you imagine.

Louis Aragon

51.     Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is a limitation. Look with your understanding, find what you already know, and you’ll see the way to fly.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Prepare for Future

52.     To those of you who received honors, awards, and distinctions, I say well done. And to the C students, I say you too can be president of the United States.

George W. Bush

53.     I have taught my students not to apply rules or mechanical ways of seeing.

Josef Albers

54.     Be generous with your colleagues and your competitors. When people learn that they do well whenever they work with you, they will be more willing to come to you with opportunities.

Michael Masterson

55.     When our thousands of Chinese students abroad return home, you will see how China will transform itself.

Deng Xiaoping

56.     The educational resources provided by a child’s fellow students are more important for his achievement than the resources provided by the school board.

James S. Coleman

57.     The mission for the day is to encourage students to think beyond traditional career opportunities, prepare for future careers and entrance into the workplace.

Allen Tate

58.     We need to find; the courage to say ‘NO’ to the things and people that are not serving us if we want to rediscover ourselves and live our lives with authenticity.

Barbara De Angelis

59.     Start by doing what is necessary, then what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.

St. Francis of Assisi

60.     My students frequently ask what their next project should be. My advice: immerse yourself in the music you love and you will find what you want to do; you will discover your next project.

Lukas Foss

Self-Discovery

61.     If You Can’t Find Anything To Live For Then You Better Find Something To Die For.

A Hewitt

62.     People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering.

St. Augustine

63.     So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains. And we never even know we have the key.

Lyrics from Already Gone, peformed by the Eagles for their 1974 On the Border album

64.     Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.

Lao-Tzu

65.     Ninety per cent of the world’s woe comes from people not knowing themselves, their abilities, their frailties, and even their real virtues. Most of us go almost all the way through life as complete strangers to ourselves – so how can we know anyone else?

Sidney J. Harris

66.     It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.

Edmund Hillary

67.     We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

68.     The secret of concentration is the secret of self-discovery. You reach inside yourself to discover your personal resources, and what it takes to match them to the challenge.

Arnold Palmer

69.     Resolve to be thyself; and know that he, who finds himself, loses his misery.

Matthew Arnold

70.     To the question of your life you are the answer, and to the problems of your life you are the solution.

Joe Cordare

71.     All men should strive to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.

James Thurber

72.     After all these years, I am still involved in the process of self-discovery. It’s better to explore life and make mistakes than to play it safe. Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life.

Sophia Loren

73.     What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

74.     He who has an opinion of his own, but depends on the opinion and tastes of others, is a slave.

Friedrich G. Klopstock

75.     If you aren’t sure who you are, you might as well work on who you want to be.

Robert Brault

76.     Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. The most important product of his effort is his own personality.

Erich Fromm

77.     Your vision will come clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside dreams, who looks inside, awakes.

Jung

78.     You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.

Alan Alda

79.     The man who views the world at fifty the same as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.

Muhammad Ali

80.     Your distress about life might mean you have been living for the wrong reason, not that you have no reason for living.

Tom O’Connor

81.     You will recognize your own path when you come upon it, because you will suddenly have all the energy and imagination you will ever need.

Jerry Gillies

Taking Opportunities

82.     Every person that comes into our life comes for a reason; some come to learn and others come to teach.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

83.     Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

Thomas Edison

84.     Put yourself in a state of mind where you say to yourself, ‘Here is an opportunity for me to celebrate like never before, my own power, my own ability to get myself to do whatever is necessary.’

Martin Luther King, Jr.

85.     Life’s ups and downs provide windows of opportunity to determine your values and goals. Think of using all obstacles as stepping stones to build the life you want.

Marsha Sinetar

86.     The meeting of preparation with opportunity generates the offspring we call luck.

Anthony Robbins

87.     When written in Chinese, the word “crisis” is composed of two characters. One represents danger, and the other represents opportunity.

John F. Kennedy

88.     A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities, and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.

Harry Truman

89.     With everything that has happened to you, you can either feel sorry for yourself or treat what has happened as a gift. Everything is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose.

Wayne Dyer

90.     When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.

Helen Keller

91.     Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking, “What’s in it for me?

Brian Tracy

92.     Most successful men have not achieved their distinction by having some new talent or opportunity presented to them. They have developed the opportunity that was at hand.

Dale Carnegie

93.     If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.

Milton Berle

94.     The golden opportunity you are seeking is not in your environment, not in luck or chance, not in the help of others. It is in yourself alone.

Orison Swett Marden

95.     It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.

Charles Darwin

96.     It is no disgrace to start all over; it is usually an opportunity.

George M. Adams

Achieving Great Things

97.     Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement.

Henry Ford

98.     Spectacular achievement is always preceded by unspectacular preparation.

Robert H. Schuller

99.     I claim to be an average man of less than average ability. I have not the shadow of a doubt that any man or woman can achieve what I have, if he or she would make the same effort and cultivate the same hope and faith.

Mahatma Gandhi

100.   Achievement seems to be connected with action. Successful men and women keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit.

Conrad Hilton

101.   The best job goes to the person who can get it done without passing the buck or coming back with excuses.

Napolean Hill

Plus

1.       All that a man achieves and all that he fails to achieve is the direct result of his own thoughts.

James Allen

2.       Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.

Robert Francis Kennedy

3.       He who would accomplish little must sacrifice little; he who would accomplish much must sacrifice much.

James Allen

4.       Winners compare their achievements with their goals, while losers compare their achievements with those of other people.

Nido Qubein

5.       The major value in life is not what you get. The major value in life is what you become.

Jim Rohn

6.       Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.

Dale Carnegie

7.       Someone has defined genius as intensity of purpose; the ability to do; the patience to wait. Put these together and you have genius, and you have achievement.

Leo J. Muir

8.       It is hard to fail but is worse to have not tried to succeed. In this life, we get nothing save by effort.

Theodore Roosevelt

9.       I long to accomplish a great and noble task; but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.

Helen Keller

10.     That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.

Abraham Lincoln

11.     Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.

William Jennings Bryan

12.     To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

13.     You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.

Albert Einstein

14.     You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.

Zig Ziglar

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