Motivational quotes
Monday motivation quotes for getting the week moving
Monday motivation quotes from real people, every attribution checked. Lines about fresh starts and showing up again, for the week that begins badly.
Monday motivation quotes have a bad reputation and mostly deserve it. The internet version is a cartoon coffee cup and a line nobody said. What I wanted was the real thing: quotes about starting again, from people who had to, with their names checked against a source. That is this page.
The theme is the restart. A week is a small campaign, and every campaign begins with the same problem: the troops are rested, fed, and would rather not march. Monday inspirational quotes here are about the first step, the decision to act, the ship that is safe in harbor and not built for it.
My own Monday starts at 6:00 with a skipping rope in an empty boxing gym, three rounds before anyone else arrives. The rope is honest. Miss a beat and it tells you. Positive Monday quotes are the same idea: short, rhythmic, and not interested in your excuses.
The names matter because a real line comes with a real Monday behind it, and that is the part worth borrowing. If Monday morning motivation is the problem, the morning collection is the sharper set, and the procrastination guide explains what to do at 9:05 when the quote has worn off. Happy Monday motivation is not really my register. Steady Monday will do.
40 quotes, every one checked against its source. No misattributed internet favourites.
- 1
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Lao Tzu - 2
Fall seven times, stand up eight.
Japanese proverb - 3
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
Thomas Edison - 4
Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
William Hutchison Murray - 5
Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are.
Squire Bill Widener - 6
Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - 7
The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.
Walt Disney - 8
Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.
Stephen King - 9
I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying.
Michael Jordan - 10
A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.
John A. Shedd - 11
Nothing will work unless you do.
Maya Angelou - 12
If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but by all means keep moving.
Martin Luther King Jr. - 13
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do.
Sarah Frances Brown - 14
We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.
Seneca - 15
Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.
Seneca - 16
It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up.
Vince Lombardi - 17
You miss one hundred percent of the shots you don't take.
Wayne Gretzky - 18
If you're afraid to fail, then you're probably going to fail.
Kobe Bryant - 19
I've never been afraid of failure; I would go for it and let the chips fall where they may.
Joe Namath - 20
Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
John Wooden - 21
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
Samuel Beckett - 22
Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
James Baldwin - 23
It always seems impossible until it is done.
Nelson Mandela - 24
The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.
Amelia Earhart - 25
The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.
Seneca - 26
Confine yourself to the present.
Marcus Aurelius - 27
The time is always right to do right.
Martin Luther King Jr. - 28
Fortune favours the prepared mind.
Louis Pasteur - 29
I will not follow where the path may lead, but I will go where there is no path, and I will leave a trail.
Muriel Strode - 30
First say to yourself, what you would be; and then do, what you have to do.
Epictetus - 31
If you want to run, run a mile. If you want to experience a different life, run a marathon.
Emil Zatopek - 32
The law of nature is, Do the thing, and you shall have the power.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - 33
I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.
Michael Jordan - 34
Everything negative - pressure, challenges - is all an opportunity for me to rise.
Kobe Bryant - 35
To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.
Steve Prefontaine - 36
Pressure is a privilege.
Billie Jean King - 37
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.
Theodore Roosevelt - 38
Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty.
Theodore Roosevelt - 39
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not.
Calvin Coolidge - 40
I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.
Booker T. Washington
If you want a line like this at the start of every day rather than just the hard one, I send one every day with a photo from my day, never the same quote twice. /daily turns it off.
The rest of the collections are at the quotes page.
