Motivational quotes
Motivational quotes for men, verified, with the real names
Motivational quotes for men from fighters, statesmen and Stoics, every attribution verified. Lines about strength, character and standing up.
Motivational quotes for men get passed around with the wrong names on them more than any other kind, and I am tired of it. So this collection was checked line by line. Roosevelt on the man in the arena is Roosevelt. The dog-in-the-fight line is not Mark Twain, and it is credited here to the man who wrote it in 1911.
What made the cut: strength, character, responsibility, standing up after being put down. Inspirational quotes for men from a boxer who got up when he could not, from Marcus Aurelius telling himself to stop arguing about what a good man is and be one. Words of encouragement for men should not sound like a greeting card. These do not.
I help with a beginners' class at my gym, and the thing I say most is not a quote, it is "again". But there is a moment after the round, sweat on the mat, when one line lands harder than any instruction. Positive quotes for men are for that moment. Encouraging quotes for men are not about being told you are great, but about what you are for.
Attribution matters because a man borrowing a line deserves to know whose it is, and because the real authors usually had a harder life than the fake ones. Uplifting quotes for men are the easy part; the mental toughness guide is the hard part, and the discipline collection is where most of these men would send you next. Words of encouragement for him, for someone else, read just as well out loud.
40 quotes, every one checked against its source. No misattributed internet favourites.
- 1
The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.
Marcus Aurelius - 2
Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.
Marcus Aurelius - 3
You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.
Marcus Aurelius - 4
The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.
Marcus Aurelius - 5
Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look there.
Marcus Aurelius - 6
Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.
Seneca - 7
It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.
Seneca - 8
First say to yourself, what you would be; and then do, what you have to do.
Epictetus - 9
Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.
Mike Tyson - 10
The hero and the coward both feel the same thing, but the hero uses his fear, projects it onto his opponent, while the coward runs.
Cus D'Amato - 11
A champion is someone who gets up when he can't.
Jack Dempsey - 12
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 - 13
Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.
Muhammad Ali - 14
It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up.
Vince Lombardi - 15
It's not the will to win that matters - everyone has that. It's the will to prepare to win that matters.
Paul "Bear" Bryant - 16
I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.
Michael Jordan - 17
Everything negative - pressure, challenges - is all an opportunity for me to rise.
Kobe Bryant - 18
If you're afraid to fail, then you're probably going to fail.
Kobe Bryant - 19
The battles that count aren't the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself are the ones that matter.
Jesse Owens - 20
Once you've wrestled, everything else in life is easy.
Dan Gable - 21
I've never been afraid of failure; I would go for it and let the chips fall where they may.
Joe Namath - 22
Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths.
Arnold Schwarzenegger - 23
The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it.
Arnold Schwarzenegger - 24
It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.
Edmund Hillary - 25
You just can't beat the person who never gives up.
Babe Ruth - 26
Pressure is a privilege.
Billie Jean King - 27
He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.
Friedrich Nietzsche - 28
What does not kill me makes me stronger.
Friedrich Nietzsche - 29
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Viktor E. Frankl - 30
Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
James Baldwin - 31
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet.
Helen Keller - 32
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.
Anais Nin - 33
The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.
Leo Tolstoy - 34
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.
Theodore Roosevelt - 35
Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty.
Theodore Roosevelt - 36
Never give in - never, never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.
Winston Churchill - 37
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 - 38
The law of nature is, Do the thing, and you shall have the power.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - 39
Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.
Seneca - 40
Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.
Marcus Aurelius
If you want one of these every day, with a photo from my session and never the same quote twice, that is what I do. Then I ask how the day went, and I mean it.
All ten collections are at the quotes page.
