Motivational quotes
Short positive quotes that fit on a sticky note
Short positive quotes by real people, one line each, every attribution verified. Ninety characters or fewer, for a phone lock screen or a bad morning.
Short positive quotes are the only kind that survive contact with a real day. A paragraph gets skipped. A line gets remembered. Every quote here is ninety characters or fewer, and every one was said by the person whose name is under it, checked against a source before it went in.
There are short positive quotes about life in here from Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, one-liners from boxers, a Japanese proverb, a line from a hockey player about the shots you do not take. One liner positive quotes have to earn every word. These do.
I keep one on the inside of the old wooden door I leave through every morning, on a scrap of tape, and I change it about once a month. The current one is four words. Small positive quotes work because you read them without deciding to, and by the time you are on the street it is already in your head.
The names matter because a short line with a false name is the easiest fake there is, and the most copied. Simple short positive quotes get pinned to Einstein and Lincoln constantly. These ones are clean. For the broader set, the positive collection has the longer lines, and the daily collection is the one I send from every day.
40 quotes, every one checked against its source. No misattributed internet favourites.
- 1
The law of nature is, Do the thing, and you shall have the power.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - 2
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
Will Durant - 3
The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.
Vidal Sassoon - 4
Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are.
Squire Bill Widener - 5
Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.
Epictetus - 6
Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.
Seneca - 7
The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.
Seneca - 8
Confine yourself to the present.
Marcus Aurelius - 9
Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - 10
Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
Thomas Edison - 11
The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.
Walt Disney - 12
Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.
Stephen King - 13
Discipline equals freedom.
Jocko Willink - 14
We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.
Jim Rohn - 15
Well done is better than well said.
Benjamin Franklin - 16
Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.
Henry David Thoreau - 17
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
Henry David Thoreau - 18
I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying.
Michael Jordan - 19
A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.
John A. Shedd - 20
Grace under pressure.
Ernest Hemingway - 21
Champions keep playing until they get it right.
Billie Jean King - 22
You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated.
Maya Angelou - 23
Nothing will work unless you do.
Maya Angelou - 24
The time is always right to do right.
Martin Luther King Jr. - 25
Fortune favours the prepared mind.
Louis Pasteur - 26
The more difficult the victory, the greater the happiness in winning.
Pele - 27
You have to fight to reach your dream. You have to sacrifice and work hard for it.
Lionel Messi - 28
You can't put a limit on anything. The more you dream, the farther you get.
Michael Phelps - 29
Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value.
Albert Einstein - 30
I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.
Albert Einstein - 31
The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Albert Einstein - 32
If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.
Booker T. Washington - 33
Whatever you are, try to be a good one.
William Makepeace Thackeray - 34
The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.
Marcus Aurelius - 35
Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.
Marcus Aurelius - 36
You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.
Marcus Aurelius - 37
The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.
Marcus Aurelius - 38
It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.
Seneca - 39
We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.
Seneca - 40
Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.
Seneca
One short line every day, with a photo from my day, never repeated to the same person: that is what I send if you want it. Off with /daily any time.
The other nine collections are at the quotes page.
