13 Successful People Share their words about Success & Inspire Like Crazy

Are you wishing for success? Maybe lacking a little inspiration? 

Success quotes are like a “Cheat Code” to get you inspired. They can’t do your hard work, but they can definitely push you onto your first step. 

And the best part? 

You can use them every time you need a little motivation boost!

In this post, you’ll get quotes on success by: 

  • Maya Angelou
  • Dr. Abdul Kalam
  • Arianna Huffington
  • Drake Graham 
  • Oprah Winfrey
  • John Wooden
  • Rihanna
  • Martin Luther King Jr. 
  • Albert Einstein
  • Steve Jobs
  • Sara Blakely
  • Earl Nightingale
  • BTS

Who better to tell us about success than people who’ve already made it? Let’s jump right into inspirational people’s words about success!

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Maya Angelou - Poet, Writer, Civil Rights Activist

Maya Angleou Quote on Success on blue Watercolor Background
  1. “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” 
  2. “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” 
  3. “Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.”
  4. “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain.”
  5. “You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off of you.” 
  6. “Be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud.” 
  7. “While one may encounter many defeats, one must not be defeated.” 
  8. “If you’re always trying to be normal you will never know how amazing you can be.”

Which one was your favorite Maya Angelou Success Quote? Let us know in the comments. Do you enjoy poetry? Then check out her poem  Still I Rise for some extra inspiration. 

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam - Scientist, Former President of India

  1. “You have to dream before your dreams can come true.”
  2. “If you want to shine like a sun, first burn like a sun.”
  3. “Winners are not those who never fail but those who never quit.”
  4. “Climbing to the top demands strength, whether it is to the top of Mount Everest or to the top of your career.”
  5. “Be active! Take on responsibility! Work for the things you believe in. If you do not, you are surrendering your fate to others.”
  6. “If four things are followed – having a great aim, acquiring knowledge, hard work, and perseverance – then anything can be achieved.”
  7. “If you fail, never give up because F.A.I.L. means ‘First Attempt In Learning’. End is not the end; in fact E.N.D. means ‘Effort Never Dies’. If you get No as an answer, remember N.O. means ‘Next Opportunity’. So Let’s be positive.”
  8. “The reality of your own nature should determine your speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become tense and high-strung, slow down.”

Arianna Huffington Quotes about Success

  1. “We need to accept that we won’t always make the right decisions, that we’ll screw up royally sometimes – understanding that failure is not the opposite of success, it’s part of success.” 
  2. “We think mistakenly, that success is the result of the amount of the time we put in at work, instead of the quality of the time we put in.” 
  3. Life is a dance between making it happen and letting it happen.”
  4. “It’s not ‘What do I want to do?’, it’s ‘What kind of life do I want to have?’”
  5. “Vision without execution is hallucination.” 
  6. “When we believe in something, we got to stay with it, even when the world tells us no.”
  7. “I think especially as women we need to recognize that feeling pressure is completely self-imposed.”
Do you stress yourself too much? Here are our best Self-Care Morning Routine Ideas.

Drake Graham Quotes about Success

  1. “Never let success get to your head and never let failure get to your heart.”
  2. “Kill them with success and bury them with a smile.”
  3. “People will wish you all the success in the world and then hate you when you get it.”
  4. “It’s never too late to realize what you want in your life and it’s never wrong to fight for it.”
  5.  “Strength isn’t always shown in what you can hold on to, sometimes it’s shown in what you can let go of.”
  6.  “Everybody dies but not everybody lives.”
  7. “The moment I stop having fun with it, I’ll be done with it.”
  8. “I’m trying to do better than good enough.”
  9. “I sit and eat with some of the hardest working people in the business. And I observe and I try to apply it to my own craft.”


Which drake quotes about success are your favorites? Let us know below.

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  1. “Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.”
  2. “Everybody has a calling. And your real job in life is to figure out as soon as possible what that is, who you were meant to be, and to begin to honor that in the best way possible for yourself.”
  3. “You have to know what sparks the light in you so that you, in your own way, can illuminate the world.”
  4. “You know you are on the road to success if you would do your job and not be paid for it.”
  5. “Often we don’t even realize who we’re meant to be because we’re so busy trying to live out someone else’s ideas. But other people and their opinions hold no power in defining our destiny.”
  6. “Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher.”
  7. “I believe that one of life’s greatest risks is never daring to risk.”
  8. “What I know is, is that if you do work that you love, and the work fulfills you, the rest will come.”
  9. “I don’t believe in failure. It’s not failure if you enjoyed the process.”
  10. “Don’t worry about being successful but work toward being significant and the success will naturally follow.” 
  11. “As you become more clear about who you really are, you’ll be better able to decide what is best for you – the first time around.”
  12. “You can have it all. You just can’t have it all at one time.”
  13. “The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.”

John Wooden on being Successful

  1. “Success is never final, failure is never fatal, and it’s courage that counts.”
  2. “Talent is God-given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.” 
  3. “Make each day your masterpiece“ 
  4.  “If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not doing anything. I’m positive that a doer makes mistakes.” 
  5. “Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.” 
  6. “If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?” 
  7. “Success comes from knowing that you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.” 
  8. “Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable.” 
  9. “Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.” 
  10. “Never mistake activity for achievement.”

Rihanna

  1. “I always believed that when you follow your heart or your gut, when you really follow the things that feel great to you, you can never lose, because settling is the worst feeling in the world.”
  2. “You can’t master your future if you’re still a slave to your past.” 
  3. “Success for me isn’t a destination. It’s a journey.” 
  4. “People gonna talk whether you doing good or bad.”
  5.  “Sometimes it takes a thousand tries to win.” 
  6. “I play by my own rules.”

Martin Luther King Jr.

  1. “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” 
  2. “There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”
  3. “If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”
  4. “The time is always right to do what is right.”.
  5. “Lightning makes no sound until it strikes.”

Albert Einstein Quotes about Success

  1. “Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.”
  2. “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”
  3. “What is right is not always popular, and what is popular is not always right.” 
  4. “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” 
  5. “A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?” 
  6. “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” 
  7. “I am thankful for all of those who said NO to me. It’s because of them I’m doing it myself.” 
  8. “Never give up on what you really want to do. The person with big dreams is more powerful than the one with all the facts.” 
  9. “A ship is always safe at shore but that is not what it’s built for.” 
  10. “Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person.”
  11. “Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.”
  12. “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” 
  13. “If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or objects.”

Ellen DeGeneres Words on Success

  1. “The definition of success changes. Success is to live your life with integrity and not give in to peer pressure to be something you’re not. Follow your passion, stay true to yourself, never follow someone else’s path; unless you’re in the woods and you’re lost and you see a path, then, by all means, you should follow that.”
  2. “It’s failure that gives you the proper perspective on success.” 
  3. “Never follow anyone else’s path, unless you’re in the woods and you’re lost.” 
  4. “When you take risks you learn that there will be times when you succeed and there will be times when you fail, and both are equally important.”
  5. “You’re never too old to play. You’re only too old for low-rise jeans.” 
  6. “The most important thing in your life is to live your life with integrity and not to give into peer pressure to try to be something that you’re not, to live your life as an honest and compassionate person, to contribute in some way.”
  7. “I work really hard at trying to see the big picture and not getting stuck in ego. I believe we’re all put on this planet for a purpose, and we all have a different purpose… When you connect with that love and that compassion, that’s when everything unfolds.”

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs best words on success: 
  1. “I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.”
  2. Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow know what you truly want to become.”
  3. “I think the things you regret most in life are the things you didn’t do.”
  4. “Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.”
  5. “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.”

Sara Blakely’s Words on Success

  1. “Don’t be intimidated by what you don’t know. That can be your greatest strength and ensure that you do things differently from everyone else.” 
  2. “When something I can’t control happens, I ask myself : where is the hidden gift, where is the positive in this?” 
  3.  “Don’t be intimidated by what you don’t know. That can be your greatest strength and ensure that you do things differently from everyone else.” 
  4. “My advice for an entrepreneur just starting out is to differentiate yourself. Why are you different? What’s important about you? Why does the customer need you?”
Want more Women Success Quotes? Check out Caroly Sun’s post on Inspirational Quotes by Women Business Leaders on Entrepreneur.com.

Earl Nightingale Success Quotes

  1. “The success is the man who runs the corner gas station because that was his dream”
  2. “All you need is the plan, the roadmap, and the courage to press on to your destination.”
  3. “There is a time when one must decide either to risk everything to fulfill one’s dreams or sit for the rest of one’s life in the backyard.”
  4. “People are where they are because that is exactly where they really want to be–whether they will admit that or not.”
  5. “Don’t concern yourself with the money. Be of service … build … work … dream … create! Do this and you’ll find there is no limit to the prosperity and abundance that will come to you.”
  6. “Work never killed anyone. It’s worry that does the damage. And the worry would disappear if we’d just settle down and do the work.”
  7. “We can let circumstances rule us, or we can take charge and rule our lives from within.”
  8. “We will not receive not what we idly wish for but what we justly earn. Our rewards will always be in exact proportion to our service.”
  1. “Don’t be trapped in someone else’s dream.” ― Taehyung
  2. “Living without passion is like being dead.” ― Jeon Jungkook
  3. “Teamwork makes the dream work.” ― BTS
  4. “I’m like a surfer, first you just paddle and fall off the board but as time goes by you can stand up on the bigger waves.”-RM
  5. “I’m becoming weird. You can’t go to the peak by being normal, baby.” – BTS

We hope you enjoyed this collection of quotes by some of the world’s most successful people. Please don’t forget to share those inspirational words about success with your friends and family to help us grow. And get started on your goals. Instead of wishing for success work on your own personal version of success.

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