Success quotes that give shape to bigger dreams.

Everything we do can be called a “success” if we achieve the desired outcome. We can be successful in eating ice cream, successful in starting a business, or successful in winning an Olympic medal.

Is eating ice cream or successfully getting the laundry done something these famous success quotes talk about, though? How do we define the kind of success these historic quotes refer to?

Fortunately, many of these quotes about success start by defining success. Even if you aren’t sure what success means for you, you’ll form an opinion while reading through this list.

Quotes about success do more than inspire us. They teach us what goes into success, and they give us reasons to push through when the going gets rough. Choose the success quotes that mean the most to you and use them in posters, flyers, social media graphics, letters to a loved one, and more.

Overall best success quotes defining success.

The best way to define success is through the lens of history’s most successful people. Famous businesspeople, artists, philosophers, authors, and political leaders all left us with the legacy of success defined in their words.

Curiously, the definitions differ. There are some common threads, though, and the most famous quotes about success pull on those threads to see which ones hold real success together. For starters, failure makes regular appearances as a necessary step toward whatever success we’re after.

Choose your favorites from these famous quotes and think about what success looked like for the people behind them.

Motivational quotes for success to get started and keep going.

Motivation is inconsistent. Like the pulse of your heart, it speeds up and slows down. It can suffer attacks, and it feels strained with too much stimulation.

Motivational quotes for success are like the electric paddles that revive you when you most need it. Think about how hard it is to get started sometimes, and how hard it can be to keep going when motivation fails. Those are critical moments.

When things seem impossible, use these motivational success quotes to re-energize.

Which of these quotes could you benefit from seeing every day on a poster? What coworker could benefit from seeing one of these quotes in a card? Choose your favorite motivational quotes for success, then let Adobe Express help you use them—no experience required.

Success quotes for women, by women.

Different groups of people have faced different challenges historically, and unique challenges shape unique definitions of success. Through most of recorded history, in most of the world, women have faced specific limitations imposed by society. The jobs they could work were limited; they couldn’t vote; and they were confined to strict gender roles (and were dehumanized if they did not fit the mold).

As a result of these challenges, success quotes for women show courage in the face of adversity. They show enormous comfort with failure, too, that bitter price paid at every toll on the road to success.

These success quotes for women are also by women, each of whom pushed limits and redefined what success for women could look like.

Success quotes for men, by men.

There’s no shortage of success quotes for men, by men. Historically, men have dominated recorded philosophy, political roles, and even fine arts. The level of privilege men historically had and continue to have does present surprising unpleasantries, though. For example, there’s a pervasive dog-eat-dog pressure in environments like business and sports that make most paths to success a constant struggle against competing forces.

Success quotes for men empower men to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. They also normalize failure and recognize its place in the process of finding success.

Choose your favorite success quotes that depict how success looks and feels for you, then think about how you want to share those quotes, and with whom.

Success quotes for students for the most satisfying studies.

Success quotes for students pull back the layers of student dreams. The closest horizon is to successfully finish school, and then there’s success in finding work, building a career, and experiencing other milestones.

From grade school studies to applied studies at work, these success quotes for students cover all aspects of student goals and motivation. Choose your favorites and imagine what they could do on a poster in the dorm, in an open letter to graduates, or on a banner in a classroom.

Success quotes for business to dig deeper and get personal.

For many people, success quotes make us think first of business success. We think about how to run a business, how to turn a bad year around, or how to define our own success by the success of a business.

Success is talked about so much in business that it’s become a catch-all for goals, teamwork, and regular day-to-day practices. These success quotes for business dig deeper and redefine what success means—and how to reach it. The best part about these quotes are the people behind them. In the context of their own extraordinary success stories, we start to break away from the buzzword sense of “success” thrown around today.

Short quotes about success for instant motivation.

When you want to share a success quote with someone, the best quote is sometimes the shortest. Short quotes about success can be easily memorized and they fit onto any project—from posters and banners to cards and letters.

Short quotes about success offer some of the cleverest insights, too. In a dozen words or less, successful people from every part of human history have made memorable observations and imparted necessary wisdom using very few words. Choose your favorite short success quotes and use Adobe Express to see how perfectly they fit on your next card or poster.

Tips when using quotes on success.

If you’re using a quote about success in a project, you’re probably looking to motivate. Perusing history’s most successful people to collect inspiring quotes is fun, but it’s not the only reason to use success quotes.

Quotes about success are also great for:

• Teaching lessons about failure (that unavoidable ingredient to success)

• Promoting a positive mindset

• Encouraging perseverance

• Defining success in different contexts

• Making success more personal

Exercise: Before and after.

Some success quotes are so famous—and have been used in many business meetings, motivational posters, and social media posts—that they’ve become cliché.

If you want to use a quote about success in a way that genuinely gets people thinking, look at your favorite success quotes through the lens of this key question:

How do you think people will feel before they see your success quote quote, and then after they see it?

Whatever change in their feelings you want to evoke, that tells you whether to use your success quote in personal projects like cards, collages, or letters, or attention-grabbing projects like banners, flyers, and posters.

Adobe Express can help.

Adobe Express has templates and customization tools to put your favorite success quotes to work. If you want to use success quotes in cards, letters, posters, banners, collages, flyers, or other creative projects, Adobe Express makes it as simple as picking a template and personalizing it, or making your own idea with easy-to-use tools. Whatever message you want to transmit, Adobe Express brings it to life, no experience required.

Design with your quote