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Success quotes offering more than inspiration.

This list of quotes about success will motivate, instruct, and strengthen your resolve.

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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.

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.

“Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.”
Samuel Johnson
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
Theodore Roosevelt
“The harder the conflict, the greater the triumph.”
George Washington
“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.”
Abraham Lincoln
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Green, Dark Navy and White Fitness Quote Instagram Story
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Multicolour Value Einstein Quote
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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.

“I do not wish women to have power over men; but over themselves.”
Mary Wollstonecraft
“The best protection any woman can have is courage.”
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
“The most effective way to do it, is to do it.”
Amelia Earhart
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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.

“It is not length of life, but depth of life.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
Theodore Roosevelt
“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”
Proverb
“Great minds have purposes, others have wishes.”
Washington Irving
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“Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.”
Samuel Johnson
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Blue Gold Productivity Linkedin Profile Cover
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How to turn success quotes into eye-catching designs.

  1. 1. Select your favorite success quote.

    Pick a quote that matches the mood or message you want to share.

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.

“An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.”
Benjamin Franklin
“Learning never exhausts the mind.”
Leonardo da Vinci
“The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.”
Aristotle
“Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing it takes in.”
Leonardo da Vinci
“Success is a slow process, and quitting does not speed it up.”
Jeffrey Fry
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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.

“Well done is better than well said.”
Benjamin Franklin
“Opportunities don't happen, you create them.”
Chris Grosser
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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.

“Seize the day.”
Horace
“Fortune favors the bold.”
Latin Proverb
“Well begun is half done.”
Aristotle
“Be great in act, as you have been in thought.”
William Shakespeare
“Do it with passion or not at all.”
Rosa Nouchette Carey
“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”
Benjamin Franklin
“Begin. To begin is half the work.”
Marcus Aurelius

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.

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