100+ INSPIRING EFFORT QUOTES TO HELP YOU ACHIEVE YOUR POTENTIAL

One of the key ingredients to achieving success and winning in life, is effort.  In fact, it may be the one sole ingredient to success that each human alive has the ability to control.  Which is why we’ve dedicated this page specifically to effort quotes.

“Effort is the Key to Unlocking Our Potential.”

From most of our research (and life experiences) we’ve observed that the amount of effort and intensity one applies to a given task, goal, or vision; directly impacts the quality and swiftness of that goal’s completion.

A Philosophy of Effort

Without a doubt, effort is a critical factor in goal achievement. But more importantly, effort is the key to unlocking our potential. As such we want to help as many people as possible embrace such a philosophy by sharing some of the most powerful quotes on effort we could find.

Please know, that these are the best of the best effort quotes you’ll find.  We believe that if you want to be the best, you need to read the best.

There’s no doubt these effort quotes will serve as a reliable reminder of effort’s role in your success. In addition, they will help encourage you to unleash your untapped levels of effort.  And when that happens you will begin unlocking your potential and all the success you deserve will start coming your way.

So without further ado, here is your new reliable list of the 100 most motivating effort quotes available.  Let them rev up your effort-engines, so you can go forth and unleash your potential! Let’s dive in!

100 Inspiring Effort Quotes to Help You Unlock Your Potential

1.  “The heights by great men reached and kept, Were not attained by sudden flight, But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

2. “For every disciplined effort there is a multiple reward.” – Jim Rohn

3. “I am grinding while your sleeping.” – Gary Vaynerchuk

4. Plough deep while sluggards sleep.” – Benjamin Franklin

5. “All the so-called “secrets of success” will not work unless you do.” – Anonymous

6. “The only thing that has kept me around is my effort.” – Ray Lewis

7. “Effort is only effort when it begins to hurt.” – José Ortega y Gassett

8. “There’s not a person on my team in 16 years that has consistently beat me to the ball every play.  That ain’t got nothing to do with talent, That’s just got everything to do with effort, and nothing else.” – Ray Lewis

9. “Ideas don’t work for people unwilling to do the work.” – Robin Sharma

10. “Effort is grossly underrated.” – Gary Vaynerchuk

11. “Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they’ve got a second. Give your dreams all you’ve got and you’ll be amazed at the energy that comes out of you.” – William James

12. “A great work demands a great sacrifice, and who is not capable of a great sacrifice is not capable of a great work.” – Muriel Strode

13. “You can’t have a million dollar dream with a minimum wage work ethic.” – Anonymous

14.  “All I ever knew, was that effort would get me seen on tape, effort would get me noticed to get to the league, effort would one day take care of my mom and my kids.  Effort, which is between you and you. Nobody else can give you effort.  Effort is what is inside” – Ray Lewis

15. “If a man is called a street-sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street-sweeper who did his job well.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

16. “Be not afraid of going slowly; be afraid only of standing still.” – Chinese Proverb

17. “They indeed are fools who are satisfied with the fruits of their past effort and do not engage themselves in self-effort now.” – Swami Venkatesananda

18. “An industrious dunce is often more successful in life than his learned neighbor.” – James Lendall Basford

19. “I CAN is 100 times more important than IQ” –  Anonymous

20. “Success is dependent on effort.” – Sophocles

21. “If you can’t excel with talent, triumph with effort.” – Dave Weinbaum

22. “I’ve got a theory that if you give 100 percent all of the time, somehow things will work out in the end.” – Larry Bird

23. “Great effort springs naturally from great attitude.” – Pat Riley

24. “Winning is not everything, but the effort to win is.” – Zig Ziglar

25. “When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work.” George Bernard Shaw

26. “It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.” – Theodore Roosevelt

27. “About the only thing that comes to us without effort is old age.” – Gloria Pitzer

28. “Success is a ladder you cannot climb with your hands in your pockets.” – Anonymous

29. “For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.” – T.S. Eliot

30. “Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment, full effort is full victory.” – Mahatma Gandhi

31. “Many of the great achievements of the world were accomplished by tired and discouraged men and women who kept on working.” –  Anonymous

32. “Give your dreams all you’ve got and you’ll be amazed at the energy that comes out of you.” –  William James

33. “The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.” – Emile Zola

34. “Continuous Effort, not strength or intelligence, is the key to unlocking our potential.” – Winston Churchill

35.  “The view is better when it is earned.” – Anonymous

36. “Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle.” – Napoleon Hill

37. “Put in 5% more effort than “there’s only so much I can do” and you’ll be way ahead of the game.” – Terri Guillemets

38. “Sweat is the cologne of accomplishment.” – Heywood Hale Broun

39. “The only thing that ever sat its way to success was a hen.” – Sarah Brown

40.  “Much effort, much prosperity.” – Euripides

41. “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” – Will Rogers

42. “Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.” – Abraham Lincoln

43. “The mode by which the inevitable comes to pass is effort.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

44. “There’s nothing like biting off more than you can chew, and then chewing anyway.” – Mark Burnett

45. “Put your heart, mind, intellect and soul even to your smallest acts. This is the secret of success.” – Swami Sivananda

46. “In all human affairs there are efforts, and there are results, and the strength of the effort is the measure of the result.” – James Allen

47. “Nobody ever drowned in his own sweat.” – Ann Landers

48. “The difference between try and triumph is a little umph.” – Anonymous

49. “The level path is easy, but it will not bring you to the mountaintop.” – Dr. Idel Dreimer

50. “Much good work is lost for the lack of a little more.” – Edward H. Harriman

Temperature Check on These Quotes About Effort

One of the things we love most about quotes, is their ability to inspire, uplift, and encourage.  And in the case of these effort quotes, they also have the ability to energize.  If you’ve gotten to this point and have started to feel a bit charged up, then keep reading, because it means the quotes are working.

After you read the next 50 quotes on effort, don’t be surprised if you feel the urge fire up a pot of coffee and start hatching up plans to take over the world!

51. “The elevator to success is not running; you must climb the stairs.” – Zig Ziglar

52. “We all have dreams.  But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort.” – Anonymous

53. “Men are made stronger on realization that the helping hand they need is at the end of their own arm.” – Sidney J. Phillips

54. “Education comes from within; you get it by struggle and effort and thought.” – Napoleon Hill

55. “Gold medals are made out of sweat, blood, and tears and effort in the gym every day.” – Gabby Douglas

56. “The healthiest competition occurs when average people win by putting above average effort.” – Colin Powell

57. “Always make a total effort, even when the odds are against you.” – Arnold Palmer

58. “Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times.” – Aeschylus

59. “Sometimes, things may not go your way, but the effort should be there every single night.” – Michael Jordan

60. “Life can be boring unless you put some effort into it.” – John C. Maxwell

61. “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.” – John Wooden

62. “Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don’t turn up at all.” – Sam Ewing

63. “Unwearied ceaseless effort is the price that must be paid for turning faith into a rich infallible experience.” – Mahatma Gandhi

64. “The achievements of an organization are the results of the combined effort of each individual.” – Vince Lombardi

65. “You’re always learning.  The problem is, sometimes you stop and think you understand the world.  This is not correct. The world is always moving.  You never reach the point you can stop making an effort.” – Paulo Coelho

66. “The results you achieve will be in direct proportion to the effort you apply.” – Denis Waitley

67. “Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit.” – Napoleon Hill

68. “Make each day count by setting specific goals to succeed, then putting forth every effort to exceed your own expectations.” – Les Brown

69. “It’s the constant and determined effort that breaks down all resistance, sweeps away all obstacles.” – Claude M. Bristol

70. “The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.” – Jimmy Johnson

71. “It doesn’t matter if you lose, it matters if you don’t try.” – Unknown

72. “The real tragedy is the tragedy of the man who never in his life braces himself for his one supreme effort, who never stretches to his full capacity, never stands to his full stature.” – Arnold Bennett

73. “God doesn’t require us to succeed, he only requires that you try.” – Mother Teresa

74. “Try and fail, but don’t fail to try.” – Stephen Kaggwa

75. “Enthusiasm is the mother of effort, and without it nothing great was ever achieved.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

76. “I am a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.” – Thomas Jefferson

77.  “Each man is the smith of his own fortune.” – Appius Claudius

78. “A pint of sweat, saves a gallon of blood.” – George S. Patton

79. “Hard work is the price we must pay for success.  I think you can accomplish anything if you’re willing to pay the price.” – Vince Lombardi

80. “We are all self-made, but only the successful will admit it.” – Earl Nightingale

82. “Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.” ― Earl Nightingale

83.  “People are rewarded in public for what they’ve practiced for years in private.” – Anthony Robbins

84. “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

85. “Problems are only opportunities in work clothes.” – Henry J. Kaiser

86. “It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.” – Seneca

87. “He who seeks rest finds boredom….He who seeks work finds rest.” –  Anonymous

88. “The one thing that matters is the effort.” – Antoine De Saint-Exupery

89. “Do a little more each day than you think you possibly can.” – Lowell Thomas

90.  “There is no substitute for work.” – Vince Lombardi

91.“Be willing to give that extra effort that separates the winner from the one in second place.” – H. Jackson Brown Jr.

92. “Confidence is not something that comes out of nowhere.  It is the result of months and years of practice, constant work, effort, and determination.” – Anurag Prakash Ray

93. “A little more persistence a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn into a glorious success.” – Elbert Hubbard

94. “One may walk over the highest mountain one step at a time.” – John Wanamaker

95. “As one makes an impartial study of successful people, one is drawn to inevitable conclusion that persistence, concentration of effort and definiteness of purpose are the major sources of their achievements.” – Napoleon Hill

96. “I never dreamed about success.  I worked for it.” – Estee Lauder

97. “Leaders are made, they are not born. They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile.” – Vince Lombardi

98. “If you put forth the effort, good things will be bestowed upon you.” – Michael Jordan

99. “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.” – Robert Collier

100.  “Success in anything will always come down to this:  Focus & Effort, and we control both of them.” – Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

101. “Very few people are really capable of sustained effort, and that’s the reason why we have comparatively few outstanding successes.” – James McDonald

Bonus Effort Quote

Bonus: Here’s our last and final effort quote. We set this one aside because we believe it’s powerful and says a lot a bout what it takes to succeed, namely, that you just have to be willing to put in the effort. Enjoy.

“Do The Work. Everyone Wants To Be Successful, But Nobody Wants To Do The Work.”

– gary vaynerchuck –

Final Thoughts on These Effort Quotes

Alright, you made it through the internet’s most powerful gauntlet of effort quotes.  Now how do you feel?  Honestly!

Fan-freaking-tastic!!!?  Just as we suspected.

It’s all about effort friends.  We all have the ability to dial it up, or dial it down in our lives.  We can choose to try valiantly to accomplish, or we can choose to just go through the motions.

The ability to win is available to us all, and we are in complete control of how much of it we get to experience in this life through effort.

So, use these select effort quotes as a resource to live with more intensity.  Let them encourage and support you in all your efforts towards reaching your potential, maximizing your achievements, and finding more success!