# The most famous motivational quotes (and who really said them)

Quotes to keep you going, each with its real author and where it was said or written. Left out the fake ones: «Be the change you wish to see in the world» is not a literal Gandhi quote, and «excellence is a habit» isn't Aristotle's.

- 105 votes · 14 items
- Jan 4, 2020 · Nicolás Pereyra
- https://even.best/en/l/613/the-most-famous-motivational-quotes-and-who-really-said-them

## Top 12

1. **The only way to do great work is to love what you do.** (13 · ▲13 ▼0) — Steve Jobs, Stanford commencement address, 12 June 2005.
2. **Traveller, there is no road; the road is made by walking.** (11 · ▲13 ▼2) — Antonio Machado, «Proverbs and Songs», in Campos de Castilla (1912).
3. **Stay hungry, stay foolish.** (9 · ▲9 ▼0) — Steve Jobs closed the same Stanford speech (2005) with it; it was the farewell of the Whole Earth Catalog.
4. **Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.** (6 · ▲8 ▼2) — Albert Einstein, in a letter to his son Eduard (1930).
5. **A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.** (5 · ▲6 ▼1) — Laozi, Tao Te Ching, chapter 64.
6. **Failure is only the opportunity more intelligently to begin again.** (5 · ▲5 ▼0) — Henry Ford, in his book My Life and Work (1922).
7. **I have a dream.** (5 · ▲5 ▼0) — Martin Luther King Jr., at the March on Washington, 28 August 1963.
8. **What does not kill me makes me stronger.** (3 · ▲5 ▼2) — Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols (1888).
9. **He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.** (3 · ▲5 ▼2) — Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols (1888); Viktor Frankl made it famous in Man's Search for Meaning (1946).
10. **We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.** (3 · ▲4 ▼1) — Will Durant, summarizing Aristotle in The Story of Philosophy (1926); often wrongly credited to Aristotle himself.
11. **Imagination is more important than knowledge.** (0 · ▲2 ▼2) — Albert Einstein, interview in The Saturday Evening Post (1929).
12. **Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.** (-1 · ▲3 ▼4) — Theodore Roosevelt popularized it in his autobiography (1913), crediting one Squire Bill Widener.
13. **Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.** (-1 · ▲3 ▼4) — Thomas Edison, reported in the press from the early 20th century.
14. **If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.** (-2 · ▲1 ▼3) — Isaac Newton, letter to Robert Hooke (1675), borrowing a medieval image from Bernard of Chartres.

How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.