The 38 Most Inspiring Leadership Quotes I Know

No one can deny the power of a good quote. They motivate and inspire us to be our best.

Here are 38 of my absolute favorites:

1. "I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the water to create many ripples." -Mother Teresa

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." -Maya Angelou

3. "Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right." -Henry Ford

4. "Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence." -Vince Lombardi

5. "Life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent of how I react to it." -Charles Swindoll

6. "If you look at what you have in life, you'll always have more. If you look at what you don't have in life, you'll never have enough." -Oprah Winfrey

7. "Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent." -Eleanor Roosevelt

8. "I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination." -Jimmy Dean

9. "Nothing is impossible, the word itself says 'I'm possible'!" -Audrey Hepburn

10. "To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart." -Eleanor Roosevelt

11. "Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears." -Les Brown

12. "Do or do not. There is no try." -Yoda

13. "Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve." -Napoleon Hill

14. "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do, so throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." -Mark Twain

15. "I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." -Michael Jordan

16. "Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value." -Albert Einstein

17. "I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions." -Stephen Covey

18. "When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it." -Henry Ford

19. "The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any." -Alice Walker

20. "The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity." -Amelia Earhart

21. "It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light." -Aristotle Onassis

22. "Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant." -Robert Louis Stevenson

23. "The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me." -Ayn Rand

24. "If you hear a voice within you say, 'You cannot paint,' then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced. -Vincent Van Gogh

25. "Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs." -Farrah Gray

26. "Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck." -Dalai Lama

27. "A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new." -Albert Einstein

28. "What's money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do." -Bob Dylan

29. "I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do." -Leonardo da Vinci

30. "When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us." -Helen Keller

31. "When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down 'happy.' They told me I didn't understand the assignment, and I told them they didn't understand life." -John Lennon

32. "The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

33. "Everything you've ever wanted is on the other side of fear." -George Addair

34. "We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light." -Plato

35. "Nothing will work unless you do." -Maya Angelou

36. "Believe you can and you're halfway there." -Theodore Roosevelt

37. "What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality." -Plutarch

38. "Control your own destiny or someone else will." - Jack Welch

Did I miss any? Please share your favorite quotes for others to enjoy in the comments section below.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dr. Travis Bradberry is the award-winning co-author of the #1 bestselling book, Emotional Intelligence 2.0, and the cofounder of TalentSmart, the world's leading provider of emotional intelligence tests and training, serving more than 75% of Fortune 500 companies. His bestselling books have been translated into 25 languages and are available in more than 150 countries. Dr. Bradberry has written for, or been covered by, Newsweek, BusinessWeek, Fortune, Forbes, Fast Company, Inc., USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The Harvard Business Review.

If you'd like to learn how to increase your emotional intelligence (EQ), consider taking the online Emotional Intelligence Appraisal test that's included with the Emotional Intelligence 2.0 book. Your test results will pinpoint which of the book's 66 emotional intelligence strategies will increase your EQ the most.