76 quotes about growth to inspire your next big leap
A curated list of quotes to inspire learning, courage, humility, and, ultimately, professional growth.
This is the season for drafting goals and dusting off New Year’s resolutions. Maybe you’ve got a big, audacious dream you want to achieve in 2026, but you’re a bit scared of the growth and work it will take to get there.
That’s understandable enough. But the good news is, you’d be following a path that many others have trodden before you. So, how do the most successful people think about growth? How do they overcome fear? How do they deal with mistakes along the way?
We collected a list of quotes about growth to help you understand and navigate it all – and keep you inspired along the way.
Growth quotes about putting in the work
“Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle”
– Napoleon Hill, American self-help author
“Give yourself something to work toward – constantly.”
– Mary Kay Ash, American businesswoman and founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics, Inc.
“Growth is never by mere chance; it is the result of forces working together.”
– James Cash Penney, American businessman and founder of JCPenney
“All growth depends upon activity.”
– Calvin Coolidge, 30th president of the United States
“If you can’t be consistent, then you can’t be anything.”
– Tony Gaskins, motivational speaker
“Growth is painful. Change is painful. But, nothing is as painful as staying stuck where you do not belong.”
– N. R. Narayana Murthy, Indian businessman
“The investor of today does not profit from yesterday’s growth.”
– Warren Buffett, American investor and philanthropist
“Discipline, consistency, and patience. If you lack these, you won’t grow.”
– James Clear, American author
“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
― George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright
“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”
― Paulo Coelho, Brazilian novelist
“Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.”
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German writer
“To be successful at anything, the truth is you don’t have to be special. You just have to be what most people aren’t. Consistent, determined, and willing to work for it.”
– Tom Brady, American football player
“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.”
– Jim Rohn, American entrepreneur and author
“Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work.”
– Booker T. Washington, American educator and author
“Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it.”
– Andy Rooney, American journalist
“Nothing will work unless you do.”
– Maya Angelou, American author and poet
“Careers, like rockets, don’t always take off on time. The trick is to always keep the engine running.”
– Gary Sinise, American actor
“Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.”
– Booker T. Washington, American educator and author
“The elevator to success is out of order. You’ll have to use the stairs…one step at a time.”
― Joe Girard, American motivational speaker
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”
– Frederick Douglass, American abolitionist
“Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it.”
– Stephen Hawking, English scientist
“It takes twenty years to make an overnight success.”
– Eddie Cantor, American singer and actor
“Don’t bother just to be better than others. Try to be better than yourself.”
– William Faulkner, American writer
“Change is never easy, but always possible.”
– Barack Obama, 44th president of the United States
“Luck is predictable; the harder you work, the luckier you get.”
– Brian Tracy, Canadian-American motivational speaker
Growth quotes about learning
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
– Maya Angelou, American author and poet
“A mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it is not open.”
– Frank Zappa, American composer
“Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.”
– Benjamin Franklin, founding father of the United States
“Learning never exhausts the mind.”
– Leonardo da Vinci, Italian polymath
“Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.”
– Albert Einstein, German physicist
“We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”
– Walt Disney, American entrepreneur and founder of Walt Disney Company
“Your best teacher is the person offering you your greatest challenge.”
– Cheryl Richardson, American author and speaker
“Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit.”
– Vince Lombardi, American football coach
“Growth is the only evidence of life.”
– John Henry Newman, English theologian
“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”
– Bill Gates, American entrepreneur and founder of Microsoft
“A feeling of continuous growth is a wonderful source of motivation and self confidence.”
– Brian Tracy, Canadian-American motivational speaker
“You won’t learn if you think you already know everything.”
– Robert Kiyosaki, American author
“I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”
– Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”
– Benjamin Franklin, founding father of the United States
“I am still learning.”
– Michelangelo, Italian artist
“Life is growth. If we stop growing, technically and spiritually, we are as good as dead.”
– Morihei Ueshiba, Japanese martial artist
Growth quotes about overcoming fear
“You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.”
– Zig Ziglar, American author and motivational speaker
“One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.”
– Abraham Maslow, American psychologist
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
– Viktor E. Frankl, Austrian psychotherapist
“Thinking will not overcome fear, but action will.”
– W. Clement Stone, American businessman
“Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.”
– Napoleon Hill, American self-help author
“The only time you run out of chances is when you stop taking them.”
– Alexander Pope, English poet
“Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.”
– John F. Kennedy, 35th president of the United States
“Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up.”
– Barack Obama, 44th president of the United States
“Be not afraid of growing slowly; be afraid only of standing still.”
– Chinese Proverb
“You will either step forward into growth or you will step back into safety.”
– Abraham Maslow, American psychologist
“When you look fear in the face, you are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’”
– Eleanor Roosevelt, first lady of the United States
“One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn’t do.”
– Henry Ford, American industrialist
“Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”
– Francis of Assisi, Italian mystic
“Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.”
– John D. Rockefeller, American businessman
“Life opens up opportunities to you, and you either take them or you stay afraid of taking them.”
– Jim Carrey, American actor and comedian
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
– Barack Obama, 44th president of the United States
“Whether you think that you can, or that you can’t, you are usually right.”
― Henry Ford, American industrialist
“Always do what you are afraid to do.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, American author
Growth quotes about failure and humility
“Growth begins when we begin to accept our own weakness.”
– Jean Vanier, Canadian theologian
“All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.”
– Ellen Glasgow, American novelist
“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”
– Thomas A. Edison, American inventor
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
― Winston S. Churchill, British statesman
“A failure is like fertilizer; it stinks to be sure, but it makes things grow faster in the future.”
– Denis Waitley, American motivational speaker
“Life is a long lesson in humility.”
– James M. Barrie, Scottish novelist
“The only sure way to avoid making mistakes is to have no new ideas.”
– Albert Einstein, German physicist
“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.”
– Henry Ford, American industrialist
“Growth is an erratic forward movement: two steps forward, one step back. Remember that and be very gentle with yourself.”
– Julia Cameron, American author
“When life takes the wind out of your sails, it is to test you at the oars.”
– Robert Breault, American artist
“Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers, you cannot be successful or happy.”
– Norman Vincent Peale, American author
“Ultimately there is no such thing as failure. There are lessons learned in different ways.”
– Twyla Tharp, American dancer
“None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. We got here because somebody – a parent, a teacher, an Ivy League crony or a few nuns – bent down and helped us pick up our boots.”
– Thurgood Marshall, American civil rights lawyer
“I like criticism. It makes you strong.”
– LeBron James, American athlete
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
– Thomas A. Edison, American inventor
“Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.”
– Oscar Wilde, Irish author
“I’m always asked, ‘What’s the secret to success?’ But there are no secrets. Be humble. Be hungry. And always be the hardest worker in the room.”
– Dwayne Johnson, American actor