Choose Your Hard Quotes reveal a firm truth: life will always be challenging, but we have the power to choose which challenges shape us. These quotes inspire you to consider what’s worth working for—whether it’s building good habits, achieving goals, or letting go of the things that hold you back.
They remind you that avoiding hardship doesn’t eliminate it; it simply transforms it into something else. These quotes will give you the courage to choose hardship that leads to growth, happiness, and a stronger version of yourself.
1. “Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most” – Abraham Lincoln
2. “Out of difficulties grow miracles” – Jean de La Bruyère
3. “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all” – Helen Keller
4. “Hard work is an essential element in tracking down and perfecting a strategy or in executing it” – Charlie Munger
5. “Success demands singleness of purpose” – Vince Lombardi
6. “Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned” – Peter Marshall
7. “Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet” – Aristotle
8. “Life is a matter of choices, and every choice you make makes you” – John C. Maxwell
9. “The harder the conflict, the greater the triumph” – George Washington
10. “The only thing standing between you and your goal is the story you keep telling yourself” – Jordan Belfort
11. “Champions keep playing until they get it right” – Billie Jean King
12. “You cannot plow a field by turning it over in your mind” – Gordon B. Hinckley
13. “Goals are dreams with deadlines” – Diana Scharf Hunt
14. “Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths” – Arnold Schwarzenegger
15. “Do something today that your future self will thank you for” – Sean Patrick Flanery
16. “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity” – Albert Einstein
17. “The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it” – Henry David Thoreau
18. “The only easy day was yesterday” – U.S. Navy SEALs
19. “Hard choices, easy life; easy choices, hard life” – Jerzy Gregorek
20. “We are our choices” – Jean-Paul Sartre
21. “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are” – Theodore Roosevelt
22. “What we fear of doing most is usually what we most need to do” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
23. “If it were easy, everyone would do it” – Tom Hanks
24. “Success is never owned; it is rented, and the rent is due every day” – J.J. Watt
25. “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional” – Haruki Murakami
26. “It always seems impossible until it’s done” – Nelson Mandela
27. “A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere” – Christopher Reeve
28. “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right” – Henry Ford
29. “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard” – Tim Notke
30. “What you do today can improve all your tomorrows” – Ralph Marston
31. “We are what we repeatedly do” – Aristotle
32. “Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it” – Henry David Thoreau
33. “Nothing will work unless you do” – Maya Angelou
34. “Energy and persistence conquer all things” – Benjamin Franklin
35. “Be not afraid of growing slowly; be afraid only of standing still” – Chinese Proverb
36. “It is never too late to be what you might have been” – George Eliot
37. “If you want the rainbow, you have to put up with the rain” – Dolly Parton
38. “Fall seven times, stand up eight” – Japanese Proverb
39. “The hardships I faced in the past will help me succeed in the future” – Philip Emeagwali
40. “The beginning is the most important part of the work” – Plato
41. “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts” – Winston Churchill
42. “Every strike brings me closer to the next home run” – Babe Ruth
43. “Action is the foundational key to all success” – Pablo Picasso
44. “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
45. “Don’t wish it were easier; wish you were better” – Jim Rohn
46. “Persistence can change failure into extraordinary achievement” – Marv Levy
47. “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new” – Albert Einstein
48. “There is no substitute for hard work” – Thomas Edison
49. “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can” – Arthur Ashe
50. “If you can dream it, you can do it” – Walt Disney
51. “Circumstances do not make the man; they reveal him” – Epictetus
52. “Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; make it hot by striking” – William Butler Yeats
53. “Fortune favors the bold” – Virgil
54. “A man is what he thinks about all day long” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
55. “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop” – Confucius
56. “The best way out is always through” – Robert Frost
57. “The only limit to our realization of tomorrow is our doubts of today” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
58. “Do one thing every day that scares you” – Eleanor Roosevelt
59. “Courage is not the absence of fear but the triumph over it” – Nelson Mandela
60. “You must be the change you wish to see in the world” – Mahatma Gandhi
61. “The future depends on what you do today” – Mahatma Gandhi
62. “He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life” – Muhammad Ali
63. “Opportunities don’t happen. You create them” – Chris Grosser
64. “What we think, we become” – Buddha
65. “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take” – Wayne Gretzky
66. “You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water” – Rabindranath Tagore
67. “You are never too old to set another goal or dream a new dream” – C.S. Lewis
68. “We can do hard things” – Glennon Doyle
69. “If you’re going through hell, keep going” – Winston Churchill
70. “Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going” – Jim Ryun
71. “Dream big and dare to fail” – Norman Vaughan
72. “Don’t count the days; make the days count” – Muhammad Ali
73. “Well done is better than well said” – Benjamin Franklin
74. “Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change” – Jim Rohn
75. “Turn your wounds into wisdom” – Oprah Winfrey
76. “Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm” – Winston Churchill
77. “You have power over your mind—not outside events” – Marcus Aurelius
78. “Failure is success in progress” – Albert Einstein
79. “In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different” – Coco Chanel
80. “Believe you can and you’re halfway there” – Theodore Roosevelt
81. “Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do” – John Wooden
82. “Success is the sum of small efforts repeated day in and day out” – Robert Collier
83. “Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom” – George S. Patton
84. “Experience is the teacher of all things” – Julius Caesar
85. “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage” – Anaïs Nin
86. “The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war” – Norman Schwarzkopf
87. “I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions” – Stephen R. Covey
88. “When you have a dream, you’ve got to grab it and never let go” – Carol Burnett
89. “There is no failure except in no longer trying” – Elbert Hubbard
90. “What consumes your mind controls your life” – Marcus Aurelius
91. “The secret of getting ahead is getting started” – Mark Twain
92. “Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm” – Winston Churchill
93. “The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones” – Confucius
94. “A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
95. “Great things are done by a series of small things brought together” – Vincent van Gogh
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