"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." — Lao Tzu

"You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great." — Zig Ziglar

"It is never too late to be what you might have been." — George Eliot

"Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear." — George Addair

"Do not wait until the conditions are perfect to begin. Beginning makes the conditions perfect." — Alan Cohen

"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase." — Martin Luther King Jr.

"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now." — Chinese Proverb

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined." — Henry David Thoreau

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do." — Mark Twain

"Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." — Howard Thurman

"A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for." — John A. Shedd

"Every morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most." — Buddha

"The beginning is the most important part of the work." — Plato

"You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending." — C.S. Lewis

"Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it." — Muhammad Ali

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it." — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." — Anaïs Nin

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

"Do one thing every day that scares you." — Eleanor Roosevelt

"Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard." — Tim Notke

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." — Aristotle

"The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary." — Vidal Sassoon

"It always seems impossible until it’s done." — Nelson Mandela

"Don't watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going." — Sam Levenson

"Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it." — Henry David Thoreau

"Opportunities don't happen. You create them." — Chris Grosser

"I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have." — Thomas Jefferson

"If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time." — Steve Jobs

"Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other." — Walter Elliot

"Energy and persistence conquer all things." — Benjamin Franklin

"Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration. The rest of us just get up and go to work." — Stephen King

"Action is the foundational key to all success." — Pablo Picasso

"Don't stop when you're tired. Stop when you're done." — David Goggins

"Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm." — Winston Churchill

"The difference between who you are and who you want to be is what you do." — Unknown

"Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible." — Tony Robbins

"Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most." — Abraham Lincoln

"Grit is living life like it's a marathon, not a sprint." — Angela Duckworth

"Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right." — Henry Ford

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life." — Steve Jobs

"I never dreamed about success. I worked for it." — Estée Lauder

"The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me." — Ayn Rand

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

"You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore." — William Faulkner

"Change is inevitable. Growth is optional." — John C. Maxwell

"The only way to make sense of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance." — Alan Watts

"Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form." — Rumi

"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be." — Lao Tzu

"To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often." — Winston Churchill

"If you're brave enough to say goodbye, life will reward you with a new hello." — Paulo Coelho

"You can't start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading the last one." — Unknown

"Be like the tree and let the dead leaves drop." — Rumi

"The measure of intelligence is the ability to change." — Albert Einstein

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one most adaptable to change." — Charles Darwin

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end." — Seneca

"Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together." — Marilyn Monroe

"Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything." — George Bernard Shaw

"Do not brood over your past mistakes and failures as this will only fill your mind with grief, regret and depression. Do not repeat them in the future." — Swami Sivananda

"Yesterday is heavy. Put it down." — Unknown

"Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor." — Alexis Carrel

"Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional." — Haruki Murakami

"Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality." — Lao Tzu

"If you’re going through hell, keep going." — Winston Churchill

"Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life." — J.K. Rowling

"Stars can't shine without darkness." — D.H. Sidebottom

"Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope." — Martin Luther King Jr.

"Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end." — John Lennon

"The wound is the place where the Light enters you." — Rumi

"Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny." — C.S. Lewis

"You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated." — Maya Angelou

"Only in the darkness can you see the stars." — Martin Luther King Jr.

"Keep your face always toward the sunshine—and shadows will fall behind you." — Walt Whitman

"When you are at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on." — Teddy Roosevelt

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." — Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become." — Carl Jung

"Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it." — Helen Keller

"Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness." — Desmond Tutu

"Fall seven times, stand up eight." — Japanese Proverb

"Storms make trees take deeper roots." — Dolly Parton

"The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials." — Chinese Proverb

"We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope." — Martin Luther King Jr.

"Be the change that you wish to see in the world." — Mahatma Gandhi

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." — Eleanor Roosevelt

"Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom." — Aristotle

"Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner." — Lao Tzu

"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it." — Rumi

"If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything." — Malcolm X

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

"Leadership is not about being in charge. It is about taking care of those in your charge." — Simon Sinek

"Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without." — Buddha

"Talk to yourself like you would to someone you love." — Brené Brown

"He who has a why to live can bear almost any how." — Friedrich Nietzsche

"Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions." — Dalai Lama

"The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are." — Carl Jung

"And still, I rise." — Maya Angelou

Journaling Prompts: Use a quote as a header for your daily journal entry. For example, take Quote #19 (The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be) and write for ten minutes about who that person is.

The "Winter" Emergency Kit: Save the "Winter" section of this article on your phone. When life hits you hard—and it will—open that list. Read it when you feel paralyzed by grief or failure. Let the words of Churchill, Rumi, and Angelou be the hand that pulls you up.