In this post I’d like to share the best confidence quotes of all time.
Because one of the most common questions I get via email is:
How can I be more confident in my daily life?
Well, here’s 175 quotes on just that. Timeless, time-tested and thought-provoking self confidence advice from the past few thousands of years.
I hope you’ll find these quotes as insightful, motivating and practically helpful as I did.
And if you want more advice and inspiration for self-love then check out this post with quotes on knowing your true value and worth and this one filled with you are enough quotes.
Confidence Quotes That Will Help You to Live Your Best Life
“Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause of fear.”
Norman Vincent Peale
“Arrogance is loud, confidence is quiet.”
James Pierce
“Nothing builds self-esteem and self-confidence like accomplishment.”
Thomas Carlyle
“Confidence is the most important single factor in this game, and no matter how great your natural talent, there is only one way to obtain and sustain it: work.”
Jack Nicklaus
“Confidence isn’t optimism or pessimism, and it’s not a character attribute. It’s the expectation of a positive outcome.”
Rosabeth Moss Kanter
“One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation.”
Arthur Ashe
“Have confidence that if you have done a little thing well, you can do a bigger thing well too.”
David Storey
“Don’t listen to anyone who tells you that you can’t do this or that. That’s nonsense. Make up your mind, you’ll never use crutches or a stick, then have a go at everything. Go to school, join in all the games you can. Go anywhere you want to. But never, never let them persuade you that things are too difficult or impossible.”
Douglas Bader
“Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong.”
Peter T. Mcintyre
“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
“Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the face.”
Helen Keller
“If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.”
Mahatma Gandhi
“Just believe in yourself. Even if you don’t, pretend that you do and, at some point, you will.”
Venus Williams
“It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.”
Sir Edmund Hillary
“You can’t really be strong until you can see a funny side to things.”
Ken Kesey
“Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.”
Dale Carnegie
“You have been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.”
Louise L. Hay
“Always be yourself and have faith in yourself. Do not go out and look for a successful personality and try to duplicate it.”
Bruce Lee
“Don’t waste your energy trying to change opinions … Do your thing, and don’t care if they like it.”
Tina Fey
“Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you are right.”
Henry Ford
“Argue for your limitations and, sure enough, they’re yours.”
Richard Bach
“Wouldn’t it be powerful if you fell in love with yourself so deeply that you would do just about anything if you knew it would make you happy? This is precisely how much life loves you and wants you to nurture yourself. The deeper you love yourself, the more the universe will affirm your worth. Then you can enjoy a lifelong love affair that brings you the richest fulfillment from inside out.”
Alan Cohen
“It took many years of vomiting up all the filth I’d been taught about myself, and half-believed before I was able to walk on the earth as though I had a right to be here.”
James Baldwin
“Try a thing you haven’t done three times. Once, to get over the fear of doing it. Twice, to learn how to do it. And a third time to figure out whether you like it or not.”
Virgil Thomson
“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
“Regardless of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner. Even if you are behind, a sustained look of control and confidence can give you a mental edge that results in victory.”
Diane Arbus
“Only the person who has faith in himself is able to be faithful to others.”
Erich Fromm
“Each time we face our fear, we gain strength, courage, and confidence in the doing.”
Theodore Roosevelt
“Calm mind brings inner strength and self-confidence, so that’s very important for good health.”
Dalai Lama
“Why should we worry about what others think of us, do we have more confidence in their opinions than we do our own?”
Brigham Young
“Successful people often exude confidence—it’s obvious that they believe in themselves and what they’re doing. It isn’t their success that makes them confident, however. The confidence was there first.”
Travis Bradberry
“Your success will be determined by your own confidence and fortitude.”
Michelle Obama
“I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.”
Louisa May Alcott
“Whatever we expect with confidence becomes our own self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Brian Tracy
“The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.”
Carl Jung
“Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.”
Golda Meir
“Self-confidence is the memory of success.”
David Storey
“You yourself, as much as anyone in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.”
Buddha
“Confidence is that feeling by which the mind embarks in great and honorable courses with a sure hope and trust in itself.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero
“If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is too. Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think.”
T. Harv Eker
“Lighten up on yourself. No one is perfect. Gently accept your humanness.”
Deborah Day
“If you really put a small value upon yourself, rest assured that the world will not raise your price.”
Unknown
“Don’t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful.”
Mark Victor Hansen
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
“With the realization of one’s own potential and self-confidence in one’s ability, one can build a better world.”
Dalai Lama
“Because one believes in oneself, one doesn’t try to convince others. Because one is content with oneself, one doesn’t need others’ approval. Because one accepts oneself, the whole world accepts him or her.”
Lao-Tzu
“She lacks confidence, she craves admiration insatiably. She lives on the reflections of herself in the eyes of others. She does not dare to be herself.”
Anais Nin
“Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.”
Marie Curie
“The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself.”
Maya Angelou
“Confidence is when you believe in yourself and your abilities, arrogance is when you think you are better than others and act accordingly.”
Stewart Stafford
“Confidence is courage at ease.”
Daniel Maher
“Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are.”
Malcolm S. Forbes
“For me, it’s always been about preparation, and the more prepared I can be each week, the less pressure I feel and the more confident I am. As your confidence grows, it’s only natural that the pressure you feel diminishes.”
Aaron Rodgers
“Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.”
Benjamin Spock
“We have to learn to be our own best friends because we fall too easily into the trap of being our own worst enemies.”
Roderick Thorp
“Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“People who want the most approval get the least and the people who need approval the least get the most.”
Wayne Dyer
“When you have confidence, you can have a lot of fun. And when you have fun, you can do amazing things.”
Joe Namath
“You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
Marcus Aurelius
Inspiring Confidence Quotes
“Having once decided to achieve a certain task, achieve it at all costs of tedium and distaste. The gain in self-confidence of having accomplished a tiresome labor is immense.”
Thomas A. Bennett
“I quit being afraid when my first venture failed and the sky didn’t fall down.”
Allen H. Neuharth
“Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.”
Lucille Ball
“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.”
Mark Twain
“Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit”
E.E. Cummings
“Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.”
Rumi
“When you have a lot of confidence and you feel like nobody can beat you, it’s game over for everyone else.”
Jason Day
“Living life with low self confidence is no fun. It’s like driving a car with the handbrake on or running with a parachute attached to your back. So focus on improving your self confidence, step by small step to live a happier life.”
Unknown
“The circulation of confidence is better than the circulation of money.”
James Madison
“Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look.”
Marcus Aurelius
“I do not believe in taking the right decision, I take a decision and make it right.”
Muhammad Ali Jinnah
“Confidence is when you believe in yourself and your abilities, arrogance is when you think you are better than others and act accordingly.”
Stewart Stafford
“Confidence is a lot of this game or any game. If you don’t think you can, you won’t.”
Jerry West
“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.”
J. M. Barrie
“The world steps aside for the man who knows where he is going.”
James Allen
“In fact, the confidence of the people is worth more than money.”
Carter G. Woodson
“When you’re different, sometimes you don’t see the millions of people who accept you for what you are. All you notice is the person who doesn’t.”
Jodi Picoult
“Courage is the birthplace of confidence.”
Debbie Millman
“Confidence comes from discipline and training.”
Robert Kiyosaki
“Confidence comes from hours and days and weeks and years of constant work and dedication.”
Robert Staubach
“When someone tells me “no,” it doesn’t mean I can’t do it, it simply means I can’t do it with them.”
Karen E. Quinones Miller
“You can develop self confidence by facing your fears, by living just a little outside of your comfort zone and by doing what you deep down think is the right thing.”
Unknown
“I do not care so much what I am to others as I care what I am to myself.”
Michel de Montaigne
“The world belongs to those who set out to conquer it armed with self confidence and good humour.”
Charles Dickens
“Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence.”
Vince Lombardi
“Confidence is preparation. Everything else is beyond your control.”
Richard Kline
“As long as you look for someone else to validate who you are by seeking their approval, you are setting yourself up for disaster. You have to be whole and complete in yourself. No one can give you that. You have to know who you are – what others say is irrelevant.”
Nic Sheff
“I’ve always had confidence. It came because I have lots of initiative. I wanted to make something of myself.”
Eddie Murphy
“The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.”
Ayn Rand
“You are the only person on earth who can use your ability.”
Zig Ziglar
“Believe you can and you’re halfway there.”
Theodore Roosevelt
“Sometimes, if you fake confidence long enough, you’re going to be confident.”
Elle King
“Doubt can motivate you, so don’t be afraid of it. Confidence and doubt are at two ends of the scale, and you need both. They balance each other out.”
Barbra Streisand
“Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be confident. Just do it and eventually the confidence will follow.”
Carrie Fisher
“One learns to ignore criticism by first learning to ignore applause.”
Robert Brault
“Confidence is a very fragile thing.”
Joe Montana
“Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.”
Helen Keller
“The sun himself is weak when he first rises, and gathers strength and courage as the day gets on.”
Charles Dickens
“There can be no failure to a man who has not lost his courage, his character, his self-respect, or his self-confidence. He is still a King.”
Orison Swett Marden
“Put all excuses aside and remember this – you are capable.”
Zig Ziglar
“You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.”
Michael Jordan
“I laugh at myself. I don’t take myself completely seriously. I think that’s another quality that people have to hold on to… you have to laugh, especially at yourself.”
Madonna
“As is our confidence, so is our capacity.”
William Hazlitt
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.”
Mark Twain
“Believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart.”
Steve Jobs
“Once you embrace your value, talents and strengths, it neutralizes when others think less of you.”
Rob Liano
“If you believe it will work out, you’ll see opportunities. If you believe it won’t you will see obstacles.”
Wayne Dyer
“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
“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.”
William James
“Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.”
Lao Tzu
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”
Anaïs Nin
“I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was.”
Muhammad Ali
“Success is most often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable.”
Coco Chanel
“The key to life is accepting challenges. Once someone stops doing this, he’s dead.”
Bette Davis
“Confidence thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt
“Your dream doesn’t have an expiration date. Take a deep breath and try again.”
K.T. Witten
“Fear? What has a man to do with fear? Chance rules our lives, and the future is all unknown. Best live as we may, from day to day.”
Sophocles
“Life is ten percent what you experience and ninety percent how you respond to it.”
Dorothy M. Neddermeyer
“Her grandmother had once told her that one of life’s best lessons was not being afraid to look foolish — to just ask the question.”
Melissa Senate
“When you have confidence, you can do anything.”
Sloane Stevens
“Embrace today, discard yesterday and have confidence in tomorrow.”
Tim Fargo
“Humans punish themselves endlessly for not being what they believe they should be. They become very self-abusive, and they use other people to abuse themselves as well.”
Miguel Ruiz
“The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.”
Robert Hughes
“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I’ll try again tomorrow.”
Mary Anne Radmacher
“Don’t say, “If I could, I would”. Say, “If I can, I will”.”
Jim Rohn
“Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.”
Bell Hooks
“Experience tells you what to do; confidence allows you to do it.”
Stan Smith
“Skill and confidence are an unconquered army.”
George Herbert
“Concentration comes out of a combination of confidence and hunger.”
Arnold Palmer
“Lack of confidence, sometimes alternating with unrealistic dreams of heroic success, often leads to procrastination, and many studies suggest that procrastinators are self-handicappers: rather than risk failure, they prefer to create conditions that make success impossible, a reflex that of course creates a vicious cycle.”
James Surowiecki
“If you don’t have any confidence, you’re not going to do anything.”
Stefon Diggs
“Confidence contributes more to conversation than wit.”
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
“Action is a high road to self-confidence and self-esteem.”
Bruce Lee
“Why should I care what other people think of me? I am who I am. And who I wanna be.”
Avril Lavigne
“I have a confidence about my life that comes from standing tall on my own two feet.”
Jane Fonda
“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. You are the guy who’ll decide where to go.”
Dr. Seuss
“Your fears of the consequences of a bold action are way out of proportion to reality, and in fact the consequences of timidity are worse.”
Robert Greene
“Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we’ll ever do.”
Brené Brown
“I taught myself confidence. When I’d walk into a room and feel scared to death, I’d tell myself, ‘I’m not afraid of anybody.’ And people believed me. You’ve got to teach yourself to take over the world.”
Priyanka Chopra Jonas
“What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates his fate.”
Henry David Thoreau
“People who repeatedly attack your confidence and self-esteem are quite aware of your potential, even if you are not.”
Wayne Gerard Trotman
“Get more confidence by doing things that excite and frighten you.”
Jessica Williams
“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“It’s all in your head. You have the power to make things seem hard or easy or even amusing. The choice is yours.”
Seneca
“Be an Encourager: When you encourage others, you boost their self-esteem, enhance their self-confidence, make them work harder, lift their spirits and make them successful in their endeavors. Encouragement goes straight to the heart and is always available. Be an encourager. Always.”
Roy T. Bennett
”If you don’t love yourself, nobody will. Not only that, you won’t be good at loving anyone else. Loving starts with the self.”
Wayne Dyer
“As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Somehow I can’t believe that there are any heights that can’t be scaled by a man who knows the secrets of making dreams come true. This special secret, it seems to me, can be summarized in four Cs. They are curiosity, confidence, courage, and constancy, and the greatest of all is confidence. When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable.”
Walt Disney
“Don’t live down to expectations. Go out there and do something remarkable.”
Wendy Wasserstein
“The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame. The gift is yours – it is an amazing journey – and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. This is the day your life really begins.”
Bob Moawad
“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
George Eliot
Inspirational Body Confidence Quotes
“I had to grow to love my body. I did not have a good self-image at first. Finally it occurred to me, I’m either going to love me or hate me. And I chose to love myself. Then everything kind of sprung from there. Things that I thought weren’t attractive became sexy. Confidence makes you sexy.”
Queen Latifah
“The most beautiful thing you can wear is confidence.”’
Blake Lively
“Find what makes you feel comfortable. The confidence you wear your clothes in is what’s really going to shine.”
Hayley Hasselhoff
“We are always the same age inside. ”
Gertrude Stein
“Accept yourself, love yourself, and keep moving forward. If you want to fly, you have to give up what weighs you down.”
Roy T. Bennett
“Don’t take your health for granted. Don’t take your body for granted. Do something today that communicates to your body that you desire to care for it. Tomorrow is not promised.”
Jada Pinkett Smith
“There’s a confidence and sense of self that comes with age that I didn’t anticipate.”
Jillian Michaels
“Confidence. If you have it, you can make anything look good. ”
Diane Von Furstenberg
“Beauty begins the moment you decide to be yourself.”
Coco Chanel
“Beauty is how you feel inside, and it reflects in your eyes. It is not something physical.”
Sophia Loren
“Confidence is everything. Confidence is what makes that simple white tee and jeans look good.”
Ciara
“A fit body gives you confidence. And there’s nothing more impressive than a great attitude, which you can wear on your sleeve. But you’ll have to remember the difference between being rude and being confident.”
Virat Kohli
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Confidence is the most beautiful thing you can possess.”
Sabrina Carpenter
Funny Confidence Quotes
“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.”
Mark Twain
“It is best to act with confidence, no matter how little right you have to it.”
Lillian Hellman
“It is not love that should be depicted as blind, but self-love.”
Voltaire
“A true genius admits that he/she knows nothing.”
Albert Einstein
“Never forget that only dead fish swim with the stream.”
Malcolm Muggeridge
“Aerodynamically the bumblebee shouldn’t be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn’t know that so it goes on flying anyway.”
Mary Kay Ash
“Humor comes from self-confidence.”
Rita Mae Brown
“I have an everyday religion that works for me. Love yourself first, and everything else falls into line.”
Lucille Ball
“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”
Charles Bukowski
“Be a pineapple: stand tall, wear a crown, and be sweet on the inside.”
Unknown
“I have great faith in fools – self-confidence my friends will call it.”
Edgar Allan Poe
If you found these confidence quotes helpful then share them with family or friends on social media or via email.
Want even more help to boost your self-confidence? Have a look at this post that’s all about loving yourself and also this one filled with quotes about dealing with obstacles and adversity in life in a healthy way.
