30 Inspiring Quotes to Push You on Overcoming Challenges

Push yourself.

The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it. -Molière

It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. -Abigail Adams

Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people. -Randy Pausch

The key to life is accepting challenges. Once someone stops doing this, he’s dead. -Bette Davis

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly. -Robert F. Kennedy

But that’s the challenge – to change the system more than it changes you. -Michael Pollan

Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body. -Seneca

Being challenged in life is inevitable, being defeated is optional. -Roger Crawford

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. -Helen Keller

If you aren’t in over your head, how do you know how tall you are? -T.S. Eliot

I don’t run away from a challenge because I am afraid. Instead, I run towards it because the only way to escape fear is to trample it beneath your foot. -Nadia Comaneci

The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials. -Chinese proverb

When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. -Paulo Coelho

There is a tendency at every important but difficult crossroad to pretend that it’s not really there. -Bill McKibben

Our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change. -Martin Luther King Jr.

Hope and change are hard-fought things. -Michelle Obama

A challenge only becomes an obstacle when you bow to it. -Ray Davis

I’ve learned that success comes in a very prickly package. Whether you choose to accept it or not is up to you. It’s what you choose to do with it, the people you choose to surround yourself with. Always choose people that are better than you. Always choose people that challenge you and are smarter than you. Always be the student. Once you find yourself to be the teacher, you’ve lost it. -Sandra Bullock

Women, like men, should try to do the impossible. And when they fail, their failure should be a challenge to others. -Amelia Earhart

It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer. -Albert Einstein

I like the challenge of trying different things and wondering whether it’s going to work or whether I’m going to fall flat on my face. -Johnny Depp

You see a mousetrap; I see free cheese and a fucking challenge! -Scroobius Pip

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things. Not because they are easy, but because they are hard. -John F. Kennedy

To be tested is good. The challenged life may be the best therapist. -Gail Sheehy

To remain indifferent to the challenges we face is indefensible. If the goal is noble, whether or not it is realized within our lifetime is largely irrelevant. What we must do therefore is to strive and persevere and never give up. -Dalai Lama

If you are facing a new challenge or being asked to do something that you have never done before don’t be afraid to step out. You have more capability than you think you do but you will never see it unless you place a demand on yourself for more. -Joyce Meyer

Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It’s not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it’s a day you’ve had everything to do and you’ve done it. -Margaret Thatcher

There are no great people in this world, only great challenges which ordinary people rise to meet. -William Frederick Halsey, Jr.

Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are. -Bernice Johnson Reagon

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Images: lululemon athletica, Mitch Barrie, Cyron Ray Macey

Jessica Marati

Jessica Marati currently resides in New York City and covers travel and sustainability for EcoSalon. Catch her weekly column, Behind the Label.