120 Motivational Quotes for Self Confidence

It’s one of the most crippling feelings – that sinking sense of self-doubt and insecurity that leaves you feeling inadequate, unworthy and unable to achieve your dreams. Low self-confidence holds you back from realizing your full potential and living life to the fullest.

However, the flip side of that is an incredible power that resides within each of us – the power of self-belief. When you cultivate faith in yourself and tune out the voices of doubt, you open up a world of courage, resilience and unstoppable motivation.

This inner confidence allows you to take more risks, pursue new challenges, and persevere through any obstacle. As Marie Curie said, Nothing is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more so that we may fear less.

To help you develop an unwavering self-confidence and silence the critic within, I’ve compiled 120 motivational quotes for self confidence for believing in yourself from brilliant minds across the ages. Let these words be a catalyst for seeing your true worth and potential.

Motivational Quotes for Self Confidence

Need a quick confidence boost? This epic guide has 120 of the best motivational quotes for self confidence, self-esteem and overcoming self-doubt.

Self-Love Quotes

1. You have no control over other people’s taste, so focus on staying true to your own. – Tim Gunn
2. The better you feel about yourself, the less you feel the need to show off. – Robert Hand
3. You are amazing for being your unique self. Embrace that, celebrate that, and thrive being that! – Steve Maraboli
4. Self-love is the greatest middle finger of all time. – Nica Epure
5. She was a wild, tangled forest with truth whispering from every leaf. – Atticus
6. Self-care is how you take your power back. – Lalah Delia
7. Low self-confidence is the accidental execution of self. – Paul Curie
8. The only person who can pull me down is myself, and I’m not going to let myself pull me down anymore. – C. JoyBell C.
9. Self-love is an ocean and your heart is a vessel. Make it full, and it will become endless. – Zig Ziglar
10. Forgive yourself for not knowing better at the time. Then keep learning. – Amy Blaschka

Overcoming Doubt & Limiting Beliefs

11. Don’t let the opinions of others become your reality. – Les Brown
12. You may have a fresh start any moment you choose. – Mary Pickford
13. A person can grow only as much as their horizon allows. – C.G. Jung
14. Don’t live down to expectations. Go out there and do something amazing. – Wendy Wasserstein
15. Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will. – Suzy Kassem
16. Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right. – Henry Ford
17. What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
18. Don’t allow your insecurities to make others question their own self-worth. – Dawn Gluskin
19. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement. – Golda Meir
20. Don’t limit yourself. You can go as far as your mind lets you. – Mary Kay Ash

Believing in Yourself Quotes

21. Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle. – Christian D. Larson
22. As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
23. Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do. – Benjamin Spock
24. Self-belief and hard work will always earn you success. – Virat Kohli
25. Believe in yourself, take on your challenges, dig deep within yourself to conquer fears. – Patricia Sampson
26. Work on your self-confidence every day. Compliment yourself and celebrate small victories. – Unknown
27. When you start believing in yourself more than you believe in your doubts, that’s when your dreams become reality. – Jem Friar
28. Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle. – Christian D. Larson
29. With realization of one’s own potential and self-confidence in one’s ability, one can build a better world. – Dalai Lama
30. Self-belief means feeling safe enough to allow your authentic self to emerge. – Wes Nayor

Developing Self-Confidence

31. Nothing builds self-esteem and self-confidence like accomplishment. – Thomas Carlyle
32. Self-confidence comes from doing what’s important to you. – Oprah Winfrey
33. Confidence comes from hours and days and weeks and years of constant work and dedication. – Roger Staubach
34. It is confidence in our bodies, minds, and spirits that allows us to keep looking for new adventures. – Oprah Winfrey
35. Life knocks all of us down from time to time. It’s how we get back up that counts. – Diane Ladd
36. Low self-confidence is simply a result of disconnect from your true self. – Ekaterina Walter
37. Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and confidence in ourselves. – Marie Curie
38. 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
39. No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. – Eleanor Roosevelt
40. She was unstoppable, not because she had no failures, but because no matter how many obstacles were thrown her way, she never gave up. – Anonymous

Self-Esteem & Self-Worth Quotes

41. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection. – Buddha
42. Self-worth means thinking highly of yourself and believing in your fundamental value as a person. – David D. Burns
43. Self-love has very little to do with how you feel about your outer self. It’s about accepting all of yourself. – Tyra Banks
44. When you undervalue what you are and what you have to offer, you really undervalue the world too. – Daphne Rose Kingma
45. Your self-worth is determined by you. You don’t have to depend on someone telling you who you are. – Thema Davis
46. Owning your own feelings, rather than blaming them on others, is the mark of a person with integrity. – Robert Bly
47. The better you feel about yourself, the less you need to prove. – Steve Richards
48. Be faithful to that which exists within yourself. – André Gide
49. Nothing can stop the person with the right mental attitude from achieving their goal. – Thomas Jefferson
50. Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. – Lucille Ball

Public Speaking Confidence

51. There are only two types of speakers in this world. The nervous and the liars. – Mark Twain
52. It’s not a lack of preparation, it’s a lack of confidence. – Paul Garde
53. Make eye contact with people when you speak and they will believe every word you say. – Donna Shalala
54. Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence. – Vince Lombardi
55. The courage to be yourself is the greatest strength a human can possess. – Charles A. Mensah
56. There’s a stubbornness that comes from confidence shaped by overcoming adversity. – Margot Lee Shetterly
57. If you focus on success, you’ll have stress. But if you pursue excellence, success will be guaranteed. – Deepak Chopra
58. Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen. – Brené Brown
59. Absorb the fear, the last line of defense. Then go for it. – Gabrielle Roth
60. Talk should not be merely for critics to overhear, but for the common souls to hear. – Henry David Thoreau

Confidence in Relationships

61. Confidence comes from being comfortable in your own skin. – Michelle Bachelet
62. Inhale confidence, exhale doubt. – Erin Baynard
63. Confidence is directness and courage is following through with it. – Rita Mae Brown
64. Confidence… is access to higher knowledge. – Bryant McGill
65. She is clothed in strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future. – Proverbs 31:25
66. The moment that you feel that, just possibly, you’re walking down the street naked, you have massive confidence. – Dustin Hoffman
67. If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. – Marcus Garvey
68. Shyness is an ornament; but you must admit that there is a brighter one that is Self-confidence. – Pericles
69. No better way is there to learn to love Nature than to understand Art. It dignifies every flower of the field. – Oscar Wilde
70. She’s the kind of woman who could start writing and then realize halfway through, ‘Hey wait a minute, I’m brilliant!’ – Daniel Valenti

Confidence at Work

71. Confident people project confidence by acting with unwavering self-assurance. – Brian Tracy
72. Success is most often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable. – Coco Chanel
73. Confidence is going after Moby Dick in a rowboat and taking the tartar sauce with you. – Zig Ziglar
74. With confidence, you have won before you have started. – Marcus Garvey
75. Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong. – Peter T. Mcintyre
76. You have no control over other people’s taste, so focus on staying true to your own. – Rem Koolhaas
77. Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they’re yours. – Richard Bach
78. Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence. – Helen Keller
79. Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. – Dale Carnegie
80. Experience tells you what to do; confidence allows you to do it. – Stan Smith
81. Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth. – Rumi
82. Confidence is preparation. Everything else is beyond your control. – Richard Kinder
83. The way you carry yourself speaks volumes about your self-confidence. – Alison Kringel
84. Wouldn’t it be powerful if you fell in love with yourself so deeply that you became your own inspiration? – Unknown
85. Low self-confidence isn’t a life sentence. Self-confidence can be learned, practiced, and mastered. – Jen Sincero
86. You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do. – Eleanor Roosevelt
87. She was powerful not because she wasn’t scared but because she went on so strongly, despite the fear. – Atticus
88. 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. – Sharon Stone
89. Believe in yourself up here and it will make you stronger than you could ever imagine. – Jo Frost
90. The courage to be yourself is the greatest strength a human can possess. – Charles A. Mensah
91. Because one believes in oneself, one doesn’t try to convince others. Because one is content with oneself, one doesn’t need others’ approval. – Lao Tzu
92. When we’re confident, we’re not blind to our faults; conversely, the less confident we are, the more focused we become on our faults and flaws. – Don Rittner
93. Your value doesn’t decrease based on someone’s inability to see your worth. – Unknown
94. Self-confidence is the ability to exercise restraint in the aftermath of disillusionment. – Wayne Dyer
95. Speak by speaking, behave by behaving – you’ll learn confidence from the gestures of confidence. – Paul Rée
96. Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind. – Dr. Seuss
97. Life is not easy for any of us, but it’s much easier when you have a sense of your own self-worth. – Judith Bardwick
98. Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings. – Samuel Johnson
99. Nothing can dim the light that shines from within. – Maya Angelou
100. If you’re not confident, you’ll never take the risks that self-made people take. – Bill Rancic

Reader Submitted Confidence Quotes:

101. There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way. – Thich Nhat Hanh
102. Endurance is my greatest confidence builder. – Arnold Palmer
103. I am not what has happened to me, I am what I choose to become. – Carl Jung
104. To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance. – Oscar Wilde
105. Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight. – E.E. Cummings
106. Confidence is a habit that can be developed by acting as if you already had the confidence you desire to have. – Brian Tracy
107. Self-confidence is the first step towards self-realization. – Dada Vaswani
108. If we give value to someone else’s confidence in us, doesn’t it make sense to give value to our confidence in ourselves? – Terri Bowman
109. Concentrate your strengths against your competitor’s relative weaknesses. – Paul Chernyak
110. Confidence is directness and courage is following through with it. – Rita Mae Brown
111. When you start loving yourself and respecting your time and happiness, life will start loving you back. – Sri Amma
112. Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. – Lao Tzu
113. When you’re different, you’re branded a misfit, a freak. But eventually, as they get to know you, what makes you different makes you beautiful. – Alida Nugent
114. The only courage that matters is the kind that gets you from one moment to the next. – Mignon McLaughlin
115. With confidence, I can conquer the world itself. – Lailah Gifty Akita
116. Within us all there are wells of thought and dynamos of energy which are gratefully profound – sources of infinite possibilities. – Felix Frankfurter
117. Confidence is a small thing that makes a big difference. – Kytia L’Hotelier
118. When you believe in yourself, anything is possible. – Unknown
119. Believe you can and you’re halfway there. – Theodore Roosevelt
120. Confidence is preparation. Everything else is beyond your control. – Richard Kinder

Closing Thoughts

Whether you’re struggling with chronic self-doubt, lack of self-worth, or simply need an extra shot of motivation, I hope these 120 motivational quotes for self confidence provide a powerful dose of confidence-boosting wisdom.

In many ways, self-confidence is like a muscle – it takes consistent effort to develop and maintain. And just like exercising a weak muscle, building your self-belief often feels awkward and uncomfortable at first. But the more you can act and think confidently, the more natural and effortless it becomes over time.

Here are some final tips for taking these quotes to heart and developing unshakable self-confidence:

• Print out a few quotes that really resonate with you and put them around your home/office
• Start a daily self-love practice of repeating affirmations or power quotes to yourself
• Take baby steps outside your comfort zone regularly to prove your doubting inner voice wrong
• Visualize yourself accomplishing your biggest goals or dreams with supreme self-belief
• Surround yourself with people who believe in you and support your authentic self

Self-confidence allows you to go after the life you truly want without limitations or apologies. So embrace these words, apply them daily, and watch as your self-belief soars.

Which of these 120 inspirational quotes boosted your confidence the most? Drop a comment with your favorite quote!