48 Willpower Quotes

If there is a God, he is within. You don't ask God to give you things, you depend on God for your inner theme.

So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.

The force of the blow depends on the resistance. It is sometimes better not to struggle against temptation. Either fly or yield at once.

There is no failure except in no longer trying. There is no defeat except from within, no really insurmountable barrier save our own inherent weakness of purpose.

We need the iron qualities that go with true manhood. We need the positive virtues of resolution, of courage, of indomitable will, of power to do without shrinking the rough work that must always be done.

The most intellectual of men are moved quite as much by the circumstances which they are used to as by their own will. The active voluntary part of a man is very small, and if it were not economized by a sleepy kind of habit, its results would be null.

A self-willed man obeys a different law, the one law I, too, hold absolutely sacred - the human law in himself, his own individual will.

Shall I show you the sinews of a philosopher? 'What sinews are those?' - A will undisappointed; evils avoided; powers daily exercised, careful resolutions; unerring decisions.

Mankind is made great or little by its own will.

Patience is the mother of will.

Freedom can never be reached by the weak. Throw away all weakness. Tell your body that it is strong, tell your mind that it is strong, and have unbounded faith and hope in yourself.

When you locate good in yourself, approve of it with determination. When you locate evil in yourself, despise it as something detestable.

Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down; It may be that we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Though much is taken, much abides; and though We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are - One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

I hold my honey and I store my bread In little jars and cabinets of my will. I label clearly, and each latch and lid I bid, Be firm till I return from hell.

To succeed, you must have tremendous perseverance, tremendous will. 'I will drink the ocean', says the persevering soul; 'at my will mountains will crumble up'. Have that sort of energy, that sort of will; work hard, and you will reach the goal.

Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day. That is, be systematically ascetic or heroic in little unnecessary points, do every day or two something for no other reason than that you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test. So with the man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things. He will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him, and when his softer fellow-mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast.

...as man under pressure tends to give in to physical and intellectual weakness, only great strength of will can lead to the objective.

To affirm life is to deepen, to make more inward, and to exalt the will to live.

The human will, that force unseen, The offspring of a deathless soul, Can work away at any goal, Though walls of granite intervene.

You know, Vince Lombardi once said that success is not about strength, it's not about knowledge, but it's about will. And that's the leadership that President George W. Bush has provided. Thank you, Mr. President.

He even did his best to stop loving her; then at the sound of her footsteps he would feel his will desert him, like a drunkard at the sight of strong liquor.

Her strong points were her iron will. I've never known a will like it in politics and I've known a few politicians in my time in various countries. I've never known a man or woman faintly like her, she was as tough as they come, and anything that required guts and will she could do for you. Anything that required sensitivity, she couldn't, she had none.

Someone within me is struggling to lift a great weight, to cast off the mind and flesh by overcoming habit, laziness, necessity. I do not know from where he comes or where he goes. I clutch at his onward march in my ephemeral breast, I listen to his panting struggle, I shudder when I touch him.

Patience and forebearance ease the burden of misfortunes on man, facilitate the difficulties and strengthen the will and resolution.

L'homme est libre au moment qu'il veut l'etre.

Let us have Men, Men who will say a word to their souls and keep it - keep it not when it is easy, but keep it when it is hard - keep it when the storm roars and there is a white-streaked sky and blue thunder before, and one's eyes are blinded and one's ears deafened with the war of opposing things; and keep it under the long leaden sky and the gray dreariness that never lifts. Hold unto the last: that is what it means to have a Dominant Idea, which Circumstance cannot break. And such men make and unmake Circumstance.

I don't care if it's the whole world that everything in it, on it, and above it. I...will...not...bend.

Pistol packin' fresh out of jail, I ain't goin' back/Release me to care of my heartless strap

There are no incurable diseases - only the lack of will. There are no worthless herbs - only the lack of knowledge.

I have brought myself, by long meditation, to the conviction that a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will that will stake even existence for its fulfilment.

Intent is not a thought, or an object, or a wish. Intent is what can make a man succeed when his thoughts tell him that he is defeated. It operates in spite of the warrior's indulgence. Intent is what makes him invulnerable. Intent is what sends a shaman through a wall, through space, to infinity.

Men can do all things if they will.

I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it.

'Impossible' n'est pas francais.

Some men have sufficient strength of mind to change their disposition, or at least to yield to imperative circumstances.