100 Self-Discipline Quotes to Help You Achieve Success

Self-discipline; the real ‘secret’ to success.  If ever there were a true magical ingredient to achieve success, self-discipline would be it.

Andrew Carnegie, one of the richest men in modern history, commissioned a man by the name of Napoleon Hill to seek out the richest and most successful people across the land in the early days of the 20th century.

“Self-Discipline Attracts Opportunity”

Can you guess what the common denominator was in Napoleon Hill’s decades long study of what lead to success?

If you guessed self-discipline, you’d be right.  Napoleon Hill ultimately concluded that self-discipline is truly THE starting point of all great achievements.

In addition to this discovery, self-discipline has been referenced time and time again by those who have accomplished greatly and have achieved massive success.

Unfortunately, it is a truth that has also been ignored by way too many people to the detriment of their accomplishments.

We are firm believers that self-discipline attracts opportunity.  We believe that if you use discipline to develop your skills and make a disciplined effort towards your ambitions, there is no doubt that exciting opportunities will inevitably open up for you.

Self-discipline, without a doubt, leads to triumph.

But don’t just take our word for it.  Check out these top 100 self-discipline quotes from some of the most influential and accomplished people of all-time.

May these quotes help tattoo in your mind, the real secret behind achieving staggering success, so you can get on with yours.

BEST 100 SELF-DISCIPLINE QUOTES

1. “Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.” – Jim Rohn

2. “If you wish to be out front, then act as if you were behind.” – Lao Tzu

3. “We do today what they won’t, so tomorrow we can accomplish what they can’t.” – Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson

4. “Winners embrace hard work.  They love the discipline of it, the trade-off they’re making to win.  Losers, on the other hand, see it as a punishment.  And that’s the difference.” –  Lou Holtz

5. “Discipline is the soul of an army.  It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.” – George Washington

6. “A disciplined mind leads to happiness, and an undisciplined mind leads to suffering.” – Dalai Lama

7. “The successful person has the habit of doing the things failures don’t like to do. They don’t like doing them either necessarily. But their disliking is subordinated to the strength of their purpose.” – E.M. Gray 

8. “The only discipline that lasts is self-discipline.” – Bum Philips

9. “Discipline is the refining fire by which talent becomes ability.” – Roy L. Smith

10. “With self-discipline, most anything is possible.” – Theodore Roosevelt

11. “If I want to be great I have to win the victory over myself…self-discipline.” – Harry S. Truman

12. “We must all suffer one of two things:  the pain of discipline or the pain of regret and disappointment.” – Jim Rohn

13. “I could only achieve success in my life through self-discipline, and I applied it until my wish and my will became one.” – Nikola Tesla

14. “Self-command is the main discipline.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

15. “One discipline always leads to another discipline.” – Jim Rohn

16.  “Without self-discipline, success is impossible, period.” – Lou Holtz

17. “He who lives without discipline dies without honor.” Icelandic Proverb

18. “The price of excellence is discipline.  The cost of mediocrity is disappointment.” – William Arthur Ward

19. “You have power over your mind, not outside events.  Realize this, and you will find strength.” – Marcus Aurelius

20. “Self-discipline is the No.1 delineating factor between the rich, the middle class, and the poor.” – Robert Kiyosaki

21. “Confidence comes from discipline and training.” – Robert Kiyosaki

22. “Success is a matter of understanding and religiously practicing specific simple habits that always lead to success.” – Robjert J. Ringer

23. “Success doesn’t just happen.  You have to be intentional about it, and that takes discipline.” – John C. Maxwell

24. “No man is fit to command another that cannot command himself.” – William Penn

25. “Most talk about ‘super-geniuses’ is nonsense. I have found that when ‘stars’ drop out, successors are usually at hand to fill their places, and the successors are merely men who have learned by application and self-discipline to get full production from an average, normal brain.”- Charles M. Schwab

26. “Discipline is the foundation of a successful and happy life.” – Anonymous

27. “True freedom is impossible without a mind made free by discipline.” – Mortimer J. Adler

28. “Self-control is the chief element in self-respect, and self-respect is the chief element in courage.”  – Thucydides

29. “You will never have a greater or lesser dominion than that over yourself…the height of a man’s success is gauged by his self-mastery; the depth of his failure by his self-abandonment. …And this law is the expression of eternal justice. He who cannot establish dominion over himself will have no dominion over others.”  – Leonardo da Vinci

30. “The first and greatest victory is to conquer self.” – Plato

31. “We must do our work for its own sake, not for fortune or attention or applause.” – Steven Pressfield

32. “One painful duty fulfilled makes the next plainer and easier.”  – Hellen Keller

33. “Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.” – Abraham J. Heschel

34. “Do not consider painful what is good for you.” – Euripides

35. “Those who have nothing have only their discipline.”  – Alain Badiou

36. “Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day.” – Jim Rohn

37. “It is time to reverse this prejudice against conscious effort and to see the powers we gain through practice and discipline as eminently inspiring and even miraculous.” – Robert Greene

38. “With this magic ingredient, you can accomplish anything and everything you want to, and it is called self-discipline.” – Brian Tracy

39. “Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.”  – Thomas Jefferson

40. “Great leaders always have self-discipline -without exception.” – John C. Maxwell

41. “Mental toughness is many things and rather difficult to explain. Its qualities are sacrifice and self-denial. Also, most importantly, it is combined with a perfectly disciplined will that refuses to give in. It’s a state of mind-you could call it character in action.” – Vince Lombardi

42. “Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that’s real power.” – Clint Eastwood

43. “Success is actually a short race – a sprint fueled by discipline just long enough for habit to kick in and take over.” – Gary Keller

44. “By constant self-discipline and self-control you can develop greatness of character.” – Grenville Kleiser

45. “He who cannot obey himself will be commanded. That is the nature of living creatures.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

46.  “Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.” – Seneca

47. “It is not enough to have great qualities; We should also have the management of them.” – La Rochefoucauld

48. “Discipline really means our ability to get ourselves to do things when we don’t want to.” – Arden Mahlberg

49. “Your level of success is determined by your level of discipline and perseverance.” – Anonymous

50. “That aim in life is highest which requires the highest and finest discipline.” – Henry David Thoreau

Ready To Go Out and Conquer The World Yet?

I don’t know about you, but after reading through these first 50 discipline quotes, I am about ready to go out and conquer the world.  But don’t stop reading just yet on our account.  Pound your mind with these last 50 self-discipline quotes.  Let them saturate your mind, and then go forth and be victorious with your renewed levels of self-discipline!

51. “Self-discipline is about controlling your desires and impulses while staying focused on what needs to get done to achieve your goal.” – Adam Sicinski

52. “Discipline yourself to do the things you need to do when you need to do them, and the day will come when you will be able to do the things you want to do when you want to do them.” – Zig Ziglar

53. “All successes begin with self-discipline.  It starts with you.” – Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

54. “Self-discipline is that which, next to virtue, truly and essentially raises one man above another.” – Joseph Addison

55. “I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.” –  Aristotle

56. “The more disciplined you become, the easier life gets.” – Steve Pavlina

57. “Self-discipline is the ability to make yourself do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not.” – Elbert Hubbard

58. “In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves…self-discipline with all of them came first.” – Harry S. Truman

59. “If it were easy to walk the path of self-discipline, we wouldn’t gain much from it.” – Glenn C. Stewart

60.  “Discipline is built by consistently performing small acts of courage.” – Robin Sharma

61. “Discipline is the ability to control our conduct by principle rather than by social pressure.” – Glenn C. Stewart

62. “Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.” – Abraham J. Heschel

63. “We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort.”  – Jesse Owens

64. “Discipline is the silent force at work that breeds success.  It requires only one thing; that you sacrifice time in things you enjoy.” – Anonymous

65. “We don’t have to be smarter than the rest; we have to be more disciplined than the rest.” – Warren Buffett

66. “Never believe a promise from a man or woman who has no discipline.  They have broken a thousand promises to themselves, and they break their promise for you.” – Matthew Kelly

67. “If the self-discipline of the free cannot match the iron discipline of the mailed fist-in economic, political, scientific and all other kinds of struggles as well as the military-then the peril to freedom will continue to rise.” – John F. Kennedy

68. “What we do upon some great occasion will probably depend on what we already are: and what we are will be the result of previous years of self-discipline.” – H.P. Liddon

69. “Success is measured by your discipline and inner peace.” – Mike Ditka

70. “Self-control is strength, right thought is mastery, calmness is power.” – James Allen

71. “Motivation gets you going, but discipline keeps you growing.”  – John C. Maxwell

72. “Discipline without freedom is tyranny.  Freedom without discipline is chaos.” – Cullen Hightower

73. “By constant self-discipline and self-control you can develop greatness of character.” – Grenville Kleiser

74. “Self-discipline is a self-enlarging process.” – M. Scott Peck

75. “Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.” – Michel De Montaigne

76.  “Self control is the key to self esteem and self confidence.” – Laurance McGraw V 

77. “Small disciplines repeated with consistency every day lead to great achievements gained slowly over time.” – John C. Maxwell

78. “Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates.” – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

79. “The great master key to riches is nothing more or less than the self-discipline necessary to help you take full and complete possession of your own mind.” – Napoleon Hill

80. “It’s all right letting yourself go, as long as you can get yourself back.” – Mick Jagger

81. “Success is created through the performance of a few small daily disciplines that stack up over time to produce achievements far beyond anything you could of ever planned for. Failure, on the other hand, is just as easy to slip into. Failure’s is nothing more than the inevitable outcome of a few small acts of daily neglect performed consistently over time so that they take you past the point of no return.” – Robin Sharma

82. “Self-discipline is an act of cultivation.  It requires you to connect today’s actions to tomorrow’s results.  There’s a season for sowing a season for reaping.  Self-discipline helps you know which is which.” – Gary Ryan Blair

83. “Self-discipline creates a brighter tomorrow.”  – Anonymous

84. “Self-discipline begins with the mastery of thought. If you do not control your thoughts, you cannot control your needs. Self-discipline calls for a balancing of the emotions of your heart with the reasoning faculty of your head.” – Napoleon Hill

85. “Trophies should go to the winners. Self-esteem does not lead to success in life. Self-discipline and self-control do, and sports can help teach those.” – Roy Baumeister

86. “The individual who wants to reach the top in business must appreciate the might and force of habit. He must be quick to break those habits that can break him—and hasten to adopt those practices that will become the habits that help him achieve the success he desires.” – J. Paul Getty

87. “It is better to conquer self than to win a thousand battles.” – Buddha

88.   “The good Lord gave you a body that can stand most anything. It’s your mind you have to convince.” – Vince Lombardi

89. “Rule your mind or it will rule you.” – Horace

90. “If we don’t discipline ourselves, the world will do it for us.” – William Feather

91. “When a man is sufficiently motivated, discipline will take care of itself.” – Albert Einstein

92. “No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.” – Harry Emerson Fosdick

93. “It’s never crowded along the extra mile.” – Wayne Dyer

94. “I think self-discipline is something, it’s like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the stronger it gets.” Daniel Goldstein

95. “He conquers twice who conquers himself in victory.” – Jyrus

96. “Self-discipline is the magic power that makes you virtually unstoppable.” – Dan Kennedy

97. “It doesn’t matter whether you are pursuing success in business, sports, the arts, or life in general: The bridge between wishing and accomplishing is discipline.” – Harvey Mackay

98. “I don’t count my sit-ups, I only start counting when it starts hurting, when I feel pain, that’s when I start counting, cause that’s when it really counts.” – Muhammad Ali

99. “What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not do.” – Aristotle

100. “Mastering others is strength.  Mastering yourself is true power.” – Lao Tzu

Achieve More With These Discipline Quotes

We all know what we want, we just don’t like the uncomfortable pain it takes to obtain those things we most want most.  Unfortunately, when we shrug off discipline, we shrug off our ability to reach our goals.  In a sense, we fail.  Although it may not seem like a big fail, if we let enough of those little failures compound over time, they will eventually turn into the types of big failures that we all want to avoid.

Our hope is that this list of self-discipline quotes will help you avoid such failure, because what is failure but a consequence of a long list of accrued little failures which happen as a result of too little discipline.

We can either develop the habit of losing, or the habit of winning.

And if this last self-discipline quote by Brian Tracy is true, well, then, you know which habit is for you…

“The Habit of Self-Discipline Virtually Guarantees Your Success in Life.”

Indeed, there is no better day than today to start a new habit.  And the best habit you can get started on today, is the habit of self-discipline.

May these quotes on self-discipline serve you in creating the habit of self-discipline.   Let them guide you towards achieving more success and becoming your very best.

Do you have a favorite discipline quote?

P.S  If you enjoyed these self-discipline quotes, consider being that friend who supports and encourages success in others, by sharing it with them.

P.P.S  If Your Enjoyed These Self-Discipline Quotes, Then You’ll Love These Quotes on Extra Effort!

Till next time,

STRIVE