I know a few extremely confident--not cocky, confident--people. (Here's how you can tell if someone is genuinely confident.) It's as if they were born that way.


Fortunately, self-confidence is a quality you can develop. Anyone can be more confident. (Even me.)

But building self-confidence takes time. So if you need a quick shot of it, here are some great motivational quotes that will inspire you to feel more self-assured:

  1. "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
  2. "As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live." --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  3. "You cannot be lonely if you like the person you're alone with." --Wayne Dyer
  4. "Just pick a goal, a goal you truly want to achieve, and take a clear-eyed look at your weaknesses--not so you'll feel less confident, but so you can determine exactly what you need to work on. Then get to work. Celebrate small successes. Analyze your weaknesses. Keep going. As you gain skill, you'll also gain a feeling of genuine confidence, one that can never be taken away--because you've earned it." (OK, that one is mine, he said, blushing.)
  5. "Don't waste your energy trying to change opinions ... do your thing, and don't care if they like it." --Tina Fey
  6. "Pride is holding your head up when everyone around you has theirs bowed. Courage is what makes you do it." --Bryce Courtenay
  7. "The way to develop self-confidence is to do the thing you fear and get a record of successful experiences behind you." --William Jennings Bryan
  9. "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
  15. "One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation." --Arthur Ashe
  16. "It is confidence in our bodies, minds, and spirits that allows us to keep looking for new adventures." --Oprah Winfrey
  18. "But failure has to be an option in art and in exploration--because it's a leap of faith. And no important endeavor that required innovation was done without risk. You have to be willing to take those risks." --James Cameron
  20. "Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong." --Peter T. McIntyre
  21. "Argue for your limitations and, sure enough, they're yours." --Richard Bach
  22. "The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable." --Paul Tillich
  23. "If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves." --Thomas Alva Edison
  26. "Talk to yourself like you would to someone you love." --Brené Brown
  27. "Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do." --Dr. Benjamin Spock
  28. "Successful people have fear, successful people have doubts, and successful people have worries. They just don't let these feelings stop them." --T. Harv Eker
  29. "You can have anything you want if you are willing to give up the belief that you can't have it." --Dr. Robert Anthony
  30. "It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves." --Sir Edmund Hillary
  31. "To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance." --Oscar Wilde
  32. "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
  33. "You yourself, as much as anyone in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection." --Buddha
  35. "Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence." --Helen Keller
  36. "Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude." --Thomas Jefferson
  37. "Confidence is a habit that can be developed by acting as if you already had the confidence you desire to have." --Brian Tracy
  38. "When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around." --Willie Nelson
  39. "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
  41. "To anyone that ever told you you're no good ... They're no better." --Hayley Williams
  43. "You have no control over other people's taste, so focus on staying true to your own." --Tim Gunn
  45. "The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it." --J.M. Barrie
  46. "It's a dead-end street if you sit around waiting for someone else to tell you you're OK." --Michael Pitt
  47. "I think that the power is the principle. The principle of moving forward, as though you have the confidence to move forward, eventually gives you confidence when you look back and see what you've done." --Robert Downey Jr.
  48. "If you're presenting yourself with confidence, you can pull off pretty much anything." --Katy Perry
  50. "I've finally stopped running away from myself. Who else is there better to be?" --Goldie Hawn
  51. "Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth." --Rumi
  52. "We avoid the things that we're afraid of because we think there will be dire consequences if we confront them. But the truly dire consequences in our lives come from avoiding things that we need to learn about or discover." --Shakti Gawain
  54. "Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many--not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some." --Charles Dickens
  55. "Tension is who you think you should be, relaxation is who you are." --Chinese proverb
Published on: Nov 5, 2015