Motivation comes and goes. Luck may show up once in a while.
But self-discipline can be with you each and every day, helping you step by step towards your goals and dreams.
So cultivating it and making it a more consistent force in your life is essential to truly fulfill your potential and – in many cases – to be able to reach your dreams.
In today’s post I want to share 162 of the most powerful, helpful and motivational discipline quotes.
I hope you’ll find something here to help you understand and grow the self-discipline in your own life so you can achieve what you deep down want.
Discipline Quotes for Order and Direction Towards Your Dreams
“Discipline is choosing between what you want now, and what you want most.”
– Abraham Lincoln
“Discipline is just doing the same thing the right way whether anyone’s watching or not.”
– Michael J. Fox
“One-half of life is luck; the other half is discipline – and that’s the important half, for without discipline you wouldn’t know what to do with luck.”
– Carl Zuckmeyer
“Discipline equals freedom.”
– Jocko Willink
“Discipline is being able to force yourself to do something is spite of how you feel, over and over until it becomes a habit.”
– Kim Brenneman
“Discipline is remembering what you want.”
– David Campbell
“You never will be the person you can be if pressure, tension and discipline are taken out of your life.”
– James G. Bilkey
“A commander who cannot develop proper discipline must be replaced.”
– Dwight D. Eisenhower
“It’s easy to have faith in yourself and have discipline when you’re a winner, when you’re number one. What you’ve got to have is faith and discipline when you’re not yet a winner.”
– Vince Lombardi
“A disciplined mind leads to happiness, and an undisciplined mind leads to suffering.”
– Dalai Lama
“Genius at first is little more than a great capacity for receiving discipline.”
– George Eliot
“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.”
– Jim Rohn
“A disciplined person follows values stemming from their source – the self.”
– Stephen Covey
“The price of excellence is discipline. The cost of mediocrity is disappointment.”
– William Arthur Ward
“You will never be successful until you have a plan, and the discipline and determination to go through with that plan.”
– Julius Williams
“Without discipline, there’s no life at all.”
– Katharine Hepburn
“Discipline creates opportunity.”
– Shane Parrish
“Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, for the sum of them are stronger than each on its own.”
– Unknown
“Discipline takes courage and perseverance, but it pays off.”
– Joan Price
“Focus, discipline, hard work, goal setting and, of course, the thrill of finally achieving your goals. These are all lessons in life.”
– Kristi Yamaguchi
“The successful among us delay gratification. The successful among us bargain with the future.”
– Jordan Peterson
“Once you have commitment, you need the discipline and hard work to get you there.”
– Haile Gebrselassie
“Discipline comes easy when you give yourself no other options.”
– Carlos del Valle
“Discipline over desire.”
– Marcus Aurelius
“If I don’t have a project, I don’t have any discipline.”
– Marina Abramovic
“A disciple, the one receiving discipline, is not a prisoner or recipient of punishment, but one who is learning through instruction.”
– Daniel J. Siegel
“Discipline is wisdom and vice versa.”
– M. Scott Peck
“Discipline is more reliable than motivation. One is consistent, the other is fleeting.”
– Shane Parrish
Self-Discipline Quotes for Students in School
“We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.”
– Jim Rohn
“Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.”
– Zig Ziglar
“When a man is sufficiently motivated, discipline will take care of itself.”
– Albert Einstein
“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
“The costs of your good habits are in the present. The costs of your bad habits are in the future.”
– James Clear
“Some people regard discipline as a chore. For me, it is a kind of order that sets me free to fly.”
– Julie Andrews
“It was character that got us out of bed, commitment that moved us into action, and discipline that enabled us to follow through.”
– Zig Ziglar
“Willpower isn’t just a skill. It’s a muscle, like the muscles in your arms or legs, and it gets tired as it works harder, so there’s less power left over for other things.”
– Charles Duhigg
“Life is a splendid gift… But to live your life, you must discipline it.”
– Florence Nightingale
“There is nothing so disobedient as an undisciplined mind, and there is nothing so obedient as a disciplined mind.”
– Buddha
“There is no magic wand that can resolve our problems. The solution rests with our work and discipline.”
– Jose Eduardo dos Santos
“For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
– Hebrews 12:11
“Discipline divorced from wisdom is not true discipline, but merely the meaningless following of custom, which is only a disguise for stupidity.”
– Rabindranath Tagore
“Learn to convert the discomfort of discipline into the satisfaction of personal growth.”
– Tony Robbin
“True freedom is impossible without a mind made free by discipline.”
– Mortimer J. Adler
“We are most free when we are under discipline. Free from being ruled by fleshly impulse and worldly desire.”
– Thibaut
“Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.”
– Wayne Dyer
“You will either step forward into growth, or you will step backward into safety.”
– Abraham Maslow
“Talent is nothing without dedication and discipline, and dedication and discipline is a talent in itself.”
– Luke Campbell
“Discipline is rarely enjoyable, but almost always profitable.”
– Darrin Patrick
“Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.”
– Abraham Joshua Heschel
“Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and diligence.”
– Abigail Adams
“I never could have done what I have done, without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence.”
– Charles Dickens
“The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen.”
– Lee Iacocca
“Success isn’t measured by money or power or social rank. Success is measured by your discipline and inner peace.”
– Mike Ditka
“Practice is the price you pay today to be better tomorrow.”
– James Clear
“Endurance is one of the most difficult disciplines but it is to the one who endures that the final victory comes.”
– Buddha
“For every disciplined effort, there are multiple rewards. That’s one of life’s great arrangements. If you sow well, you will reap well.”
– Jim Rohn
Discipline Quotes for Motivation at Work
“Successful, effective people are those who launch directly into their major tasks and then discipline themselves to work steadily and single-mindedly until those tasks are complete.”
– Brian Tracy
“Dreams can come true, but there is a secret. They’re realized through the magic of persistence, determination, commitment, passion, practice, focus and hard work.”
– Elbert Hubbard
“Day by day, what you choose, what you think and what you do is who you become.”
– Heraclitus
“Do the best one can. Do it over again. Then still improve, even if ever so slightly, those retouches.”
– Marguerite Yourcenar
“I value self-discipline, but creating systems that make it next to impossible to misbehave is more reliable than self-control.”
– Tim Ferriss
“Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power.”
– Lao Tzu
“The fact is, discipline is only punishment when imposed on you by someone else. When you discipline yourself, it’s not punishment but empowerment.”
– Les Brown
“Self-discipline begins with the mastery of thought.”
– Napoleon Hill
“The best sort of character, however, cannot be formed without effort. There needs the exercise of constant self-watchfulness, self-discipline, and self-control.”
– Samuel Smiles
“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
“Self-discipline is that which, next to virtue, truly and essentially raises one man above another.”
– Joseph Addison
“You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
– Marcus Aurelius
“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
“Let’s not be afraid to speak the common sense truth: you can’t have high standards without good discipline.”
– William Hague
“No man is free who cannot command himself.”
– Pythagoras
“Self-discipline is the ability to organize your behavior over time in the service of specific goals.”
– Nathaniel Branden
“Discipline is persuasion of the self. When you’re ready, you’ll need no persuasion.”
– Andrew Ruiz
“If we don’t discipline ourselves, the world will do it for us.”
– William Feather
“Success doesn’t come from what you do occasionally, it comes from what you do consistently.”
– Marie Forleo
“Discipline imposed from the outside eventually defeats when it is not matched by desire from within.”
– Dawson Trotman
“If your past defines your existence, it will be impossible for you to become the person you need to be in the future.”
– M.J. Demarco
“I think self-discipline is something, it’s like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the stronger it gets.”
– Daniel Goldstein
“It’s just a matter of understanding what’s necessary and discipline yourself to do it.”
– Arthur Lydiard
“Self-discipline is a great time-saver; it is the ability to make yourself work on only those things that are most important to you.”
– Brian Tracy
“It is felt that a disciplined mind leads to happiness and an undisciplined mind leads to suffering, and in fact it is said that bringing about discipline within one’s mind is the essence of the Buddha’s teaching.”
– Dalai Lama
“With self-discipline most anything is possible.”
– Theodore Roosevelt
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
– Thomas Edison
“First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not. Habit is persistence in practice.”
– Octavia Butler
Self-Discipline Quotes for Sports, the Gym and Your Workouts
“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
“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
“Success is actually a short race – a sprint fueled by discipline just long enough for habit to kick in and take over.”
– Gary Keller
“I taught myself discipline, the strictest kind of discipline.”
– Arnold Schwarzenegger
“Self-esteem does not lead to success in life. Self-discipline and self-control do, and sports can help teach those.”
– Roy Baumeister
“A modern stoic knows that the surest way to discipline passion is to discipline time: decide what you want or ought to do during the day, then always do it at exactly the same moment every day, and passion will give you no trouble.”
– W. H. Auden
“The only discipline that lasts is self-discipline.”
– Bum Phillips
“Read some good, heavy, serious books just for discipline: Take yourself in hand and master yourself.”
– W. E. B. Du Bois
“Discipline yourself and others won’t need to.”
– John Wooden
“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
“Through determination and self-focus and discipline, you can accomplish anything.”
– Kimberly Guilfoyle
“The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.”
– Warren Buffett
“True self-discipline is not for the weak-minded.”
– David Goggins
“Always imagine yourself on the battlefield under the fiercest attack; never forget this crucial element of training.”
– Morihei Ueshiba
“It’s nearly impossible to achieve focus and self-discipline separately.”
– Peter Hollins
“Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.”
– Seneca
“He who cannot obey himself will be commanded. That is the nature of living creatures.”
– Friedrich Nietzsche
“It is not enough to have great qualities; We should also have the management of them.”
– La Rochefoucauld
“Discipline really means our ability to get ourselves to do things when we don’t want to.”
– Arden Mahlberg
“Your level of success is determined by your level of discipline and perseverance.”
– Unknown
“That aim in life is highest which requires the highest and finest discipline.”
– Henry David Thoreau
“I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.”
– Aristotle
“Rule your mind or it will rule you.”
– Horace
“If we are to have such a discipline we must have standards, and to get our standards under existing conditions we must have criticism.”
– Irving Babbitt
“The secret of discipline is motivation. When a man is sufficiently motivated, discipline will take care of itself.”
– Alexander Paterson
“Self-discipline means living your life the hard way: resisting temptations and instant gratification, in order to receive bigger and better rewards in the future.”
– Martin Meadows
Witty and Funny Self-Discipline Quotes
“If hard work is the key to success, most people would rather pick the lock.”
– Claude McDonald
“Don’t get fat at the table of success.”
– Noah Kagan
“If you wish to be out front, then act as if you were behind.”
– Lao Tzu
“The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one.”
– Oscar Wilde
“Without discipline the Army would just be a bunch of guys wearing the same color clothing.”
– Frank Burns
“My left hand is my bad hand. I spank it with my right hand. You might call it clapping, but I call it discipline.”
– Jarod Kintz
“Argue for your limitations and, sure enough, they’re yours.”
– Richard Bach
“Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough money not to quit.”
– George Carlin
“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.”
– Tim Notke
“Nothing is stronger than habit.”
– Ovid
“Discipline comes from needs, not wants.”
– Jack Butcher
“The more disciplined your environment is, the less disciplined you need to be.”
– James Clear
“Where people aren’t having fun, they seldom produce good work.”
– David Ogilvy
“Discipline trains you to put up with disappointments, every rose has a thorn.”
– Sri Sathya Sai Baba
“Discipline and constant work are the whetstones upon which the dull knife of talent is honed until it becomes sharp enough, hopefully, to cut through even the toughest meat and gristle.”
– Stephen King
“The only thing that ever sat its way to success was a hen.”
– Sarah Brown
Short Discipline Quotes for Success
“Discipline is the refining fire by which talent becomes ability.”
– Roy L. Smith
“Most people don’t have a talent problem. They have a consistency problem.”
– Nicolas Cole
“The best time to set up a new discipline is when the idea is strong.”
– Jim Rohn
“You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.”
– John C. Maxwell
“Self-control is strength, right thought is mastery, calmness is power.”
– James Allen
“Discipline is just choosing between what you want now and what you want most.”
– Augusta F. Kantra
“We don’t have to be smarter than the rest. We have to be more disciplined than the rest.”
– Warren Buffett
“Routine, in an intelligent man, is a sign of ambition.”
– W.H. Auden
“In the end, we are our choices. Build yourself a great story.”
– Jeff Bezos
“If you have control over yourself, you have no desire to control others.”
– Miya Yamanouchi
“By constant self-discipline and self-control you can develop greatness of character.”
– Grenville Kleiser
“Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.”
– Michel De Montaigne
“You can’t win the war against the world if you can’t win the war against your own mind.”
– Will Smith
“Focus is free but distractions cost you everything.”
– Thibaut
“What is discipline? Discipline means creating an order within you.”
– Osho
“Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.”
– St. Augustine
“Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.”
– Benjamin Franklin
“The first and greatest victory is to conquer self.”
– Plato
“No evil propensity of the human heart is so powerful that it may not be subdued by discipline.”
– Seneca
“Those who lack self-control live disoriented and disturbed lives.”
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“Excess in anything becomes a fault.”
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
“Discipline teaches us to operate by principle rather than desire.”
– John MacArthur, Jr.
“Discipline is not a virtue, but the solicitor of virtuous character.”
– Colby Tatem
“The discipline that is needed in our lives is the discipline that comes from within.”
– Gordon Hinkley
“Discipline is doing what needs to be done even though you don’t want to.”
– Unknown
“Discipline and commitment is a pathway to reach goals and dreams.”
– Dr. Anil Kr Sinha
“Living an undisciplined life isn’t freedom. It’s the ultimate version of slavery.”
– Fateh Singh
“You cannot aim yourself at anything if you are completely undisciplined and untutored.”
– Jordan Peterson
“The best discipline is self-discipline.”
– Unknown
“Self-trust is the essence of heroism.”
– James Allen
“He who lives without discipline dies without honor.”
– Icelandic Proverb
“Such power there is in clear-eyed self-restraint.”
– James Russell Lowell
“An idiot with a plan can beat a genius without a plan.”
– Warren Buffett
“Discipline is the foundation of a successful and happy life.”
– Unknown
“Self-command is the main discipline.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Want more motivation and timeless tips? Then have a look at the motivational quotes for students in this post, the positive quotes of the day about life here and also these short inspirational quotes.