Grit is important because it is a driver of achievement and success, independent of and beyond what talent and intelligence contribute. Significant grit quotes will challenge the way you think, and help guide you through any life experience.
If you’re searching for awesome encouraging quotes and inspiring letting go quotes that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of empowering mediocrity quotes, greatest inner strength quotes and famous complaining quotes.
Most Famous Grit Quotes
Grit is having the courage to do the right thing, regardless of the popularity or consequences. – Joan Hall
Grit is that ‘extra something’ that separates the most successful people from the rest. It’s the passion, perseverance, and stamina that we must channel in order to stick with our dreams until they become a reality. – Travis Bradberry
Grit is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals. Grit is having stamina. Grit is sticking with your future, day-in, day-out. Not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years. And working really hard to make that future a reality. Grit is living life like it’s a marathon, not a sprint. – Dr. Angela Lee Duckworth
Humans are creatures of habit. If you quit when things get tough, it gets that much easier to quit the next time. On the other hand, if you force yourself to push through it, the grit begins to grow in you. – Travis Bradberry
…there are no shortcuts to excellence. Developing real expertise, figuring out really hard problems, it all takes time―longer than most people imagine….you’ve got to apply those skills and produce goods or services that are valuable to people….Grit is about working on something you care about so much that you’re willing to stay loyal to it…it’s doing what you love, but not just falling in love―staying in love. – Angela Duckworth
Life is messy. Grit and grace come at us fast, side by side. Sometimes the grit becomes overwhelming and diminishes our spirit. What’s good seems lost and gone forever. This is a story about the pathway back to what’s beautiful, when the way back seems impossible. – Sharon E. Rainey
Being gritty doesn’t mean not showing pain or pretending everything is O.K. In fact, when you look at healthy and successful and giving people, they are extraordinarily meta-cognitive. They’re able to say things like, ‘Dude, I totally lost my temper this morning.’ That ability to reflect on yourself is signature to grit. – Angela Duckworth
Over time, grit is what separates fruitful lives from aimlessness. – John Ortberg
To be gritty is to keep putting one foot in front of the other. To be gritty is to hold fast to an interesting and purposeful goal. To be gritty is to invest, day after week after year, in challenging practice. To be gritty is to fall down seven times, and rise eight. – Angela Lee Duckworth
It soon became clear that doing one thing better and better might be more satisfying than staying an amateur at many different things.
Grit, one of the keys to success. The person who perseveres is the one who will surely win. Success does not come from giving up, it comes from believing in yourself and continuously working towards the realization of a worthy ideal.
Remember how far you’ve come, not just how far you have to go. You are not where you want to be, but neither are you where you used to be. – Rick Warren

Grit is choosing to lean in & work on your Art when the world thinks it’s already good enough. – Rob Beaudreault
Grit is the grain of character. It may generally be described as heroism materialized, spirit and will thrust into heart, brain, and backbone, so as to form part of the physical substance of the man. – Edwin Percy Whipple
Some people mistake grit for sheer persistence – charging up the same hill again and again. But that’s not quite what I mean by the word ‘grit.’ You want to minimize friction and find the most effective, most efficient way forward. You might actually have more grit if you treat your energy as a precious commodity. – Reid Hoffman
Spectacular achievement is always preceded by unspectacular preparation. – Robert Schuller
Never hope for it more than you work for it. – Sonya Teclai
There will be a few times in your life when all your instincts will tell you to do something, something that defies logic, upsets your plans, and may seem crazy to others. When that happens, you do it. Listen to your instincts and ignore everything else. Ignore logic, ignore the odds, ignore the complications and just go for it. – Judith McNaught
There haven’t been genetic studies on grit, but we often think that challenge is inherited but grit is learned. That’s not what science says. Science says grit comes from both nature and nurture. – Angela Duckworth
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
A grit mind strengthens all of your strengths. – Pearl Zhu
Grit is the persistence in following your own destiny. – Paul Bradley Smith
Grit is knowing who you are and where you are headed, moving determinedly forward with eyes fixed on the mark, rather than the obstacles that lie in wait. – Christine Bisch
If you quit once it becomes a habit. Never quit! – Michael Jordan
When we see ourselves in a situation which must be endured and gone through, it is best to make up our minds to it, meet it with firmness, and accommodate everything to it in the best way practicable. This lessens the evil; while fretting and fuming only serves to increase your own torments. – Thomas Jefferson
Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. – T.S. Eliot
Strength does not come from physical capacity, it comes from indomitable will. – Mahatma Gandhi
Courage, dear heart. – C.S. Lewis
It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop. – Confucius
All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them. – Walt Disney
Never give up on something that you can’t go a day without thinking about. – Winston Churchill
Decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it. – Bill Cosby
Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear. – George Addair
Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. – Thomas Edison
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
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.
The man who has grit enough to bring about the afforestation or the irrigation of a country is not less worthy of honor than its conqueror. – J. Arthur Thomson
Inspirational Grit Quotes
Over time, grit is what separates fruitful lives from aimlessness. – John Ortberg
A grit mind strengthens all of your strengths. – Pearl Zhu
The grit that we have, the depth that we have, the intensity that we have throughout the hockey game that’s crucial. It’s believing and knowing that we can fight through a little adversity and find ways to win. – Ryan Smyth
Grit is not just simple elbow-grease term for rugged persistence. It is an often invisible display of endurance that lets you stay in an uncomfortable place, work hard to improve upon a given interest, and do it again and again. – Sarah Lewis
True grit is making a decision and standing by it, doing what must be done. No moral man can have peace of mind if he leaves undone what he knows he should have done. – John Wayne
Heroes are never perfect, but they’re brave, they’re authentic, they’re courageous, determined, discreet, and they’ve got grit. – Wade Davis
Grit is that extra something that separates the most successful people from the rest. It’s the passion, perseverance, and stamina that we must channel in order to stick with our dreams until they become a reality. – Travis Bradberry
A little grit in the eye destroyeth the sight of the very heavens, and a little malice or envy a world of joys. One wry principle in the mind is of infinite consequence. – Thomas Traherne
Grit is having the courage to push through, no matter what the obstacles are, because it’s worth it. – Chris Morris
Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sail. Explore. Dream. Discover. – Mark Twain
I felt that I could win it, and that was what I was there for. I wasn’t there to compete. I was there to win. – Arnold Schwarzenegger
Don’t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles, and less than perfect conditions. So what? Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident, and more and more successful. – Mark Victor Hansen
The key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but on significance-and then even the small steps and little victories along your path will take on greater meaning. – Oprah Winfrey
Life has no smooth road for any of us; and in the bracing atmosphere of a high aim the very roughness stimulates the climber to steadier steps, till the legend, over steep ways to the stars, fulfills itself. – W. C. Doane
The best way out is always through. – Robert Frost
Your toughness is made up of equal parts persistence and experience. You don’t so much outrun your opponents as outlast and outsmart them, and the toughest opponent of all is the one inside your head. – Joe Henderson
The thing that we did was, we didn’t give up. – Jay-Z
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? – Marianne Williamson
No grit, no pearl. – Anonymous
All things are difficult before they are easy. – Thomas Fuller
Courage doesn’t mean you don’t get afraid. Courage means you don’t let fear stop you. – Bethany Hamilton
Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it. – Henry David Thoureau
Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did. – Newt Gingrich
Anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve. – J.K. Rowling
I like things to happen. And if they don’t happen, I like to make them happen. – Winston Churchill
Don’t be afraid to fail. Be afraid not to try. – Michael Jordan
The harder the conflict, the greater the triumph. – George Washington
Champions aren’t made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them?a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have the skill, and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill. – Muhammad Ali
If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. – Bruce Lee
Dealing with the temporary frustration of not making progress is an integral part of the path towards excellence. In fact, it is essential and something that every single elite athlete has had to learn to deal with. If the pursuit of excellence was easy, everyone would do it… Achieving the extraordinary is not a linear process. The secret is to show up, do the work, and go home. – Christopher Sommer
To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance. – Oscar Wilde
Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy. – Dale Carnegie
Strong minds suffer without complaining; weak minds complain without suffering. – Lettie Cowman
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
We May Encounter Many Defeats But We Must Not Be Defeated. – Maya Angelou
Short Grit Quotes
To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one. – Bruce Lee
You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. – J.K. Rowling
One of the greatest discoveries a person makes, one of their great surprises, is to find they can do what they were afraid they couldn’t do. – Henry Ford
So many of us choose our path out of fear disguised as practicality. What we really want seems impossibly out of reach so we never dare to ask the universe for it. I’m the proof that you can ask the universe for it.”- Jim Carrey
Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement. – Golda Meir
When obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal; you do not change your decision to get there. – Zig Ziglar
If you are working on something that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you. – Steve Jobs
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit. – – Aristotle
Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained. – Marie Curry
Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak. – Thomas Carlyle
Just remember, you can do anything you set your mind to, but it takes action, perseverance, and facing your fears. – Gillian Anderson
You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength. – Marcus Aurelius
Competing is like wrestling a gorilla. You don’t quit when you’re tired. You quit when the gorilla is tired. – Alan Stein
Every great story happened when someone decided not to give up. – Spryte Loriano
Grit is the stubborn refusal to quit. – Anonymous
Grit is sticking with your future day in, day out and not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years. – Angela Lee Duckworth
You have a choice! You can throw in the towel, or you can use it to wipe the sweat off your face! – Anonymous
Grit. Push yourself to the limit. – Anonymous
Greatness requires internal toughness. – Anonymous
True grit is making a decision and standing by it, doing what must be done. No moral man can have peace of mind if he leaves undone what he knows he should have done. – John Wayne
It’s gonna get harder before it gets easier. But it will get better, you just gotta make it through the hard stuff first. – Anonymous
Grit, the raw endurance, perseverance and passion that keeps you going despite obstacles. – Anonymous
Every day do something that will inch you closer to be a better tomorrow. – Anonymous
No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking. – Voltaire
What is grit? Grit is refusing to give up. It’s persistence. It’s making your own luck. – Peter Diamandis
God honors a beautiful blend of gift and grit! He gives the gift, and He expects us to have the grit to practice and learn how to use it effectively. – Beth Moore
Grit, a positive trait based on passion, perseverance, and motivation. – Anonymous
It’s just as important to know when to drop something and shift direction as it is to know when to stick with something. When we quit the things that aren’t working for us, we free up our willpower and perseverance for the things that really do matter. – Rich Karlgaard
Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. – Steve Jobs
Work hard. Be smart. Don’t give up. – Anonymous
Grit is the persistence in following your own destiny. – Paul Bradley Smith
The difference between who you are and who you want to be. Is what you do. – Anonymous
Leadership grit begets grit. Lead by example. – Bill Hybels
Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal or any goal. – Vince Lombardi
All roads that lead to success have to pass through hard work boulevard at some point. – Anonymous
I can and I will. – Anonymous
If you don’t give up, you still have a chance. Giving up is the greatest failure. – Jack Ma
Mental Grit Quotes
But it is a blessed provision of nature that at times like these, as soon as a man’s mercury has got down to a certain point there comes a revulsion, and he rallies. Hope springs up, and cheerfulness along with it, and then he is in good shape to do something for himself, if anything can be done. – Mark Twain
In plain words, you’ve got to make up your mind to study whatever you undertake, and concentrate your mind on it, and really work at it. This isn’t wisdom. Any damned fool in the world knows it’s true, whether it’s a question of raising horses or writing plays. You simply have to face the prospect of starting at the bottom and spending years learning how to do it. – Eugene O’Neill
Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal or any goal. – Vince Lombardi
Dreams don’t work unless you do. – John C. Maxwell
Effort is one of those things that gives meaning to life. Effort means you care about something, that something is important to you and you are willing to work for it. – Carol Dweck
Grit is not just simple elbow-grease term for rugged persistence. It is an often invisible display of endurance that lets you stay in an uncomfortable place, work hard to improve upon a given interest and do it again and again. – Sarah Lewis
When our commitment is wavering, the best way to stay on track is to consider the progress we’ve already made. As we recognize what we’ve invested and attained, it seems like a waste to give up, and our confidence and commitment surge. – Adam M. Grant
The difference in winning and losing is most often. Not quitting. – Walt Disney
The future bears down upon each one of us with all the hazards of the unknown. The only way out is through. – Plutarch
Above everything else I’ve done, I’ve always said I’ve had more guts than I’ve got talent. – Dolly Parton
Your dreams are on the other side of your grit. – Anonymous
Successful people aren’t born successful. Behind it all there is hard work, persistence and a lot of grit. – Arshad Wahedna
Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed no hope at all. – Dale Carnegie
It is time for us all to stand and cheer for the doer, the achiever – the one who recognizes the challenges and does something about it. – Vince Lombardi
Keep your hands open, and all the sands of the desert can pass through them. Close them, and all you can feel is a bit of grit. – Taisen Deshimaru
“The focus on talent distracts us from something that is at least as important, and that is effort. As much as talent counts, effort counts twice. – Angela Duckworth
Grit is picking yourself up and moving forward even when you think you can’t take one more step. – Christy Mossburg
Grit is a measurement of sandpaper, and determination. In both cases it defines an ability to change surroundings, and not be changed. – Mike Loomis
Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.” — Winston Churchill
What is grit? Grit is refusing to give up. It’s persistence. It’s making your own luck. – Peter Diamandis
We like to think of our champions and idols as superheroes who were born different from us. We don’t like to think of them as relatively ordinary people who made themselves extraordinary. – Carol Dweck
Life may try to knock you down but be persistent with your passions – cultivate grit, resilience, tenacity and endurance success will come. – Amit Ray
Anyone can be tough for a season. It takes a special kind of human to rise to life’s challenges for a lifetime. – Chris Matakas
Grit is not synonymous with hard work. It involves a certain single-mindedness. An ungritty prison inmate will mount a daring new escape attempt every month, but a gritty prison inmate will tunnel his way out one spoonful of concrete at a time. Grit – Chip Heath