We can’t avoid obstacles in life that challenge us, but these quotes on self-control and discipline can give us the boost we need to continue growing and improving despite them.
Whatever goal you are currently working towards, whether it’s healthier eating, losing weight, writing a book, or running a marathon, these quotes can help bolster your mind. Then, you can be ready for the next step you need to take.
Starting a new project is usually lots of fun. At first, we’re full of energy and excitement about the possibilities ahead.
However, sticking with it can be a little harder. We don’t see instant results for our efforts in most cases. Without a quick win, it can be hard to stay motivated. TIME Magazine reports that as many as 80% of people fail to keep their New Year’s resolutions by February.
That’s where discipline and self-control come in.
Challenges are where we find out how strong we really are. After all, courage can’t exist without fear.
Of course, that may not make us feel better in the moment. It’s okay to take a moment to grieve a failure or missed opportunity.
What’s most important is getting back in the saddle and not letting a moment of doubt stop us for too long and compound into days or weeks of doubt.
Once we establish habits of self-control and discipline, we become unstoppable.
Read on for some inspirational quotes!
Best Quotes on Self-Control and Discipline about Happiness
“Happiness is dependent on self-discipline. We are the biggest obstacles to our own happiness. It is much easier to do battle with society and with others than to fight our own nature.” – Dennis Prager
“No one is in control of your happiness but you; therefore, you have the power to change anything about yourself or your life that you want to change.” – Barbara De Angelis
“A disciplined mind leads to happiness, and an undisciplined mind leads to suffering.”
– Dalai Lama XIV
“A vital part of the happiness formula is self-discipline. Whoever conquers himself knows deep happiness that fills the heart with joy.” – Norman Vincent Peale
Self-Control and Discipline Quotes About Freedom
“Self-discipline is a form of freedom. Freedom from laziness and lethargy, freedom from the expectations and demands of others, freedom from weakness and fear – and doubt. Self-discipline allows a person to feel his individuality, his inner strength, his talent. He is the master of, rather than a slave to, his thoughts and emotions.” – H. A. Dorfman
“Only the disciplined ones are purely free in life and the undisciplined are slaves to their moods and passions.” – Kenyan long-distance runner Eliud Kipchoge
“Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.”
– Frank Herbert
“Freedom is not attained through the satisfaction of desires, but through the suppression of desires.” – Epictetus
“True freedom is impossible without a mind made free by discipline.” – Mortimer J. Adler
“Freedom without discipline is chaos.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“In that power of self-control lies the seed of eternal freedom.” – Paramahansa Yogananda
“Through self-discipline comes freedom.” – Aristotle
“Will power means freedom. Will power means heaven.” – Paramahansa Yogananda
“Discipline and freedom are not mutually exclusive, but mutually dependent because without discipline we would sink into chaos.” – Paulo Coelho
Best Self-Discipline Quotes
“The more disciplined you become, the easier life gets.” – Steve Pavlina
“The one quality which sets one man apart from another- the key which lifts one to every aspiration while others are caught up in the mire of mediocrity- is not talent, formal education, nor intellectual brightness – it is self-discipline. With self-discipline all things are possible. Without it, even the simplest goal can seem like the impossible dream.” – Theodore Roosevelt
“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
“The price of excellence is discipline. The cost of mediocrity is disappointment.”
– William Arthur Ward
“Discipline is choosing between what you want now, and what you want most.” – Abraham Lincoln
“What lies in our power to do, lies in our power not to do.” – Aristotle
“’Everything one has a right to do is not best to be done.’ – Benjamin Franklin.” – Barbara W. Tuchman
“Discipline is what you must have to resist the lure of excuses.” – Brian Tracy
“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
“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.”
– Jim Rohn
“It’s a lot more than mind over matter. It takes relentless self discipline to schedule suffering into your day, every day.” – David Goggins
“You must develop the discipline to think right. It will give you the discipline to act right.” – Iyanla Vanzant
Quotes warning against giving your power away to others
“Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.” – Carl Sandburg
“If you don’t make a conscious effort to control your focus – and decide in advance which things you’re going to focus on-you’ll be so pulled by the demands of the world that you will soon find yourself living in reaction rather than living a life plan you’ve designed for yourself.” – Tony Robbins
“Control your destiny or somebody will.”
– Jack Welsh
“In the twenty-first century, survival of the fittest means survival of the focused.” – Giovanni Dienstmann
“The difference between great people and everyone else is that great people create their lives actively, while everyone else is created by their lives, passively waiting to see where life takes them next. The difference between the two is the difference between living fully and just existing.” – Michael E. Gerber
Quotes on self-control and discipline about courage
“If you could get up the courage to begin, you have the courage to succeed.” – David Viscott
“I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.” – Aristotle (BC384-322)
“Self-control is the chief element in self-respect, and self-respect is the chief element in courage.” – Thucydides
“Audentes Fortuna Iuvat – Fortune favors the bold (or fortune favors the brave).” – Latin proverb
Quotes on mastery
“Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power.” – Lao Tzu
“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 is the law of eternal justice. He who cannot establish dominion over himself will have no dominion over others.” – Leonardo Da Vinci
“For whatever goal you want to achieve, there is discomfort along that path. Self-discipline drives you through this discomfort and allows you to achieve and attain. It’s an essential component of mastery, and nothing great was ever accomplished without it.” – Peter Hollins
“He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.”
– Tao Te Ching
“Before you can control conditions, you must first control yourself. Self-mastery is the hardest job you will ever tackle. If you do not conquer self, you will be conquered by self. You may see at one and the same time both your best friend and your greatest enemy, by stepping in front of a mirror.” – Napoleon Hill
“Self-discipline begins with the mastery of your thoughts. If you don’t control what you think, you cannot control what you do. Simply, self-discipline allows you to think first and act afterwards.” – Napoleon Hill
Quotes on controlling your thoughts and emotions
“Rule your mind or it will rule you.” – Horace
“He who angers you conquers you.” – Elizabeth Kenny
“Seek always for the answer within. Be not influenced by those around you, by their thoughts or their words.” – Eileen Caddy
“You can’t always control the wind, but you can control your sails.”
– Dr. Bob Chope
“When we direct our thoughts properly, we can control our emotions.” – W. Clement Stone
“Self-command is the main discipline.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“In the midst of movement and chaos keep stillness inside of you.” – Deepak Chopra
“When you borrow trouble you give your peace of mind as security.” – Myrtle Reed
“I will be calm. I will be mistress of myself.” – Jane Austen
Quotes on Self-Control and Discipline about Success
“Success is actually a short race – a sprint fueled by discipline just long enough for habit to kick in and take over.” – Gary Keller
“Your ability to discipline yourself to set clear goals, and then to work toward them everyday, will do more to guarantee your success than any other single factor.” – Brian Tracy
“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
“Find what you love to do, and go do it. You will never be successful until you have a plan, and the discipline and determination to go through with that plan.” – Julius Williams
“The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you’re in control of your life. If you don’t, life controls you.” – Tony Robbins
“The ability to discipline yourself to delay gratification in the short term in order to enjoy greater rewards in the long term is the indispensable prerequisite for success.” – Maxwell Maltz
“The most successful people in life are the ones who settle their critical issues early and manage them daily.” – John C. Maxwell
Inspirational Quotes on Self-Control and Discipline
“You are not defeated when you lose. You are defeated when you quit.” – Paulo Coelho
“Today I will do what others won’t, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can’t.” – Jerry Rice
“Focus, discipline, hard work, goal setting and, of course, the thrill of finally achieving your goals. These are all lessons in life.” – Kristi Yamaguchi
“We may think there is willpower involved, but more likely change is due to want power. Wanting the new addiction more than the old one. Wanting the new me in preference to the person I am now.”
– George Sheehan
“Don’t wait for a more convenient day to discipline your mind!” – T. B. Joshua
“At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work — as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for — the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?” – Marcus Aurelius
“You never will be the person you can be if pressure, tension and discipline are taken out of your life.” – James G. Bilkey
“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
“There never has been, and cannot be, a good life without self-control.” – Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)
Martial and competitive quotes
“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
“We improve ourselves by victories over ourselves. There must be contest, and we must win.” – Edward Gibbon (1737-1794)
“When the fight begins within himself, a man’s worth something.” – Robert Browning (1812-1889)
“The enemy is within the gates; it is with our own luxury, our own folly, our own criminality that we have to contend.”
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
“The first and best victory is to conquer self. To be conquered by self is, of all things, the most shameful and objectionable.” – Plato BC427-347 (also sometimes translated as “the first and greatest victory”)
“I cannot trust a man to control others if he cannot control himself.” – Robert E. Lee
“The warrior has awareness…we are aware that we are at war , and the war in our minds requires discipline. Not the discipline of a soldier but the discipline of a warrior. Not the discipline from the outside to tell us what to do and not to do, but the discipline to be ourselves, no matter what.” – Miguel Ruiz
“The biggest enemies of willpower: temptation, self-criticism, and stress. (…) these three skills —self-awareness, self-care, and remembering what matters most — are the foundation for self-control.” – Kelly McGonigal
“We do not have to be smarter than the rest, we have to be more disciplined than the rest.”
– Warren Buffet
“One’s greatest challenge is to control oneself.” – Kazi Shams
“I think self-awareness is probably the most important thing towards being a champion.” – Billie Jean King
Quotes about power
“You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” – Marcus Aurelius
“Such power there is in clear-eyed self-restraint.” – James Russell Lowell
“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
On achieving our goals
“Without goals and aspirations, discipline is going to feel like pointless suffering. Therefore, our lapses in discipline often come when we aren’t connected to our goals.” – Peter Hollins
“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
“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
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit.”
– Aristotle
“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
“By constant self-discipline and self-control you can develop greatness of character.” – Grenville Kleiser
“Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.” – Abraham Joshua Heschel
Sovereignty and self-control quotes
“He who reins within himself and rules passions, desires, and fears is more than a king.” – John Milton (1608-1674)
“He who cannot obey himself will be commanded. And that is the nature of living creatures.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
“I am, indeed, a king, because I know how to rule myself.” – Pietro Aretino
“Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.”
– Michel de Montaigne
“Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself.” – Elie Wiesel
“Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control – these three alone lead life to sovereign power.” – Alfred Tennyson
“A little kingdom I possess, where thoughts and feelings dwell; And very hard the task I find of governing it well.” – Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888)
“If a man doesn’t delight in himself and the force in him and feel that he and it are wonders, how is all life to become important to him?” – Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941)
“It is as proper to have pride in oneself as it is ridiculous to show it to others.” – Francois De La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
Motivational Quotes on Self-Control and Discipline
“Each act of self-discipline strengthens every other act of self-discipline. Every act of persistence strengthens every other act of persistence. When you discipline yourself to persist, over and over, you like and respect yourself more and more. You become stronger and more confident. Eventually, you become unstoppable.” – Brian Tracy
“I think self-discipline is something, it’s like a muscle. The more you exercise it the stronger it gets.” – Daniel Goldstein
“The future depends on what we do in the present.”
– Mahatma Gandhi
“Small disciplines repeated with consistency every day lead to great achievements gained slowly over time.” – John Maxwell
“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
Quotes on overcoming fear and pain
“Discipline strengthens the mind so that it becomes impervious to the corroding influence of fear.” – Bernard Law Montgomery
“Discipline is inherently uncomfortable, so strengthening your relationship with discomfort is one of the best ways to improve self-discipline. Everybody has different fears, insecurities, and discomforts. But a lot of people go through their life avoiding those things, and thus limiting their own potential. If you want to maximize all the positive aspects of your life, you can start with facing your fears and choosing to be uncomfortable.” – Peter Hollins
“Self-discipline is often disguised as short-term pain, which often leads to long-term gains. The mistake many of us make is the need and want for short-term gains (immediate gratification), which often leads to long-term pain.”
– Charles F. Glassman
“Discipline is something we despise for the moment…. We all look for a place to run, an excuse with which to stall. No one enjoys it. Yet those of us who have endured it know that the fruit it produces and the pain from which it ultimately spares us makes it worth the agony.” – Charles F. Stanley
“Having self-discipline and willpower is the ability to do difficult or unpleasant things because those things are better for your well-being in the long run.” – Peter Hollins
“We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret and disappointment.” – Jim Rohn
Funny quotes on self-control and discipline
“Self-discipline is when your conscience tells you to do something and you don’t talk back.” – W. K. Hope
“Temptations come, as a general rule, when they are sought.” – Margaret Oliphant
“The intelligent desire self-control; children want candy.” – Rumi
“A man never lies with more delicious languor under the influence of a passion than when he has persuaded himself that he shall subdue it to-morrow.” – George Eliot, Adam Bede
“The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking spaces.” – Will Rogers
Quotes on Self-Control and Discipline about Integrity
“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
“Discipline is the rejection of instant gratification in favor of something better and more rewarding.” – Remez Sasson
“You can make excuses or you can make progress. You choose.” – Brian Tracy
More Quotes on Self-Control and Discipline
“Self-control is one mark of a mature person; it applies to control of language, physical treatment of others, and the appetites of the body.” – Joseph B. Wirthlin
“Self-discipline is a self-enlarging process.” – M. Scott Peck.
“You must have discipline to have fun.”
– Julia Child
“Prudent, cautious self-control, is wisdom’s root.” – Robert Burns
“Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.” – Thomas Jefferson
“The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts.” – Charles Darwin
“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
“Self-discipline is self-caring.” – M. Scott Peck
On discipline in writing and in life
[Re: Discipline with writing] “There’s no one way — there’s too much drivel about this subject. You’re who you are, not Fitzgerald or Thomas Wolfe. You write by sitting down and writing. There’s no particular time or place — you suit yourself, your nature. How one works, assuming he’s disciplined, doesn’t matter. If he or she is not disciplined, no sympathetic magic will help. The trick is to make time — not steal it — and produce the fiction. If the stories come, you get them written, you’re on the right track. Eventually everyone learns his or her own best way. The real mystery to crack is you.” – Bernard Malamud
“Class is an aura of confidence that is being sure without being cocky. Class has nothing to do with money. Class never runs scared. It is self-discipline and self-knowledge. It’s the sure-footedness that comes with having proved you can meet life. ” – Ann Landers
Quotes on teaching self-control and discipline to children
“Fair and reasonable discipline is like a fence that provides protection and defines limits, demonstrating both care and concern.” – Les Christie
“Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies subject to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future and crimes from society.” – Benjamin Franklin
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On new beginnings after reaching a breaking point
“It’s a new day, a new beginning for your new life. With discipline you will be amazed at how much progress you’ll be able to make. What have you got to lose except the guilt and fear of the past?” – Jim Rohn
“It was a little thing, but on top of the other little things, it broke something in me.” – John Howard Griffin
Faith-based quotes on self-control and discipline
“The good Lord gave you a body that can stand most anything. It’s your mind you have to convince.” – Vince Lombardi
“God has equipped you to handle difficult things. In fact, He has already planted the seeds of discipline and self-control inside you. You just have to water those seeds with His Word to make them grow!” – Joyce Meyer
“Many men and women in the world demonstrate great willpower and self-discipline in overcoming bad habits and the weaknesses of the flesh.” – Ezra Taft Benson
In closing
If you made it this far, thanks for reading! I hope you feel ready to take on whatever challenges come your way, so that you can live your very best life.
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Ann
This is a great collection of quotations! They are full of wisdom and excellent advice. While reading through them, I found many passages that resonated strongly with me. Very helpful to broaden our perspective, and work toward achieving our full potential through self-control and discipline. Thank you, Tara, for starting the new year with these inspiring quotes!
Tara
Thank you so much for taking the time to comment! I am glad they resonated with you!