John C. Maxwell Quotes

“Dreams often come one size too big so that we can grow into them.”

“We should never let what we cannot do keep us from doing what we can do. A passive life does not become a meaningful life.”

“One person can inspire a second person to be intentional, and another. Those people can work together. They can become a movement. They can make an impact.”

“Nobody finishes well by accident.”

“One of the great ironies of life is that if you give up your life, you gain it. If you help others, you benefit. If you lose yourself, you find yourself.”

“Intentional living is about living your best story.”

“Action is what converts human dreams into significance.”

“When you live each day with intentionality, there’s almost no limit to what you can do. You can transform yourself, your family, your community, and your nation.”

“Most people want to hear or tell a good story. But they don’t realize they can and should be the good story. That requires intentional living.”

“Successful people are good in four areas: relationships, equipping, attitude, and leadership.”

“When you intentionally use your everyday life to bring about positive change in the lives of others, you begin to live a life that matters.”

“An unintentional life accepts everything and does nothing. An intentional life embraces only the things that will add to the mission of significance.”

“Why do so many people do nothing? I think it’s because most of us look at the evils and injustice around us, and we become overwhelmed.”

“The secret of your success is determined by your daily agenda.”

“Only by managing my thinking and shifting my thoughts from desire to deeds would I be able to bring about positive change. I needed to go from wanting to doing.”

“If I wanted to make a difference… Wishing for things to change wouldn’t make them change. Hoping for improvements wouldn’t bring them. Dreaming wouldn’t provide all the answers I needed. Vision wouldn’t be enough to bring transformation to me or others.”

“A dream requires a partner: commitment.”

“The problems look too big for us to tackle. We say to ourselves, “What can I do? I’m just one person.” One person is a start. One person can act and make a change by helping another.”

“Every time we choose action over ease we develop an increasing level of self-worth, self-respect, and self-confidence.”

“To be significant, all you have to do is make a difference with others wherever you are, with whatever you have, day by day.”

“If you’re not failing, you’re probably not really moving forward.”

“Little progress is better than no progress at all. Success comes in taking many small steps. If you stumble in a small step, it rarely matters. Don’t gift wrap the garbage. Let little failures go.”

“Why worry about things you can’t control when you can keep yourself busy controlling the things that depend on you?”

“Ninety percent of all those who fail are not actually defeated. They simply quit.”

“As the saying goes, ‘God uses people who fail—‘cause there aren’t any other kind around.‘”

“The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don’t want, drink what you don’t like and do what you’d rather not.”

“Errors become mistakes when we perceive them and respond to them incorrectly. Mistakes become failures when we continually respond to them incorrectly.”

“If you know who you are, make the changes you must in order to learn and grow, and then give everything you’ve got to your dreams, you can achieve anything your heart desires.”

“No matter what you’ve experienced remember this: There are people who’ve had it better than you and done worse. And there are people who’ve had it worse than you and done better. ”

“Failure is an inside job. So is success. If you want to achieve, you have to win the war in your thinking first.”

“Your attitude, more than your aptitude, will determine your altitude.”

“Failure isn’t so bad if it doesn’t attack the heart. Success is all right if it doesn’t go to the head.”

“Past hurts can make you bitter or better—the choice is yours.”

“The whole idea of motivation is a trap. Forget motivation. Just do it.”

“One of the greatest problems people have with failure is that they are too quick to judge isolated situations in their lives and label them as failures. Instead, they need to keep the bigger picture in mind.”

“Wishing that a risk wasn’t yours to take won’t make it any easier. In fact, it might make it harder. Your attitude about it is your choice.”

“The first important step in weathering failure is learning not to personalize it.”

“If you don’t learn the easy lessons, they get harder. (Pain is one way the universe gets your attention.)”

“You will never get to the point that you no longer make mistakes, that you no longer fail. But that’s okay.”

“But I’ve come to realize that failure is a process. If you flunk a test, it doesn’t mean you failed a one-time event. The F shows that you neglected the process leading up to the test.”