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In the age of therapized language, it can be easy to assume personal growth quotes are affirmations. They’re not. Affirmations are declarations personalized to an individual. They’re usually short, first-person statements that speak to what someone is or wants to be, like (to riff on Lewis’ quote above), “I am brave” or “I am strong.”

The goal of such statements is as personalized as the individual using it. Maybe someone is looking to cultivate a certain quality in herself. Maybe she just wants to remember the quality exists within her.

Personal growth quotes, on the other hand, are almost universally applicable. They manage to contain some nugget of wisdom that resonates with many people, all in the space of a few words.��

Beware anyone who promises a quote can change your life. Maybe it can. Maybe it can’t. You get to decide how much weight to give another person’s words. The real purpose of personal growth quotes is to inspire thoughtful reflection. Is the quote true? Does it contain some relevance to your life or situation? Does it nudge you to think differently?

Maybe that’s the real purpose of personal growth quotes: to evolve one’s thinking. A good quote can shift the prism of understanding, causing you to consider a different perspective or perhaps connect other thoughts together. Sometimes, they can even change a person’s mind.��

Of course, not every good thing has to change the course of destiny. Sometimes, a good quote is enough on its own to act as a sort of way finder toward your next idea, decision or move. To borrow not a quote but a cliché: It’s about the journey, not the destination.

Herewith, a roundup of personal growth quotes to get you thinking.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
―��Viktor E. Frankl,��Man’s Search for Meaning

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
– Winston Churchill, 1941 speech at Harrow School

“Do not whine. ... Do not complain. Work harder. Spend more time alone.” ―��Joan Didion, Blue Nights

“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.” — Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo

“Education breeds confidence. Confidence breeds hope. Hope breeds peace.” ― Confucius

“The most common form of despair is not being who you are.” ―��Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death

“You can never be overdressed or overeducated.” ―��Oscar Wilde, adapted from The Importance of Being Earnest

“The nation will find it very hard to look up to the leaders who are keeping their ears to the ground.” — Sir Winston Churchill, 1941 speech in the House of Commons

“Hitch your wagon to a star.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Society and Solitude

“I shut my eyes in order to see.” ― attributed to Paul Gauguin

“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” — attributed to John F. Kennedy

“Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.’’ ― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“Reach high, for stars lie hidden in you. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.” ― attributed to Rabindranath Tagore

“I could tell you my adventures — beginning from this morning, but it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.” – Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

“To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain forever a child.” —Cicero, Orator

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” ― attributed to��Heraclitus

“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance”

“Do man’s visions last?/Do man’s illusions?/Take things as they come/All things pass.” ― Lao-Tzu, “All Things Pass”

If these or other personal growth quotes have inspired a curiosity to learn more, explore individual courses, degree programs and certificates at ��ɫ��Ƶ. Offering career-relevant skills in online formats, UOPX makes higher education more accessible than ever.

Request more information about these and other opportunities.

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The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis © copyright 1942 CS Lewis Pte Ltd. Extract used with permission.

Bruce Lee��quote��used with��permission��granted by Bruce Lee, LLC –��

© Didion Dunne Literary Trust