This collection of short self-discipline quotes will inspire you to achieve your goals, be healthier, and live a life more aligned with your highest values.
Self-discipline is your ability to choose what is in your own best interest. It is keeping your goals and values in mind, and manifesting them in your thoughts, words, and actions—day after day.
Self-discipline is an expression of self-love and self-respect. It is the definition of self-mastery. It means you respect your decisions, your priorities, and act accordingly. It means you don’t go against yourself.
Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.
To learn more about what is self-discipline, and how to develop it, you can watch this video I created on the topic:
Make sure to also check out my self-discipline videos and podcast interviews here, and my extensive list of recommended self-discipline apps.
Whatever goals you are working towards in life—financial, fitness, career, business, self-actualization, spiritual—, the one essential element is self-discipline. It leads to perseverance, patience, motivation and optimism.
Many call self-discipline the “queen of all virtues”. These 96 short quotes on discipline will tell you why. I’ve spent quite some time researching quotes on this topic, and these are the best ones I’ve found.
At the bottom of this article you will find a button to download a free PDF collection of these quotes.
Self-Discipline Quotes
Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.
— Abraham J. Heschel
Self-discipline is about controlling your desires and impulses while staying focused on what needs to get done to achieve your goal.
— Adam Sicinski
Willpower and self-discipline are more effective than intellect and talent.
— Akiroq Brost
Freedom is born of self-discipline. No individual, no nation, can achieve or maintain liberty without self-control. The undisciplined man is a slave to his own weaknesses.
— Alan Valentine
It is often the simple daily practices that influence our lives in dramatic ways.
— Alaric Hutchinson
Discipline really means our ability to get ourselves to do things when we don’t want to.
— Arden Mahlberg
I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over oneself.
— Aristotle
Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most.
— Abrahm Lincoln
The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame.
— Bob Moawad
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
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
Happiness often relies on one character trait: self-discipline.
— Charles F. Glassman
Do first what you don’t want to do most.
— Clifford Cohen
Discipline without freedom is tyranny. Freedom without discipline is chaos.
— Cullen Hightower
A disciplined mind leads to happiness, and an undisciplined mind leads to suffering.
— Dalai Lama
Self-discipline: with this magic ingredient, you can accomplish anything and everything you want to.
— Brian Tracy
Self-discipline is the magic power that makes you virtually unstoppable.
— Dan Kennedy
I think of self-discipline as something like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the stronger it gets.
— Daniel Goldstein
No one is going to come help you. No one’s coming to save you.
— David Goggins
It’s a lot more than mind over matter. It takes relentless self discipline to schedule suffering into your day, every day.
— David Goggins
We do today what they won’t, so tomorrow we can accomplish what they can’t.
— Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson
All successes begin with self-discipline. It starts with you.
— Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson
Do not consider painful what is good for you.
— Euripides
It is better to conquer oneself than to win a thousand battles.
— Buddha
He who cannot obey himself will be commanded. That is the nature of living creatures.
— Friedrich Nietzsche
Success is actually a short race – a sprint fueled by discipline just long enough for habit to kick in and take over.
— Gary Keller
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
It is always easy to break one’s word to oneself.
— Giacomo Casanova
Discipline is the ability to control our conduct by principle rather than by social pressure.
— Glenn C. Stewart
By constant self-discipline and self-control you can develop greatness of character.
— Grenville Kleiser
Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates.
— H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
When we procrastinate, we also put a hold on happiness.
— Charles F. Glassman
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
It doesn’t matter whether you are pursuing success in business, sports, the arts, or life in general: The bridge between wishing and accomplishing is discipline.
— Harvey Mackay
One painful duty fulfilled makes the next plainer and easier.
— Hellen Keller
That aim in life is highest which requires the highest and finest discipline.
— Henry David Thoreau
Discipline is money in the bank. A real friend, true strength.
— Henry Rollins
Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody else expects of you. Never excuse yourself. Never pity yourself. Be a hard master to yourself-and be lenient to everybody else.
— Henry Ward Beecher
Rule your mind or it will rule you.
— Horace
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
He who lives without discipline dies without honor.
— Icelandic Proverb
The individual who wants to reach the top in business must appreciate the might and force of habit. He must be quick to break those habits that can break him—and hasten to adopt those practices that will become the habits that help him achieve the success he desires.
— J. Paul Getty
Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.
— Jim Rohn
We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret and disappointment.
— Jim Rohn
One discipline always leads to another discipline.
— Jim Rohn
Success doesn’t just happen. You have to be intentional about it, and that takes discipline.
— John C. Maxwell
Great leaders always have self-discipline—without exception.
— John C. Maxwell
We all suffer one of two pains. Either the pain of developing self discipline or the pain associated with not having it.
— Clyde Lee Dennis
Motivation gets you going, but discipline keeps you growing
— John C. Maxwell
Small disciplines repeated with consistency every day lead to great achievements gained slowly over time.
— John C. Maxwell
If you wouldn’t follow yourself, why should anyone else?
— John C. Maxwell
Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power.
— Lao Tzu
Let hunger sharpen your awareness. Abstain liquor and frivolous recreation, which dull the mind and weaken the body.
— Laura Joh Rowland
Self control is the key to self esteem and self confidence.
— Laurance McGraw V
The height of a man’s success is gauged by his self-mastery; the depth of his failure by his self-abandonment.
— Leonardo da Vinci
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
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
Without self-discipline, success is impossible, period.
— Lou Holtz
Self-discipline is self-caring.
— M. Scott Peck
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
The war in our minds requires discipline. Not the discipline of a soldier but the discipline of a warrior.
— Miguel Ruiz
Success is measured by your discipline and inner peace.
— Mike Ditka
True freedom is impossible without a mind made free by discipline.
— Mortimer J. Adler
No person is free who is not master of himself.
— Epictetus
I don’t count my sit-ups, I only start counting when it starts hurting, when I feel pain, that’s when I start counting, cause that’s when it really counts.
— Muhammad Ali
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 begins with the mastery of thought. If you do not control your thoughts, you cannot control your needs. Self-discipline calls for a balancing of the emotions of your heart with the reasoning faculty of your head.
— Napoleon Hill
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
The first and greatest victory is to conquer self.
— Plato
Self-command is the main discipline.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power.
— René Descartes
No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.
— Harry Emerson Fosdick
Discipline is built by consistently performing small acts of courage.
— Robin Sharma
Success is a matter of understanding and religiously practicing specific simple habits that always lead to success.
— Robjert J. Ringer
Discipline is the refining fire by which talent becomes ability.
— Roy L. Smith
Self-discipline is a continuous war against your whims.
— Saidi Mdala
Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.
— Seneca
The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person.
— Stephen Covey
Self-control is strength. Right thought is mastery. Calmness is power.
— James Allen
The more disciplined you become, the easier life gets.
— Steve Pavlina
With self-discipline, almost anything is possible.
— Theodore Roosevelt
Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.
— Thomas Jefferson
It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently.
— Tony Robbins
Discipline is the foundation of a successful and happy life.
— Dr. T.P. Chia
Your level of success is determined by your level of discipline and perseverance.
— Unknown
Motivation will die.. let discipline take it place.
— Unknown
Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day.
— Jim Rohn
Self discipline – the road may be hard but the results are priceless.
— Unknown
With discipline, you are able to maintain a higher tolerance for frustration, obstacles and negative emotions.
— Vishwas Chavan
We don’t have to be smarter than the rest; we have to be more disciplined than the rest.
— Warren Buffett
The price of excellence is discipline. The cost of mediocrity is disappointment.
— William Arthur Ward
No man is fit to command another that cannot command himself.
— William Penn
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
Fall seven times, stand up eight.
— Japanese Proverb
You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.
— Marcus Aurelius
Self-Discipline PDF
You can download here the PDF copy of this post:
Your Next Steps
Do you feel a fire in your belly, as you read through these quotes?
Do you feel the energy rise?
I do. The sense of determination, resolution and inner strength are activated in me.
I hope that you have found this collection of quotes inspiring—and that, no matter what, you take action on what is important for you, day after day.
If you’d like my help in developing greater self-discipline in your life, consider applying for my coaching program.
