Quotes about self-improvement

Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound.

— James Allen

He who asks of life nothing but the improvement of his own nature is less liable than anyone else to miss and waste life.

— Henri Frederic Amiel

When the archer misses the mark, he turns and looks for the fault within himself. Failure to hit the bull's eye is never the fault of the target. To improve your aim -- improve yourself.

— Gilbert Arland

Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.

— Isaac Asimov

There is no use whatever trying to help people who do not help themselves. You cannot push anyone up a ladder unless he be willing to climb himself.

— Andrew Carnegie

You do not need to be loved, not at the cost of yourself. The single relationship that is truly central and crucial in a life is the relationship to the self. Of all the people you will know in a lifetime, you are the only one you will never lose.

— Jo Coudert

It makes little difference how many university courses or degrees a person may own. If he cannot use words to move an idea from one point to another, his education is incomplete.

— Norman Cousins

He who stops being better stops being good.

— Oliver Cromwell

Become addicted to constant and never-ending self-improvement.

— Anthony J. D'Angelo

The good man is the man who, no matter how morally unworthy he has been, is moving to become better.

— John Dewey

People never improve unless they look to some standard or example higher or better than themselves.

— Tryon Edwards

The never-ending task of self improvement.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. We solicitously and apologetically caress and celebrate him, because he held on his way and scorned our disapprobation. The gods loved him because men hated him.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Inside yourself or outside, you never have to change what you see, only the way you see it.

— Thaddeus Golas

If what you did yesterday seems big, you haven't done anything today.

— Lou Holtz

There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.

— Aldous Huxley

Self-help books are making life downright unsafe. Women desperate to catch a man practice all the ploys recommended by these authors. Bump into him, trip over him, knock him down, spill something on him, scald him, but meet him.

— Florence King

In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself.

— Jiddu Krishnamurti

I am a bad, wicked man, but I am practicing moral self-purification; I don't eat meat any more, I now eat rice cutlets.

— Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

He was always smoothing and polishing himself, and in the end he became blunt before he was sharp.

— Georg C. Lichtenberg

The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself in every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him.

— Abraham Lincoln

I don't think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.

— Abraham Lincoln

The improvement of our way of life is more important than the spreading of it. If we make it satisfactory enough, it will spread automatically. If we do not, no strength of arms can permanently oppose it.

— Charles A. Lindbergh

By these things examine thyself. By whose rules am I acting; in whose name; in whose strength; in whose glory? What faith, humility, self-denial, and love of God and to man have there been in all my actions?

— Jackie Mason

The best thing you can do is get good at being you.

— Dennis the Menace

Whoever will cultivate their own mind will find full employment. Every virtue does not only require great care in the planting, but as much daily solicitude in cherishing as exotic fruits and flowers; the vices and passions (which I am afraid are the natural product of the soil) demand perpetual weeding. Add to this the search after knowledge... and the longest life is too short.

— Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

When you are through improving yourself, you are out of the game. You learn until your last breath.

— Richard A. Nelson

The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands.

— Robert M. Pirsig

Live to live and you will learn to live.

— Portuguese Proverb

Commit to CANI! -- Constant And Never-ending Improvement

— Anthony Robbins

What you become directly influences what you get.

— Jim Rohn

The problem with self-improvement is knowing when to quit.

— David Lee Roth

All of us, who are worth anything, spend our manhood in unlearning the follies, or expiating the mistakes of our youth.

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

But you think that it is time for me to have done with the world, and so I would if I could get into a better before I was called into the best, and not die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.

— Jonathan Swift

The best rules to form a young man, are, to talk little, to hear much, to reflect alone upon what has passed in company, to distrust one's own opinions, and value others that deserve it.

— Sir William Temple

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.

— Henry David Thoreau

If you wish to achieve worthwhile things in your personal and career life, you must become a worthwhile person in your own self-development.

— Brian Tracy

Invest three percent of your income in yourself (self-development) in order to guarantee your future.

— Brian Tracy

The biggest room in the world, is the room for improvement.

— Source Unknown

Before a diamond shows its brilliancy and prismatic colors it has to stand a good deal of cutting and smoothing.

— Source Unknown

No matter what business you're in, you can't run in place or someone will pass you by. It doesn't matter how many games you've won.

— Jim Valvano