50 Mental Toughness Quotes To Boost Your Inner Strength

Find inner strength with these mental toughness quotes.

Mental toughness is foundational to our success no matter where our journey takes us.

Tell us which mental toughness quote most resonated with you in the comment section below.

What are the benefits of reading these mental toughness quotes?

Many people think of athletes when they think of mental toughness.

Athletes go through years of training.

They practice their sport until they master it.

Then they go out and compete with the best competition they can find.

They seek the best because it is the only way they can honestly know the heights of their abilities.

We do not have to be professional athletes to have a similar experience.

Life happens, so we are all tested at some point.

It is ironic, but as David Goggins puts it, “The only way you gain mental toughness is to do things you’re not happy doing.”

Some other words that come to mind when you think of mental toughness are:

• Resilience
• Grit
• Fortitude
• Adaptable

Mental toughness allows us to find the strength and motivation to manage challenges and get the most out of the experience.

Short mental toughness quotes for Instagram

1. “If you can’t accept losing, you can’t win.” — Vince Lombardi

2. “Mental toughness is essential to success.” — Vince Lombardi

3. “I believe in my ability and my mental toughness.” — Stefon Diggs

4. “Toughness is in the soul and spirit, not in muscles.” — Alex Karras

5. “Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.” — Calvin Coolidge

6. “Concentration and mental toughness are the margins of victory.” — Bill Russell

7. “Nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.” — Thomas Jefferson

8. “Today I will do what others won’t, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can’t.” — Jerry Rice

9. “The only way you gain mental toughness is to do things you’re not happy doing.” — David Goggins

10. “Mental toughness is a lifestyle. It’s something that you live every single day of your life.” — David Goggins

Mental toughness quotes from athletes and coaches

11. “Mental toughness is to physical as four is to one.” — Bobby Knight

12. “Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.” — Michael Jordan

13. “Mental toughness is a state of mind—you could call it ‘character in action.’” — Vince Lombardi

14. “Legs and athleticism are worth nothing without mental toughness. You also need to be stubborn.” — Gonzalo Higuain

15. “Mental toughness is Spartanism with qualities of sacrifice, self-denial, dedication. It is fearlessness, and it is love.” — Vince Lombardi

16. “Every quarterback can throw a ball; every running back can run; every receiver is fast, but that mental toughness that you talk about translates into competitiveness.” — Tom Brady

17. “To me, football is so much about mental toughness. It’s digging deep, it’s doing whatever you need to do to help a team win, and that comes in a lot of shapes and forms.” — Tom Brady

18. “There’s a confidence and a mental toughness that comes from the very highest level of competition, whatever the sport is. Whether it’s boxing or wrestling, or whatever.” — Joe Rogan

19. “Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside, and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.” — Lance Armstrong

20. “You show me, anybody that’s great in anything they do, I’ll show you, somebody that’s persevered, demonstrated that mental toughness to overcome some obstacles and adversity.” — Sean McVay

Mental toughness quotes to keep you going

21. “Men’s best successes come after their disappointments.” — Henry Ward Beecher

22. “You don’t have to love it. You just have to believe it’s worth it in the end.” — Tim S. Grover

23. “You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” — Marcus Aurelius

24. “What makes you really come together under pressure is determination and focus and toughness.” — Debi Thomas

25. “Curiosity, rationalization, and laziness are no match against courage, self-control, and mental toughness.” — John Bytheway

26. “The ability to continue moving when you are feeling scared, fearful or lazy is the sign of true mental strength.” — Matthew Donnelly

27. “I’ve obviously learned a lot, a lot of mental toughness, learned how to deal with some adversity. Hopefully, I’m better for it.” — Gerrit Cole

28. “Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.” — Arnold Schwarzenegger

29. “We avoid the things that we’re afraid of because we think there will be dire consequences if we confront them. But the truly dire consequences in our lives come from avoiding things that we need to learn about or discover.” — Shakti Gawain

30. “I found that to build mental toughness. You need to inconvenience yourself. The early morning runs, if you hate early mornings. The late night runs, if you hate late nights. The snowy cold, the worst conditions you can get, put yourself in those and really make it inconvenient, and you start to get a genuine expectation of winning for the price you have to pay.” — Chael Sonnen

Mental toughness quotes about success and various professions

31. “To achieve success, whatever the job we have, we must pay a price.” — Vince Lombardi

32. “In terms of instilling the values of mental toughness and work ethic, discipline is the gift that keeps on giving.” — William Baldwin

33. “No important endeavor that required innovation was done without risk. You have to be willing to take those risks.” — James Cameron

34. “For me, mental toughness is the ability to stay focussed in the present irrespective of what is happening at the match.” — Dinesh Karthik

35. “If you’re running businesses anywhere in the world, people who really do well are the people who have mental toughness.” — Robert Kraft

36. “Tennis is all about mental toughness, and you have to keep your head in the game. I make time to relax away from competition pressures.” — Samantha Stosur

37. “Developing mental toughness is a learned trait, and if you can’t develop it in your pursuit of success, you likely won’t last in any competitive line of work for more than a cup of coffee.” — Jason Witten

38. “Your toughness is made up of equal parts persistence and experience. You don’t so much outrun your opponents as outlast and outsmart them, and the toughest opponent of all is the one inside your head.” — Joe Henderson

39. “You have to want it. You have to plan for it, fit it into a busy day. You have to be mentally tough. You have to use others to help you. The hard part isn’t getting your body in shape. The hard part is getting your mind in shape.” — Amby Burfoot

40. “It’s amazing how much of this is mental. Everybody’s in good shape. Everybody knows how to ski. Everybody has good equipment. When it really boils down to it, it’s who wants it the most, and who’s the most confident on his skis.” — Reggie Crist

Mental toughness quotes to remember in tough situations

41. “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

42. “Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.” — Jim Ryun

43. “Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong.” — Peter T. McIntyre

44. “One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation.” — Arthur Ashe

45. “It is confidence in our bodies, minds, and spirits that allows us to keep looking for new adventures.” — Oprah Winfrey

46. “Confidence is a habit that can be developed by acting as if you already had the confidence you desire to have.” — Brian Tracy

47. “Self-belief, I think, is my biggest strength. The mental toughness comes into play whenever the chips are down.” — Jasprit Bumrah

48. “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

49. “I think it’s becoming cool to have mental toughness or to meditate. It’s a thing, but I don’t think people really understand the value of it.” — Jaylen Brown

50. “Freedom is what everyone wants—to be able to act and live with freedom. But the only way to get to a place of freedom is through discipline.” — Jocko Willink

What does mental toughness look like to you?

Mental toughness is a learned experience.

As much as we do not aim to seek more difficulties in our lives, the adversity we face can be an influential teacher.

We have to take risks.

Taking this “game” analogy further, imagine how things could transform for us if we looked at adversity as “competition” to bring out the best in us.

Rather than just seeing roadblocks in our lives as things in our way, imagine if we saw them as elite competitors who were there to bring out the best performance we can push ourselves to achieve.

Marcus Aurelius once said, “You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”

Part of developing mental toughness is recognizing that we do not have power over how the events in our lives unfold.

However, we can choose how we respond to those events.

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Please tell us your favorite mental toughness quote in the comment section below.