There are admirable potentialities in every human being. Believe in your strength and your youth. Learn to repeat endlessly to yourself, 'It all depends on me.'

Andre Gide (1869 - 1951)

I was always looking outside myself for strength and confidence, but it comes from within. It is there all the time.

Anna Freud (1895 - 1982)

Having once decided¹ to achieve a certain task, achieve it at all costs of tedium² and distaste. The gain in self-confidence of having accomplished³ a tiresome⁴ labor⁵ is immense.

Arnold Bennett

Concentration comes out of a combination of confidence and hunger.

Arnold Palmer (1929 - )

Attempt easy tasks as if they were difficult, and difficult as if they were easy; in the one case that confidence may not fall asleep, in the other that it may not be dismayed.

Baltasar Gracian

If I could give you just one gift ever for the rest of your life it would be this. Confidence. It would be the gift of confidence. Either that or a scented⁶ candle.

David Nicholls, One Day, 2010

The man who has confidence in himself gains the confidence of others.

Hasidic Saying

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.

Mark Twain (1835 - 1910), Letter to Mrs Foote, Dec. 2, 1887

Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble⁸ but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy

Norman Vincent Peale (1898 - 1993)

Often we don't even realize who we're meant to be because we're so busy trying to live out someone else's ideas. But other people and their opinions hold no power in defining our destiny.

Oprah Winfrey (1954 - ), O Magazine, November 2009

Feeling special is the worst kind of cage a person can build for himself.

Paolo Giordano, The Solitude⁹ of Prime Numbers: A Novel

It seems to me that people have vast potential. Most people can do extraordinary things if they have the confidence or take the risks. Yet most people don't. They sit in front of the telly and treat life as if it goes on forever.

Philip Adams

If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)

You have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through.

Rosalynn Carter (1927 - )

You can be confident and secure and know that you do a good job at what you do. But you don't know to be arrogant¹⁰ about it.

Ruben Studdard, Seventeen Magazine, September 2003

Self-confidence is the first requisite¹¹ to great undertakings¹².

Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784)

My intent is simply to know my material so well that I'm very comfortable with it. Confidence, not perfection, is the goal.

Scott Berkun, Confessions¹³ of a Public Speaker, 2009

Every time you don't follow your inner guidance, you feel a loss of energy, loss of power, a sense of spiritual deadness.

Shakti Gawain

Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid⁷ faith in yourself. That is why some people with mediocre¹⁴ talent, but with great inner drive, go much further than people with vastly superior talent.

Sophia Loren (1934 - )

You can't connect the dots looking forward you can only connect them looking backwards¹⁵. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something: your gut¹⁶, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well worn path.

Steve Jobs (1955 - 2011), Stanford Commencement Adress, 2005

Confidence is 10% hard work and 90% delusion¹⁷.

Tina Fey, Vogue Interview, 2010