Discipline is an important aspect of our lives that allows us to live our lives effectively. It refers to following certain rules, standards, and codes of behavior. It can be really hard to be disciplined, as not everyone wants to follow certain rules that can feel restrictive. However, in the long run, being disciplined ensures that you can reach your goals, by sacrificing present pleasures for future gains.
Without discipline it’s impossible to be consistent, stop procrastinating, and build good habits. These are essential traits that will lead you to your goals. As David Goggins says, discipline is everything. If you’re looking for some motivation on becoming more disciplined, these quotes will give you a boost. Let’s get started.
“You have power over your mind—not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
Marcus Aurelius
“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.”
Jim Rohn
“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
“Love me I do. Not everything, but I love the good as well as the bad. I love my crazy lifestyle, and I love my hard discipline. I love my freedom of speech and the way my eyes get dark when I’m tired. I love that I have learned to trust people with my heart, even if it will get broken. I am proud of everything that I am and will become.”
Johnny Weir
“The more I disciplined myself to take notice of the good things in life, the more I began to recognize just how much there is to be thankful for.”
Krystal Kuehn
“Discipline equals freedom.”
Jocko Willink
The fact is discipline is only punishment when imposed on you by someone else. When you discipline yourself, it’s not punishment but empowerment.”
Les Brown
“For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.”
Plato
“Self-discipline begins with the mastery of thought.”
Napoleon Hill
“Discipline is choosing between what you want now, and what you want most.”
Napoleon Hill
“The best sort of character, however, cannot be formed without effort. There needs the exercise of constant self-watchfulness, self-discipline, and self-control.”
Samuel Smiles
“You never will be the person you can be if pressure, tension, and discipline are taken out of your life.”
James G. Bilkey
“Most powerful is he who has himself in his power.”
Seneca
“Discipline and united action are the real sources of strength for the nation.”
Lal Bahadur Shastri
“I value self-discipline but creating systems that make it next to impossible to misbehave is more reliable than self-control.”
Tim Ferriss
“A commander who cannot develop proper discipline must be replaced.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower
“He who cannot obey himself will be commanded. That is the nature of living creatures.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
“We might say that discipline doesn’t always help kids to become self-disciplined.”
Alfie Kohn
“It’s easy to have faith in yourself and have discipline when you’re a winner when your number one. What you’ve got to have is faith and discipline when you’re not yet a winner.”
Vince Lombardi
“The great master key to riches is nothing more or less than the self-discipline necessary to help you take complete possession of your mind.”
Napoleon Hill
“Success isn’t measured by money or power or social rank. Success is measured by your discipline and inner peace.”
Mike Ditka
“I taught myself discipline, the strictest kind of discipline.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger
“Genius at first is little more than a great capacity for receiving discipline.”
George Eliot
“Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power.”
Lao Tzu
“Self-discipline is that which, next to virtue, truly and essentially raises one man above another.”
Joseph Addison
“A disciplined person follows values stemming from their source – the self.”
Stephen Covey
“To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.”
Buddha
“A self-discipline is an act of cultivation. It requires you to connect today’s actions to tomorrow’s results.”
Gary Ryan Blair
“A disciplined mind leads to happiness, and an undisciplined mind leads to suffering.”
Dalai Lama
“How much time are you putting into your highest priorities?”
Jack Canfield
“It is better to conquer self than to win a thousand battles.”
Buddha
“A 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
“The price of excellence is discipline. The cost of mediocrity is a disappointment.”
William Arthur Ward
“When we discipline ourselves by watching what we put into our hearts and minds, by doing the hard work of Bible study, by investing in prayer, and by faithfully surrounding ourselves with a group of like-minded believers, we begin to deepen and mature.”
Mark J. Musser
“It was a character that got us out of bed, a commitment that moved us into action, and discipline that enabled us to follow through.”
Zig Ziglar
“Let’s not be afraid to speak the common-sense truth: you can’t have high standards without good discipline.”
William Hague
“Success is created through the performance of a few small daily disciplines that stack up over time to produce achievements far beyond anything you could have ever planned for. Failure, on the other hand, is just as easy to slip into. Failures are nothing more than the inevitable outcome of a few small acts of daily neglect performed consistently over time so that they take you past the point of no return.”
Robin Sharma
“You will never be successful until you have a plan, and the discipline and determination to go through with that plan.”
Julius Williams, Rules to the Game
“Self-discipline is the ability to organize your behavior over time in the service of specific goals.”
Nathaniel Branden
“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 punishment. And that’s the difference.”
Lou Holtz
“Discipline is the persuasion of the self. When you’re ready, you’ll need no persuasion.”
Andrew Ruiz
“One of the toughest things to get over when you are speaking of motivation and discipline is not to measure your success by the success of your peers.”
Felix Oberman
“Your environments and settings matter. Set yourself up in an environment that encourages the building of self-discipline. Not one that sabotages yourself.”
Jordan Koma
“Self-control is the chief element in self-respect, and self-respect is the chief element in courage.”
Thucydides
“Each person has the motivation and the drive to become self-disciplined if they put their minds to it and the time and effort that will be required for success.”
Mike C. Adams
“Discipline is being able to force yourself to do something despite how you feel, over and over until it becomes a habit.”
Kim Brenneman
“I think self-discipline is something, it’s like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the stronger it gets.”
Daniel Goldstein
“It’s just a matter of understanding what’s necessary and disciplining yourself to do it.”
Arthur Lydiard
“Character contributes to beauty. It fortifies a woman as her youth fades. A mode of conduct, a standard of courage, discipline, fortitude, and integrity can do a great deal to make a woman beautiful.”
Jacqueline Bisset
“Self-discipline is a great time-saver; it is the ability to make yourself work on only those things that are most important to you.”
Brian Tracy
“If you don’t teach your child discipline, you are preparing him poorly for life.”
Bethany Bridges
“There is no magic wand that can resolve our problems. The solution rests with our work and discipline.”
Jose Eduardo dos Santos
“Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.”
Plato
“Without discipline, there’s no life at all.”
Katharine Hepburn
“True freedom is impossible without a mind made free by discipline.”
Mortimer J. Adler
“Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.”
Proverbs 12:1, ESV
“You will never have a greater or lesser dominion than that over yourself…the height of a man’s success is gauged by his self-mastery; the depth of his failure by his self-abandonment. …And this law is the expression of eternal justice. He who cannot establish dominion over himself will have no dominion over others.”
Leonardo da Vinci
“Your kids require you most of all to love them for who they are, not to spend your whole time trying to correct them.”
Bill Ayers
“Discipline takes courage and perseverance, but it pays off.”
Joan Price
“Discipline yourself and others won’t need to.”
John Wooden
“Focus, discipline, hard work, goal setting, and, of course, the thrill of finally achieving your goals. These are all life lessons.”
Kristi Yamaguchi
“Small disciplines repeated with consistency every day led to great achievements gained slowly over time.”
John C. Maxwell
“The successful among us delay gratification. The successful among us bargain with the future.”
Jordan Peterson
“The discipline of desire is the background of the character.”
John Locke
“Rule your mind or it will rule you.”
Horace
“Being disciplined in your pursuit of long-term goals is only possible if you can consistently focus on the decisions and actions that lead to accomplishing those goals.”
Peter Hollins
“Talent is nothing without dedication and discipline, and dedication and discipline is a talent in itself.”
Luke Campbell
“Once you commit, you need the discipline and hard work to get you there.”
Haile Gebrselassie
“The basis of positive discipline is to educate or raise children with love and firmness at the same time. It is allowing him or her to grow up in a home where freedom, love, and limits are allowed.”
Henry Quilaq
“It’s not just about winning or losing, but learning about teamwork, learn about sportsmanship, learn about discipline. The value of working together for a common goal. Have the emphasis on fundamentals, not just games.”
Erik Spoelstra
“If the self-discipline of the free cannot match the iron discipline of the mailed fist-in economic, political, scientific and all other kinds of struggles as well as the military-then the peril to freedom will continue to rise.”
John F. Kennedy
“Discipline is just doing the same thing the right way whether anyone’s watching or not.”
Michael J. Fox
“With faith, discipline, and selfless devotion to duty, there is nothing worthwhile that you cannot achieve.”
Muhammad Ali Jinnah
“One-half of life is luck; the other half is discipline – and that’s the important half, for without discipline you wouldn’t know what to do with luck.”
Carl Zuckmeyer
“We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret and disappointment.”
Jim Rohn
“Discipline comes easy when you give yourself no other options.”
Carlos del Valle
“Most people want to avoid pain, and discipline is usually painful.”
John C. Maxwell
“We do today what they won’t, so tomorrow we can accomplish what they can’t.”
Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson
“If I don’t have a project, I don’t have any discipline.”
Marina Abramovic
“Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There’s plenty of movement, but you never know if it’s going to be forward, backward, or sideways.”
H. Jackson Brown, Jr
“A disciple, the one receiving discipline, is not a prisoner or recipient of punishment, but one who is learning through instruction.”
Daniel J. Siegel
“You cannot aim yourself at anything if you are completely undisciplined and untutored.”
Jordan Peterson
“Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. It may not be difficult to store up in the mind a vast quantity of facts within a comparatively short time, but the ability to form judgments requires the severe discipline of hard work and the tempering heat of experience and maturity.”
Calvin Coolidge
“How we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives.”
Annie Dillard
“It sounds simple telling people to work hard and never quit, but to execute and demonstrate those principles takes discipline and faith. Those are the two factors that I believe separate the good from the great, the successes from the failures.”
Nipsey Hussle
“One thousand days of lessons for discipline; ten thousand days of lessons for mastery.”
Miyamoto Musashi
“Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.”
Frank Herbert
“Discipline is based on pride, meticulous attention to detail, and mutual respect and confidence. Discipline must be a habit so ingrained that it is stronger than the excitement of the goal or the fear of failure.”
Gary Ryan Blair
“Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.”
George Washington
“Loving parents always discipline with love and encouragement and never as a means to devalue and humiliate to the point of feeling worthless.”
Rhonda Hart
“Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.”
Stephen Covey
“If there isn’t discipline, how can there be a true realization of an ideal?”
Miyamoto Musashi
“Discipline is part of my professional training as a lawyer.”
Mohamed ElBaradei
“You must be disciplined in thought, word, and deed. Consciously train yourself to do those things that are good for you.”
Iyanla Vanzant
“The temptation to take the easy road is always there. It is as easy as staying in bed in the morning and sleeping. But discipline is paramount to ultimate success and victory for any leader and any team.”
Jocko Willink
“Once you set the goal, it takes fierce discipline to reach it.”
Sam Moore
“Discipline is your relationship with the time you have left.”
Barbara McNally
“Discipline is more reliable than motivation. One is consistent the other is fleeting.”
Shane Parrish
“Discipline is the refining fire by which talent becomes ability.”
Roy L. Smith
“There is nothing so disobedient as an undisciplined mind, and there is nothing so obedient as a disciplined mind.”
Buddha
“Progress takes time and discipline.”
Ronnie Coleman
“We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.”
Jim Rohn
“Without hard work and discipline, it is difficult to be a top professional.”
Jahangir Khan
“When a man is sufficiently motivated, discipline will take care of itself.”
Albert Einstein
“It takes discipline not to let social media steal your time.”
Alexis Ohanian
“It takes hard work, dedication, discipline, and a positive attitude to get to the top – in business or sports.”
George Blanda
“Life is a splendid gift… But to live your life, you must discipline it.”
Florence Nightingale
“Success is not a matter of mastering subtle, sophisticated theory but rather of embracing common sense with uncommon levels of discipline and persistence.”
Patrick Lencioni
“If we do not discipline ourselves the world will do it for us.”
William Feather
“For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
Hebrews 12:11, ESV
“God has equipped you to handle difficult things. He has already planted the seeds of discipline and self-control inside you. You just have to water those seeds with His Word to make them grow!”
Joyce Meyer
“Good order and discipline in an army are more to be depended upon than ferocity.”
Niccolò Machiavelli
“Medical ethics is a fascinating discipline, as it deals with issues replete with complex philosophical, moral, and ethical considerations that are rarely black or white.”
Gad Saad
“Discipline divorced from wisdom is not true discipline, but merely the meaningless following of custom, which is only a disguise for stupidity.”
Rabindranath Tagore
“Running taught me valuable lessons. In cross-country competitions, training counted more than intrinsic ability, and I could compensate for a lack of natural aptitude with diligence and discipline. I applied this in everything I did.”
Nelson Mandela
“Learn to convert the discomfort of the discipline into the satisfaction of personal growth.”
Tony Robbins
“Discipline is built by consistently performing small acts of courage.”
Robin Sharma
“I believe that through knowledge and discipline, financial peace is possible for all of us.”
Dave Ramsey
“Effective discipline is the willingness to force yourself to pay the price, and to do what you know you should do when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not.”
Brian Tracy
“Discipline is remembering what you want.”
David Campbell
“The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen.”
Lee Iacocca
“Discipline must come through liberty.”
Maria Montessori
“I started with shoes, and with hard work and discipline, the business prospered.”
Henry Sy
“Practice is the price you pay today to be better tomorrow.”
James Clear
“Costs of your good habits are in the present. The costs of your bad habits are in the future.”
James Clear
“There are hunters, and there are victims. By your discipline, cunning, obedience, and alertness, you will decide if you are a hunter or a victim.”
Jim Mattis
“We are most free when we are under discipline. Free from being ruled by fleshly impulse and worldly desire.”
Thibaut
“Believe in yourself, find ways to express yourself, and find the discipline to keep growing.”
Michael Feinstein
“Software eventually and necessarily gained the same respect as any other discipline.”
Margaret H. Hamilton
“The only discipline that lasts is self-discipline.”
Bum Phillips
“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
“Some people regard discipline as a chore. For me, it is a kind of order that sets me free to fly.”
Julie Andrews
“Discipline is doing what you don’t want to do so you can do what you want to do.”
Jeff Fisher
“Compassion does not just happen. Pity does, but compassion is not pity. It’s not a feeling. Compassion is a viewpoint, a way of life, a perspective, a habit that becomes a discipline – and more than anything else, compassion is a choice we make that love is more important than comfort or convenience.”
Glennon Doyle Melton
“Confidence comes from discipline and training.”
Robert Kiyosaki
“Few men are born brave. Many become so through training and force of discipline.”
Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus
“Discipline is what makes you do everything you need to do.”
Anthony Joshua
“I admire the military. I guess in a world of villains and heroes, they’re my heroes. Their dedication, their commitment, their discipline, their code of ethics.”
John Cena
“Looking beautiful isn’t just about what you apply on your face. It’s the little things you do that matter. A combination of a good diet, exercise, healthy habits, discipline, dancing, and so on, is what my beauty routine consists of. Also, I have no bad habits; I don’t drink or smoke. All these contribute to me being fit and looking good.”
Madhuri Dixit
“Writing the perfect paper is a lot like a military operation. It takes discipline, foresight, research, strategy, and, if done right, ends in total victory.”
Ryan Holiday
“I believe that good investors are successful not because of their IQ, but because they have an investing discipline. But what is more, disciplined than a machine? A well-researched machine can make many average investors redundant, leaving behind only the really good human investors with exceptional intuition and skill.”
Stanley Druckenmiller
“Somehow I kept my head above water. I relied on the discipline, character, and strength that I had started to develop as that little girl in her first swimming pool.”
Esther Williams
“The country needs fiscal discipline to build a strong economy and for social justice.”
Smriti Irani
“You can judge the quality of their faith from the way they behave. “Discipline is an index to doctrine.”
Tertullian
“I think we judge talent wrong. What do we see as talent? I think I have made the same mistake myself. We judge talent by people’s ability to strike a cricket ball. The sweetness, the timing. That’s the only thing we see as talent. Things like determination, courage, discipline, temperament, these are also talent.”
Rahul Dravid
“Discipline is rarely enjoyable, but almost always profitable.”
Darrin Patrick
“Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.”
Abraham Joshua Heschel
“For every disciplined effort, there are multiple rewards. That’s one of life’s great arrangements. If you sow well, you will reap well.”
Jim Rohn
“A modern stoic knows that the surest way to discipline passion is to discipline time: decide what you want or ought to do during the day, then always do it at the same moment every day, and passion will give you no trouble.”
W. H. Auden
“First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not. Habit is persistence in practice.”
Octavia Butler
Wrapping Up
And there you have it! These 150 quotes are a reminder that discipline can be unpleasant, it can be difficult, but it is the route to take to lead you to success. By taking control of your habits and choices, you can master the ability to be disciplined. If you’re looking for more inspiration, check out our quotes on attitude, consistency, and motivation.
