If there is one thing I believe it is that words matter.
Sometimes even the simplest phrases can give a mountain of support when you need it. Kind words of encouragement can make all the difference. For me, inspiration often comes from unexpected words that capture a feeling or thought I didn’t even know I had.
And our students are often in need of words that equip them to succeed. In addition to the regular dramas from frenemies to peer pressure, Black students also face other unique challenges in our schools.
Words can be the most powerful weapon we have.
This is especially true when the words come from influential Black leaders who aim to inspire us the best way they know how.
Inspiring Quotes Invite Black Students to Be What They Can See
For students, powerful words can provide the encouragement, motivation and inspiration they need when they need it the most. Words and inspiration from a successful person they admire might be the most important thing we can offer students when they need the laser-like focus to put in the work, study for that exam or chase a new dream.
Whether seeking words to live by or simply a pick me up, these 101 motivational quotes come from all walks of life. From inventors and physicists to athletes and artists, these words of wisdom come from leaders who have shared our lived experiences.
Everyone on this list is remarkable and their stories, voices and words matter.
These inspiring leaders share their stories of personal growth or their fight to ensure the freedom of others.
Some of them share their time, positive attitude and words to convey their ability to overcome hard things. Others show us that no matter how difficult life gets, often the only way to succeed is to do so despite other people’s limited imaginations. Their words provide a firm foundation by reassuring us that a lot of times, the only thing between us and achieving our dreams is our ability to work hard and have unwavering self-confidence.
What these inspirational quotes also do best is give insight into the great minds of resourceful, successful people. More so than even their talents or success, their words and their decision to inspire by sharing them with us give us insight into who they chose to be.
These influential leaders inspire us by sharing their fear of failure or telling us how they took the first step toward their dreams. Most importantly, these powerful words demand students look outside of their comfort zone and encourage them to believe in their ability to accomplish great things.
101 Inspiring Quotes to Bring Out the Best in Students
On Being True to Yourself
1.
Most people would focus on concentrating more, and I can’t do that. It almost makes me overthink a lot of my things. I have to focus on not thinking.
Simone Biles
2.
Confidence literally starts from yourself. You have to go look in the mirror at yourself. If you don’t like what you see, you’re going to give off that energy.
Megan Thee Stallion
3.
At first, I was scared to show fear because you can never be sure how people will perceive you. But I dared myself to do that, to stand out. Now I’ll talk about being beaten up or robbed or making a stupid decision because of a girl or whatever.
Kendrick Lamar
4.
Never feel like you’re too much for somebody. Or you’re too loud. Or you’re too ghetto. Be who you are.
Angel Reese
5.
Be the best version of yourself in anything you do. You don’t have to live anybody else’s story.
Stephen Curry
6.
You don’t have to change who you are for anyone: if you are your regular, authentic, confident self, then you can push to do whatever you want.
Marsai Martin
7.
I think you just have to do you, whatever that is, and not feel like you have to be a certain way for other people to like you.
Michaela Coel
8.
Belief in oneself and knowing who you are, I mean, that’s the foundation for everything great.
Jay-Z
Quotes that Encourage Students to Pursue Their Dreams
9.
If you want to be an actress or an astronaut or a doctor or anything in between, I just want to let kids know – and especially kids that look like me know – that you can do it. Even though you’re not seen, you can make yourself seen.
Storm Reid
10.
Don’t let anyone convince you that your dream, your vision … is something that you shouldn’t do. What often happens is that people who are well-meaning, who really care for us, are afraid for us and talk us out of it.
Cathy Hughes
11.
You can’t run away from who you are, but what you can do is run toward who you want to be.
Jason Reynolds
12.
A dream deferred is a dream denied.
Langston Hughes
13.
Purpose is an essential element of you. It is the reason you are on the planet at this particular time in history. Your very existence is wrapped up in the things you are here to fulfill. Whatever you choose for a career path, remember, the struggles along the way are only meant to shape you for your purpose.
Chadwick Boseman
14.
It’s the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.
Muhammad Ali
15.
Just because a man lacks the use of his eyes doesn’t mean he lacks vision.
Stevie Wonder
16.
Strength depends on the physical ability of the body, but power is based on the spiritual rule over the body.
Jason Wilson
17.
If you listen to people and you allow people to project their fears onto you, you won’t live.
Taraji P. Henson
18.
Everyone’s got some greatness in them. You do. The girl over there does. That guy on the left has some. But in order to really mine it, you have to own it. You have to grab hold of it. You have to believe it.
Shonda Rhimes
19.
Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.
Ella Fitzgerald
20.
When I was younger there was something in me. I had passion. I may not have known what I was going to do with that passion, but there was something and I still feel it. It’s this little engine that roars inside of me and I just want to keep going and going.
Sheila Johnson
21.
Success is not a destination, but the road that you’re on. Being successful means that you’re working hard and walking your walk every day. You can only live your dream by working hard towards it. That’s living your dream.
Marlon Wayans
22.
You know, you do need mentors, but in the end, you really just need to believe in yourself.
Diana Ross
23.
I made my first film when I was 35, so I firmly believe that you don’t have to be one thing in life. If you’re doing something, and you have a desire to do something different, give it a try.
Ava DuVernay
On Peace and Self-Care
24.
You deserve safety, you deserve protection, you deserve love, you deserve peace. Breathe, beloved.
Tarana Burke
25.
Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.
Prentis Hemphill
26.
Just because we’re magic, doesn’t mean we aren’t real.
Jesse Williams
27.
Abandon the cultural myth that all female friendships must be bitchy, toxic, or competitive. This myth is like heels and purses–pretty but designed to SLOW women down.
Roxane Gay
28.
You have a right to your rage, and you can still lean into joy. For those comprising oppressed identities, our joy is part of the revolution. Learning how to cultivate it, keep it, demand it, and own it. Without fear, without guilt, without shame. Joy is our birthright. Each and every one of us, especially those of us who have been conditioned to feel unworthy of it.
Rachel Ricketts
29.
Self-care is a lesson I’m still learning. But it begins with space away from the heaviness of life. I now take time to play, laugh, and, every once in awhile, sleep.
Marc Lamont Hill
Quotes that Celebrate Identity
30.
Your story and experiences are unique – use them to your advantage.
Bozoma Saint John
31.
Internalized racism is the real Black on Black crime.
Ibram X. Kendi
32.
The consequence of the single story is this: it robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
33.
Family should be the place where you can be your most complete self.
Oprah Winfrey
34.
Everybody’s journey is individual. If you fall in love with a boy, you fall in love with a boy. The fact that many Americans consider it a disease says more about them than it does about homosexuality.
James Baldwin
35.
Stay true to who you are, and don’t forget where you came from.
Cynt Marshall
36.
I think people who have faults are a lot more interesting than people who are perfect.
Spike Lee
37.
Don’t gain the world and lose your soul. Wisdom is better than silver and gold.
Bob Marley and the Wailers
38.
There’s got to be a voice deep within you that is untouched by definitions. And it is there that you become divinely who you are.
Viola Davis
39.
You have to know that your real home is within.
Quincy Jones
40.
Never compromise who you are personally to become who you wish to be professionally.
Janice Bryant Howroyd
Quotes to Inspire Students to Never Stop Learning
41.
Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.”
Malcolm X
42.
There is no greater education than one that is self-driven.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
43.
I was made for the library, not the classroom. The classroom was a jail of other people’s interests. The library was open, unending, free.
Ta-Nehisi Coates
44.
The day you think you know it all, is the day you stop living.
Diezani Alison-Madueke
45.
If you lose your curiosity then you stop learning.
Katherine Johnson
46.
Choosing curiosity means that my purpose is constantly unfolding in front of me. All I have to do is pay attention.
Yara Shahidi
47.
The purpose of education…is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions.
James Baldwin
48.
Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom.
George Washington Carver
49.
The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.
W. E. B. Du Bois
50.
The things that have been most valuable to me I did not learn in school.
Will Smith
Overcoming Adversity
51.
In a perfect dream, things would be set exactly the way you would want them. But I think it’s more interesting that in real life, things aren’t exactly the way you planned.
Naomi Osaka
52.
We need to cultivate listening, partnership, and solidarity to carve out a better collective future.
Desmond Cole
53.
I believe whenever you’re trying something new, it’s always going to get some kind of bad reception.
Lil Nas X
54.
Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.
Desmond Tutu
55.
There is no passion to be found in playing small — in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.
Nelson Mandela
56.
Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.
Barack Obama
57.
Correct what you can; learn from what you can’t.
Toni Morrison
58.
Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.
August Wilson
59.
Two things define you: Your patience when you have nothing and your attitude when you have everything.
Imam Ali
60.
The challenge for human beings is not how to avoid suffering, but how to face the pain that is inherent in our lives, and how not to create more suffering by our desperate attempt to avoid pain.
Valerie Mason-John
Quotes that Encourage Students to Use Their Voice
61.
If you just change one person’s life, you feel like you’ve done something. But if you can change a whole lot of them and get them looking at themselves differently, it’s amazing.
Debbie Allen
62.
Civil Rights are Human Rights and human rights are Environmental Rights… NOW IS THE TIME TO ACT.
Jerome Foster II
63.
It’s important to raise your voice in things you feel passionate about and things that you know about. Don’t raise your voice just to raise your voice if you have nothing behind it and don’t know what you’re talking about.
Zendaya
64.
Do anything you can to support the causes that you care about. I think something as small as posting articles on social media or having important conversations with your friends are ways of getting your voice out there!
Skai Jackson
65.
It doesn’t matter how strong your opinions are. If you don’t use your power for positive change, you are, indeed, part of the problem.
Coretta Scott King
66.
No problem in the history of humankind has ever gotten solved by evading it.
Jemele Hill
67.
Every day, you have the power to choose our better history—by opening your hearts and minds, by speaking up for what you know is right.
Michelle Obama
68.
Telling stories that do not result in action turns those stories into entertainment. I don’t want to titillate anyone with the gruesome details of a tragic death.
Quinta Brunson
69.
Every voice raised against racism chips away at its power. We can’t afford to stay silent.
Reni Eddo-Lodge
70.
If you’re going to live, leave a legacy. Make a mark on the world that can’t be erased.
Maya Angelou
71.
The collective, orchestrated fury of Black women can move the whole world.
Brittney Cooper
72.
When an individual is protesting society’s refusal to acknowledge his dignity as a human being, his very act of protest confers dignity on him.
Bayard Rustin
On Taking Chances and Facing Failure
73.
We spend so much time being afraid of failure, afraid of rejection. But regret is the thing we should fear most. Failure is an answer. Rejection is an answer. Regret is an eternal question you will never have the answer to.
Trevor Noah
74.
I’ve failed over and over and over in my life and that is why I succeed.
Michael Jordan
75.
Courage is like — it’s a habitus, a habit, a virtue: you get it by courageous acts. It’s like you learn to swim by swimming. You learn courage by encouraging.
Marie M. Daly
76.
You can’t be afraid to fail. It’s the only way you succeed – you’re not gonna succeed all the time, and I know that.
Lebron James
77.
It doesn’t matter how many times you fail. It doesn’t matter how many times you almost get it right. No one is going to know or care about your failures, and neither should you. All you have to do is learn from them and those around you because all that matters in business is that you get it right once. Then everyone can tell you how lucky you are.
Daymond John
On Hard Work
78.
Luck has nothing to do with it, because I have spent many, many hours, countless hours, on the court working for my one moment in time, not knowing when it would come.
Serena Williams
79.
So when you’re told you’re not good enough, you tell them, not only am I good enough, I’m more than enough. When they say send her back home, you tell them I am home. I am the foundation of what we call home.
Angela Bassett
80.
I like to think of ideas as potential energy. They’re really wonderful, but nothing will happen until we risk putting them into action.
Mae Jemison
81.
There’s something so special about a woman who dominates in a man’s world. It takes a certain grace, strength, intelligence, fearlessness, and the nerve to never take no for an answer.
Rihanna
82.
I’m extremely ambitious. I don’t know why people are afraid to say that. I won’t sell my soul to the devil, but I do want success and I don’t think that’s bad.
Jada Pinkett Smith
83.
I love when people tell me that I was gonna be a bust. I enjoy when people tell me, ‘You suck. You can’t dribble. You can’t shoot,’ because it’s like, gotta go to the gym.
Joel Embiid
84.
There may be people that have more talent than you, but there’s no excuse for anyone to work harder than you do.
Derek Jeter
85.
All roads that lead to success have to pass through hard work Boulevard at some point.
Eric Thomas
On Justice
86.
There can be no love without justice…abuse and neglect negate love. Care and affirmation, the opposite of abuse and humiliation, are the foundation of love. It is a testimony to the failure of loving practice that abuse is happening in the first place.
bell hooks
87.
We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society.
Angela Davis
88.
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, and the norms and notions of what just is – isn’t always just-ice.
Amanda Gorman
89.
It is never okay to battle racism with sexism, transphobia, ableism, or other oppressive language and actions. Don’t stoop to that level, and don’t allow others to. We must be willing to fight oppression in all of its forms.
Ijeoma Oluo
90.
Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood.
Coretta Scott King
91.
We are going to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery because whilst others might free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind.
Marcus Garvey
92.
Any movement for the Negro’s freedom that overlooks this necessity [of psychological freedom] is only waiting to be buried…
Martin Luther King, Jr.
93.
Theory does not solve issues—only action and solidarity can do that—but theory gives you language to fight, knowledge to stand on, and a humbling reality of what intersectional social justice is up against.
Bettina L. Love
94.
No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.
Frederick Douglass
On Community
95.
There are two ways of exerting one’s strength; one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.
Booker T. Washington
96.
Much of what we see today is the result of history, unaddressed, repeating itself. That is why people need to know the history, to truly confront it and heal from what has gone before us.
Isabel Wilkerson
97.
We were a family… we were constantly reminded of our connection to one another. We referred to each other as brother and sister. As we grew closer, those titles changed to Auntie, Uncle, even Momma.
Austin Channing Brown
On Self-Worth
98.
Your self-worth is determined by you. You don’t have to depend on someone telling you who you are.
Beyoncé
99.
Sometimes I feel discriminated against, but it merely astonishes me. How can anyone deny themselves the pleasure of my company?
Zora Neale Hurston
100.
What I want to represent for my daughters is that you can always stay true to yourself and still be successful.
Ayesha Curry
101.
There is so much beauty in this world and inside you that others are not awake to. Don’t wait for anyone to tell you what is beautiful. Know that you are beautiful because you choose to be. Know that you always were and always will be. Treasure it and let it light the way in everything you do.
Lupita Nyong’o
Inspire Students During Black History Month and Beyond
The beautiful thing about leaders who do the great work we need right when we need it is that most of them are willing to share exactly how they did it. The best motivational quotes are a great way to remind us that no matter who we are, or where we come from, the important things we hope and dream of are within our grasp. And this message is important not just during February. Every student can learn from these words and these leaders every day.
These leaders convince us the only strategy we need is a commitment to hard work, going the extra mile and having faith in ourselves. They believe a successful person doesn’t rely on things happening at the right time but is ready when opportunities arise. Their powerful words remind us that fear is our greatest weakness and that everything we hope to achieve is often just on the other side of fear. Perhaps most importantly, these leaders ensure we keep in mind the best thing Black people share is a legacy of creating our own opportunities for success.
If we take nothing from these positive quotes, we can learn that often the greatest outcomes are the sum of small efforts.
If you are looking for more inspiration, check out Affirmations and quotes to inspire Black teen girls.
