Article image

11 Quotes About Doing Your Best

In 1997, Mexican author Don Miguel Ruiz changed the way people thought about self-improvement with the publication of his first book, The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom. Instead of telling people how to change their habits, he focused instead on a set of spiritual beliefs held by the ancient Toltec people that emphasized the “agreements” we make with ourselves, with others, with society, and with life itself.

According to Ruiz, the most important of these agreements, and often the most difficult to keep, are the ones we make with ourselves. The four agreements as he laid them out are: 1) Be impeccable with your word, 2) Don’t take anything personally, 3) Don’t make assumptions, and 4) Always do your best. Abiding by these four agreements, Ruiz argued, can help us free ourselves from self-limiting beliefs and allow us to be our fullest, most joyful selves.

Particularly when it comes to doing our best, we can choose to center our possibilities versus our limitations, and in doing so, steer ourselves toward positive affirmations versus self-criticism. The hope, Ruiz wrote, is to dramatically impact the amount of happiness we’re able to feel in spite of external circumstances. Here, we’ve rounded up 11 quotes that enforce the importance of doing our best no matter what and finding joy in the process.

How noble and good everyone could be if, every evening before falling asleep, they were to recall to their minds the events of the whole day and consider exactly what has been good and bad. Then, without realizing it, you try to improve yourself at the start of each new day.
Anne Frank

Share Quote

You did what you knew how to do, and when you knew better, you did better.
Maya Angelou (as told to Oprah Winfrey)

Share Quote

I realized that even if you win three or four times, the next victory will not necessarily be yours without trying.
Malala Yousafzai

Share Quote

Watch and pray, dear, never get tired of trying, and never think it is impossible to conquer your fault.
Louisa May Alcott

Share Quote

In those things toward which we exerted our best endeavors we succeeded.
George Samuel Clason

Share Quote

Be yourself; no base imitator of another, but your best self. There is something which you can do better than another. Listen to the inward voice and bravely obey that. Do the things at which you are great, not what you were never made for.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Share Quote

We can't allow ourselves to be frightened into not living our lives …  We have to keep going with the faith that things will get better … And things will get better when we make them better.
Oprah Winfrey

Share Quote

My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest.
Charles Dickens

Share Quote

Wherever you fly, you’ll be best of the best. Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.
Dr. Seuss

Share Quote

As long as you try your best, you are never a failure. That is, unless you blame others.
John Wooden

Share Quote

I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.
Booker T. Washington

Share Quote

Featured image credit: Interim Archives/ Archive Photos via Getty Images

Author image
About the Author
Joyce Chen
Joyce Chen is a writer, editor, and community builder based in Seattle, Washington.
Play more header background
Play more icon
Daily Question
Fill in the blank: "There will always be someone who can't see your ___. Don't let it be you." - Mel Robbins

More Inspiration

happiness theme icon

Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it.

separator icon
Lucy Maud Montgomery
motivation theme icon

Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.

separator icon
Rumi
hope theme icon

My dark days made me strong. Or maybe I already was strong, and they made me prove it.

separator icon
Emery Lord
love theme icon

To know how much there is to know is the beginning of learning to live.

separator icon
Dorothy West
wisdom theme icon

The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn.

separator icon
Gloria Steinem
happiness theme icon

If you’re lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it.

separator icon
John Irving
motivation theme icon

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence.

separator icon
Albert Einstein
hope theme icon

Genius is often only the power of making continuous efforts.

separator icon
Elbert Hubbard
love theme icon

We come nearest to the great when we are great in humility.

separator icon
Rabindranath Tagore
wisdom theme icon

Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life.

separator icon
Rachel Carson
happiness theme icon

Never be so focused on what you’re looking for that you overlook the thing you actually find.

separator icon
Ann Patchett