101 Unique Deep Self Quotes That Speak to Your Inner Voice

Have you ever browsed for motivational quotes but stumbled across something as recycled and empty as "Never give up?" Yeah, we've all been there. So why not take advice from the classics like Confucius and Aristotle or scroll through the best self-help books for the ultimate inspiration boost instead?

We've created a list of 101 book-based, unique, deep self quotes that stick and appeal to your mind. Many are available in a summarized form in the Headway library — your personal non-fiction collection and daily microlearning helper. Build confidence and self-discipline with bite-sized insights that fit a reading habit into your busy schedule!

Top 5 deep self quotes to remember

Explore the most impactful one-liners that remind you of your own worth:

•  "To find yourself, think for yourself." – Socrates

•  "Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom." — Aristotle

• "Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." — Confucius

• "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." — Mahatma Gandhi

• "It always seems impossible until it's done." — Nelson Mandela

Quotes for when you feel lost

Feeling stuck and unmotivated at the end of the day? Learn how to make positive affirmations with inspirational quotes from bestselling authors. Their wisdom will light your way through the gloom.

1. "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." — Ralph Waldo Emerson

2. "The mind is everything. What you think you become." — Buddha

3. "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all." — Helen Keller

4. "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." — Mahatma Gandhi

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

6. "You are your best self when you fully embrace who you are and stop trying to be someone else." — Mike Bayer, 'Best Self' 

Read or listen to the full summary of 'Best Self' by Mike Bayer on the Headway app.

1. 7 "Maybe the journey isn't so much about becoming anything. Maybe it's about unbecoming everything that isn't really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place." – Paulo Coelho

2. "Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes." – Carl Jung

3. "When you know yourself you are empowered. When you accept yourself you are invincible." – Tina Lifford

4. "You are not lost. You are here." – Maxime Lagacé

5. "It's easy not to be disappointed when you're always wading in the shallow end of feelings." – Maurene Goo

6. "Sometimes it's necessary to go a long distance out of the way, to come back a short distance correctly." – Edward Albee

7. "You are not broken. You don't need to be fixed. You are worthy of love and success as you are right now." — Robert Duff, 'Hardcore Self Help' 

Learn more about the power of self-help in the full summary of 'Hardcore Self Help' by Robert Duff on the Headway app.

1. 14 "When I feel lost and can't make a decision, I just stop and get quiet. I take a time-out. I ask myself, 'How does this feel? What do I want my life to be like?'" – Kim Cattrall

2. "We must travel in the direction of our fear." – John Berryman

3. "You still have a lot of time to make yourself be what you want. There's still lots of good in the world." – S.E. Hinton

4. "Life is about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself." – George Bernard Shaw

5. "The only journey is the one within." – Rainer Maria Rilke

6. "The best way out is always through." – Robert Frost

7. "Not all those who wander are lost." – J.R.R. Tolkien

8. "True strength is not just about enduring hardship but believing in your ability to overcome it." — Martin Meadows, 'Self-Discipline in Difficult Times' 

Get into detail in the full summary of 'Self-Discipline in Difficult Times' by Martin Meadows on the Headway app.

1. 22 "To find yourself, think for yourself." – Socrates

2. "It's easy not to be disappointed when you're always wading in the shallow end of feelings." ― Maurene Goo

3. "Their path was lost, nowhere to be found, like being in a maze, walking around and around." ― Lyra Brave

4. "Those who fear being lost, never find themselves." ― Abhijit Naskar

Quotes for self-worth & self-confidence

One way to improve your self-esteem is to deepen your understanding of yourself and develop mindfulness. Explore the following confidence quotes to increase your self-awareness and forget about self-doubt!

1. 26 "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." — Eleanor Roosevelt

2. "You are never wrong to do the right thing." — Mark Twain

3. "To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance." — Oscar Wilde

4. "Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom." — Aristotle

5. "What we know matters, but who we are matters more." — Brené Brown

6. "When you love yourself, everything changes. Life begins to work in ways you never imagined." — Kamal Ravikant, 'Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It' 

Learn to love yourself with key insights from the summary of 'Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It' by Kamal Ravikant on the Headway app.

1. 32 "A person's a person, no matter how small." — Dr. Seuss 

2. "I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it." — Thomas Jefferson

3. "The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing." — Walt Disney

4. "You did not wake up to be mediocre." – Robin Arzón

5. "I am, I can, I will, I do." – Christine D'Ercole

6. "There's no limit to what you can do." – Adrian Williams

7. "Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can." – Arthur Ashe

8. "You are enough, right here, right now. It's time to stop waiting for permission to be who you already are." — Gary John Bishop, 'Unf**k Yourself' 

Learn more in the summary of 'Unf**k Yourself' by Gary John Bishop on the Headway app.

1. 40 "A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval." – Mark Twain

2. "You are enough just as you are." – Meghan Markle

3. "The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any." – Alice Walker

4. "To accept yourself as you are is the ultimate expression of love." – Thich Nhat Hanh

5. "You are allowed to be both a masterpiece and a work in progress simultaneously." – Sophia Bush

6. "The most powerful relationship you will ever have is the relationship with yourself." – Steve Maraboli

7. "I have great faith in fools - self-confidence my friends will call it." ― Edgar Allan Poe

8. "The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it." ― J. M. Barrie

9. "The world will throw everything it can at you, but nothing can hurt you if you choose yourself." — James Altucher, 'Choose Yourself' 

Read the full summary of 'Choose Yourself' by James Altucher on the Headway app.

1. 49 "We are always the same age inside. " ― Gertrude Stein

2. "Your self-worth is determined by you. You don't have to depend on someone telling you who you are." – Beyoncé

Quotes for discipline & progress

Scrolling social media and websites is not the best way to spend your free time. However, you can easily turn this annoying habit into something useful with inner discipline and self-control. Gain valuable self-improvement and personal growth tips from top reads. Make every scroll count!

1. 51 "Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value." — Albert Einstein

2. "Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." — Confucius

3. "You're off to great places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, So…get on your way!"— Dr. Seuss

4. "Absorb what is useful, discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own." — Bruce Lee

5. "Find out who you are and do it on purpose." — Dolly Parton

6. "When you let go of the constant chatter, you open yourself up to your true, infinite worth." — Michael A. Singer, 'The Untethered Soul' 

Find out more in the summary of 'The Untethered Soul'  by Michael A. Singer on the Headway app.

1. 57 "I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying." —  Michael Jordan

2. "It always seems impossible until it's done." — Nelson Mandela

3. "Stay hungry, stay foolish."— Steve Jobs

4. "Believe you can and you're halfway there." — Theodore Roosevelt

5. "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." — Thomas Edison

6. "Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does." — William James

7. "Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out." – Robert Collier

8. "The only way to do great work is to love what you do." – Steve Jobs

9. "You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great." – Zig Ziglar

10. "You have everything you need within you to achieve greatness — trust yourself and take action." — Mike Bayer, 'Best Self' 

Get more details in the full summary of 'Best Self' by Mike Bayer on the Headway app.

1. 67 "Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny." – C.S. Lewis

2. "The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same." – Colin R. Davis

3. "The best way to predict your future is to create it." – Abraham Lincoln

4. "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." – Wayne Gretzky

5. "Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it." – Henry David Thoreau

6. "Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment." – Jim Rohn

7. "Opportunities don't happen, you create them." – Chris Grosser

8. "The person you are today is enough. Stop judging yourself against an impossible ideal." — Robert Duff, 'Hardcore Self Help' 

Find a detailed breakdown in the full summary of 'Hardcore Self Help' by Robert Duff on the Headway app.

1. 75 "Small daily improvements over time lead to stunning results." – Robin Sharma

Quotes for healing & letting go

Losing someone is hard to process. It affects your emotional well-being and obscures the purpose of life. Get inspired by uplifting grief quotes to deal with the pain of loss and move on. 

1. 76 "We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated." — Maya Angelou

2. "You become what you believe." — Oprah Winfrey

3. "Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round in new form." — Rumi

4. "You cannot be lonely if you like the person you're alone with." — Wayne Dyer

5. "When you trust yourself enough to keep going, even in the hardest times, that is when you realize your true potential." — Martin Meadows, 'Self-Discipline in Difficult Times'  

Read the full summary of 'Self-Discipline in Difficult Times' by Martin Meadows on the Headway app.

1. 81 "Don't watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going." – Sam Levenson

2. "Healing takes time, and asking for help is a courageous step." – Mariska Hargitay

3. "The greatest healing therapy is friendship and love." – Hubert H. Humphrey

4. "Healing requires from us that we stop struggling, that we let go of the anxiety that keeps us in the past, and we let the healing take place." – Marianne Williamson

5. "If you're brave enough to say goodbye, life will reward you with a new hello." – Paulo Coelho

6. "Life becomes easier when you learn to accept an apology you never got." – Robert Brault

7. "Forgiveness means letting go of the past." – Gerald Jampolsky

8. "Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity." – Hippocrates

9. "The most important relationship you can have is the one you have with yourself." — Kamal Ravikant, 'Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It' 

Explore more in the full summary of 'Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It' by Kamal Ravikant on the Headway app.

1. 90 "Healing may not be so much about getting better, as about letting go of everything that isn't you — all of the expectations, all of the beliefs — and becoming who you are." — Rachel Naomi Remen

2. "The truth is unless you let go — forgive yourself, forgive the situation, realize the past is over — you cannot move forward." — Steve Maraboli

3. "When things start to fall apart in your life, you feel as if your whole world is crumbling. But actually it's your fixed identity that's crumbling. And that's cause for celebration." — Pema Chödrön

4. "The sooner we let go of holding on, the sooner we can hold on to the beauty of what's unfolding before us. Nothing was ever meant to stay the same forever." — Julieanne O'Connor

5. "Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish; but wish the things which happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life." — Epictetus

6. "There ain't no way you can hold onto something that wants to go, you understand? You can only love what you got while you got it."— Kate DiCamillo

7. "To let go does not mean to get rid of. To let go means to let be. When we let be with compassion, things come and go on their own." — Jack Kornfield

8. "If you want to fly in the sky, you need to leave the earth. If you want to move forward, you need to let go of the past that drags you down." — Amit Ray

9. "The key in letting go is practice. Each time we let go, we disentangle ourselves from our expectations and begin to experience things as they are." — Sharon Salzberg

10. "You are not your thoughts; you are the awareness behind them. Your worth is not defined by what you think." — Michael A. Singer, 'The Untethered Soul' 

Find the full summary of 'The Untethered Soul'  by Michael A. Singer on the Headway app.

1. 100 "If strength is love, then we weren't strong enough, But if strength is letting love go, we were." — Joe Bolton

2. "Healing comes in waves, and maybe today the wave hits the rocks. And that's OK, that's OK, darling. You are still healing. You are still healing." — Ljeoma Umebinyeo

Get the best inspirational quotes from Headway book summaries

Whether you're practicing affirmations through self-reflection exercises or self-motivation and improved self-esteem practices, remember that the right words can also guide you toward better self-understanding. With Headway book summaries, you can gather empowering life quotes in one place and learn from them every day.

Mike Bayer's 'Best Self,' Martin Meadows' 'Self-Discipline in Difficult Times,' and other titles will guide you toward self-discovery and self-care in no time. Skip all the fluff and get to the main idea with a 15-minute online read!

Download the Headway app today and let your new learning habit become a large part of your life.