Fighting is one of the most challenging and risky careers in sports. Whether it’s boxing, karate, martial arts, kickboxing, or wrestling, fighting is not for the faint-hearted. So, every fighter needs a word of motivation now and then to lift their spirit and keep the focus. If you’re a fighter looking for inspiration, here are the top 84 motivational quotes for fighters.
Top 84 Motivational Quotes for Fighters
Motivational Quotes for Fighters
1. “The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses — behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.” —Muhammad Ali
2. “If you have a dream, don’t just sit there. Gather courage to believe that you can succeed and leave no stone unturned to make it a reality.” ― Roopleen
3. “Real courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.” ― Harper Lee
4. “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.” — Robert Collier
5. “When the going gets tough, put one foot in front of the other and just keep going. Don’t give up.” ― Roy T. Bennett
6. “Continuous effort — not strength or intelligence — is the key to unlocking our potential.” ― Winston S. Churchill
7. “It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.” — Confucius
8. “You don’t need to be an overachiever; you just need to be a quality achiever.” ― Drue Grit
9. “If you are going through hell, keep going.” ― Winston S. Churchill
10. “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” — Nelson Mandela
11. “The strongest people are not those who show strength in front of the world but those who fight and win battles that others do not know anything about.” ― Jonathan Harnisch
12. “Courage doesn’t always roar, sometimes it’s the quiet voice at the end of the day whispering ‘I will try again tomorrow.” ― Mary Anne Radmacher
13. “Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.” ― Lucius Annaeus Seneca
14. “Don’t be discouraged. It’s often the last key in the bunch that opens the lock.” — Anonymous
15. “Let me tell you the secret that has led to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity.” — Louis Pasteur
16. “You just can’t beat the person who won’t give up.” — Babe Ruth
17. “A fighter can be a winner, but that doesn’t make a winner a fighter.” ― Markus Zusak
18. “Every master was once a disaster.” — David T.S. Wood
19. “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” ― Thomas A. Edison
20. “Just because you fail once doesn’t mean you’re gonna fail at everything.” ― Marilyn Monroe
21. “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” —Sun Tzu
22. “To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody but yourself means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.” —E.E. Cummings
23. “To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.” —Sun Tzu
24. “Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald
25. “Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but for the heart to conquer it.” ― Rabindranath Tagore
26. “To fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence. Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.” — Sun Tzu
27. “The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack in will.” ― Vince Lombardi
Motivational Quotes by Famous Fighters
28. “I hated every minute of training, but I said, don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.” –Muhammad Ali
29. “There is a difference between a fighter and a martial artist. A fighter is training for a purpose: He fights. I’m a martial artist. I don’t train for a fight. I train for myself. I’m training all the time. My goal is perfection. But I will never reach perfection.” – Georges St-Pierre
30. “No matter how bad things get, eventually the sun is going to shine. If you just keep at it, pursuing your goals, eventually good things happen to decent people. For a person who is set on his goals, good things will happen. Everyone deals with adversity; it’s how you bounce back from it.” – Daniel Cormier
31. “The hero and the coward both feel the same thing. But the hero uses his fear, and projects it onto his opponent, while the coward runs. It’s the same thing, fear, but it’s what you do with it that matters.” – Cus D’amato
32. “If you work hard in training, the fight is easy.” – Manny Pacquiao
33. “You never lose until you actually give up.” – Mike Tyson
34. “It isn’t about how hard you can hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.” – Rocky Balboa
35. “If you do something bad, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. It means you had bad judgment.” – Jon Jones
36. “It’s not a certain technique, it’s not a skill, it’s all in your mind, it’s how far you want to go.” – BJ Penn
37. “If you have a dream, don’t let anyone talk you out of it.” – Henry Cejudo
38. “Fighting, especially at this level, is about getting through adversity. You position yourself mentally to go out and take on obstacles that stand in your way. In the Octagon and life, you face tough situations and have every chance to quit, but the more adversity you push through, the more likely you are to be successful.” – Tyron Woodley
39. “Just do whatever you want to in life. One-day tomorrow won’t be there.” – Donald Cerrone
40. “I wish everyone well, but you need to focus on yourself. You need to stop putting your hand out. Everyone wants handouts. Everyone wants things for free. You’ve got to put in the work. You’ve got to grind. You’ve got go through the struggle, and you’ve got to get it.” – Conor McGregor
41. “People say to me all the time, ‘You have no fear.’ I tell them, ‘No, that’s not true. I’m scared all the time. You have to have fear to have courage. I’m a courageous person because I’m a scared person.” – Ronda Rousey
42. “If you’re not willing to go too far, you’ll never go far enough in life.” – Chael Sonnen
Fighting Quotes That’ll Inspire You to Persevere in Life
43. “Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other.” – Walter Elliot
44. “Keep on going, and the chances are that you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I never heard of anyone ever stumbling on something sitting down.” – Charles F. Kettering
45. “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” – Thomas Edison
46. “Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul.” – Douglas MacArthur
47. “I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.” – Abraham Lincoln
48. “If one dream should fall and break into a thousand pieces, never be afraid to pick one of those pieces up and begin again.” – Flavia Weedn
49. “Life is very interesting. In the end, some of your greatest pains become your greatest strengths.”– Drew Barrymore
50. “The difference between the difficult and the impossible is that the impossible takes a little longer time.” – Lady Aberdeen
51. “Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.” – John Quincy Adams
52. “Some lean back. But those who lean forward are poised to cross the finish line, first!” – T.F. Hodge
53. “Have the courage to start, the perseverance to continue, and the kindness to make it all beautiful.” ― Maxime Lagacé
54. “In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins- not through strength but by perseverance.” – H. Jackson Brown
55. “History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats.” – B.C. Forbes
56. “A bend in the road is not the end of the road…Unless you fail to make the turn.” – Helen Keller
57. “You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.” – Maya Angelou
58. “You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.” – Margaret Thatcher
59. “Through perseverance, many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure.” – Benjamin Disraeli
60. “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” – Henry Ford
61. “Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.” – Pele
Powerful Quotes for Martial Arts Fighters
62. “If we overcome those enemies that attack us from within, we can attain a true victory over any attack from without.” — Morihei Ueshiba
63. “Everyone must choose one of two pains: The pain of discipline or the pain of regret.” — Jim Rohn
64. “Fighting – think of it as you need 100 answers to one question.” — Damien Trainor
65. “The martial arts are non-combative because these martial artists think actual fighting doesn’t express goodness or mystic insight.” — Keith Vargo
66. “True martial arts is universal, simple, and practical. Anything else is too complex to be used in combat.” — Soke Behzad Ahmadi
67. “When I started training martial arts, I learned about respect.” — Anderson Silva
68. “I so admire the discipline, the work ethic, and the sacrifices fighters make to master all aspects of mixed martial arts.” — Tami Hoag
69. “In the martial arts, the relationship of Master and disciple is a peculiar one.” — Tri Thong Dang
70. “I had a long and great career, and I believe I left a deep mark in the martial arts. I have no regrets.” — Mirko Cro Cop
71. “Martial arts was the first thing in my life that I followed through on and accomplished a degree of proficiency for.” — Chuck Norris
72. “You should make it a habit of putting your all into every little thing you do.” —Koichi Tohei
73. “There is no finish line. When you reach one goal, find a new one.” — Chuck Norris
74. “Only after several years of training did I come to realize that the deepest purpose of the martial arts is to serve as a vehicle for personal spiritual development.” — Joe Hyams
75. “When it comes to technique, work on it over and over again until you have mastered it.” — Saenchai
76. “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. The hands can’t hit what the eyes can’t see.” — Muhammad Ali
77. “Only a fool does something new and thinks it will work for sure. Only a failure refuses to try something that might not work.” — Seth Godin
78. “The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in combat.” — Richard Marcinko
79. “I don’t count my sit-ups; I only start counting when it starts hurting because they’re the only ones that count.” — Muhammad Ali
80. “Imagine if every child learned the respect, courtesy, and discipline that martial arts teach. The world would be a different place.” — Chris Wahmond
81. “You don’t have to be great to start, but you do have to start to be great.” — Zig Ziglar
82. “You must have a dragon hidden inside of you. When you need, you let that dragon out.” — Anderson Silva
83. “If you’re going through hell, keep going!” — Winston Churchill
84. “A student’s mentality in learning martial arts is to overcome one’s problems.” — Ip Chun
