50 self confidence quotes to read before a big day

A big day has a way of shrinking your confidence right when you need it most: the morning of an interview, a first date, an exam, a presentation, or a competition. A few good self confidence quotes can pull you back to steadier ground. Reading a line that someone you admire once said, and repeating it before you walk in, is a small and practical way to settle your nerves and remember what you already know how to do. Below are 50 quotes for self confidence, grouped by what you might need before a big moment: short lines you can repeat, quotes about believing in yourself, calming words for nerves, quotes for women, and lines from athletes and performers who do their work under pressure. Pick a few that fit your situation and keep them close.

Self confidence quotes to read before a big day

These are good all-purpose self confidence quotes to read before a big day, whatever the day is. They come from writers, scientists, and leaders who all had to steady themselves before doing something hard. The RiseGuide team describes that calm, grounded presence in a piece on being charismatic.

1. "You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do." — Eleanor Roosevelt
2. "The way to develop self-confidence is to do the thing you fear and get a record of successful experiences behind you." — William Jennings Bryan
3. "Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence." — Helen Keller
4. "Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle." — Christian D. Larson
5. "We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing must be attained." — Marie Curie
6. "Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life." — Golda Meir
7. "Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings." — Samuel Johnson
8. "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." — Anaïs Nin
9. "If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence, you have won even before you have started." — Marcus Garvey
10. "It is confidence in our bodies, minds, and spirits that allows us to keep looking for new adventures." — Oprah Winfrey

Short self confidence quotes

Short self confidence quotes are the ones you can actually remember when your heart is pounding. Keep one of these on a note or your lock screen and repeat it on the way in.

1. "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." — Wayne Gretzky
2. "As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live." — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
3. "Fear kills more dreams than failure ever will." — Suzy Kassem
4. "They can because they think they can." — Virgil
5. "Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence." — Vince Lombardi
6. "Nothing can dim the light that shines from within." — Maya Angelou
7. "Talk to yourself like you would to someone you love." — Brené Brown
8. "Pressure is a privilege." — Billie Jean King
9. "It's the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief." — Muhammad Ali
10. "Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours." — Richard Bach

Self-confidence and believe in yourself quotes

When the problem is self-doubt rather than nerves, it helps to hear people describe believing in yourself plainly. These self-confidence and believe in yourself quotes are about trusting your own judgment enough to begin.

1. "The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it." — J.M. Barrie
2. "If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced." — Vincent van Gogh
3. "Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit." — E. E. Cummings
4. "You have been criticizing yourself for years, and it hasn't worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens." — Louise Hay
5. "You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them." — Michael Jordan
6. "As is our confidence, so is our capacity." — William Hazlitt
7. "The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any." — Alice Walker
8. "Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string." — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Positive self confidence quotes to calm your nerves

If your nerves are running high, these positive self confidence quotes are meant to calm you down rather than pump you up. They treat fear as something you can understand and move through. If the big day is a talk or presentation, the RiseGuide team's tips on public speaking work well alongside them.

1. "Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less." — Marie Curie
2. "Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear." — Mark Twain
3. "Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt." — William Shakespeare
4. "Courage is grace under pressure." — Ernest Hemingway
5. "I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear." — Rosa Parks
6. "It's not the will to win that matters—everyone has that. It's the will to prepare to win that matters." — Paul "Bear" Bryant
7. "Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage." — Dale Carnegie
8. "You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water." — Rabindranath Tagore

Self-confidence quotes for women

These self-confidence quotes for women come from women who spoke up, competed, and built things in rooms that did not expect them to. Part of that is learning to be more assertive, which the RiseGuide team walks through step by step.

1. "Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim." — Nora Ephron
2. "You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them." — Maya Angelou
3. "It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent." — Madeleine Albright
4. "I raise up my voice—not so I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard." — Malala Yousafzai
5. "Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women." — Maya Angelou
6. "The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity." — Amelia Earhart
7. "You can waste your life drawing lines. Or you can live your life crossing them." — Shonda Rhimes
8. "Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing." — Georgia O'Keeffe
9. "I never dreamed about success. I worked for it." — Estée Lauder

Quotes about self confidence from athletes and performers

Athletes and performers do their most important work while everyone watches, so their quotes about self confidence are useful for any high-pressure day. They also make a point worth remembering: confidence is built in practice, long before the moment arrives.

1. "I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." — Michael Jordan
2. "He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life." — Muhammad Ali
3. "One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation." — Arthur Ashe
4. "The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it." — Arnold Schwarzenegger
5. "You have to believe in yourself when no one else does." — Serena Williams

Making a self confidence quote stick

A quote only helps if you actually use it. Read back through this list, pick two or three self confidence quotes that match what you're facing, and write them somewhere you'll pass by: the top of your notes, a sticky note on the mirror, or the back of your hand before an interview. Say the line out loud a few times so it's ready when your nerves show up. If you want more words to keep nearby, our lists of communication quotes and procrastination quotes cover the moments right before and after a big push.