If you’re looking to get advice from ‘The Toughest Man Alive’, then these top David Goggins quotes are a must-read!
Aside from his accomplishments in the military, David Goggins is also a well-known athlete—an ultra-marathon runner, an ultra-distance cyclist, triathlete, and a Guinness World Record holder.
This list boasts of his key lessons on how to constantly push our self-imposed limits in order to overcome ourselves.
Let’s get started.
And don’t miss out these Yogi Berra quotes.
Best David Goggins Quotes
1. “It won’t always go your way, so you can’t get trapped in this idea that just because you’ve imagined a possibility for yourself that you somehow deserve it.”
2. “Denial is the ultimate comfort zone.”
3. “In the military, we always say we don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.”
4. “When we transcend what we once thought possible, push our limits, and become more, our light reflects off all the walls they’ve built up around them. Your light enables them to see the contours of their own prison, their own self-limitations.”
5. “It’s the small sparks which start small fires that eventually build enough heat to burn the whole f*ck*ng forest down.”
6. “Our culture has become hooked on the quick-fix, the life hack, efficiency.”
7. “You are in danger of living a life so comfortable and soft, that you will die without ever realizing your true potential.”
8. “Everyone is on the hunt for that simple action algorithm that nets maximum profit with the least amount of effort.”
9. “If you want to master the mind and remove your governor, you’ll have to become addicted to hard work.”
10. “We live in a world with a lot of insecure, jealous people. Some of them are our best friends. They are blood relatives. Failure terrifies them. So does our success.”
11. “No one is going to come help you. No one’s coming to save you.”
12. “We all need small sparks. Small accomplishments in our lives to fuel the big ones.”
13. “I thought I’d solved a problem when really, I was creating new ones by taking the path of least resistance.”
14. “Your entitled mind is dead weight. Cut it loose. Don’t focus on what you think you deserve. Take aim on what you are willing to earn!”
15. “It’s a lot more than mind over matter. It takes relentless self discipline to schedule suffering into your day, every day.”
16. “If they are truly the great people you always believed them to be, their jealousy will evolve, and soon their imagination might hop it’s fence, and it will be their turn to change for the better.”
17. “We’re either getting better or we’re getting worse.”
18. “Passion and obsession, even talent, are only useful tools if you have the work ethic to back them up.”
19. “None of this sh*t is gonna cut it! No more taking the easy way out! It’s time to grow the f*ck up!”
Also read: Robin Arzon Quotes, Steve Prefontaine Quotes
David Goggins Quotes on Drive and Pushing the Limit
20. “You have to build calluses on your brain just like how you build calluses on your hands. Callus your mind through pain and suffering.”
21. “Everything in life is a mind game! Whenever we get swept under by life’s dramas—large and small—we are forgetting that no matter how bad the pain gets, no matter how harrowing the torture, all bad things end.”
22. “The Buddha famously said that life is suffering. I’m not a Buddhist, but I know what he meant and so do you. To exist in this world, we must contend with humiliation, broken dreams, sadness, and loss.”
23. “Every morning in our lives, we have a choice to make. You have the choice to stay in bed and say, ‘Forget it, I’m not going to work out today,’ or, ‘Forget it, I’m not going to work hard today.’ That’s your choice that you make every single day of your life. Make the right decision.”
24. “In order for me to be the person that I wanted to become, I saw myself as the weakest person that God ever created. I wanted to change that into being the hardest man ever created.”
25. “It’s easier to accept the fact that you’re just not good enough. We all have a lot more than we think we have.”
26. “Always be willing to embrace ignorance, because that is the only way to expand your body of knowledge and body of work. It’s the only way to expand your mind.”
27. “You are stopping you, you are giving up instead of getting hard.”
28. “It’s going to be hard work, discipline, and the non-cognitive skills—hard work, dedication, sacrifice—that will set you apart.”
29. “We are all great. No matter if you think you’re dumb, fat, been bullied, we all have greatness. You gotta find the courage.”
30. “Motivation is crap. Motivation comes and goes. When you’re driven, whatever is in front of you will get destroyed.”
31. “You will never learn from people if you always tap dance around the truth.”
32. “The human body can withstand and accomplish a hell of a lot more than most of us think possible, and that it all begins and ends in the mind.”
33. “You can will yourself to do almost anything you want.”
34. “Physical challenges strengthen my mind so I’m ready for whatever life throws at me, and it will do the same for you.”
35. “When you think that you are done, you’re only 40% into what your body’s capable of doing. That’s just the limits that we put on ourselves.”
36. “We have the ability to go in such a space. If you’re willing to suffer, and I mean suffer, your brain and body once connected together, can do anything.”
37. “If you want to be one of the few to defy those trends in our ever-softening society, you will have to be willing to go to war with yourself and create a whole new identity, which requires an open mind.”
38. “From then on, I brainwashed myself into craving discomfort. If it was raining, I would go run. Whenever it started snowing, my mind would say, ‘Get your f*ck*ng running shoes on.’”
39. “We live in a world where a lot of people need goals, motivation, and a lot of other words to get started. It’s just a big excuse to not get started.”
Also read: Workout Quotes
David Goggins Quotes on Living Life and Acceptance
40. “Even if you are hurting, never let your competition see the look of defeat or even vulnerability on your face.”
41. “When you fall down, focus on the solution, not the problem. You might quit or fail 100 times. Keep that clear picture of where you want to be.”
42. “No matter who you are, who your parents are or were, where you live, what you do for a living, or how much money you have, you’re probably living at about 40 percent of your true capability.”
43. “Like the Taoists say, those that know, don’t speak, and those who speak, well, they don’t know jack sh*t.”
44. “Teach yourself that it isn’t ok to take the easy way out. Make sure you are bothered by the things you set out to do, but did not complete or make time for in the day.”
45. “Remembering that you’ve been through difficulties before and have always survived to fight again shifts the conversation in your head. It will allow you to control and manage doubt, and keep you focused on taking each and every step necessary to achieve the task at hand.”
46. “You don’t have to let your doubt into the cockpit! You can tolerate doubt as a backseat driver, but if you put doubt in the pilot’s seat, defeat is guaranteed.”
47. “I understand the temptation to sell short, but I also know that impulse is driven by your mind’s desire for comfort, and it’s not telling you the truth.”
48. “Anyone who is of sound mind and body can sit down and think of twenty things in their life that could have gone differently. Where maybe they didn’t get a fair shake and where they took the path of least resistance.”
49. “Only when you identify and accept your weaknesses will you finally stop running from your past. Then those incidents can be used more efficiently as fuel to become better and grow stronger.”
50. “Suffering is a test. That’s all it is. Suffering is the true test of life.”
51. “A lot of us don’t know about another world that exists for us because it’s on the other side of suffering. That’s the real growth in life.”
52. “It’s your identity trying to find sanctuary, not help you grow. It’s looking for the status quo, not reaching for greatness.”
53. “People take classes on self-help, mental toughness, breathing control—the only way to get tougher is to put yourself in hellacious situations.”
54. “I became the roughest critic in the world on myself, and that’s what truly changed me.”
55. “Tell the truth about the real reasons for your limitations and you will turn that negativity, which is real, into jet fuel. Those odds stacked against you will become a damn runway!”
56. “Pain unlocks a secret doorway in the mind—one that leads to both peak performance and beautiful silence.”
57. “If you’re not physically and mentally prepared for what life is going to throw at you, then you’re just going to crumble, And then, you’re no good to nobody.”
58. “But what put distance between me and almost everybody else in that platoon is that I didn’t let my desire for comfort rule me.”
59. “Sometimes I wussed out and had to deal with it at the ‘Accountability Mirror.’ But facing that mirror, facing myself, motivated me to fight through uncomfortable experiences, and as a result, I became tougher. And being tough and resilient helped me meet my goals.”
Also read: Encouraging Quotes
David Goggins Quotes on Opportunities and Striving for Greatness
60. “Success is based off of your willingness to work your *ss off no matter what obstacles are in your way.”
61. “Tell yourself the truth! That you’ve wasted enough time, and that you have other dreams that will take courage to realise, so you don’t die a f*ck*ng p*ss*.”
62. “Don’t get mad at others because life is kicking your *ss.”
63. “Be true to whoever or whatever you are and wear it like a badge of honour. Fit in with one person and one person only—yourself.”
64. “Don’t limit expectations of yourself and settle for anything less than what you are truly capable of achieving.”
65. “Life isn’t always about doing the things we like to do. It’s about doing things we have to do.”
66. “The reason it’s important to push hardest when you want to quit the most is because it helps you callous your mind. It’s the same reason why you have to do your best work when you are the least motivated.”
67. “You know that my refrigerator is never full, and it never will be because I live a mission-driven life—always on the hunt for the next challenge.”
68. “In my mind, I’m that racehorse always chasing a carrot I’ll never catch, forever trying to prove myself to myself. And when you live that way and attain a goal, success feels anti-climactic.”
69. “It’s about what we do with opportunities revoked or presented to us that determine how a story ends.”
70. “It’s possible to transcend anything that doesn’t kill you.”
71. “Greatness is not something that if you meet it once it stays with you forever. That sh*t evaporates like a flash of oil in a hot pan.”
72. “This one’s for the unusual motherf*ck*rs in this world. A lot of people think that once they reach a certain level of status, respect, or success, that they’ve made it in life. I’m here to tell you that you always have to find more.”
73. “It’s so easy to be great nowadays because most people are just weak. If you have any mental toughness, any fraction of self-discipline—the ability to not want to do it, but still do it—you’ll be successful.”
74. “You want to be uncommon amongst uncommon people. Period.”
75. “Only you can master your mind, which is what it takes to live a bold life filled with accomplishments most people consider beyond their capability.”
76. “We have the ability to make very easy things seem impossible. Stop losing the mind game against yourself.”
77. “Stop thinking and do something.”
78. “You can be born in a f*ck*ng sewer and still be the baddest motherf*ck*r on earth.”
79. “On bad days, it’s important to get your nose out of the problem! What does that mean? It means you can’t get a clear view of the problem if you are living in it. Pull yourself away from the problem and you will see how different the problem looks.”
David Goggins Quotes on Purpose and Action
80. “I don’t stop when I’m tired. I stop when I’m done.”
81. “You’re gonna fail, you’re gonna be in your head, and you’re gonna be saying, ‘I’m not good enough.’ It’s about how you overcome that.”
82. “Be more than motivated, be more than driven, become literally obsessed to the point where people think you’re f*ck*ng nuts.”
83. “The worst thing that can happen to a man is to become civilized.”
84. “There’s a bunch of guys that don’t like me and I don’t give a f*ck. I’m a warrior.”
85. “A warrior is a guy that goes ‘I’m here again today. I’ll be here again tomorrow and the next day.’ It’s a person who puts no limit on what’s possible.”
86. “By the time I graduated, I knew that the confidence I’d managed to develop didn’t come from a perfect family or God-given talent. It came from personal accountability which brought me self respect, and self respect will always light a way forward.”
87. “To those people who say ‘I’m good,’ you ain’t good man, you ain’t never f*ck*ng arrived. That’s just my mentality. You may have more than I do, but you’ve never f*ck*ng arrived.”
88. “You gotta start your journey. It may suck, but eventually you will come out the other side on top.”
89. “But visualisation isn’t simply about daydreaming of some trophy ceremony—real or metaphorical. You must also visualise the challenges that are likely to arise and determine how you will attack those problems when they do. That way you can be as prepared as possible on the journey.”
90. “To make fun of or try to intimidate someone they didn’t even know based on race alone was a clear indication that something was very wrong with them, not me.”
91. “The only person who was going to turn my life around was me. The only way I could get turned around was to put myself through the worst things possible that a human being could ever endure.”
92. “The vast majority of us are slaves to our minds. Most don’t even make the first effort when it comes to mastering their thought process because it’s a never-ending chore and impossible to get right every time.”
93. “The only reason why I became successful was because I went towards the truth. As painful and as brutal as it is, it changed me. It allowed me, in my own right, to become the person who I am today.”
94. “The things that we decide to run from are the truth. When you make excuses, you’re running from the truth.”
95. “Everyone fails sometimes and life isn’t supposed to be fair, much less bend to your every whim.”
96. “Each specific life comes with its own personalised portion of pain. It’s coming for you. You can’t stop it. And you know it.”
97. “The most important conversations you’ll ever have are the ones you’ll have with yourself.”
98. “We all like to take this four-lane highway, but we always step over the shovel. All I did was pick up that shovel and made my own path.”
99. “There is no more time to waste. Hours and days evaporate like creeks in the desert. That’s why it’s okay to be cruel to yourself as long as you realise you’re doing it to become better.”
100. “Everyday you’re trying to find more of what you’re capable of—and that’s the big question. What are you capable of? Stop doing the things that you do every day. If you run everyday, go swim.”
101. “Get over whatever is stopping you from being your best self! Rather than use the obstacles and setbacks in your life as excuses, use them as the catalyst to get better and go further in life.”
102. “As humans, we’re reading books everyday to try to figure out how to be someone else. What we don’t do is go inside, turn ourselves inside out, and read our own story. You have to look inside to find out what you really want.”
103. “Everybody wants a quick fix, like 6-minute abs—you may get some results from it, but those results won’t be permanent. The permanent results come from you having to suffer. You have to make that a tattoo on your brain so that when the hard time comes again, you don’t forget it.”
104. “It takes great strength to be vulnerable enough to put your *ss on the line, in public, and work toward a dream that feels like it’s slipping away.”
105. “If you can get through doing things that you hate to do, on the other side is greatness.”
106. “Stress and pain are immediate and measurable. Do you hammer hard and snag that personal best like you said you would, or do you crumble? That decision rarely comes down to physical ability—it’s almost always a test of how well you are managing your own mind.”
107. “A true leader stays exhausted, abhors arrogance, and never looks down on the weakest link. He fights for his men and leads by example.”
108. “High achievement doesn’t require inborn talent. It requires working your *ss off. Period.”
109. “You must recognise what you are about to do, highlight what you do not like about it, and spend time visualising each and every obstacle you can.”
David Goggins Quotes on Going the Extra Mile
110. “Life is one long motherf*ck*ng imaginary game that has no scoreboard, no referee, and isn’t over until we’re dead and buried.”
111. “Don’t worry about the elements around you and what’s going on. You gotta get out there and get it.”
112. “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”
113. “That’s what it meant to be uncommon among uncommon. It meant being one of the best and helping your men find their best too.”
114. “Breaking the shackles and stretching beyond our own perceived limits takes hard f*ck*ng work—oftentimes physical work—and when you put yourself on the line, self doubt and pain will greet you with a stinging combination that will buckle your knees.”
115. “We need to surround ourselves with people who will tell us what we need to hear, not what we want to hear, but at the same time not make us feel we’re up against the impossible.”
116. “They see me now as the guy who can do 4,000 pull-ups in 24 hours, but what they don’t understand is the journey that got me to this point. Before this, I was the exact opposite of the person I am today.”
117. “This life is all a f*ck*ng mind game. Realise that. Own it!”
118. “‘What if’ is an exquisite ‘f*ck you’ to anyone who has ever doubted your greatness or stood in your way. It silences negativity. It’s a reminder that you don’t really know what you’re capable of until you put everything you’ve got on the line.”
119. “Life is a battle between trying to find more of yourself knowing that the real you is afraid, likes comfort, likes to be patted on the back, and doing what you need to do to get better.”
David Goggins Quotes on Getting Out of Our Comfort Zones
120. “We like to live our lives on social media with lies about ourselves about how great we are. Get to the source! Fix the problem.”
121. “So, what keeps me going is that I have quit several things. I know what’s on the back end of quitting. It’s a lifetime of thinking, ‘Why the f*ck did I do that?’”
122. “If you want to get better, do the things that no one else wants to do. Do the things that no one is even thinking about doing.”
123. “When you’re exhausted, weak, and tired, and everyone around you looks just as bad as you or even worse—that’s the perfect time for you to make a statement. You let everyone around you know that when their life ends, that’s when yours begins.”
124. “The biggest thing is to stop thinking you deserve anything. You, me, or anyone else doesn’t deserve sh*t! So whenever you think you deserve a day off ‘just because,’ rethink that sh*t! It’s that kind of attitude that makes you like most people.”
125. “Never let people who choose the path of least resistance steer you away from your chosen path of most resistance.”
126. “Most people who doubt you doubt you because they can never see themselves doing what you are trying to do.”
127. “Don’t be the person that looks at the weather report the night before to decide what you are going to do the next day.”
128. “Don’t let your body or mind do exactly what it wants to do! Take control!”
129. “Self-talk and visualisation are two keys to my success.”
130. “There’s power in victory that’s transformative, but after our celebration, we should dial it down, dream up new training regimens, new goals, and start at zero the very next day.”
131. “If you can see yourself doing something, you can do it. If you can’t see yourself doing something, usually you can’t achieve it.”
132. “The more things you can do to get outside of that zone that makes you feel good, the stronger your mind is going to get. It starts getting used to doing sh*t like this. It’s not fun, but now my mind is used to it.”
133. “Stop making excuses. Stop being a victim. Take personal responsibility.”
134. “Evaluate your life in its totality! We all waste so much time doing meaningless bullsh*t.”
135. “And if you fail again, so the f*ck be it. Take the pain. Repeat these steps and keep fighting.”
136. “It’s funny, humans tend to hatch our most challenging goals and dreams, the ones that demand our greatest effort yet promise absolutely nothing, when we are tucked into our comfort zones.”
137. “Fear is my ultimate guide.”
138. “No matter what you or I achieve—in sports, business, or life—we can’t be satisfied. Life is too dynamic a game.”
139. “We habitually settle for less than our best; at work, in school, in our relationships, and on the playing field or race course.”c
140. “Comfort zones—If you’re in one too long, that becomes your norm. Get comfortable being uncomfortable.”
Did These David Goggins Quotes Help You Find Your Purpose?
In his many books and talks, we learn that being motivated isn’t enough, and it isn’t what makes us succeed. What we need is purpose. What we need is to find our ‘why’. Why do we do certain things? It’s always mind over matter and discipline; and if it’s clear to us what our purpose is behind our actions, we’ll be able to push the limits we imposed on ourselves and achieve what we plan to achieve.
Were you able to recognize your ‘why’? What’s the most valuable lesson you picked up from today’s collection? Comment your thoughts down below.