100 Top David Goggins Quotes From The Motivational Ultra-Athlete

Srija Chanda
Dec 12, 2023 By Srija Chanda
Originally Published on Mar 13, 2021
Edited by Isobel Murphy
Boston Marathon Finish Line on Boylston Street at Copley Square, Boston
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Age: 0-99
Read time: 11.6 Min

Why David Goggins Quotes?

David Goggins is an accomplished athlete who is determined to stand out amongst the crowd. Goggins is often referred to as the toughest man alive. Apart from being an athlete, he has also earned fame as a renowned motivational speaker and author.

He held the Guinness World Record for completing 4030 pull-ups over a continuous span of 17 hours. His journey from being a regular guy to a world-famous marathon runner is an inspiration to many. Check out these David Goggins quotes right now.

What Parents Should Know

David Goggins' Autobiography is named 'Can't Hurt Me.'

In the book 'Living A With SEAL', he demonstrated his pull-ups to the author, Itzler who did eight pull-ups. He thought that was all he could do. Goggins taught him to do 100.

He appeared in the Joe Rogan Experience podcast and motivated many.

What To Talk About With Kids

He overcame abuse, poverty, racism, and physical limitations to become a tough guy.

He is the only military personnel to complete elite training in the Navy, Army, and Air Force. 

He set a world record for pull-ups and accomplished many other incredibly audacious feats of mental and physical fortitude. 

Inspirational David Goggins Quotes

1. “If you can get through doing things that you hate to do, on the other side is greatness.”

2. “I don't stop when I'm tired. I stop when I'm done.”

3. “Greatness pulls mediocrity into the mud. Get out there and get after it.”

4. "You may lose the battle of the morning but don’t lose the war of the day."

5. “Know why you’re in the fight to stay in the fight! And never forget that all emotional and physical anguish is finite!”

6. "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's not fun, but now my mind is used to it."

7. “Mental toughness is a lifestyle.”

8. "You build calluses on your feet to endure the road."

9. “Believe it or not, most people prefer delusion. They blame others or bad luck or chaotic circumstance.”

10. “It’s about what we do with opportunities revoked or presented to us that determine how a story ends.”

11. “From the time you take your first breath, you become eligible to die. You also become eligible to find your greatness and become the one warrior”

12. “Life is the most brutal endurance sport of all time!”

13. "If you want to get better, do the things that no-one else wants to do."

David Goggins Quotes From 'Can't Hurt Me'

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. “When you think that you are done, you're only 40% in to what your body's capable of doing. That's just the limits that we put on ourselves.”

16. "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."

17. “I was the sum total of the obstacles I'd overcome.”

18. “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.”

19. “People take classes on self-help, mental toughness, breathing control – the only way to get tougher is to put yourself in hellacious situations."

20. “The most important conversations you’ll ever have are the ones you’ll have with yourself.”

21. “The reason it’s important to push hardest when you want to quit the most is because it helps you callous your mind.”

22. “The hard part is getting to that point, because the ticket to victory often comes down to bringing your very best when you feel your worst.”

23. “You can tolerate doubt as a backseat driver, but if you put doubt in the pilot’s seat, defeat is guaranteed.”

24. “The bottom line is that life is one big mind game. The only person you are playing against is yourself.”

25. “It may be satisfactory, but that's another word for mediocrity.”

Motivational David Goggins Quotes

26. “You must recognize what you are about to do, highlight what you do not like about it, and spend time visualizing each and every obstacle you can."

27. "In this life, we're either getting better or we're getting worse."

28. “It’s about what we do with opportunities revoked or presented to us that determine how a story ends.”

29. “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.”

30. "If you have any mental toughness, any fraction of self-discipline; the ability to not want to do it, but still do it; if you can get through to doing things that you hate to do: on the other side is greatness.”

31. “Continue to put obstacles in front of yourself, because that’s where you’ll find the friction that will help you grow even stronger. Before you know it, you will stand alone.”

32. “If you're willing to suffer, and I mean suffer, your brain and body once connected together, can do anything.”

33. "You're not going to find greatness by looking in a book or by listening to me. I may give you the spark, but you've got to go inside yourself to find it."

34. "It's going to be hard work, discipline, and the non-cognitive skills – hard work, dedication, sacrifice – that will set you apart.”

35. “Thicken your skin. Become more of a human being. Don’t be afraid of the reflection in the mirror.”

36. “We live in a society where mediocrity is often rewarded”

37. “There is no more time to waste. Hours and days evaporate like creeks in the desert.”

David Goggins Failure Quotes

Male elite athletes competing in the Boston Marathon 2015

38. “Everyone fails sometimes and life isn’t supposed to be fair, much less bend to your every whim.”

39. “They say there’s always light at the end of the tunnel, but not once your eyes adjust to the darkness, and that’s what happened to me."

40. “We habitually settle for less than our best; at work, in school, in our relationships, and on the playing field or racecourse.”

41. “Pain unlocks a secret doorway in the mind, one that leads to both peak performance, and beautiful silence.”

42. “Suffering is a test. That’s all it is."

43. "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."

44. "Failure is an option."

45. "Once, I was so focused on failing, I was afraid to even try.”

46. "What makes me tick is that pain you feel when you do these ultramarathons ...I can take a lot of pain."

47. “In every failure a lot of good things will have happened, and we must acknowledge them.”

48. “Denial is the ultimate comfort  zone.”

49. "Most people who are criticising and judging haven’t even tried what you failed at."

50. "Suffering is the true test of life."

51. “I thought I’d solved a problem when really I was creating new ones by taking the path of least resistance.”

Empowering David Goggins Quotes

52. “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.”

53. "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."

54. “Sounds simple, right? It isn’t. Very few people even bother to try to control the way their thoughts and doubts bubble up.”

55. "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. The things that we decide to run from are the truth."

56. “Nobody cares what you did yesterday. What have you done today to better yourself?”

57. "I want to see how far I can push myself."

58. “You are in danger of living a life so comfortable and soft, that you will die without ever realizing your true potential.”

59. “You have to build calluses on your brain just like how you build calluses on your hands. Callus your mind through pain and suffering.”

60. “The only thing more contagious than a good attitude is a bad one.”

61. “Seeds burst from the inside out in a self-destructive ritual of new life.”

62. "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."

63. "let’s take care of our insecurities because they are going to surface when you put yourself in the crucible and you’re suffering."

64. "If you choose to do something, attack it.”

65. “It's a lot more than mind over matter. It takes relentless self discipline to schedule suffering into your day, every day.”

66. "It’s so easy to be great nowadays, because everyone else is weak."

David Goggins Quotes About Being Successful

67. “My work ethic is the single most important factor in all of my accomplishments.”

68. “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.”

69. “In the military, we always say we don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.”

70. “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.”

71. “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.”

72. "When you make excuses, you're running from the truth. We all want 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."

73. "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."

74. "Refused to compromise who I was to conform to their unwritten rules."

75. "If you run everyday, go swim. The only way that you're ever going to get to the other side of this journey is by suffering. You have to suffer in order to grow."

76. "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.”

77. "There is always more to learn, and you will always have weaknesses to strengthen if you want to become as hard as woodpecker lips.”

78. “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.”

79. “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”

80. " Comfort zones: If you live in one too long… that becomes your norm. Get comfortable being uncomfortable."

Best David Goggins Quotes

81. “I don’t stop when I’m tired, I stop when I’m done.”

82. “The worst thing that can happen to a man is to become civilized”

83. “If you choose to do something, attack it.” 

84. “Never let people who choose the path of least resistance steer you away from your chosen path of most resistance.”

85. “Denial is the ultimate comfort zone.”

85. “It’s possible to transcend anything that doesn’t kill you.”

86. “We’re either getting better or we’re getting worse.”

87. “Don’t focus on what you think you deserve. Take aim at what you are willing to earn.”

88. “You want to be uncommon amongst uncommon people. Period.”

89. “We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.”

90. 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.”

91. “It’s so easy to be great these days, because everyone else is so weak.”

92. “Life is one big tug of war between mediocrity and trying to find your best self.”

93. “The path to success will leave you callused, bruised, and very tired. It will also leave you empowered.”

94. “Everybody comes to a point in their life when they want to quit. But it’s what you do at that moment that determines who you are.”

95. “We all have the ability to come from nothing to something.”

96. “Comfort zones: If you live in one too long… that becomes your norm. Get comfortable being uncomfortable.”

97. “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.”

98. “Everybody wants a quick fix. You may get results, but they won’t be permanent. The permanent results come from you having to suffer.”

99. “No one is going to come help you. No one’s coming to save you.”

100. “Read a record number of books in a given month. If you’re focused on intellectual growth, train yourself to study harder and longer than ever before.”

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Written by Srija Chanda

Master of Arts specializing in Mass Communication/Media Studies

Srija Chanda picture

Srija ChandaMaster of Arts specializing in Mass Communication/Media Studies

An aspiring media professional, Srija is currently pursuing her Master's degree in Mass Communication at St. Xavier's University, Kolkata, after completing her degree in journalism. With experience in PR and social media, she has also honed her leadership skills through her participation in a youth parliament. Srija's interests include devouring books, watching movies, and exploring new places through travel.

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