Self-doubt – are you familiar with it? Chances are mighty high the answer is a big yes! Self-doubt happens all the way from when we’re kids, and we want to go across the monkey bars, but we doubt we can make it without falling and that same self-doubt continues long into adulthood showing up in all kinds of places!
Given the well-known feeling of self-doubt and the easy-to-remember experiences of when it has shown up just as we decide to launch our latest dream, self-doubt quotes can be lifesavers!
I put together a self-doubt quotes list that will take you on a journey from “Oh yes, that’s how self-doubt feels for me too” all the way to “Wow, if they can be successful with feelings and thoughts of self-doubt I can be too!”
If you are full of self-doubt right now or you want to set up some preventative plans for when it pays its next visit, this self-doubt quote list is going to be something you can reference time and time again!
Let’s go all in with this self-doubt stuff and see what we can learn about it and about ourselves!
100 Quotes For When You’re Struggling With Self-Doubt
Self-doubt can be your friend or your foe. Self-doubt can be a constant pain or a point of victory. The commonality of self-doubt seems easier to see than the clear way of dealing with it.
Honestly, after gathering these quotes on self-doubt, I was surprised. I expected to see lots of quotes on overcoming self-doubt, but didn’t know many people use self-doubt and don’t worry about it, but actually see it as a sign that they are doing something right!
Yep, many high achievers seem to have gotten to a place of, “Okay I’m going to try something new, and that means self-doubt is going to come along too so I gotta keep it in check and use it as a reminder that progress and success aren’t easy or comfortable!”
I hope that by reading these self-doubt quotes you discover – as I did while putting this together – that self-doubt is totally normal, can actually be okay and perhaps even helpful, and can go from being something that feels out of control to something that is completely under control!
These self-doubt quotes can potentially encourage you, inspire you, and perhaps even help you finally feel a sense of freedom in the self-doubt zone!
Yep, check them out for yourself and see what happens! 🙂
Psst… if you love some of these quotes you’re going to love the FREE printable pack I made for you that will let you display some of these quotes in your home, office, planner, and wherever you want to share some encouraging words! You can grab it right at the halfway point, after self-doubt quote #50!
Self-Doubt Quotes: How Self-Doubt Feels
Self-doubt can feel different for different folks, but it’s useful to know when it comes invading your space so you can recognize it and if you want, welcome it, ignore it, or defeat it. For some, self-doubt shows up as confusion, for others it’s nearly impossible to distinguish between it and fear.
Here are some self-doubt quotes that might put words to your self-doubting feelings.
#1 Self-Doubt Quote
It’s not who you are that holds you back, it’s who you think you’re not.
Hanoch McCarty
#2 Self-Doubt Quote
Once you become self-conscious, there is no end to it; once you start to doubt, there is no room for anything else.
Mignon McLaughlin
#3 Self-Doubt Quote
Doubt… is an illness that comes from knowledge and leads to madness.
Gustave Flaubert
#4 Self-Doubt Quote
We spend so much time defending our choice to do this that it becomes hard to show any vulnerability at all. There’s only so many times you can handle someone asking about your fall back for when things don’t work before you start thinking that maybe the fall back should just be your plan.
Cora Carmack
#5 Self-Doubt Quote
Friends ask you questions; enemies question you.
Criss Jami
#6 Self-Doubt Quote
In these times I don’t, in a manner of speaking, know what I want; perhaps I don’t want what I know and want what I don’t know.
Marsilio Ficino
#7 Self-Doubt Quote
I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy.
Yann Martel
#8 Self-Doubt Quote
To know much is often the cause of doubting more.
Michel de Montaigne
#9 Self-Doubt Quote
Don’t regret the past or fear the future. Both bring misery through self-doubt.
Deepak Chopra
#10 Self-Doubt Quote
Doubt is the middle position between knowledge and ignorance. It encompasses cynicism but also genuine questioning.
Vera Farmiga
Self-Doubt Quotes: Self-Doubt About Starting
Starting can be dang scary. We hope for awesome, but fear we will end up with disaster. We want a certain outcome but worry about taking the right steps to get to that outcome safely and effectively. Self-doubt can creep in quick when someone dares to start something new.
Read these self-doubt quotes when you need a little nudge of encouragement for that next big thing.
#11 Self-Doubt Quote
Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.
Napoleon Hill
#12 Self-Doubt Quote
Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.
William Shakespeare
#13 Self-Doubt Quote
If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.
Francis Bacon
#14 Self-Doubt Quote
Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.
Dale Carnegie
#15 Self-Doubt Quote
Turning pro is a mindset. If we are struggling with fear, self-sabotage, procrastination, self-doubt, etc., the problem is, we’re thinking like amateurs. Amateurs don’t show up. Amateurs crap out. Amateurs let adversity defeat them. The pro thinks differently. He shows up, he does his work, he keeps on truckin’, no matter what.
Steven Pressfield
#16 Self-Doubt Quote
Aerodynamically the bumblebee shouldn’t be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn’t know that so it goes on flying anyway.
Mary Kay Ash
#17 Self-Doubt Quote
Try a thing you haven’t done three times. Once, to get over the fear of doing it. Twice, to learn how to do it. And a third time to figure out whether you like it or not.
Virgil Thomson
#18 Self-Doubt Quote
Don’t waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour’s duties will be the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#19 Self-Doubt Quote
Acting as if you were what you want to become and know you can become is the way to remove self-doubt and enter your real-magic kingdom.
Wayne Dyer
#20 Self-Doubt Quote
Self-doubt is the greatest enemy of any new good habit.
Victoria Moran
Self-Doubt Quotes: Self-Doubt About Failure
Fear of failure is real.
I bet every second of every day there are people plagued by self-doubt that once again their plans will fail, their business dream will end in failure, and another failure is awaiting just around the corner.
For times when failure seems to be overwhelming your faith and confidence, read over these self-doubt quotes on failure.
#21 Self-Doubt Quote
Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.
Suzy Kassem
#22 Self-Doubt Quote
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
#23 Self-Doubt Quote
Rejection isn’t a measure of your worth.
Patricia Cornwell
#24 Self-Doubt Quote
So often we quit on the first failure. We must persistent long enough to achieve success.
Lailah Gifty Akita
#25 Self-Doubt Quote
Because of self-doubt, the fear of failure, or laziness, most people usually bite off way less than they can chew.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
#26 Self-Doubt Quote
Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out.
Benjamin Franklin
#27 Self-Doubt Quote
Don’t let the fear of striking out hold you back.
Babe Ruth
#28 Self-Doubt Quote
A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it.
Ambrose Bierce
#29 Self-Doubt Quote
Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.
Michael Jordan
#30 Self-Doubt Quote
You can either waltz boldly onto the stage of life and live the way you know your spirit is nudging you to, or you can sit quietly by the wall, receding into the shadows of fear and self-doubt.
Oprah Winfrey
Self-Doubt Quotes: The Commonality of Self-Doubt
Sometimes in the midst of self-doubt, we feel like we are the only ones who are feeling stuck, strangled, and sad. Yet, self-doubt seems to be incredibly common. There’s a good chance everyone you know has felt self-doubt, probably everyone you admire has wrestled with it (even high achievers like Olympians!), and likely anyone who’s achieved what you also hope to one day achieve, has somehow learned to master it.
If you’re feeling alone in your self-doubt, check out these self-doubt quotes that will remind you of the pervasiveness of the self-doubt experience.
#31 Self-Doubt Quote
If you don’t have some self-doubts and fears when you pursue a dream, then you haven’t dreamed big enough.
Joe Vitale
#32 Self-Doubt Quote
I can’t think of anyone I admire who isn’t fueled by self-doubt. It’s an essential ingredient. It’s the grit in the oyster.
Richard Eyre
#33 Self-Doubt Quote
He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#34 Self-Doubt Quote
Self-doubt is real. Everyone has it. Having confidence and losing confidence is real, too, and everyone has been in that position.
Venus Williams
#35 Self-Doubt Quote
In love, we often doubt what we most believe.
François de La Rochefoucauld
#36 Self-Doubt Quote
I have self-doubt. I have insecurity. I have fear of failure. I have nights when I show up at the arena and I’m like, ‘My back hurts, my feet hurt, my knees hurt. I don’t have it. I just want to chill.’ We all have self-doubt. You don’t deny it, but you also don’t capitulate to it. You embrace it.
Kobe Bryant
#37 Self-Doubt Quote
I think you’re not a human being unless you have doubts and fears.
Mike Krzyzewski
#38 Self-Doubt Quote
I believe every day your life speaks to you – through every experience, through the people you meet, and even through pain, fear and self-doubt.
Oprah Winfrey
#39 Self-Doubt Quote
Even a wise man knows doubt from time to time, it is the fool who allows it to rule his judgment.
Jennifer Hudock
#40 Self-Doubt Quote
Do the things you believe in, in the name of love. And know that, you aren’t alone. We all have doubts and fears.
Carole King
Self-Doubt Quotes: The Problem With Self-Doubt
If you feel like self-doubt is a problem, to be dealt with or at least addressed, you’re not alone. Although lots of people recognize how commonplace self-doubt can be, many warn against allowing it to stick around for too long.
Here are some self-doubt quotes that point to the undesirables of self-doubt.
#41 Self-Doubt Quote
The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.
Sylvia Plath
#42 Self-Doubt Quote
When you doubt your power, you give power to your doubt.
Honore de Balzac
#43 Self-Doubt Quote
Doubt is a killer. You just have to know who you are and what you stand for.
Jennifer Lopez
#44 Self-Doubt Quote
Self-doubt inflicts the deepest wounds.
Marty Rubin
#45 Self-Doubt Quote
A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a little courage. Every day sends to their graves obscure men whose timidity prevented them from making the first effort.
Sydney Smith
#46 Self-Doubt Quote
One percent doubt is zero percent faith.
Oprah Winfrey
#47 Self-Doubt Quote
Negative minds full of fear and doubt produce negative lives, which can ultimately destroy your life.
Joyce Meyer
#48 Self-Doubt Quote
A mind troubled by doubt cannot focus on the course to victory.
Arthur Golden
#49 Self-Doubt Quote
Self-doubt imprisons those that never overcome it.
Obiora Embry
#50 Self-Doubt Quote
A person’s greatest limitations are not genetic, but imposed by self-doubt, insecurities, indecision, and timidity.
Kilroy J. Oldster
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Self-Doubt Quotes: The Benefit of Self-Doubt
I’m not so sure anyone goes into a woohoo-bring-it-on mode when self-doubt comes knocking, but there are lots of people who see self-doubt as an indicator of growth coming, as a challenge presenting itself that would be good to beat, and as a quick road to deeper knowing.
If you’re ready to see the benefit of doubt, check out these inspiring self-doubt quotes.
#51 Self-Doubt Quote
Panic at the thought of doing a thing is a challenge to do it.
Henry S. Haskins
#52 Self-Doubt Quote
The relationship between commitment and doubt is by no means an antagonistic one. Commitment is healthiest when it is not without doubt, but in spite of doubt.
Rollo May
#53 Self-Doubt Quote
Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.
Frederick Buechner
#54 Self-Doubt Quote
Progress is born of doubt and inquiry.
Robert G. Ingersoll
#55 Self-Doubt Quote
Doubt isn’t the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith.
Paul Tillich
#56 Self-Doubt Quote
Doubt is a question mark; faith is an exclamation point. The most compelling, believable, realistic stories have included them both.
Criss Jami
#57 Self-Doubt Quote
The beginning of wisdom is found in doubting; by doubting we come to the question, and by seeking we may come upon the truth.
Pierre Abelard
#58 Self-Doubt Quote
Your doubt can become a good quality if you train it. It must become knowing, it must become criticism. Ask it, whenever it wants to spoil something for you, why something is ugly, demand proofs from it, test it, and you will find it perhaps bewildered and embarrassed, perhaps also protesting. But don’t give in, insist on arguments, and act in this way, attentive and persistent, every single time, and the day will come when, instead of being a destroyer, it will become one of your best workers–perhaps the most intelligent of all the ones that are building your life.
Rainer Maria Rilke
#59 Self-Doubt Quote
I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship.
Louisa May Alcott
#60 Self-Doubt Quote
Doubt is useful, it keeps faith a living thing. After all, you cannot know the strength of your faith until it has been tested.
David Magee
Self-Doubt Quotes: Challenging Self-Doubt
The further we travel down this exploration of self-doubt the more tools we acquire in our how-to-deal-with-self-doubt-tool-belt. It seems that doubt itself can at times be helpful and at times harmful depending on the person, situation, and origin of the doubt.
If you are ready to test your self-doubt’s helpfulness vs. harmfulness, these self-doubt quotes may offer you some guidance.
#61 Self-Doubt Quote
Doubt must be no more than vigilance, otherwise it can become dangerous.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
#62 Self-Doubt Quote
Other people’s opinion of you does not have to become your reality.
Les Brown
#63 Self-Doubt Quote
Willpower is the key to success. Successful people strive no matter what they feel by applying their will to overcome apathy, doubt or fear.
Dan Millman
#64 Self-Doubt Quote
Fears are educated into us, and can if we wish, be educated out.
Karl Augustus Menninger
#65 Self-Doubt Quote
Leaders spend 5% of their time on the problem and 95% of their time on the solution. Get over it and crush it!
Tony Robbins
#66 Self-Doubt Quote
I seek strength, not to be greater than other, but to fight my greatest enemy, the doubts within myself.
P.C. Cast
#67 Self-Doubt Quote
Doubt whom you will, but never yourself.
Christine Bovee
#68 Self-Doubt Quote
Those who love much, do much and accomplish much, and whatever is done with love is done well… Love is the best and noblest thing in the human heart, especially when it is tested by life as gold is tested by fire. Happy is he who has loved much, and although he may have wavered and doubted, he has kept that divine spark alive and returned to what was in the beginning and ever shall be. If only one keeps loving faithfully what is truly worth loving and does not squander one’s love on trivial and insignificant and meaningless things then one will gradually obtain more light and grow stronger.
Vincent van Gogh
#69 Self-Doubt Quote
Fight your fears and you’ll be in battle forever. Face your fears and you’ll be free forever.
Lucas Jonkman
#70 Self-Doubt Quote
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
Marcus Aurelius
Self-Doubt Quotes: Action Steps For Self-Doubt
If you find yourself wishing you could will your self-doubt away, you might want to try sharing your doubts with a trusted friend to see how those doubts measure up to another person’s judgement, you might want to challenge the belief that is fueling the self-doubt, and you perhaps could see self-doubt as a green light to up your inner courage.
In the self-doubt quotes below you’ll find some tips for forming an action plan with your self-doubt. Hint: You can ignore it, challenge it, share it, fact check it, focus on what you know for sure, confront it, and/or toss some compassion onto it!
#71 Self-Doubt Quote
You do not need to pay attention to those voices within you that create pain, or make you feel less competent, smart or able.
Sanaya Roman
#72 Self-Doubt Quote
If doubt is challenging you and you do not act, doubts will grow. Challenge the doubts with action and you will grow. Doubt and action are incompatible.
John Kanary
#73 Self-Doubt Quote
Never worry alone. When anxiety grabs my mind, it is self-perpetuating. Worrisome thoughts reproduce faster than rabbits, so one of the most powerful ways to stop the spiral of worry is simply to disclose my worry to a friend… the simple act of reassurance from another human being becomes a tool of the Spirit to cast out fear because peace and fear are both contagious.
John Ortberg Jr.
#74 Self-Doubt Quote
In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.
David Hume
#75 Self-Doubt Quote
Every mental act is composed of doubt and belief, but it is belief that is the positive, it is belief that sustains thought and holds the world together.
Søren Kierkegaard
#76 Self-Doubt Quote
Belief in oneself is incredibly infectious. It generates momentum, the collective force of which far outweighs any kernel of self-doubt that may creep in.
Aimee Mullins
#77 Self-Doubt Quote
The deep roots never doubt spring will come.
Marty Rubin
#78 Self-Doubt Quote
Each of us must confront our own fears, must come face to face with them. How we handle our fears will determine where we go with the rest of our lives. To experience adventure or to be limited by the fear of it.
Judy Blume
#79 Self-Doubt Quote
Faith doesn’t mean that you never doubt. It only means that you never act upon your doubts.
Orson Scott Card
#80 Self-Doubt Quote
In every crisis, doubt or confusion, take the higher path – the path of compassion, courage, understanding and love.
Amit Ray
Self-Doubt Quotes: Overcoming Self-Doubt
Sometimes, especially in the darkness of a particularly thick, self-doubt forest, that seems to have no way out or through and no light is breaking in, hope can seem far away and the concept of “overcome” seems hardly even imaginable.
If you happen to be longing for freedom from, or even with, self-doubt (because it may never truly completely leave and may, in fact, have its benefits) but really doubt it is even possible, the self-doubt quotes up ahead may offer some hope.
#81 Self-Doubt Quote
A hero is someone who, in spite of weakness, doubt or not always knowing the answers, goes ahead and overcomes anyway.
Christopher Reeve
#82 Self-Doubt Quote
It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.
Edmund Hillary
#83 Self-Doubt Quote
When you realize your own insecurity, and you embrace it, it’s such an incredible self-realization, and it’s such an incredible journey.
Sue Bryce
#84 Self-Doubt Quote
Erase self-doubt by working to build your strengths instead of focusing on your weaknesses.
Rodolfo Costa
#85 Self-Doubt Quote
You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.
Michael Jordan
#86 Self-Doubt Quote
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
Frank Herbert
#87 Self-Doubt Quote
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.
Anais Nin
#88 Self-Doubt Quote
The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.
Nelson Mandela
#89 Self-Doubt Quote
For so many years I lived in constant terror of myself. Doubt had married my fear and moved into my mind, where it built castles and ruled kingdoms and reigned over me, bowing my will to its whispers until I was little more than an acquiescing peon, too terrified to disobey, too terrified to disagree. I had been shackled, a prisoner in my own mind. But finally, finally, I have learned to break free.
Tahereh Mafi
#90 Self-Doubt Quote
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
Theodore Roosevelt
Self-Doubt Quotes: Victory With Self-Doubt
At first, I typed, “Victory OVER Self-Doubt” but realized it’s not what I meant.
I’m not so sure we are up against self-doubt and have to get over it, but maybe we need to learn how to live with it, how to work with it, how to create with it, perhaps self-doubt isn’t something we need to conquer, but perhaps the idea of “conquering” entails the very experience of self-doubt and how we use it to our advantage. Ultimately, it’s up to the victor to decide what battle to win.
If you’re looking for some glimpses into a victorious existence with self-doubt, the self-doubt quotes below might help you armor up for your own battle.
#91 Self-Doubt Quote
The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you’re in control of your life. If you don’t, life controls you.
Tony Robbins
#92 Self-Doubt Quote
One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn’t do.
Henry Ford
#93 Self-Doubt Quote
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
#94 Self-Doubt Quote
Successful people have fear, successful people have doubts, and successful people have worries. They just don’t let these feelings stop them.
T. Harv Eker
#95 Self-Doubt Quote
I’ve finally stopped running away from myself. Who else is there better to be?
Goldie Hawn
#96 Self-Doubt Quote
Thoughts of doubt and fear are pathways to failure. When you conquer negative attitudes of doubt and fear you conquer failure.
Bryan Adams
#97 Self-Doubt Quote
A good laugh overcomes more difficulties and dissipates more dark clouds than any other thing.
Laura Ingalls Wilder
#98 Self-Doubt Quote
Believe in yourself, your abilities and your own potential. Never let self-doubt hold you captive. You are worthy of all that you dream of and hope for.
Roy Bennett
#99 Self-Doubt Quote
The difference in winning and losing is most often… not quitting.
Walt Disney
#100 Self-Doubt Quote
Doubt is a virus that attacks our self-esteem, productivity and confidence. Faith that you and your life are perfectly unfolding is the strongest vaccine.
Sean Stephenson
Self-doubt can be tricky. At times it can feel like our worst enemy, and at other times it presents itself as a challenge to conquer or even a necessity of grand adventure.
Whether you ward off all self-doubt or see it as a sign of a new starting line, being intentional about how you treat yourself, choose your actions, and pursue your dreams in the midst of self-doubt can be life changing!
I hope these self-doubt quotes will encourage you, inspire you, and motivate you to keep going and keep growing in all your plans and passions!
Cheers to you and your journey, self-doubt and all! 🙂
Want to go deeper with your work on self-doubt and put these self-doubt quotes to use in your life? Here’s your chance to get on my coaching waitlist so you’ll be the first to know when my next coaching spot opens! Sign up here!
Looking for more inspiring quotes? Check out these awesome quotes by Olympians!