The Best Motivational Quotes for the CPA Exam

The road to passing the CPA Exam is long and challenging, and you might even want to quit at some point. That’s why it’s important to keep your head up and stay focused on the ultimate prize of becoming a CPA. To help keep you feeling inspired, here are some of the best motivational quotes that helped me get through the CPA exam and my other credentials, and hopefully can help you too!

CPA Exam Motivational Quotes

“To earn more, you must learn more.” – Bryan Tracy

“Don’t study until you get it right, study until you can’t get it wrong.”

“Work hard in silence. Let success make the noise”

“Study while others are sleeping, Work while others are loafing, Prepare while others are playing, and Dream while others are wishing.” – William Arthur Ward

“Let them sleep while you grind. Let them party while you work. The difference will show.”

“Practice like you’ve never won. Perform like you’ve never lost”

“I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.” – Thomas Jefferson

“The secret of success is to do the common things uncommonly well.” – John D. Rockefeller

“Successful and unsuccessful people do not vary greatly in their abilities. They vary in their desires to reach their potential.” – John Maxwell

“Self-belief and hard work will always earn you success.” – Virat Kohli

“The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.” – Vidal Sassoon

“There are no traffic jams on the extra mile.” – Zig Ziglar

“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.” – Beverly Sills

“If people only knew how hard I’ve worked to gain my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.” – Michelangelo

Overcoming CPA Exam Procrastination

“You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.”

“The expert in anything was once a beginner.”

“When the will is ready the feet are light.” – Proverb

“Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.” – Robert Collier

“If it’s important to you, you’ll find a way. If it’s not, you’ll find excuses.”

“Every morning you have two choices: continue to sleep with your dreams, or wake up to chase them.”

“Good things come to people who wait, but better things come to those who go out and get them.”

Dealing with CPA Exam Failure

“I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” –Michael Jordan

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill

“Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.” – Henry Ford

“You don’t drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there.” – Ed Cole

“Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street.” – Zig Ziglar

“The difference between a stumbling block and a stepping-stone is how high you raise your foot.”

“It is hard to fail, but it is worse to have never tried to succeed.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill

“Success is largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.”

“There are two kinds of people in this world: those who want to get things done and those who don’t want to make mistakes.” – John Maxwell

“I don’t measure a man’s success by how high he climbs, but how high he bounces when he hits the bottom.” – George S. Patton

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” – Thomas Edison

“Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.” – John Quincy Adams

“Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.” – Richard Branson

When Passing the CPA Exam Seems Impossible

“Believe you can and you’re halfway there.”

“Believe in yourself, take on your challenges, dig deep within yourself to conquer fears. Never let anyone bring you down. You got to keep going.” – Chantal Sutherland

“To excel at the highest level – or any level, really – you need to believe in yourself, and hands down, one of the biggest contributors to my self-confidence has been private coaching.” – Stephen Curry

“When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It’s to enjoy each step along the way.” – Wayne Dyer

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” – Nelson Mandela

“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

“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is to try just one more time.” – Thomas Edison.

“Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresea, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.” – H. Jackson Brown Jr.

Are You Ready to Pass the CPA Exam?!

Hopefully some of these quotes have left you feeling inspired and driven toward reaching CPA Exam success! I know the road to becoming a CPA Exam is tough, but with enough persistence and dedication, you’ll no doubt be able to add those three magical letters “CPA” after your name in no time.

Remember, the absolute best thing you can do to ensure your success on the CPA Exam is by sticking to a consistent study schedule and continually immersing yourself in the topic. Taking breaks or long layoffs of even 4-5 days at a time can be detrimental, causing you to need to go back over previously learned material instead of forging ahead to the next topics, wasting valuable study time in the process.

The next best thing you can do is continually challenge your knowledge and recall of the material by taking multiple choice questions and task-based simulations at least every other study session. All of the best CPA review courses on the market offer thousands of these types of practice questions, along with a diverse library of learning materials. Studying for the CPA Exam isn’t something you want to take a DIY approach on, so be sure check out the extensive research I’ve done over each course and see which one is the best for you.

About the author

Colin is a practicing CPA with over 14 years of experience in various accounting and finance roles. After reaching the Sr. Manager level at a Big-4 firm, he now works as a freelance consultant while helping others pass their professional exams.

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