Top 380 Arnold Schwarzenegger Quotes (2026 Update)
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351. “I think that if you grow up trying to be the best then you have to be competitive because the more you compete, the more someone is there that is a challenge and the more your performance improves.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

352. “I went from being the Terminator to being the governator.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

353. “When I was on my way to the podium a gentleman stopped me and said I was as good a politician as I was an actor. What a cheap shot.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

354. “I hurt so many people.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

355. “Everything that I’ve accomplished in life was because of America and because of California, so I should take seven years out of my life to be a public servant and to serve the people of California regardless of the lack of pay.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

356. “I never go on a movie set as the star. I always go as the guy who just does his job, like the electrician does his job and the hairdresser does her job. Let’s all work together and make this happen, rather than have the star treatment. I don’t do that.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

357. “I never wanted to be a career politician. I always am interested just to take on challenges that everyone says are impossible to do and to take it on.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

358. “I was striving to be the most muscular man, and it got me into the movies. It got me everything that I have.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

359. “Ninety percent of the people don’t realize that there is anything below the head. They think that the head is carried around by something very mysterious, and they’re not aware that it’s the body, something they should be in tune with.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

360. “My vision of where I wanted to go in life was not normal. The whole idea of a conventional existence was like Kryptonite to me.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

361. “No man is more unhappy,” the Stoic philosopher Seneca said, “than he who never faces adversity. For he is not permitted to prove himself.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

362. “But more importantly, I have a rule: no complaining about a situation unless you’re prepared to do something to make it better. If you see a problem and you don’t come to the table with a potential solution, I don’t want to hear your whining about how bad it is. It couldn’t be that bad if it hasn’t motivated you to try to fix it.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

363. “We can’t change those stories, but we can choose where we go from there.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

364. “This life isn’t a dress rehearsal, it’s not a practice or a training session, it’s the real thing. It’s the only one you have.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

365. “I owe a lot to my upbringing. I was made for it and made by it. I wouldn’t be who I am today without each one of those experiences. The Stoics have a term for this: amor fati. Love of fate. “Do not seek for things to happen the way you want them to,” the great Stoic philosopher and former slave Epictetus said. “Rather, wish that what happens happen the way it happens. Then you will be happy.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

366. “The beauty of pain, not only is it temporary... is it tells you when you begin to give enough of yourself in pursuit of your dreams. If the work hasn’t hurt or cost you anything, or at least made you uncomfortable, then I’m sorry to be the one to tell you but you’re not working hard enough, or sacrificing all that you could to be all you can be.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

367. “Your job is to bust your ass in pursuit of your vision – yours and nobody else’s – and to embrace the failure that is bound to come.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

368. “In German, we have a saying: Wenn schon, denn schon. Roughly translated, it means “If you’re going to do something, DO IT. Go all out.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

369. “If you can choose joy over jealousy, happiness over hate, love over resentment, positivity over negativity, then you have the tools to make the best of any situation, even one that feels like failure.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

370. “The famous Austrian psychologist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl believed that, while we can’t control many things that happen in our lives, we always have the power to control how we feel and what we do about them.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

371. “Life isn’t just the high points or the big moments... it’s also those stretches of time in between. Life happens as much in the transitions as it does in the poses.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

372. “First of all, rest is for babies and relaxation is for retired people.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

373. “Use it or lose it is the rule with ripe fruit, political goodwill, media attention, coupons, economic opportunity, space to pass on the highway, all sorts of things. But most importantly, it’s true of the knowledge you soak up over your lifetime. If you don’t regularly flex your mind like a muscle and put your knowledge to work, it will eventually lose its power.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

374. “First, create little goals for yourself. Don’t worry about the big, broad stuff for now. Focus on making improvements and banking achievements one day at a time.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

375. “The author of Lord of the Flies was rejected by publishers 21 times. J. K. Rowling’s original Harry Potter book was rejected 12 times.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

376. “It’s just not an excuse to give less of yourself. Regardless of the size of your dream, if you don’t push yourself, if you don’t give it your all, if you don’t cut the legs off your sweatpants when the situation calls for it, then you’re only letting yourself down.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

377. “You have 24 hours. Use them.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

378. “I’m sure your story is complicated too. I bet growing up was more difficult than the people around you think it was. We can’t change those stories, but we can choose where we go from there.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

379. “The only difference between them and us, between me and you, between any two people, is the clarity of the picture we have for our future, the strength of our plan to get there, and whether or not we have accepted that the choice to make that vision a reality is ours and ours alone.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

380. “Vision is the most important thing. Vision is purpose and meaning. To have a clear vision is to have a picture of what you want your life to look like and a plan for how to get there.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

381. “But that is not the purpose of good advice. It’s not to tell you what to build, it’s to show you how to build and why it matters.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

382. “The fact that I had such vivid impressions and expectations at all is the reason I got there in the first place.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

383. “You need to be able to see what you want to achieve before you do it, not as you do it. That’s the difference.”

— Arnold Schwarzenegger