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36 INSPIRING Quotes From Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins

Last Updated on March 21, 2023 by Louisa

When you’re feeling unmotivated and need a literary kick up the backside, then you’ll want to add Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins to your reading list.

This is the biographical self-help book you need to push you to get out of bed in the morning and conquer those goals you set for yourself many years ago.

Whether you want to quit smoking, get in better shape, or finally tell someone toxic in your life to take a hike – David Goggins’s motivational words are like petrol on a fire.

In Can’t Hurt Me, Goggins tells of how he went from being an overweight teenager from an abusive home to being a personal trainer, former SEAL, and Guinness World Record holder for the most pull-ups.

If you need some motivation and tough love, then allow these Can’t Hurt Me quotes to inspire you!


Can’t Hurt Me Quotes About Life

One of the most important themes in Goggin’s novel Can’t Hurt Me is how you can vastly improve your life if you take accountability for it.

Here are some of his most meaningful quotes about life.

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

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

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

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

“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!”

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

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

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

“Tell yourself the truth! That you’ve wasted enough time, and that you have other dreams that will take courage to realize, so you don’t die a fxcking pxssy.”

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

“Tell yourself the truth! That you’ve wasted enough time, and that you have other dreams that will take courage to realize, so you don’t die a fxcking pxssy.”

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

“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.”

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

“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.”

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

“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.”

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

“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.”

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

“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.”

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

Can’t Hurt Me Quotes About the Military

As a former navy SEAL, much of David Goggin’s inspiring words relate to the military. Here are some Can’t Hurt Me quotes that refer to the military…

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

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

“Heraclitus, a philosopher born in the Persian Empire back in the fifth century BC, had it right when he wrote about men on the battlefield. “Out of every one hundred men,” he wrote, “ten shouldn’t even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior…”

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

“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. That mindset is the reason I broke that record, finished Badwater, became a SEAL, rocked Ranger School, and on down the list. 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.”

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

​​“Most wars are won or lost in our own heads, and when we’re in a foxhole we usually aren’t alone, and we need to be confident in the quality of the heart, mind, and dialogue of the person hunkered down with us. Because at some point we will need some empowering words to keep us focused and deadly.”

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

“A true leader stays exhausted, abhors arrogance, and never looks down on the weakest link. He fights for his men and leads by example. 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.”

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

“And if you fail again, so the fxck be it. Take the pain. Repeat these steps and keep fighting.”

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

Motivating Can’t Hurt Me Quotes About Overcoming Challenges

Part of the reason why you would read a book like Can’t Hurt Me is to overcome obstacles in your life.

If you need some motivating words to encourage you to make positive changes, allow these Can’t Hurt Me quotes to inspire you…

“Be more than motivated, be more than driven, become literally obsessed to the point where people think you’re fxcking nuts.”

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

“You are giving up instead of getting hard! 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!”

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

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

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

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

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

“Always be willing to embrace ignorance and become the dumb fuck in the classroom again, 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.”

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

“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 you somehow deserve it. 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!”

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

“If you want to master the mind and remove your governor, you’ll have to become addicted to hard work. Because passion and obsession, even talent, are only useful tools if you have the work ethic to back them up.”

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

“We all need small sparks, small accomplishments in our lives to fuel the big ones. Think of your small accomplishments as kindling. When you want a bonfire, you don’t start by lighting a big log. You collect some witch’s hair—a small pile of hay or some dry, dead grass. You light that and then add small sticks and bigger sticks before you feed your tree stump into the blaze. Because it’s the small sparks, which start small fires, that eventually build enough heat to burn the whole fxcking forest down.”

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

“I brainwashed myself into craving discomfort. If it was raining, I would go run. Whenever it started snowing, my mind would say, Get your fxcking running shoes on. 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.”

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

“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.”

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

Short Can’t Hurt Me Quotes by David Goggins

Saving the short and sweet for last, here are some powerful short quotes from Can’t Hurt Me

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

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

“Denial is the ultimate comfort zone.”

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

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

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

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

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

“Like the Taoists say, those that know don’t speak, and those who speak, well, they don’t know jack shxt.”

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

“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.”

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

“Analyze your schedule, kill your empty habits, burn out the bxllshit, and see what’s left.”

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

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

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

“You can be born in a fxcking sewer and still be the baddest mxtherfucker on earth.”

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

“You are stopping you, you are giving up instead of getting hard.”

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

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Final Word on Can’t Hurt Me Quotes

So there you have it, 36 of David Goggin’s most inspirational and motivational quotes from Can’t Hurt Me. 

Whether you need a gentle push or a giant shove, I hope that you found as much inspiration from David Goggins as I found when reading Can’t Hurt Me.

More Inspirational Quotes

If you found these quotes inspiring, then you might also like these other quote guides:

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About Louisa Smith

Editor/Founder - Epic Book Society

Louisa is the Founder, Editor, and Head Honcho of Epic Book Society. She was born and raised in the United Kingdom and graduated from the University for the Creative Arts with a degree in Journalism. Louisa began her writing career at the age of 7 when her poetry was published in an anthology of poems to celebrate the Queen's Jubilee. Upon graduating university, she spent several years working as a journalist writing about books before transitioning to become a Primary School Teacher. Louisa loves all genres of books, but her favorites are Sci-Fi, Romance, Fantasy, and Young Adult Fiction. Read more Louisa's story here.

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