Who Wrote The Most Viral Quotes Success Motivation Posts?

I tend to think of viral motivational posts as communal creations rather than the work of one superstar. A huge chunk of what people see online comes from anonymous quote pages and marketing teams crafting easily shareable lines. And then there are the classic figures — Confucius, Marcus Aurelius, Maya Angelou — whose words are endlessly recycled, sometimes faithfully, often not.
A bit of detective work usually reveals whether a line has a real author or is internet-born: Quote Investigator, Google Books, and library archives are my go-to tools. For me, knowing the origin matters sometimes, but mostly I care whether the line moves me or helps someone else — still, credit when you can.

I get a kick out of scrolling through motivational feeds, and I’ve noticed a pattern: the loudest, most-shared success quotes usually come from two camps. One camp is old-school authors and speakers with genuinely quotable lines — folks like Napoleon Hill (his phrases from 'Think and Grow Rich' still show up in new memes), Paulo Coelho, Tony Robbins — their words get clipped and weaponized for likes. The other camp is totally modern: anonymous designers and social media copywriters making short, punchy sentences tailored for shares. Those are the ones that become “viral” because they’re engineered that way.
Personally, I love tracing a quote back to its origin when I can. Tools like Quote Investigator, Goodreads, and even checking the earliest mentions on Twitter or Reddit often reveal whether a quote is authentic or a social-media-born nugget. Also worth noting: lots of famous-sounding lines are paraphrases or outright misattributions — it’s common to see something labeled as Gandhi or Einstein when neither said it in that form. If you’re curating quotes for a profile or presentation, a little provenance research makes the piece stronger and more honest. Got a favorite line? I’ll help track it down

There’s no single person I can point to and say, ‘that one person wrote the most viral success quotes’ — it’s more like a crowd of shouty voices on the internet. I’ve collected motivational clippings for years and what surprised me was how many of the most-shared lines aren’t traceable to a single author: they come from anonymous Instagram quote accounts, Pinterest graphics, and copywriters who craft a catchy two-liner that spreads like wildfire.
Some real historical figures do supply a lot of the fuel — names like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Maya Angelou, Napoleon Hill (think 'Think and Grow Rich'), and Paulo Coelho (I often find quotes lifted from 'The Alchemist') get recycled endlessly. But equally potent are modern speakers and entrepreneurs — Tony Robbins, Jim Rohn, and Brené Brown — and then there are the many unattributed gems that are simply labeled ‘unknown’ or credited to a famous person to make them more clickable.
If you care about provenance, I’ve found tools like Quote Investigator, Google Books, and even a quick reverse image search can expose the original source (or show there isn’t one). For me, the takeaway is simple: enjoy the line if it helps you, but when sharing, a little digging can give credit where it’s due — and that feels good.

I usually treat viral motivational posts like folk songs: they mutate and spread, and often you can’t pin them down to a single songwriter. From what I’ve seen, many of the most viral lines are produced by social-media creators and content teams who write snappy captions specifically to get shares. Pages on Instagram, Tumblr, and Pinterest (plus a parade of meme accounts) churn out thousands of those posts, and the ones that resonate with aspirations or quick life hacks gain the most traction.
On the flip side, established authors and speakers — people like Napoleon Hill, Zig Ziglar, and Oprah — have real quotes that go viral too, but they’re often repackaged and misattributed. I’ve been burned sharing something that looked profound, only to have a friend point out it was wrongly credited. If you want to check origins, I use advanced Google searches, Quote Investigator, and library databases; they usually clear things up. Bottom line: the viral universe is a mix of genuine sages and anonymous content creators, and both deserve different kinds of respect.