Inspirational Quotations

It is God who is the ultimate reason of things, and the knowledge of God is no less the beginning of science than his essence and will are the beginning of beings.
—Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (German Philosopher, Mathematician)

The angel of the Family is Woman. Mother, wife, or sister, Woman is the caress of life, the soothing sweetness of affection shed over its toils, a reflection for the individual of the loving providence which watches over Humanity. In her there is treasure enough of consoling tenderness to allay every pain. Moreover for every one of us she is the initiator of the future. The mother’s first kiss teaches the child love; the first holy kiss of the woman he loves teaches man hope and faith in life; and love and faith create a desire for perfection and the power of reaching towards it step by step; create the future, in short, of which the living symbol is the child, link between us and the generations to come. Through her the Family, with its divine mystery of reproduction, points to Eternity.
—Giuseppe Mazzini (Italian Revolutionary)

A style is not a matter of camera angles or fancy footwork, it’s an expression, an accurate expression of your particular opinion.
—Karel Reisz (Czech-British Film Director)

There are two kinds of writers—the great ones who can give you truths, and the lesser ones, who can only give you themselves.
—Clifton Fadiman (American Intellectual)

Great men are rarely isolated mountain-peaks; they are the summits of ranges.
—Thomas Wentworth Higginson (American Reformer, Editor)

The best armor of old age is a well-spent life preceding it.
—Charlie Munger (American Investor, Philanthropist)

Man can never escape pleasure or pain, because his body, which is a product of his good or bad actions, is by nature transient. After pleasure pain, after pain pleasure: creatures cannot escape these two, as they cannot the succession of day and night….It is, therefore, that the Sages knowing that all is but illusion, remain steadfast and neither are aggrieved nor joyous for events unhappy or happy.
—Adhyatma Ramayana (Hindu Religious Text)

An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support.
—John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir (Scottish Novelist)

The only criterion for what is a fact is what it is rational to accept.
—Hilary Putnam (American Philosopher)

Steady as a clock, busy as a bee, and cheerful as a cricket.
—Martha Washington (American First Lady)

Everything you want is out there waiting for you to ask. Everything you want also wants you. But you have to take action to get it.
—Jack Canfield (American Self-Help Author)

He who seeks vengeance must dig two graves: one for his enemy and one for himself.
—Chinese Proverb

It’s precisely when people can’t see what it is that could make things turn down that risk is highest, since they tend not to price in risks they can’t see.
—Howard Marks (American Investor)

Time will always follow its rules. It will never transgress those boundaries it imposes on itself. Nobody can harm time. Hence, nobody can change what fate has in store for them.
—The Ramayana (Hindu Religious Text)

Equal opportunity is good, but special privilege is better.
—Anna Chennault (American Journalist)

Expecting good things to last and unwanted things to stay away forever is simply unrealistic, even when we are amid good karma and bounty aplenty.
—Lama Surya Das (American Buddhist Scholar)

The only thing that can save the world is the reclaiming of the awareness of the world. That’s what poetry does.
—Allen Ginsberg (American Poet)

There is no greater impediment to the advancement of knowledge than the ambiguity of words.
—Thomas Reid (Scottish Philosopher)

I suppose that everyone of us hopes secretly for immortality; to leave, I mean, a name behind him which will live forever in this world, whatever he may be doing, himself, in the next.
—A. A. Milne (British Humorist, Children’s Writer)

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.
—Galileo Galilei (Italian Astronomer)

The most important, the most fundamental and the deepest investigations are those that affect human life and activities most profoundly. Only those scientists who have laboured, not with the aim of producing this or that, but with the sole desire to advance knowledge ultimately prove to be the greatest benefactors of humanity.
—C. V. Raman (Indian Physicist)

Love, you are eternal like springtime.
—Juan Ramon Jimenez (Spanish Lyric Poet)

Drastic action can be costly, but it can be less expensive than continuing inaction.
—Richard Neustadt (American Historian)

The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.
—William James (American Philosopher)

If Fortune calls, offer him a seat.
—Yiddish Proverb

There is just one rule for politicians all over the world. Don’t say in Power what you say in Opposition: if you do you only have to carry out what the other fellows have found impossible.
—John Galsworthy (English Novelist, Playwright)

Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal.
—Philip Massinger (English Playwright)

Love, friendship and respect do not unite people as much as a common hatred for something.
—Anton Chekhov (Russian Short Story Writer)

Better one word less than one too many.
—Maltese Proverb

A cherefull look makes a dish a feast.
—George Herbert (Welsh Anglican Poet)

Enlightenment must come little by little—otherwise it would overwhelm.
—Idries Shah (Indian-born Sufi Author)

Whatever your grade or position, if you know how and when to speak, and when to remain silent, your chances of real success are proportionately increased.
—Ralph C. Smedley (Founder of Toastmasters)

The kindest and the happiest pair, will find occasion to forbear; find something every day they live, to pity, and perhaps forgive.
—William Cowper (English Anglican Poet)

The winning team has a dedication. It will have a core of veteran players who set the standards. They will not accept defeat.
—Merlin Olsen (American Sportsman)

Don’t simply retire from something; have something to retire to.
—Harry Emerson Fosdick (American Baptist Minister)

The important thing is to know how to take all things quietly.
—Michael Faraday (British Physicist, Chemist)

The moral virtues, without religion, are but cold, lifeless, and insipid; it is only religion which opens the mind to great conceptions, fills it with the most sublime ideas, and warns the soul with more than sensual pleasures.
—Joseph Addison (English Poet, Playwright, Politician)

One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of March thaw, is the Spring.
—Aldo Leopold (American Conservationist)

Happy is he who still loves something he loved in the nursery: he has not been broken in two by time; he is not two men, but one, and he has saved not only his soul but his life.
—G. K. Chesterton (English Journalist)

If you’re in the luckiest 1 per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 per cent.
—Warren Buffett (American Investor)

Inspiration is a slender river of brightness leaping from a vast and eternal knowledge, it exceeds reason more perfectly than reason exceeds the knowledge of the senses.
—Sri Aurobindo (Indian Mystic, Philosopher, Poet)

He who is prepared for the future and he who deals cleverly with any situation that may arise are both happy; but the fatalistic man who wholly depends on luck is ruined.
—Chanakya Neeti (Anthology of Indian Aphorisms)

Hard work is the key to success, so work diligently on any project you undertake. If you truly want to be successful, be prepared to give up your leisure time and work past 5 PM and on weekends. Also, have faith in yourself. If you come up with a new idea that you believe in, don’t allow other people to discourage you from pursuing it.
—Charles Lazarus (American Entrepreneur)

Love came down at Christmas;
Love all lovely, love divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
Stars and angels gave the sign.
—Christina Rossetti (English Poet)

Regularity in the hours of rising and retiring, perseverance in exercise, adaptation of dress to the variations of climate, simple and nutritious aliment, and temperance in all things are necessary branches of the regimen of health.
—Lydia H. Sigourney (American Poetaster, Author)

When a man has turned away from sin, reproach him no more.
—The Talmud (Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith)

Since we live in an age of innovation, a practical education must prepare a man for work that does not yet exist and cannot yet be clearly defined.
—Peter Drucker (Austrian-born Management Consultant)

If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.
—Dolly Parton (American Musician, Actress)

As with most fine things, chocolate has its season. There is a simple memory aid that you can use to determine whether it is the correct time to order chocolate dishes: any month whose name contains the letter A, E, or U is the proper time for chocolate.
—Sandra Boynton (American Humorist)

At the root of human responsibility is the concept of perfect, the urge to achieve it, the intelligence to find a path towards it, and the will to follow that path, if not to the end at least the distance needed to rise above individual limitations and environmental impediments.
—Aung San Suu Kyi (Burmese Political Activist)

All the mind’s activity is easy if it is not subjected to reality.
—Marcel Proust (French Novelist)

The average American worker has fifty interruptions a day, of which seventy percent have nothing to do with work.
—W. Edwards Deming (American Statistician)

I believe that a worthwhile life is defined by a kind of spiritual journey and a sense of obligation.
—Hillary Rodham Clinton (American Head of State)

Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light.
—Albert Schweitzer (French Theologian)

I would rather fail in a cause that will ultimately triumph than to triumph in a cause that will ultimately fail
—Woodrow Wilson (American Head of State)

We cast away priceless time in dreams, born of imagination, fed upon illusion, and put to death by reality.
—Judy Garland (American Actress, Singer)

The power to question is the basis of all human progress.
—Indira Gandhi (Indian Head of State)

Yoga is a science, and not a vague dreamy drifting or imagining. It is an applied science, a systematized collection of laws applied to bring about a definite end. It takes up the laws of psychology, applicable to the unfolding of the whole consciousness of man on every plane, in every world, and applies those rationally in a particular case. This rational application of the laws of unfolding consciousness acts exactly on the same principles that you see applied around you every day in other departments of science.
—Annie Besant (British-born Indian Theosophist)

To believe with certainty, we must begin by doubting.
—Polish Proverb

Do not say, “It is morning,” and dismiss it with a name of yesterday. See it for the first time as a newborn child that has no name.
—Rabindranath Tagore (Bengali Poet, Polymath)

Some plague the people with too long sermons; for the faculty of listening is a tender thing, and soon becomes weary and satiated.
—Martin Luther (German Protestant Theologian)

The only lasting beauty is the beauty of the heart.
—Muriel Strode (American Author, Businesswoman)

Haste is of the devil.
—The Holy Quran (Sacred Scripture of Islam)

Next to the assumption of power is the responsibility of relinquishing it.
—Benjamin Disraeli (British Head of State)

You can take no credit for beauty at sixteen. But if you are beautiful at sixty, it will be your soul’s own doing.
—Marie Stopes (British Author, Social Activist)

Treat with utmost respect your power of forming opinions, for this power alone guards you against making assumptions that are contrary to nature and judgments that overthrow the rule of reason.
—Marcus Aurelius (Emperor of Rome, Stoic Philosopher)

It is difficult to discern a serious threat to religious liberty from a room of silent, thoughtful schoolchildren.
—Sandra Day O’Connor (American Jurist)

Memories of our lives, of our works and our deeds will continue in others.
—Rosa Parks (American Civil Rights Leader)

To have joy one must share it. Happiness was born a twin.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (English Romantic Poet)

I am a liberated woman. And I do believe if a woman does equal work she should be paid equal money. But personally I am feminine and I do like male authority to lean on.
—Julie Andrews (British Actress, Singer)

Life is the flower for which love is the honey.
—Victor Hugo (French Novelist)

To understand Europe, you have to be a genius – or French.
—Madeleine Albright (Czech-born American Diplomat)

The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come.
—C. S. Lewis (Irish-born Author, Scholar)

The noblest motive is the public good.
—Virgil (Roman Poet)

An angry man opens his mouth and shuts his eyes.
—Cato the Elder (Marcus Porcius Cato) (Roman Statesman)

The double betrayal of a modern liberal arts education: it neither teaches you how to live nor how to work.
—Alain de Botton (Swiss-born British Philosopher)

My only objection to the custom of giving books as Christmas presents is perhaps the selfish one that it encourages and keeps in the game a number of writers who would be far better employed if they abandoned the pen and took to work.
—P. G. Wodehouse (English Novelist)

Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.
—John Stuart Mill (English Philosopher, Economist)

Laughter is one of the very privileges of reason, being confined to the human species.
—Thomas Carlyle (Scottish Historian, Essayist)

Don’t wait for moods. You’ll accomplish nothing.
—Pearl S. Buck (American Novelist)

I have been very happy, very rich, very beautiful, much adulated, very famous, and very unhappy.
—Brigitte Bardot (French Film Star)

I have a wife, I have sons; all these hostages have I given to fortune.
—F. L. Lucas (English Literary Critic)

I’m going to take the high road because the low road is so crowded.
—Mia Farrow (American Actress, Activist)

To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.
—George Washington (American Head of State)

The only sin is mediocrity.
—Martha Graham (American Choreographer)

Everybody knows if you are too careful you are so occupied in being careful that you are sure to stumble over something.
—Gertrude Stein (American Writer)

I don’t care what is written about me so long as it isn’t true.
—Katharine Hepburn (American Actor)

The essence of the liberal outlook is a belief that men should be free to question anything if they can support their questioning by solid arguments.
—Bertrand A. Russell (British Philosopher, Mathematician)

Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and whatever abysses nature leads, or you will learn nothing.
—Thomas Henry Huxley (English Biologist)

A daily guest is a great thief in the kitchen.
—Dutch Proverb

No fathers or mothers think their own children ugly; and this self-deceit is yet stronger with respect to the offspring of the mind.
—Miguel de Cervantes (Spanish Novelist)

I have no particular talent. I am merely inquisitive.
—Albert Einstein (German-born Theoretical Physicist)

It is necessary to try to surpass one’s self always; this occupation ought to last as long as life.
—Christina, Queen of Sweden (Swedish Monarch)

Through money or power you cannot solve all problems. The problem in the human heart must be solved first.
—The 14th Dalai Lama (Tibetan Buddhist Religious Leader)

What we do not see, what most of us never suspect of existing, is the silent but irresistible power which comes to the rescue of those who fight on in the face of discouragement.
—Napoleon Hill (American Author)

Macho doesn’t prove mucho.
—Zsa Zsa Gabor (Hungarian-born Film Actress)

To the person who does not know where he wants to go there is no favorable wind.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (Roman Stoic Philosopher)

Art is the human disposition of sensible or intelligible matter for an esthetic end.
—James Joyce (Irish Novelist)

There are only two creatures of value on the face of the earth: those with the commitment, and those who require the commitment of others.
—John Adams (American Head of State)

I believe in a lively disrespect for most forms of authority.
—Rita Mae Brown (American Writer, Feminist)

Nothing goes out of fashion sooner than a long dress with a very low neck.
—Coco Chanel (French Fashion Designer)

With wisdom grows doubt.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought.
—John Kenneth Galbraith (American Economist)

The idea shared by many that life is a vale of tears is just as false as the idea shared by the great majority, the idea to which youth and health and riches incline you, that life is a place of entertainment.
—Leo Tolstoy (Russian Novelist)

Fear is an uneasiness of the mind, upon the thought of a future evil likely to befall us.
—John Locke (English Philosopher)

There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.
—Niccolo Machiavelli (Florentine Political Philosopher)

Philosophy, rightly defined, is simply the love of wisdom.
—Cicero (Roman Philosopher)

People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them.
—George Bernard Shaw (Irish Playwright)

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.
—Carl Sagan (American Astronomer)

Where there is no counsel, the people perish; but in the multitude of counselors there is safety.
—The Holy Bible (Scripture in the Christian Faith)

Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.
—Frederic Chopin (Polish Composer, Pianist)

Truth is not introduced into the individual from without, but was within him all the time.
—Soren Kierkegaard (Danish Philosopher, Theologian)

The strength of criticism lies in the weakness of the thing criticized.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American Poet)

Difficult as it is really to listen to someone in affliction, it is just as difficult for him to know that compassion is listening to him.
—Simone Weil (French Philosopher, Political Activist)

There is no hell or heaven somewhere else, the hell is right here, when you are dishonest. The heaven is right here when you conduct yourself with honesty and truthfulness.
—Basava (Indian Hindu Philosopher)

By all means marry. If you get a good wife you will become happy, and if you get a bad one you will become a philosopher.
—Socrates (Anceient Greek Philosopher)

The Buddha’s last words instructed us to be heedful—to see our actions as important and to keep that importance in mind at all times.
—Thanissaro Bhikkhu (American Buddhist Monk)

Most of us can read the writing on the wall; we just assume it’s addressed to someone else.
—Ivern Ball (American Writer, Aphorist)

There are lots of things that you can brush under the carpet about yourself until you’re faced with somebody whose needs won’t be put off.
—Angela Carter (English Novelist, Short Story Writer)

An intelligent person spends his time by enjoying poetry and scientific literature. In contrast, a fool spends his time in his addiction to bad habits, laziness or in some kind of quarrel.
—The Hitopadesha (Indian Collection of Fables)

Death is our eternal companion. It is always to our left, an arm’s length behind us. Death is the only wise adviser that a warrior has. Whenever he feels that everything is going wrong and he’s about to be annihilated, he can turn to his death and ask if that is so. His death will tell him that he is wrong, that nothing really matters outside its touch. His death will tell him, I haven’t touched you yet.’
—Carlos Castaneda (Peruvian-born American Anthropologist)

We are slow to believe that which if believed would hurt our feelings.
—Louis Nizer (American Lawyer, Author)

It is base to filch a purse, daring to embezzle a million, but it is great beyond measure to steal a crown. The sin lessens as the guilt increases.
—Friedrich Schiller (German Poet)

Most decisions should probably be made with somewhere around 70% of the information you wish you had. If you wait for 90%, in most cases, you’re probably being slow.
—Jeff Bezos (American Businessman)

Understanding is the first step to acceptance, and only with acceptance can there be recovery.
—J. K. Rowling (English Novelist)

All formal dogmatic religions are fallacious and must never be accepted by self-respecting persons as final.
—Hypatia of Alexandria (Greek Philosopher, Mathematician)

They learn in suffering what they teach in song.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (English Poet)

Let your self go. If you can approach the world’s complexities, both its glories and its horrors, with an attitude of humble curiosity, acknowledging that however deeply you have seen, you have only scratched the surface, you will find worlds within worlds, beauties you could not heretofore imagine, and your own mundane preoccupations will shrink to proper size, not all that important in the greater scheme of things.
—Daniel C. Dennett (American Philosopher, Atheist)

When you lose a couple of times, it makes you realize how difficult it is to win.
—Steffi Graf (German Tennis Player)

If you steal something small you are a petty thief, but if you steal millions you are a gentleman of society.
—Greek Proverb

What is the price of experience?. Do men buy it for a song?. Or wisdom for a dance in the street?. No, it is bought with the price of all the man hath, his house, his wife, his children.
—William Blake (English Poet)

You will not become a saint through other people’s sins.
—Anton Chekhov (Russian Short Story Writer)

Common sense is anything but common.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher, Author)

A person who knows little likes to talk, and one who knows much mostly keeps silent. This is because a person who knows little thinks that everything he knows is important, and wants to tell everyone. A person who knows much also knows that there is much more he doesn’t know. That’s why he speaks only when it is necessary to speak, and when he is not asked questions, he keeps his silence.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (French Philosopher)

The more you adapt, the more interesting you are.
—Martha Stewart (American Businesswoman)

It’s the heart afraid of breaking that never learns to dance.
—Bette Midler (American Actress, Singer)

The most powerful weapon to conquer the devil is humility. For, as he does not know at all how to employ it, neither does he know how to defend himself from it.
—Vincent de Paul (French Catholic Saint)

Talking and eloquence are not the same.—To speak and to speak well are two things.—A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.
—Ben Jonson (English Dramatist)

In a choice between bad company and loneliness, the second is preferable.
—Spanish Proverb

The more we sweat in peace the less we bleed in war.
—Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit (Indian Politician, Diplomat)

My definition of a philosopher is of a man up in a balloon, with his family and friends holding the ropes which confine him to earth and trying to haul him down
—Louisa May Alcott (American Novelist)

Investors have very short memories.
—Roman Abramovich (Russian-Israeli Businessman)

Rarely promise, but, if lawful, constantly perform.
—William Penn (American Entrepreneur)

Destroy the seed of evil, or it will grow up to your ruin.
—Aesop (Greek Fabulist)

Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this: That you are dreadfully like other people.
—James Russell Lowell (American Poet, Critic)

Better to die than to live on with a bad reputation.
—Vietnamese Proverb

Science is but an image of the truth.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

By all means let’s be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
—Richard Dawkins (British Ethologist, Atheist)

Religion is a byproduct of fear. For much of human history, it may have been a necessary evil, but why was it more evil than necessary? Isn’t killing people in the name of God a pretty good definition of insanity?
—Arthur C. Clarke (English Science-fiction Writer)