Inspirational Quotations

Laziness erodes a person of his enthusiasm and energy. As a result the person loses all opportunities and finally becomes dejected and frustrated. The worst thing is that he stops believing in himself.
—The Vedas (Sacred Books of Hinduism)

I urge you to work together in promoting a true, worldwide ethical mobilization which, beyond all differences of religious or political convictions, will spread and put into practice a shared ideal of fraternity and solidarity, especially with regard to the poorest and those most excluded.
—Pope Francis (Religious Leader)

I guess the definition of a lunatic is a man surrounded by them.
—Ezra Pound (American Poet, Critic)

If thou art rich, thou art poor; for, like an ass, whose back with ingots bows, thou bearest thy heavy riches but a journey, and death unloads thee.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

The idea of caring that someone is making money faster [than you] is one of the deadly sins. Envy is a really stupid sin because it’s the only one you could never possibly have any fun at. There’s a lot of pain and no fun. Why would you want to get on that trolley?
—Charlie Munger (American Investor, Philanthropist)

Look for the good, not the evil, in the conduct of members of the family.
—Yiddish Proverb

We do not succeed in changing things according to our desire, but gradually our desire changes.
—Marcel Proust (French Novelist)

Fooled once shame on you, fooled twice shame on me.
—U.S. Proverb

Love, like fire, goes out without fuel.
—Mikhail Lermontov (Russian Novelist, Poet)

Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration—courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and, above all, love of the truth.
—H. L. Mencken (American Journalist, Literary Critic)

A wonderful thing about true laughter is that it just destroys any kind of system of dividing people.
—John Cleese (British Comic Actor, Writer)

It’s easier to be original and foolish than original and wise.
—Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (German Philosopher, Mathematician)

I’ve seen a look in dogs’ eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts.
—John Steinbeck (American Novelist)

There are three things which the superior man guards against. In youth … lust. When he is strong … quarrelsomeness. When he is old … covetousness.
—Confucius (Chinese Philosopher)

An original idea. That can’t be too hard. The library must be full of them.
—Stephen Fry (English Actor, Writer)

We have to encourage the future we want rather than trying to prevent the future we fear.
—Bill Joy (American Computer Engineer)

A man’s genius is always, in the beginning of life, as much unknown to himself as to others; and it is only after frequent trials, attended with success, that he dares think himself equal to those undertakings in which those who have succeeded have fixed the admiration of mankind.
—David Hume (Scottish Philosopher, Historian)

The prospect of success in achieving our most cherished dream is not without its terrors. Who is more deprived and alone than the man who has achieved his dream?
—Brendan Behan (Irish Poet)

There is no original truth, only original error.
—Gaston Bachelard (French Philosopher)

Gratitude is not only the memory but the homage of the heart rendered to God for his goodness.
—Nathaniel Parker Willis (American Poet, Playwright)

War is like love, it always finds a way.
—Bertolt Brecht (German Poet)

As rivers, when they overflow, drown those grounds and ruin those husbandmen, which, whilst they flowed calmly betwixt their banks they fertilized and enriched, so our passions, when they grow exorbitant and unruly, destroy those virtues to which they might be very serviceable whilst kept within their bounds.
—Robert Boyle (Irish Scientist, Philosopher)

Ideal conversation must be an exchange of thought, and not, as many of those who worry most about their shortcomings believe, an eloquent exhibition of wit or oratory.
—Emily Post (American Writer, Socialite)

There is nothing so strong or safe in an emergency of life as the simple truth.
—Charles Dickens (English Novelist)

I believe love produces a certain flowering of the whole personality which nothing else can achieve.
—Ivan Turgenev (Russian Novelist, Playwright)

Mens fortunes are on a wheel, which in its turning suffers not the same man to prosper for ever.
—Herodotus (Ancient Greek Historian)

Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.
—Toni Morrison (American Novelist)

When you give power to an executive you do not know who will be filling that position when the time of crisis comes.
—Ernest Hemingway (American Author)

Land and sea, weakness and decline are great separators, but death is the great divorcer for ever.
—John Keats (English Poet)

If you can keep your wits about you while all others are losing theirs, and blaming you… . The world will be yours and everything in it, what’s more, you’ll be a man, my son.
—Rudyard Kipling (British Children’s Books Writer)

The more I see the less I know for sure.
—John Lennon (British Singer)

No one can become rich by the efforts of only their toil, but only by the discovery of some method of taxing the labor of others.
—John Ruskin (English Art Critic)

The worst superstition is to consider our own tolerable.
—Doris Lessing (British Novelist, Poet)

It is a delicious moment, certainly, that of being well nestled in bed and feeling that you shall drop gently to sleep. The good is to come, not past; the limbs are tired enough to render the remaining in one posture delightful; the labor of the day is gone. A gentle failure of the perceptions creeps over you; the spirit of consciousness disengages itself once more, and with slow and hushing degrees, like a mother detaching her hand from that of a sleeping child, the mind seems to have a balmy lid closing over it, like the eye—it is closed—the mysterious spirit has gone to take its airy rounds.
—Leigh Hunt (British Author)

He who esteems trifles for themselves is a trifler; he who esteems them for the conclusions to be drawn from them, or the advantage to which they can be put, is a philosopher.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (British Author, Politician)

My soul is awakened, my spirit is soaring.
—Anne Bronte (English Novelist, Poet)

What is it which is bought dearly, offered for nothing, and then most often refused? Experience, old people’s experience.
—Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) (Danish Novelist, Short-story Writer)

Power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society.
—Michel Foucault (French Philosopher)

When strangers start acting like neighbors… communities are reinvigorated.
—Ralph Nader (American Activist)

No man can pass into eternity, for he is already in it.
—Frederic William Farrar (British Theological Writer)

Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power.
—Rene Descartes (French Mathematician, Philosopher)

For him who has no concentration, there is no tranquility.
—The Bhagavad Gita (Hindu Scripture)

There is no help for you outside of yourself; you are the creator of the universe. Like the silkworm you have built a cocoon around yourself… . Burst your own cocoon and come out as the beautiful butterfly, as the free soul. Then alone you will see Truth.
—Swami Vivekananda (Indian Hindu Mystic)

In studying the way, realizing it is hard; once you have realized it, preserving it is hard. When you can preserve it, putting it into practice is hard.
—Zen Proverb (Japanese School of Mahayana Buddhism)

People are more inclined to be drawn in if their leader has a compelling vision. Great leaders help people get in touch with their own aspirations and then will help them forge those aspirations into a personal vision.
—John Kotter (American Management Consultant)

How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing. It seems still more impossible that a quarrel which has already been settled in principle should be the subject of war.
—Neville Chamberlain (British Head of State)

The people have a right to the truth as they have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
—Epictetus (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

There is not much sense in suffering, since drugs can be given for pain, itching, and other discomforts. The belief has long died that suffering here on earth will be rewarded in heaven. Suffering has lost its meaning.
—Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (American Psychiatrist)

Don’t be afraid of missing opportunities. Behind every failure is an opportunity somebody wishes they had missed.
—Lily Tomlin (American Comedy Actress)

Make revolution a parent of settlement, and not a nursery of future revolutions.
—Edmund Burke (British Philosopher, Statesman)

All of us have bad luck and good luck. The man who persists through the bad luck—who keeps right on going—is the man who is there when the good luck comes—and is ready to receive it.
—Robert Collier (American Self-Help Author)

There is nothing that says more about its creator than the work itself.
—Akira Kurosawa (Japanese Film Director)

The war is lost for too much advice.
—Sicilian Proverb

People with honorary awards are looked upon with disfavor. Would you let an honorary mechanic fix your brand-new Mercedes?
—Neil Simon (American Playwright)

Love comes like lightning, and disappears the same way. If you are lucky, it strikes you right. If not, you’ll spend your life yearning for a man you can’t have.
—Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (Indian-born American Novelist)

To each individual the world will take on a different connotation of meaning-the important lies in the desire to search for an answer.
—T. S. Eliot (American-born British Poet)

From a distance it is something; and nearby it is nothing.
—Jean de La Fontaine (French Poet)

My God, give me neither poverty nor riches, but whatsoever it may be thy will to give, give me, with it, a heart that knows humbly to acquiesce in what is thy will.
—Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (German Writer)

Fortune may find a pot, but your own industry must make it boil.
—John Gay (English Poet, Dramatist)

War is a curtain of dense black fabric across all the hopes and kindliness of mankind. Yet always it has let through some gleams of light, and not–I am not dreaming–it grows threadbare, and here and there and at a thousand points the light is breaking through.
—H. G. Wells (English Novelist, Historian)

I’m a perfectionist, so I can drive myself mad – and other people, too. At the same time, I think that’s one of the reasons I’m successful. Because I really care about what I do.
—Michelle Pfeiffer (American Film Actress)

The one happiness is to shut one’s door upon a little room, with a table before one, and to create; to create life in that isolation from life.
—Eleonora Duse (Italian Actress)

One-half of the people of this nation to-day are utterly powerless to blot from the statute books an unjust law, or to write there a new and a just one.
—Susan B. Anthony (American Civil Rights Leader)

True love is a discipline in which each divines the secret self of the other and refuses to believe in the mere daily self.
—William Butler Yeats (Irish Poet)

Nonviolence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. Its seat is in the heart, and it must be an inseparable part of our being.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (Indian Hindu Political leader)

One of the worst forms of mental suffering is boredom, not knowing what to do with oneself and one’s life. Even if man had no monetary, or any other reward, he would be eager to spend his energy in some meaningful way because he could not stand the boredom which inactivity produces.
—Erich Fromm (German Social Philosopher)

The more you struggle to live, the less you live. Give up the notion that you must be sure of what you are doing. Instead, surrender to what is real within you, for that alone is sure. As stars high above earth, you are above everything distressing. But you must awaken to it. Wake up!
—Baruch Spinoza (Dutch Philosopher)

Sure the shovel and tongs
To each other belongs.
—Samuel Lover (Irish Writer, Artist, Songwriter)

Be a good human being, a warm-hearted affectionate person. That is my fundamental belief. Having a sense of caring, a feeling of compassion will bring happiness of peace of mind to oneself and automatically create a positive atmosphere.
—The 14th Dalai Lama (Tibetan Buddhist Religious Leader)

The wise understand by themselves; fools follow the reports of others.
—Tibetan Proverb

We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.
—Carl Sagan (American Astronomer)

The difference between involvement and commitment is like ham and eggs. The chicken is involved; the pig is committed.
—Martina Navratilova (Czech-born American Sportsperson)

Marriage is three parts love and seven parts forgiveness of sins.
—Laozi (Chinese Philosopher)

Spring makes everything young again except man.
—Charles F. Richter (American Physicist, Geologist)

Faith is never identical with piety.
—Karl Barth (Swiss Protestant Theologian)

The test of a man or woman’s breeding is how they behave in a quarrel.
—George Bernard Shaw (Irish Playwright)

You have to be willing to be misunderstood if you’re going to innovate.
—Jeff Bezos (American Businessman)

The organizations of men, like men themselves, seem subject to deafness, near-sightedness, lameness, and involuntary cruelty. We seem tragically unable to help one another, to understand one another.
—John Cheever (American Novelist)

Was it a friend or foe that spread these lies? Nay, who but infants question in such wise, ’twas one of my most intimate enemies.
—Dante Gabriel Rossetti (British Poet, Artist)

It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
—Ursula K. Le Guin (Science-fiction writer)

There is something beyond our mind which abides in silence within our mind. It is the supreme mystery beyond thought. Let one’s mind and one’s subtle body rest upon that and not rest on anything else.
—The Upanishads (Sacred Books of Hinduism)

For good and evil in our actions meet; wicked is not much worse than indiscreet.
—John Donne (English Poet, Cleric)

When we start deceiving ourselves into thinking not that we want something or need something, not that it is a pragmatic necessity for us to have it, but that it is a moral imperative that we have it, then is when we join the fashionable madmen, and then is when the thin whine of hysteria is heard in the land, and then is when we are in bad trouble.
—Joan Didion (American Essayist, Novelist, Memoirist)

If a man be self-controlled, truthful, wise, and resolute, is there aught that can stay out of reach of such a man?
—The Panchatantra (Indian Collection of Fables)

Charlie Munger says that he wants to shoot fish in a barrel, but only after all the water has been let out…. When I look at the people that I would normally think of as very good investors, basically, those folks are really good investors but they aren’t fishing where the fish are. And it doesn’t matter how good of a fisherman you are if you’re not fishing where the fish are.
—Mohnish Pabrai (Indian-American Investor, Philanthropist)

Let nothing be done in your life, which will cause you fear if it becomes known to your neighbor.
—Epicurus (Greek Philosopher)

Power should be reserved for weightlifting and boats, and leadership really involves responsibility.
—Herb Kelleher (American Entrepreneur)

The tongue can conceal the truth, but the eyes never! You’re asked an unexpected question, you don’t even flinch, it takes just a second to get yourself under control, you know just what you have to say to hide the truth, and you speak very convincingly, and nothing in your face twitches to give you away. But the truth, alas, has been disturbed by the question, and it rises up from the depths of your soul to flicker in your eyes and all is lost.
—Mikhail Bulgakov (Russian Novelist, Dramatist)

To get into the best society nowadays, one has either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

The person who lives by hope will die by despair.
—Italian Proverb

What’s true is that everyone is uncomfortable with expressing anger and being critical. Anger and criticism generates rejection. And everyone hates rejection.
—Warren Farrell (American Educator, Activist)

We consume our tomorrows fretting about our yesterdays.
—Persius (Roman Poet)

Choose rather to want less, than to have more.
—Thomas a Kempis (German Religious Writer)

When you’re the victim of the behavior, it’s black and white; when you’re the perpetrator, there are a million shades of gray.
—Laura Schlessinger (American Broadcaster)

At every word a reputation dies.
—Alexander Pope (English Poet)

One seeks to make the loved one entirely happy, or, if that cannot be, entirely wretched.
—Jean de La Bruyere (French Author)

It is the individual’s task to differentiate himself from all the others and stand on his own feet. All collective identities… interfere with the fulfillment of this task. Such collective identities are crutches for the lame, shields for the timid, beds for the lazy, nurseries for the irresponsible….
—Carl Gustav Jung (Swiss Psychologist)

Reading is not just about the content of the text. It’s allocating quiet time / space to think and reflect on the issues raised by the text.
—Ben Casnocha (American Entrepreneur, Investor)

Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.
—Theodore Roosevelt (American Head of State)

We still have it in our power to rise above the fears, imagined and real, and to shoulder the great burdens which destiny has placed upon us, not for our country alone, but for the benefit of all the world. That is the only destiny worthy of America.
—Helen Keller (American Author)

If there is a single goal for all civilization, it does not mean that all shall speak a common tongue or profess a common creed, or that all shall live under a single government, or all shall follow an unchanging pattern in customs and manners. The unity of civilization is not to be sought in uniformity but in harmony. Every great culture is due to the blending of peoples of different ideals and temperaments. Egypt and Babylon, India and China, Greece and Rome, testify to this truth. Today the circle of those who participate in the cultural synthesis has become wider and includes practically the whole world. The faith of the future is in co-operation and not identification, in accommodation to fellowmen and not imitation of them, in toleration and not absolutism.
—Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (Indian Philosopher, Political Leader)

You can jail a Revolutionary, but you can’t jail the Revolution.
—Huey P. Newton (American Political Activist)

Man is a marvelous curiosity … he thinks he is the Creator’s pet … he even believes the Creator loves him; has a passion for him; sits up nights to admire him; yes, and watch over him and keep him out of trouble. He prays to him and thinks He listens. Isn’t it a quaint idea?
—Robert G. Ingersoll (American Lawyer, Orator, Agnostic)

You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.
—James Baldwin (American Novelist, Social Critic)

We must welcome the future, remembering that soon it will be the past; and we must respect the past, knowing that once it was all that was humanly possible.
—George Santayana (Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher)

Work spares us from three great evils: boredom, vice and need.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher, Author)

Man needs his difficulties because they are necessary to enjoy success.
—A. P. J. Abdul Kalam (Indian Head of State, Scientist)

Great political questions stir the deepest nature of one-half the nation, but they pass far above and over the heads of the other half.
—Wendell Phillips (American Abolitionist)

More than anything else, I believe it’s our decisions, not the conditions of our lives, that determine our destiny.
—Tony Robbins (American Self-Help Author)

To flatter and follow others, without being flattered and followed in turn, is but a state of half enjoyment.
—Jane Austen (English Novelist)

History cannot give us a program for the future, but it can give us a fuller understanding of ourselves, and of our common humanity, so that we can better face the future.
—Robert Penn Warren (American Novelist, Poet)

I am beginning to learn that it is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.
—Laura Ingalls Wilder (American Author of Children’s Novels)

The painter constructs, the photographer discloses.
—Susan Sontag (American Writer, Philosopher)

The last three or four reps is what makes the muscle grow. This area of pain divides the champion from someone else who is not a champion. That’s what most people lack, having the guts to go on and just say they’ll go through the pain no matter what happens.
—Arnold Schwarzenegger (Austrian-American Actor, Politician)

The virtuous (when injured) grieve not so much for their own pain as for the loss of happiness incurred by their injurers.
—The Jataka Tales (Genre of Buddhist Literature)

It’s never too late—never too late to start over, never too late to be happy.
—Jane Fonda (American Actress)

An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest. Learning is to the Studious, and Riches to the Careful. If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him.
—John C. Bogle (American Mutual Fund Pioneer)

Informed decision-making comes from a long tradition of guessing and then blaming others for inadequate results.
—Scott Adams (American Cartoonist)

Art is not a study of positive reality, it is the seeking for ideal truth.
—George Sand (French Novelist, Dramatist)

Our notions of happiness entrap us. We forget that they are just ideas. Our idea of happiness can prevent us from actually being happy. We fail to see the opportunity for joy that is right in front of us when we are caught in a belief that happiness should take a particular form.
—Thich Nhat Hanh (Vietnamese Buddhist Religious Leader)

I have already settled it for myself, so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free.
—Georgia O’Keeffe (American Painter)

We forget: In life, it doesn’t matter what happens to you or where you came from. It matters what you do with what happens and what you’ve been given.
—Ryan Holiday (American Author)

The shortest route often has the steepest hills.
—Caroline Schoeder (American Aphorist)

The first time you marry for love, the second for money, and the third for companionship.
—Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (American First Lady)

It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (American Novelist)

During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so. The Bible commanded that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church, after doing its duty in but a lazy and indolent way for 800 years, gathered up its halters, thumbscrews, and firebrands, and set about its holy work in earnest. She worked hard at it night and day during nine centuries and imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood. Then it was discovered that there as no such thing as witches, and never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry.
—Mark Twain (American Humorist)