Inspirational Quotations

Prayer does not use up artificial energy, doesn’t burn up any fossil fuel, doesn’t pollute. Neither does song, neither does love, neither does the dance.
—Margaret Mead (American Cultural Anthropologist)

The only thing money gives you is the freedom of not worrying about money.
—Johnny Carson (American Comedian)

this is a hard world to be ludicrous in, with so many human beings so reluctant to laugh, so incapable of thought, so eager to believe and snarl and hate. So many people wanted to believe me! Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile!
—Kurt Vonnegut (American Novelist)

You have to make more noise than anybody else, you have to make yourself more obtrusive than anybody else, you have to fill all the papers more than anybody else, in fact you have to be there all the time and see that they do not snow you under, if you are really going to get your reform realized.
—Emmeline Pankhurst (British Suffragist)

Literature does not exist in a vacuum. Writers as such have a definite social function exactly proportional to their ability as writers. This is their main use.
—Ezra Pound (American Poet, Critic)

I think all women go through periods where we hate this about ourselves, we don’t like that. It’s great to get to a place where you dismiss anything you’re worried about. I find flaws attractive. I find scars attractive.
—Angelina Jolie (American Actor)

A horse that can count to 10 is a remarkable horse—not a remarkable mathematician.
—Warren Buffett (American Investor)

Smart is like vanilla ice cream. There are thousands of really smart people. I value eccentricity, weirdness, interestingness. Black swans.
—Ben Casnocha (American Entrepreneur, Investor)

Don’t allow your animal nature to rule your reason.
—Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi (Persian Muslim Mystic)

Classes struggle, some classes triumph, others are eliminated. Such is history; such is the history of civilization for thousands of years.
—Mao Zedong (Chinese Statesman)

There are people who exist in this world not like entities but like the speckles or spots on something.
—Nikolai Gogol (Russian Novelist, Dramatist)

Good birth is a fine thing, but the merit is our ancestors.
—Plutarch (Greek Biographer)

A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us.
—W. H. Auden (British-born American Poet)

A man of sense may love like a madman, but not as a fool.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (French Writer)

But whoever gives birth to useless children, what would you say of him except that he has bred sorrows for himself, and furnishes laughter for his enemies.
—Sophocles (Ancient Greek Dramatist)

Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity.
—John F. Kennedy (American Head of State)

The very strength that protects the heart from injury is the strength that prevents the heart from enlarging to its intended greatness within. The song of the voice is sweet, but the song of the heart is the pure voice of heaven.
—Khalil Gibran (Lebanese-born American Philosopher)

To kill a relative of whom you are tired is something. But to inherit his property afterwards, that is genuine pleasure.
—Honore de Balzac (French Novelist)

There is nothing nobler or more admirable than when two people who see eye to eye keep house as man and wife, confounding their enemies and delighting their friends.
—Homer (Ancient Greek Poet)

The really frightening thing about middle age is the knowledge that you’ll grow out of it.
—Doris Day (American Actor)

He who has never learned to obey cannot be a good commander.
—Aristotle (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

Knowledge, like food, must be taken within limits. You must know only as much as you need, and not more.
—R. K. Narayan (Indian Novelist, Short-story Writer)

Life is obstinate and clings closest where it is most hated.
—Mary Shelley (English Novelist)

The only God resides within us: It is our wisest attitudes and actions.
—Marty Nemko (American Career Coach, Author)

A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on an installment plan.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.
—Nathaniel Hawthorne (American Novelist)

We are the offspring of approval-seekers. We want approval so badly that we vacillate between conforming to get it and standing out (being outstanding) to get it.
—Warren Farrell (American Educator, Activist)

I count religion but a childish toy, and hold there is no sin but innocence.
—Christopher Marlowe (English Playwright)

Illusory joy is often worth more than genuine sorrow.
—Rene Descartes (French Mathematician, Philosopher)

Judgement can be acquired only by acute observation, by actual experience in the school of life, by ceaseless alertness to learn from others, by study of the activities of men who have made notable marks, by striving to analyze the everyday play of causes and effects, by constant study of human nature.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

I think the hardest thing is losing weight. That’s the hardest thing more than anything else.
—Aretha Franklin (American Gospel And Soul Singer)

Short-term thinking is at the root of most of our problems, whether it’s in business, politics, investing, or work.
—Morgan Housel (American Financial Journalist, Investor)

Intentions often melt in the face of unexpected opportunity.
—Shirley Temple (American Actress, Diplomat)

Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the ‘transcendent’ and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don’t be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you.
—Christopher Hitchens (Anglo-American Social Critic)

When conscience is pure it triumphs o’er bitter malice, o’er dark calumny; but if there be in it one single stain, reproaches beat like hammers in the ears.
—Alexander Pushkin (National Poet of Russia)

Yesterday’s drunkenness will not quench today’s thirst.
—Egyptian Proverb

Insurrection is an art, and like all arts has its own laws.
—Leon Trotsky (Russian Revolutionary)

Time is a great healer, but a poor beautician.
—Lucille S. Harper (American Freelance Writer)

Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.
—G. K. Chesterton (English Journalist)

Next to faith in God, is faith in labor.
—Christian Nestell Bovee (American Writer, Aphorist)

If boyhood and youth are but vanity, must it not be our ambition to become men?
—Vincent van Gogh (Dutch Painter)

You must have this charm to reach the pinnacle. It is made of everything and of nothing, the striving will, the look, the walk, the proportions of the body sound of the voice, the ease of the gestures. It is not at all necessary to be handsome or to be pretty; all that is needful is charm.
—Sarah Bernhardt (French Actress)

To abdicate from the rule of reason and substitute for it an authentication of belief by the intentness and degree of conviction with which we hold it can be perilous and destructive. Religious beliefs give a spurious spiritual dimension to tribal enmities … It goes with the passionate intensity and deep conviction of the truth of a religious belief, and of course of the importance of the superstitious observances that go with it, that we should want others to share it—and the only certain way to cause a religious belief to be held by everyone is to liquidate nonbelievers. The price in blood and tears that mankind generally has had to pay for the comfort and spiritual refreshment that religion has brought to a few has been too great to justify our entrusting moral accountancy to religious belief.
—Peter Medawar (British Immunologist, Writer)

I was born not knowing and have only had a little time to change that here and there.
—Richard Feynman (American Physicist)

It is difficult to steal when the boss is a thief.
—Icelandic Proverb

False notes [on the piano] are human. Why does everything have to be perfect? You know, perfection itself is imperfection.
—Vladimir Horowitz (Russian-born American Pianist)

Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, “Make me feel important.” Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life.
—Mary Kay Ash (American Entrepreneur)

Any device whatever by which one frees himself from fear is a natural good.
—Epicurus (Greek Philosopher)

Believe that with your feelings and your work you are taking part in the greatest; the more strongly you cultivate this belief, the more will reality and the world go forth from it.
—Rainer Maria Rilke (Austrian Poet)

The especial genius of women I believe to be electrical in movement, intuitive in function, spiritual in tendency.
—Margaret Fuller (American Journalist, Feminist)

If you want the future to be different from the present, study the past.
—Baruch Spinoza (Dutch Philosopher)

The young leading the young, is like the blind leading the blind; they will both fall into the ditch.
—Earl of Chesterfield (English Statesman, Man of Letters)

No man who ever lived knows any more about the hereafter … than you and I; and all religion … is simply evolved out of chicanery, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
—Edgar Allan Poe (American Poet)

Fate is shaped half by expectation, half by inattention.
—Amy Tan (Chinese-American Novelist)

Take responsiblilty for yourself because no one’s going to take responsibility for you.
—Tyra Banks (American Supermodel)

I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naive or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.
—Anais Nin (French-American Essayist)

Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.
—Plato (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

The business of business is not business. The business of business is people.
—Herb Kelleher (American Entrepreneur)

A Jewish man with parents alive is a fifteen-year-old boy, and will remain a fifteen-year-old boy until they die!
—Philip Roth (American Novelist, Short-story Writer)

Work is love made visible. To bring into vivid expression your love for others
is work – to drag yourself through each day’s schedule, morose, unhappy,
miserable, is labor. Work alone brings achievement, never labor.
Grow up to be a man of sheer achievements through loving work.
—Swami Chinmayananda (Indian Hindu Teacher)

You have striven so hard, and so long, to compel life. Can’t you now slowly change, and let life slowly drift into you … let the invisible life steal into you and slowly possess you.
—D. H. Lawrence (English Novelist)

People would rather believe than know.
—E. O. Wilson (American Zoologist)

We need not be afraid to touch, to feel, to show emotion. The easiest thing in the world is to be what you are, what you feel. The hardest thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don’t let them put you in that position.
—Leo Buscaglia (American Motivational Speaker)

It is said that desire is a product of the will, but the converse is in fact true: will is a product of desire.
—Denis Diderot (French Philosopher, Writer)

Positive thinking is hard. Worth it, though.
—Seth Godin (American Entrepreneur)

A man who correctly guesses a woman’s age may be smart, but he’s not very bright.
—Lucille Ball (American Actor)

Imitation is a necessity of human nature.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (American Jurist, Author)

What is the people but a herd confused, a miscellaneous rabble, who extol things vulgar, and well weigh’d, scarce worth the praise? they praise and they admire they know not what, and know not whom, but as one leads the other.
—John Milton (English Poet)

When roused to rage the maddening populace storms, their fury-like a rolling flame, bursts forth unquenchable; but give its violence ways, it spends itself, and as its force abates, learns to obey and yields it to your will.
—Euripides (Ancient Greek Dramatist)

A man is not finished when he’s defeated; he’s finished when he quits.
—Richard Nixon (American Head of State)

In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?
—Augustine of Hippo (Roman-African Christian Philosopher)

The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.
—Karl Marx (German Philosopher, Economist)

One’s feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into action … which bring results.
—Florence Nightingale (English Nurse)

Man and his deed are two distinct things. Whereas a good deed should call forth approbation, and a wicked deed disapprobation, the doer of the deed, whether good or wicked always deserves respect or pity as the case may be.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (Indian Hindu Political leader)

Every good act is charity. A man’s true wealth hereafter is the good that he does in this world to his fellows.
—Moliere (French Playwright)

Don’t give up. Courage is my conviction.
—Dhirubhai Ambani (Indian Businessperson)

A silent mouth is melodious.
—Irish Proverb

Fear of things invisible is the natural seed of that which every one in himself calleth religion.
—Thomas Hobbes (English Political Philosopher)

Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.
—Adlai Stevenson (American Diplomat)

One very important aspect of motivation is the willingness to stop and to look at things that no one else has bothered to look at. This simple process of focusing on things that are normally taken for granted is a powerful source of creativity…
—Edward de Bono (British Psychologist, Writer)

You must accept that you might fail; then, if you do your best and still don’t win, at least you can be satisfied that you’ve tried. If you don’t accept failure as a possibility, you don’t set high goals, and you don’t branch out, you don’t try–you don’t take the risk.
—Rosalynn Carter (American Humanitarian, First Lady)

To be a man is, precisely, to be responsible.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery (French Novelist, Aviator)

Our words should be purrs instead of hisses.
—Kathrine Palmer Peterson (American Author of Grief Books)

Great art picks up where nature ends.
—Marc Chagall (French Painter, Graphic Artist)

We must learn two things. One is to see ourselves as others see us. We apply one yardstick when we wish to appraise other people. Secondly, we cannot succeed in anything if we act in fear of other people’s opinions.
—Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari (Indian Statesman, Author)

We have met the enemy and it is us.
—Walt Kelly (American Cartoonist)

Give neither advice nor salt, until you are asked for it.
—English Proverb

A lot of success in life and business comes from knowing what you want to avoid: early death, a bad marriage, etc.
—Charlie Munger (American Investor, Philanthropist)

An idea, like a ghost, according to the common notion of ghosts, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself.
—Charles Dickens (English Novelist)

There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

Solitude is the salt of personhood. It brings out the authentic flavor of every experience.
—May Sarton (American Children’s Books Writer)

An idea not coupled with action will never get any bigger than the brain cell it occupied.
—Arnold Glasow (American Businessman)

Human beings are compelled to live within a lie, but they can be compelled to do so only because they are in fact capable of living in this way. Therefore not only does the system alienate humanity, but at the same time alienated humanity supports this system as its own involuntary master plan, as a degenerate image of its own degeneration, as a record of people’s own failure as individuals.
—Vaclav Havel (Czech Dramatist, Statesman)

In wonder all philosophy began; in wonder it ends; and admiration fills up the interspace.—But the first is the wonder of ignorance; the last is the parent of adoration.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (English Poet)

The driver knows how much the ox can carry, and keeps the ox from being overloaded. You know your way and your state of mind. Do not carry too much.
—Zen Proverb (Japanese School of Mahayana Buddhism)

I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.
—Margaret Thatcher (British Head of State)

You don’t have to think too hard when you talk to teachers.
—J. D. Salinger (American Novelist, Short-story Writer)

Drama is life with the dull parts cut out of it.
—Alfred Hitchcock (British-born American Film Director)

Happiness…that’s something you can’t achieve by taking the easy way out. Earning happiness means doing good and working, not speculating and being lazy. Laziness may look inviting, but only work gives you true satisfaction.
—Anne Frank (German Holocaust Victim)

No pleasure is intrinsically bad, but what causes pleasure is accompanied by many things that disturb pleasure.
—Epicurus (Greek Philosopher)

All men command patience, although few be willing to practice it.
—Thomas a Kempis (German Religious Writer)

Life is just a journey.
—Diana, Princess of Wales (English Royal)

Little boldness is needed to assail the opinions and practices of notoriously wicked men; but to rebuke great and good men for their conduct, and to impeach their discernment, is the highest effort of moral courage.
—William Lloyd Garrison (American Abolitionist)

No fear has any one of me; neither have I fear of any one: in my good-will to all I trust.
—The Jataka Tales (Genre of Buddhist Literature)

Don’t listen to those who say, “It’s not done that way.” Maybe it’s not, but maybe you will. Don’t listen to those who say, “You’re taking too big a chance.” Michelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor, and it would surely be rubbed out by today. Most importantly, don’t listen when the little voice of fear inside of you rears its ugly head and says, “They’re all smarter than you out there. They’re more talented, they’re taller, blonder, prettier, luckier and have connections … ” I firmly believe that if you follow a path that interests you, not to the exclusion of love, sensitivity, and cooperation with others, but with the strength of conviction that you can move others by your own efforts, and do not make success or failure the criteria by which you live, the chances are you’ll be a person worthy of your own respect.
—Neil Simon (American Playwright)

No wind favors him who has no destined port.
—Michel de Montaigne (French Essayist)

Water is the most precious, limited natural resource we have in this country…But because water belongs to no one – except the people – special interests, including government polluters, use it as their private sewers
—Ralph Nader (American Activist)

Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty and wisdom will come to you that way.
—Christopher Hitchens (Anglo-American Social Critic)

No nation became great by becoming rich. Neither does a man find enduring satisfaction in life by owning something—only by becoming something.
—Norman Vincent Peale (American Clergyman, Self-Help Author)

I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd attitude to take towards life. We are not sent into the world to air our moral prejudices. I never take any notice of what common people say, and I never interfere with what charming people do.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Love me when I least deserve it, because that’s when I really need it.
—Swedish Proverb

This life is what you make it. Not matter what, you’re going to mess up sometimes, it’s a universal truth.
—Marilyn Monroe (American Actor)

The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.
—Ayn Rand (Russian-born American Novelist)

Do not leave to the morning the business of the evening.
—Turkish Proverb

Friendship is a pretty full-time occupation if you really are friendly with somebody. You can’t have too many friends because then you’re just not really friends.
—Truman Capote (American Novelist)

You will find out that Charity is a heavy burden to carry, heavier than the kettle of soup and the full basket. But you will keep your gentleness and your smile. It is not enough to give soup and bread. This the rich can do. You are the servant of the poor, always smiling and good-humored. They are your masters, terribly sensitive and exacting master you will see and the uglier and the dirtier they will be, the more unjust and insulting, the more love you must give them. It is only for your love alone that the poor will forgive you the bread you give to them.
—Vincent de Paul (French Catholic Saint)

Man is a paradoxical being—the constant glory and scandal of this world.
—Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (Indian Philosopher, Political Leader)

It is more offensive to outshine in dignity than in personal attractions.
—Baltasar Gracian (Spanish Philosopher, Prose Writer)

There is all the difference in the world between the criminal’s avoiding the public eye and the civil disobedience’s taking the law into his own hands in open defiance. This distinction between an open violation of the law, performed in public, and a clandestine one is so glaringly obvious that it can be neglected only by prejudice or ill will.
—Hannah Arendt (German-American Political Theorist)

Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher, Author)

They say that nobody is perfect. Then they tell you practice makes perfect. I wish they’d make up their minds.
—Wilt Chamberlain (American Sportsperson)

The decay of logic results from an untroubled assumption that the particular is real and the universal is not.
—C. S. Lewis (Irish-born Author, Scholar)

Worship is a way of seeing the world in the light of God.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel (American Jewish Rabbi)

The artist belongs to his work, not the work to the artist.
—Novalis (German Romantic Poet)

Never forget that your life passes as swiftly as a flash of lightening or a wave of your hand, while you have the opportunity to practice, don’t waste a moment: devote all your energy to the spiritual path.
—Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche (Tibetan Buddhist Teacher)

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
—Abbie Hoffman (American Political Activist)

There are some things which cannot be learned quickly, and time, which is all we have, must be paid heavily for their acquiring. They are the very simplest things and because it takes a man’s life to know them the little new that each man gets from life is very costly and the only heritage he has to leave.
—Ernest Hemingway (American Author)

I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.
—Warren Buffett (American Investor)

Pride is increased by ignorance; those assume the most who know the least.
—John Gay (English Poet, Dramatist)

Self-interest is the most powerful force in the world. People in unethical, predatory, and nonsense jobs will do mental gymnastics to convince themselves they’re doing the right thing. Those who criticize the behavior of “greedy Wall Street bankers” underestimate their tendency to do the same thing if offered an eight-figure salary.
—Morgan Housel (American Financial Journalist, Investor)

A great statesman is he who knows when to depart from traditions, as well as when to adhere to them.
—John Stuart Mill (English Philosopher, Economist)