Inspirational Quotations

Your chances of success in any undertaking can always be measured by your belief in yourself.
—Robert Collier (American Self-Help Author)

A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled one is truly vanquished.
—Johan Christoph Schiller

He who knows Self as the enjoyer of|The honey from the flowers of the senses,|Ever present within, ruler of time,|Goes beyond fear. For this Self is Supreme!
—The Upanishads

Perpetual inspiration is as necessary to the life of good- ness, holiness and happiness as perpetual respiration is necessary to animal life.
—William Law

The first and most important step toward success is the feeling that we can succeed.
—Nelson Boswell

Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes.
—Peter Drucker (Austrian-born Management Consultant)

We learn…
10%… of what we read
20%… of what we hear
30%… of what we see
50%… of what we see and hear
70%… of what we discuss with others
80%… of what we experience personally
95%… of what we teach others
—William Glasser (American Psychiatrist)

We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.
—Swami Vivekananda (Indian Hindu Mystic)

Concentration can be cultivated. One can learn to exercise will-power, discipline one’s body and train one’s mind.
—Anil Ambani (Indian Businessperson)

Love your job, but never fall in love with your company because you never know when the company stops loving you.
—N. R. Narayana Murthy (Indian Businessperson)

Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done.
—Peter Drucker (Austrian-born Management Consultant)

There are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realized until personal experience has brought it home.
—John Stuart Mill (English Philosopher, Economist)

We become like those with whom we associate: a mirror reflects a man’s face, but what he is really like is shown by the kind of friends he chooses.
—The Holy Bible (Scripture in the Christian Faith)

The chief duty I long to accomplish great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.
—Helen Keller (American Author)

Do your work with your whole heart, and you will succeed—there’s so little competition.
—Elbert Hubbard (American Writer)

Not to be cheered by praise, not to be grieved by blame, but to know thoroughly one’s own virtues or powers are the characteristics of an excellent man.
—Sakya Pandita

In doing your work in the great world, it is a safe plan to follow a rule I once heard on the football field: Don’t flinch, don’t fall; hit the line hard”.”
—Theodore Roosevelt (American Head of State)

Where you end up isn’t the most important thing. It’s the road you take to get there. The road you take is what you’ll look back on and call your life.
—Tim Wiley

When it comes to the future, there are three kinds of people: those who let it happen, those who make it happen, and those who wonder what happened.
—John M. Richardson, Jr.

A fool always finds a greater fool to admire him.
—Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux

Luck is a loser’s excuse for a winner’s success.
—Unknown

If you listen, you will hear. If you look, you will see. If you touch, you will feel. If you try, you will be.
—Becky Stanford

Luck is a loser’s excuse for a winner’s effort and commitment. Failure doesn’t happen unless you allow it.
—Anonymous

Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can’t, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.
—Robert Frost (American Poet)

My grandfather once told me that there are two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was less competition there.
—Indira Gandhi (Indian Head of State)

Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.
—Soren Kierkegaard (Danish Philosopher, Theologian)

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
—The 14th Dalai Lama (Tibetan Buddhist Religious Leader)

Get a good idea and stay with it. Dog it, and work at it until it’s done right.
—Walt Disney (American Entrepreneur)

Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.
—Kurt Vonnegut (American Novelist)

People love others not for who they are, but for how they make them feel.
—Irwin Federman

The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.
—Elie Wiesel (Romanian-born American Writer)

^Challenge^ The challenge is not to win, but to conquer the fear. It is not the other people you have to beat, it is your self.
—Herman Melville (American Novelist)

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.
—Mark Twain (American Humorist)

There are times when a man should be content with what he has, but never with what he is.
—William George Jordan (American Essayist)

True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance.
—Henry David Thoreau (American Philosopher)

Good, Better, Best.
Never rest till good be better.
And better be best!
—Harvey Mackay

You should be ambitious and achieve them. You should never start with a small aim. Your aim determines the nature of your accomplishments. If you are not ambitious enough, you shall not get enough to eat.
—Subhashita Manjari

When we are conscious of our personal uniqueness and our universal nature we express ourselves creatively. In this way we fulfill our dreams and our life purpose.
—Andrew Schneider

Admit your errors before someone else exaggerates them.
—Andrew V. Mason

People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.
—Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.
—Andrew Grove (Hungarian-born American Businessperson)

If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, then, you are an excellent leader.
—Dolly Parton

Each of us is meant to have a character of our own, to be what no other can exactly be, and do what no other can exactly do.
—William Ellery Channing

Real solutions are discovered only where they actually exist within the individual’s own essence.
—Vernon Howard

Fear not for the future, weep not for the past.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (English Poet)

The achievement of your goal is assured the moment you commit yourself to it.
—Mack R. Douglas

You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.
—Beverly Sills (American Singer)

To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
—Bessie Anderson Stanley (American Poet)

The principle is competing against yourself. It’s about self-improvement, about being better than you were the day before.
—Steve Young

Public sentiment will come to be, that the man who dies rich dies disgraced.
—Andrew Carnegie (Scottish-American Industrialist, Philanthropist)

Dreams
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
—Langston Hughes (American Novelist)

Two things fill the mind with ever increasing wonder and awe. The more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.
—Immanuel Kant (Prussian German Philosopher)

Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.
—Maya Angelou (American Poet)

If you know something, it is in your head. When you believe something, it is in your heart.
—Unknown

Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: “What are you doing for others?”
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

Count no day lost in which you waited your turn, took only your share and sought advantage over no one.
—Robert Brault

Enjoyment is not a goal; it is a feeling that accompanies important ongoing activity.
—Paul Goodman

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
—Unknown

I am never a failure until I begin blaming others.
—Anonymous

Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.
—Albert Einstein (German-born Theoretical Physicist)

In the end, it is important to remember that we cannot become what we need to be, by remaining what we are.
—Max De Pree (American Businessman)

People don’t believe what you tell them. They rarely believe what you show them. They often believe what their friends tell them. They always believe what they tell themselves.
—Seth Godin (American Entrepreneur)

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness concerning all acts of initiative and creation. There is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans; that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen events, meetings and material assistance which no one could have dreamed would have come their way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now!”
—William Hutchinson Murray

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.
—Dale Carnegie (American Author)

Whatever you do or dream you can do – begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

I think and think, for months, for years. Ninety-nine times the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.
—Albert Einstein (German-born Theoretical Physicist)

A positive attitude is like a fire: unless you continue to add fuel, it goes out.
—Alexander Lockheart

Originality is not doing something no one else has ever done, but doing what has been done countless times with new life, new breath.
—Marie Chapian (American Children’s Books Writer)

Corporations will take 90% less ability for 10% more attitude every day of the week.
—Mark Horstman

Strengthen me by sympathizing with my strength, not my weakness.
—Amos Bronson Alcott (American Teacher)

There is no baser folly than the infatuation that looks upon the transient as if it were everlasting.
—Thirukkural

It is beyond a doubt that all our knowledge that begins with experience.
—Immanuel Kant (Prussian German Philosopher)

Our greatest battles are that with our own minds.
—Unknown

Look behind the clouds. You will always find the stars.
—Evelyn Loeb

For one word a man is deemed wise and for one word he is deemed foolish. We should be careful indeed what we say.
—Confucius (Chinese Philosopher)

He who has nothing to die for has nothing to live for.
—Moroccan Proverb

It’s not necessarily the amount of time you spend at practice that counts; it’s what you put into the practice.
—Eric Lindros

If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.
—Eric Shinseki (American Military Leader)

^We Forget^|We ask for a piece of sand and he gives us a beach.|We ask for a drop of water and he gives us an ocean.|We ask for time and he gives us life eternal.|And it is so easy for us to fall in love with the gift|and forget the Giver.
—Edward Farrell (American Sportsperson)

The creation of art is not the fulfillment of a need but the creation of a need. The world never needed Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony until he created it. Now we could not live without it.
—Louis Kahn (American Architect)

Affliction comes to us all not to make us sad, but sober; not to make us sorry, but wise; not to make us despondent, but by its darkness to refresh us, as the night refreshes the day; not to impoverish, but to enrich us, as the plough enriches the field; to multiply our joy, as the seed, by planting, is multiplied a thousand-fold.
—Henry Ward Beecher (American Protestant Clergyman)

Be such a man, and live such a life, that if every man were such as you, and every life a life like yours, this earth would be God’s Paradise.
—Phillips Brooks (American Episcopal Clergyman)

Please all, and you will please none.
—Aesop (Greek Fabulist)

The most natural beauty in the world is honesty and moral truth; for all beauty is truth. True features make the beauty of a face; and true proportions the beauty of architecture; as true measures that of harmony and music. In poetry, which is all fable, truth still is the perfection.
—Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury

People who want the most approval get the least and people who need approval the least get the most.
—Wayne Dyer (American Motivational Writer)

What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and without it, all the rest are not only useless, but disastrous…
—Thomas Merton (French-born American Clergyman)

The average estimate themselves by what they do, the above average by what they are.
—Friedrich Schiller (German Poet)