Inspirational Quotations

Like water which can clearly mirror the sky and the trees only so long as its surface is undisturbed, the mind can only reflect the true image of the Self when it is tranquil and wholly relaxed.
—Indra Devi (Russian-American Yoga Teacher)

The older we get the more we seem to think that everything was better in the past.
—Tanizaki Jun’ichiro (Japanese Novelist)

There are many problems in life where the solution is largely a brainless time investment.
—Steve Pavlina (American Motivational Speaker)

Love is a gift from God, and as we obey His laws and genuinely learn to serve others, we develop God’s love in our lives. Love of God is the means of unlocking divine powers which help us to live worthily and to overcome the world.
—David B. Haight (American Mormon Leader)

When man meets an obstacle he can’t destroy, he destroys himself.
—Ryszard Kapuscinski (Polish Journalist)

Natural species are the library from which genetic engineers can work.
—Thomas Lovejoy (American Biologist)

I am like a doctor. I have written a prescription to help the patient. If the patient doesn’t want all the pills I’ve recommended, that’s up to him. But I must warn that next time I will have to come as a surgeon with a knife.
—Javier Perez de Cuellar (Peruvian Diplomat, Politician)

Simplicity is not the goal. It is the by-product of a good idea and modest expectations.
—Paul Rand (American Graphic Designer)

The best that companies can do is let a thousand flowers bloom, in the hope that one of them sprouts into a substantial growth business.
—Clayton M. Christensen (American Academic, Business Consultant)

The grace that makes every grace amiable is humility.
—Samuel Richardson (English Novelist)

What we do not understand, we cannot control.
—Charles A. Reich (American Jurist, Author)

People who are smart get into Mensa. People who are really smart look around and leave.
—James Randi (Canadian-American Escapologist)

If you think of life as like a big pie, you can try to hold the whole pie and kill yourself trying to keep it, or you can slice it up and give some to the people around you, and you still have plenty left for yourself.
—Jay Leno (American Comedian)

If a warrior is to succeed at anything, the success must come gently, with a great deal of effort but with no stress or obsession.
—Carlos Castaneda (Peruvian-born American Anthropologist)

The future is much like the present, only longer.
—Dan Quisenberry (American Baseball Player)

All the rarest hues of human life take radiance and are rainbowed out in tears.
—Gerald Massey (English Mystic, Poet)

Friendship is one mind in two bodies.
—Mencius (Chinese Philosopher, Sage)

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. These are things we don’t know we don’t know.
—Donald Rumsfeld (American Government Official)

A life lived of choice is a life of conscious action. A life lived of chance is a life of unconscious creation.
—Neale Donald Walsch (American Spiritual Writer)

A library is a path to the future—find yours there.
—Mary Higgins Clark (American Novelist)

History does not belong to us; we belong to it.
—Hans-Georg Gadamer (German Philosopher)

I forget what I was taught. I only remember what I have learnt.
—Patrick White (Australian Novelist)

Solitude is good company and my architecture is not for those who fear or shun it.
—Luis Barragan (Mexican Architect)

Science is the one human activity that is totally progressive.
—Edwin Hubble (American Astronomer)

Opinionated writing is always the most difficult… simply because it involves retaining in the cold morning-after crystal of the printed word the burning flow of molten feeling.
—Gavin Lyall (English Spy Fiction Writer)

The emotional brain responds to an event more quickly than the thinking brain.
—Daniel Goleman (American Psychologist, Author)

All history is a lie.
—Robert Walpole (British Statesman)

The secret of a leader lies in the tests he has faced over the whole course of his life and the habit of action he develops in meeting those tests.
—Gail Sheehy (American Writer, Journalist)

If you don’t like the question that’s asked, answer some other question.
—Howard Baker (American Politician)

High office is like a pyramid; only two kinds of animals reach the summit, reptiles and eagles.
—Jean le Rond d’Alembert (French Mathematician)

When you are young, you should live out every weekend. Even if you look like a scarecrow, you just gotta go!
—Jonathan Brandis (American Child Actor)

A minor operation is one that is done on someone else.
—Richard Selzer (American Surgeon)

All outward forms of religion are almost useless, and are the causes of endless strife. Believe there is a great power silently working all things for good, behave yourself and never mind the rest.
—Beatrix Potter (British Children’s Author)

Perhaps you have noticed that even in the very lightest breeze you can hear the voice of the cottonwood tree; this we understand is its prayer to the Great Spirit, for not only men, but all things and all beings pray to Him continually in differing ways.
—Black Elk (Native American Spiritual Leader)

A wind has blown the rain away and blown the sky away and all the leaves away, and the trees stand. I think, I, too, have known autumn too long.
—e. e. cummings (American Poet, Writer, Painter)

Leadership to me means duty, honor, country. It means character, and it means listening from time to time.
—George H. W. Bush (American Head of State)

Each of us needs time for mental self-renewal.
—Whitt N. Schultz (American Self-help Author)

Be willing to make decisions. That’s the most important quality in a good leader. Don’t fall victim to what I call the ‘ready-aim-aim-aim-aim syndrome’. You must be willing to fire.
—T. Boone Pickens (American Businessman, Financier)

After all, what can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not turned out quite as we might have wished?
—Kazuo Ishiguro (British Novelist)

The motto should not be: Forgive one another; rather understand one another.
—Emma Goldman (American Anarchist)

Yoga teaches us to cure what need not be endured and endure what cannot be cured.
—B. K. S. Iyengar (Indian Hindu Yoga Teacher)

But if we learn to think of it as anticipation, as learning, as growing, if we think of the time we spend waiting for the big things of life as an opportunity instead of a passing of time, what wonderful horizons open out!
—Anna Neagle (English Actress)

The spirit is smothered, as it were, by ignorance, but so soon as ignorance is destroyed, spirit shine forth, like the sun when released from clouds.
—Adi Shankaracharya (Indian Hindu Philosopher)

Those who are going to be in business tomorrow are those who understand that the future, as always, belongs to the brave.
—William Bernbach (American Advertising Executive)

The future of architecture does not lie so much in continuing to fill up the landscape as in bringing back life and order to our cities and towns.
—Gottfried Bohm (German Architect)

Stealing to eat ain’t criminal-stealing to be rich is.
—Andrew Vachss (American Attorney, Author)

Life is given to use, we earn it by giving it.
—Rabindranath Tagore (Bengali Poet, Polymath)

Among the instrumentalities of love and peace, surely there can be no sweeter, softer, more effective voice than that of gentle peace-breathing music.
—Elihu Burritt (American Pacifist)

The more you practice what you know, the more shall you know what to practice.
—William Jenkyn (English Clergyman)

How helpless we are, like netted birds, when we are caught by desire!
—Belva Plain (American Novelist)

Ninety percent of politics is deciding whom to blame.
—Meg Greenfield (American Journalist, Socialite)

Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched.
—Guy de Maupassant (French Short-story Writer)

Ever notice that people never say “It’s only a game” when they’re winning?
—Ivern Ball (American Writer, Aphorist)

Smart is an elusive concept. There’s a certain sharpness, an ability to absorb new facts. To ask an insightful question. To relate to domains that may not seem connected at first. A certain creativity that allows people to be effective.
—Bill Gates (American Businessperson)

In every question and every remark tossed back and forth between lovers who have not played out the last fugue, there is one question and it is this: “Is there someone new?”
—Edna O’Brien (Irish Author)

No war is inevitable until it breaks out.
—A. J. P. Taylor (English Historian)

Life is to be lived, not controlled, and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.
—Ralph Ellison (American Novelist)

Isn’t it amazing the way the future succeeds in creating an appropriate past?
—John Loengard (American Photographer)

The simplest things give me ideas.
—Joan Miro (Spanish Artist)

Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow.
—C. William Pollard (American Businessman, Author)

The opinions which we hold of one another, our relations with friends and kinfolk are in no sense permanent, save in appearance, but are as eternally fluid as the sea itself.
—Marcel Proust (French Novelist)

Wisdom doesn’t necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself.
—Tom Wilson (American Cartoonist)

Nothing is too high for a man to reach, but he must climb with care and confidence.
—Hans Christian Andersen (Danish Author)

It is difficult to divest one’s self of vanity; because impossible to divest one’s self of self-love.
—Hugh Walpole (English Novelist)

Coming home from very lonely places, all of us go a little mad: whether from great personal success, or just an all-ight drive, we are the sole survivors of a world no one else has ever seen.
—John le Carre (English Novelist)

The whole of life is just like watching a film. Only it’s as though you always get in ten minutes after the big picture has started, and no-one will tell you the plot, so you have to work it out all yourself from the clues.
—Terry Pratchett (English Fantasy Writer)

It’s very important in life to know when to shut up. You should not be afraid of silence.
—Alex Trebek (American TV Personality)

Before you are five and twenty you must establish a character that will serve you all your life.
—Cuthbert Collingwood, 1st Baron Collingwood (English Naval Commander)

A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. He inspires the power and energy to get it done.
—Ralph Lauren (American Businessman)

A sharp sense of the ironic can be the equivalent of the faith that moves mountains. Far more quickly than reason or logic, irony can penetrate rage and puncture self-pity.
—Moss Hart (American Playwright)

Poetry is life distilled.
—Gwendolyn Brooks (American Poet, Educator)

When your work speaks for itself, don’t interrupt.
—Henry J. Kaiser (American Industrialist)

Don’t abuse your friends and expect them to consider it criticism.
—Elizabeth Taylor (American Actress)

You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it.
—Yann Martel (Canadian Novelist)

He travels best that knows when to return.
—Thomas Middleton (English Dramatist)

It’s essential to distinguish between events that are really beyond your control and events you caused yourself.
—Barbara Sher (American Career Coach)

Problems are only opportunities with thorns on them.
—Hugh Miller (Scottish Geologist, Writer)

The person who talks most of his own virtue is often the least virtuous.
—Jawaharlal Nehru (Indian Head of State)

Water is the one substance from which the earth can conceal nothing; it sucks out its innermost secrets and brings them to our very lips.
—Jean Giraudoux (French Novelist, Playwright)

Living in an age of extraordinary events and revolutions, I have learned, from thence this truth, which I desire might be communicated to posterity: that all is vanity which is not honest, and that there is no solid wisdom but in real piety.
—John Evelyn (English Restoration Diarist)

In a way, this diversity is very exciting, but one has at some point to ask: are these real beginnings, or so many false starts?
—Juliet Mitchell (British Feminist, Writer)

Open-mindedness should not be fostered because, as Scripture teaches, Truth is great and will prevail, nor because, as Milton suggests, Truth will always win in a free and open encounter. It should be fostered for its own sake.
—Richard Rorty (American Philosopher)

There is no Truth. There is only the truth within each moment.
—Ramana Maharshi (Indian Hindu Mystic)

The great advantage of living in a large family is that early lesson of life’s essential unfairness.
—Nancy Mitford (English Novelist, Biographer)

Nothing that is really good and God-like dies.
—Ernst Moritz Arndt (German Writer)

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.
—L. P. Hartley (British Writer, Critic)

One thing I never want to be accused of is not working.
—Don Shula (American Football Coach)

You don’t concentrate on risks. You concentrate on results. No risk is too great to prevent the necessary job from getting done.
—Chuck Yeager (American Aviator)

No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently.
—Agnes de Mille (American Dancer)

You only have power over people so long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything he’s no longer in your power—he’s free again.
—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (Russian Novelist)

If the track is tough and the hill is rough, THINKING you can just ain’t enough!
—Shel Silverstein (American Cartoonist, Author)

Always be smarter than the people who hire you.
—Lena Horne (American Singer, Actress)

The feeble tremble before opinion, the foolish defy it, the wise judge it, the skillful direct it.
—Madame Roland (French Revolutionary)

Life is a gathering to which only a limited number are invited at a time, and the invitation is never repeated.
—Hans Carossa (German Novelist)

We have to learn to be our own best friends because we fall too easily into the trap of being our own worst enemies.
—Roderick Thorp (American Novelist)

The voice you hear when you read to yourself is the clearest voice: you speak it speaking to you.
—Thomas Lux (American Poet)

Like an old gold-panning prospector, you must resign yourself to digging up a lot of sand from which you will later patiently wash out a few minute particles of gold ore.
—Dorothy Bryant (American Novelist)

Hollywood never knew there was a Vietnam War until they made the movie.
—Jerry Stiller (American Actor, Comedian)

Don’t let anyone rob you of your imagination, your creativity, or your curiosity. It’s your place in the world; it’s your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live.
—Mae Jemison (American Physician, Astronaut)

The body has to be utilized for service to others. More bliss can be got from serving others than from merely serving oneself.
—Sathya Sai Baba (Indian Hindu Religious Leader)

A man always has two reasons for what he does good one, and the real one.
—J. P. Morgan (American Financier, Philanthropist)

The mind is like a richly woven tapestry in which the colors are distilled from the experiences of the senses, and the design drawn from the convolutions of the intellect.
—Carson McCullers (American Novelist)

You have no idea how promising the world begins to look once you have decided to have it all for yourself. And how much healthier your decisions are once they become entirely selfish.
—Anita Brookner (English Novelist, Art Historian)

Shelving hard decisions is the least ethical course.
—Adrian Cadbury (British Businessman)

Each department of knowledge passes through three stages. The theoretic stage; the theological stage and the metaphysical or abstract stage.
—Auguste Comte (French Philosopher)

If the world seems unfair or beyond our understanding, sublime places suggest that it is not surprising that things should be thus. We are the playthings of the forces that laid out the oceans and chiselled the mountains.
—Alain de Botton (Swiss-born British Philosopher)

You do not become a “dissident” just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society.
—Vaclav Havel (Czech Dramatist, Statesman)

If you can’t take a good kicking, you shouldn’t parade how much luckier you are than other people.
—Charles Saatchi (British Businessman, Art Collector)

Leadership involves finding a parade and getting in front of it.
—John Naisbitt (American Trend Analyst)

A good scientist is a person in whom the childhood quality of perennial curiosity lingers on. Once he gets an answer, he has other questions.
—Frederick Seitz (American Physicist)

Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life. Security is an insipid thing, through the overtaking and possessing of a wish discovers the folly of the chase.
—William Congreve (English Dramatist)

The desire to reach for the sky runs deep in our human psyche.
—Cesar Pelli (Argentinean-American Architect)

The two women exchanged the kind of glance women use when no knife is handy.
—Ellery Queen (American Crime Fiction Authors)

While there are practical and sometimes moral reasons for the decomposition of the family, it coincides neither with what most people in society say they desire nor, especially in the case of children, with their best interests.
—Robert Neelly Bellah (American Sociologist)

A Realist is an idealist who has gone through the fire and been purified. A skeptic is an idealist who has gone through the fire and been burned.
—Warren W. Wiersbe (American Pastor, Biblical Scholar)

He who believes in nobody knows that he himself is not to be trusted.
—Berthold Auerbach (German Novelist)

Problems arise in that one has to find a balance between what people need from you and what you need for yourself.
—Jessye Norman (American Soprano)

An artist has to go to every extreme, to stretch his sensibility through excess and suffering in order to feel and to communicate more. I have always been fascinated by blood. Pain can be vitalizing; it gives intensity in the place of vagueness and emptiness. If we don’t suffer, how do we know that we live?
—Sebastian Horsley (English Painters, Author)

I’m struck by how laughter connects you with people. It’s almost impossible to maintain any kind of distance or any sense of social hierarchy when you’re just howling with laughter. Laughter is a force for democracy.
—John Cleese (British Comic Actor, Writer)

We’re constantly being told what other people think we are, and that’s why it is so important to know yourself.
—Sarah McLachlan (Canadian Musician)

A wise person should never divulge the loss of his wealth, distress in his mind, malpractices at his home or that he has been cheated or insulted.
—The Hitopadesha (Indian Collection of Fables)

It’s a dangerous thing to think we know everything.
—Jack Kuehler (American Businessman)

Opinion often consists of a kind of criticism. But criticism can come out of love.
—Robert Frank (Swiss-American Photographer)

Indolence and stupidity are first cousins.
—Antoine de Rivarol (French Writer)

Where the heart is full of kindness which seeks no injury to another, either in act or thought or wish, this full love creates an atmosphere of harmony, whose benign power touches with healing all who come within its influence. Peace in the heart radiates peace to other hearts, even more surely than contention breeds contention.
—Patanjali (Indian Hindu Philosopher)

What is here is also there; what is there, is also here. Who sees multiplicity but not the one indivisible Self must wander on and on from death to death.
—The Upanishads (Sacred Books of Hinduism)

Ideas are the real substance of human life. Ideas guide our actions and even control our movements. It is just as well to put them in order first and then to display their anatomy.
—Jonathan Miller (English Stage Director)

Children read to learn—even when they are reading fantasy, nonsense, light verse, comics or the copy on cereal packets, they are expanding their minds all the time, enlarging their vocabulary, making discoveries: it is all new to them.
—Joan Aiken (British Fantasy Writer)

On the neck of a young man sparkles no gem so gracious as enterprise.
—Hafez (Persian Poet)

The most popular labor-saving device is still money.
—Phyllis George (American Sportscaster)

Disease is the tax which the soul pays for the body, as the tenant pays house-rent for the use of the house.
—Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (Indian Hindu Philosopher)

A masterpiece of a game can be ruined by insensitivity to the feelings of an adversary.
—Yasunari Kawabata (Japanese Novelist, Short Story Writer)

Egotism is the art of seeing in yourself what others cannot see.
—George V. Higgins (American Novelist)

If you are not willing to take pain to live by your principles, there is no point in having principles.
—Marvin Bower (American Business Consultant)

Applause that comes thundering with such force you might think the audience merely suffers the music as an excuse for its ovations.
—Greil Marcus (American Music Journalist)

Only those who are asleep make no mistakes.
—Ingvar Kamprad (Swedish Businessman)