Inspirational Quotations

God has given us two hands, one to receive with and the other to give with.
—Billy Graham (American Baptist Religious Leader)

He gains a great deal who loses a vain hope.
—Italian Proverb

You know that when I hate you, it is because I love you to a point of passion that unhinges my soul.
—Julie de Lespinasse (French Salon Hostess)

What you have to do is work with the raw material you have, namely you, and never let up.
—Helen Gurley Brown (American Publisher)

The injuries of life, if rightly improved, will be to us as the strokes of the statuary on his marble, forming us to a more beautiful shape, and making us fitter to adorn the heavenly temple.
—Cotton Mather (American Clergyman)

He alone has lost the art to live who cannot win new friends.
—Silas Weir Mitchell (American Physician, Writer)

To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable.
—Aaron Copland (American Composer)

As society becomes more and more mechanized, it will be more and more difficult for many people to stand the nervous strain, the high pressure, and the drabness of their lives. To escape these abominations, constantly growing numbers will seek the primitive for the fines features of life.
—Bob Marshall (American Forester)

When you argue with your inferiors, you convince them of only one thing: they are as clever as you.
—Irving Layton (Canadian Poet)

Nature yields her most profound secrets to the person who is determined to uncover them.
—Napoleon Hill (American Author)

Love and let the world know, hate in silence.
—Egyptian Proverb

In the end, we realize how simple life is when we accept this moment, just as it is, without pretending to be other than who we are. This is grace in action.
—Richard C. Miller (American Yogic Scholar)

Time’s horses gallop down the lessening hill.
—Richard Le Gallienne (English Writer)

Instead of looking at life as a narrowing funnel, we can see it ever widening to choose the things we want to do, to take the wisdom we’ve learned and create something.
—Liz Carpenter (American Journalist)

Reason can in general do more than blind force.
—Cornelius Gallus (Roman Poet)

Freedom is the oxygen of the soul.
—Moshe Dayan (Israeli Statesman)

Great people aren’t those who are happy at times of convenience and content, but of how they are in times of catastrophe and controversy.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

The rewards of great living are not external things, withheld until the crowning hour of success arrives; they come by the way, — in the consciousness of growing power and worth, of duties nobly met, and work thoroughly done. To the true artist, working always in humility and sincerity, all life is a reward, and every day brings a deeper satisfaction. Joy and peace are by the way.
—Hamilton Wright Mabie (American Essayist, Editor)

He who loses money, loses much; He who loses a friend, loses much more; He who loses faith, loses all.
—Eleanor Roosevelt (American Humanitarian)

Show me a person who has never made a mistake and I’ll show you somebody who has never achieved much.
—Joan Collins (English Actress)

The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty.
—Mother Teresa (Roman Catholic Nun)

Every person is the creation of himself, the image of his own thinking and believing. As individuals think and believe, so they are.
—Claude M. Bristol (American Self-Help Author)

Grab a chance and you won’t be sorry for a might have been.
—Arthur Ransome (English Novelist, Journalist)

There had been times when he knew, somewhere in him, that he would get used to it, whatever it was, because he had learnt that some hard things became softer after a very little while.
—Nick Hornby (English Author)

Thought expands, but paralyzes; action animates, but narrows.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

The ground’s generosity takes in our compost and grows beauty! Try to be more like the ground.
—Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi (Persian Muslim Mystic)

Greed is a fat demon with a small mouth and whatever you feed it is never enough.
—Janwillem van de Wetering (Dutch Crime Novelist)

Moments of kindness and reconciliation are worth having, even if the parting has to come sooner or later.
—Alice Munro (Canadian Writer)

There is safety in numbers.
—Common Proverb

Question everything. Every stripe, every star, every word spoken. Everything.
—Ernest J. Gaines (American Novelist, Short-Story Writer)

If one does not fail at times, then one has not challenged himself.
—Ferdinand Porsche (Austrian Car Designer)

The great thing about people with intellectual disabilities is that they’re not people who discuss philosophy… What they want is fun and laughter, to do things together and fool around, and laughter is at the heart of community.
—Jean Vanier (French-Canadian Humanitarian)

Sorrow is easy to express and so hard to tell.
—Joni Mitchell (Canadian Singer, Songwriter)

Wicked thoughts and worthless efforts gradually set their mark on the face, especially the eyes.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (German Philosopher)

Man is stark mad; he cannot make a flea, and yet he will be making gods by the dozens.
—Michel de Montaigne (French Essayist)

The origin of civilization is man’s determination to do nothing for himself which he can get done for him.
—H. C. Bailey (English Novelist)

The stakes are too high for government to be a spectator sport.
—Barbara Jordan (American Educator, Politician)

For we must share, if we would keep, that blessing from above; ceasing to give, we cease to have; such is the law of love.
—Richard Chenevix Trench (Irish Archbishop, Poet)

The only people who attain power are those who crave for it.
—Erich Kastner (German Author)

Defining myself, as opposed to being defined by others, is one of the most difficult challenges I face.
—Carol Moseley Braun (American Politician)

The best place to find a helping hand is at the end of your own arm.
—Swedish Proverb

For every poet it is always morning in the world; history a forgotten, insomniac night. The fate of poetry is to fall in love with the world in spite of history.
—Derek Walcott (West Indian Poet)

Enough is often too much in our material world, but seldom enough in our material world.
—Bob Woodward (American Journalist)

Some people, however long their experience or strong their intellect, are temperamentally incapable of reaching firm decisions.
—James Callaghan (British Labour Statesman)

The doctrines of grace humble man without degrading, and exalt without inflating him.
—Charles Hodge (American Theologian)

There’s small Revenge in Words, but Words may be greatly revenged.
—Benjamin Franklin (American Founding Father, Inventor)

A fault confessed is half redressed.
—African Proverb

Sometimes I think that the biggest difference between men and women is that more men need to seek out some terrible lurking thing in existence and hurl themselves upon it. Women know where it lives but they can let it alone.
—Russell Hoban (American Author)

Man needs more to be reminded than instructed.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Brevity is the best recommendation of speech, whether in a senator or an orator.
—Cicero (Roman Philosopher)

Make no judgments where you have no compassion.
—Anne Mccaffrey (American Science Fiction Author)

He who hunts two hares leaves one and loses the other.
—Japanese Proverb

Life yields only to the conqueror. Never accept what can be gained by giving in. You will be living off stolen goods, and your muscles will atrophy.
—Dag Hammarskjold (Swedish Statesman)

The future struggles against being mastered.
—Latin Proverb

There was never a great man who had not a great mother.
—Olive Schreiner (South African Novelist, Feminist)

Introspect daily, detect diligently, negate ruthlessly.
—Swami Chinmayananda (Indian Hindu Spiritual Teacher)

If I had followed my better judgment always, my life would have been a very dull one.
—Edgar Rice Burroughs (American Novelist)

Say not that this or that thing came to thwart you; it only came to test you.
—Muriel Strode (American Author, Businesswoman)

The road to a friend’s house is never long.
—Danish Proverb

The great mass of women throughout history have been confined to the cultural level of animal life in providing the male with sexual outlet and exercising the animal functions of reproduction and care of the young.
—Kate Millet (American Feminist, Writer, Sculptor)

We go on fancying that each person is thinking of us, but they are not; they are like the rest of us—they are thinking of themselves.
—Charles Reade (British Author)

Life holds so much—so much to be happy about always. Most people ask for happiness on conditions. Happiness can be felt only if you don’t set conditions.
—Arthur Rubinstein (American Pianist)

This world is so full of care and sorrow that it is a gracious debt we owe to one another to discover the bright crystals of delight hidden in somber circumstances and irksome tasks.
—Helen Keller (American Author)

The art of friendship has been little cultivated in our society.
—Robert J. Havighurst (American Researcher)

If you want to be creative, stay in part a child, with the creativity and invention that characterizes children before they are deformed by adult society.
—Jean Piaget (Swiss Psychologist)

In between goals is a thing called life, that has to be lived and enjoyed.
—Sid Caesar (American Comedian)

Sweat saves blood.
—Erwin Rommel (German Field Marshal)

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)

Blessed is the man who has some congenial work, some occupation in which he can put his heart, and which affords a complete outlet to all the forces there are in him.
—John Burroughs (American Naturalist, Writer)

Nothing is so good for an ignorant man as silence; and if he was sensible of this he would not be ignorant.
—Sa’Di (Musharrif Od-Din Muslih Od-Din) (Persian Poet)

I always say beauty is only sin deep.
—Saki (Hector Hugh Munro) (British Short Story Writer)

Shame is an unhappy emotion invented by pietists in order to exploit the human race.
—Blake Edwards (American Filmmaker)

Our yearnings for happiness were implanted in our hearts by Deity. They represent a kind of homesickness, for we have a residual memory of our premortal existence. They are also a foretaste of the fullness of Joy that is promised to the faithful.
—Jack H. Goaslind (American Mormon Leader)

A person who is too nice an observer of the business of the crowd, like one who is too curious in observing the labor of bees, will often be stung for his curiosity.
—Alexander Pope (English Poet)

Just do your best today and tomorrow will come … tomorrow’s going to be a busy day, a happy day.
—Helen Boehm (American Entrepreneur)

Pray not for lighter burdens, but for stronger backs.
—Theodore Roosevelt (American Head of State)

For the person for whom small things do not exist, the great is not great.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset (Spanish Philosopher)

The liar’s punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.
—George Bernard Shaw (Irish Playwright)

One must know not just how to accept a gift, but with what grace to share it.
—Maya Angelou (American Poet)

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)

Virtue is more clearly shown in the performance of fine actions than in the non-performance of base ones.
—Aristotle (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

The superior man is aware of Righteousness, the inferior man is aware of advantage.
—Confucius (Chinese Philosopher)

All I want of the world is very little. I only want the best of everything, and there is so little of that.
—Michael Arlen (British Author)

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

If every fool wore a crown, we should all be kings.
—Welsh Proverb

The gift we can offer others is so simple a thing as hope.
—Daniel Berrigan (American Catholic Poet)

When you walk on a court, clear your mind of everything unrelated to the goal of playing the match as well as you can.
—Stan Smith (American Sportsperson)

One sometimes finds what one is not looking for.
—Alexander Fleming (Scottish Bacteriologist)

There is a difference between conceit and confidence. Conceit is bragging about yourself. Confidence means you believe you can get the job done.
—Johnny Unitas (American Football Player)

Don’t take anyone else’s definition of success as your own. (This is easier said than done.)
—Jacqueline Briskin (American Novelist)

Dharma is not upheld by talking about it. Dharma is upheld by living in harmony with it.
—Buddhist Teaching

Our lives can only be lived forward and understood backwards. Living a life and understanding it occupy different dimensions.
—Hanif Kureishi (British Novelist, Screenwriter)

Great is peace, for it is to the world what yeast is to the dough.
—The Talmud (Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith)

The future is always beginning now.
—Mark Strand (American Poet, Essayist)

If we are to change our world view, images have to change. The artist now has a very important job to do. He’s not a little peripheral figure entertaining rich people, he’s really needed.
—David Hockney (British Artist)

If you don’t know jewelry, know the jeweler.
—Warren Buffett (American Investor)

Though ambition in itself is a vice, it often is also the parent of virtue.
—Edgar Quinet (French Intellectual)

To get what he wanted, a man had to give other people what they wanted.
—Dashiell Hammett (American Crime Writer)

The royal road to a man’s heart is to talk to him about the things he treasures most.
—Dale Carnegie (American Self-Help Author)

Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end.
—Leonard Nimoy (American Actor)

There is no spectacle on earth more appealing than that of a beautiful woman in the act of cooking dinner for someone she loves.
—Thomas Wolfe (American Novelist)

When we judge other people we confront them in a spirit of detachment, observing and reflecting as it were from the outside. But love has neither time nor opportunity for this. If we love, we can never observe the other person with detachment, for he is always and at every moment a living claim to our love and service.
—Dietrich Bonhoeffer (German Lutheran Pastor)

The ultimate of being successful is the luxury of giving yourself the time to do what you want to do.
—Leontyne Price (American Soprano)

Man, so long as he remains free, has no more constant and agonizing anxiety than find as quickly as possible someone to worship.
—Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Russian Novelist)

The real world is not easy to live in. It is rough; it is slippery. Without the most clear-eyed adjustments we fall and get crushed. A man must stay sober; not always, but most of the time.
—Clarence Day (American Author, Humorist)

All political power is primarily an illusion. Illusion. Mirrors and blue smoke, beautiful blue smoke rolling over the surface of highly polished mirrors, first a thin veil of blue smoke, then a thick cloud that suddenly dissolves into wisps of blue smoke, the mirrors catching it all, bouncing it back and forth.
—Jimmy Breslin (American Columnist)

The great living experience for every man is his adventure into the woman. The man embraces in the woman all that is not himself, and from that one resultant, from that embrace, comes every new action.
—D. H. Lawrence (English Novelist)

Improvisation is too good to leave to chance.
—Paul Simon (American Musician)

Never have anything to do with an unlucky place, or an unlucky man. I have seen many clever men, very clever men, who had not shoes to their feet. I never act with them. Their advice sounds very well, but they cannot get on themselves; and if they cannot do good to themselves, how can they do good to me?
—Mayer Amschel Rothschild (German Financier)

The test of any man lies in action.
—Pindar (Greek Lyric Poet)

There must be more to life than having everything.
—Maurice Sendak (American Writer, Illustrator)

Perfection consists not in doing extraordinary things, but in doing ordinary things extraordinarily well. Neglect nothing; the most trivial action may be performed to God.
—Marie Angelique Arnauld (French Abbess)

The art of resting the mind and the power of dismissing from it all care and worry is probably one of the secrets of energy in our great men.
—James Arthur Hadfield (British Psychoanalysts)

Discover the centre of your being and hold fast to it; only from there can you describe the perfect circle of life rounded into its absolute fullness.
—Nolini Kanta Gupta (Indian Hindu Revolutionary)

As human beings, we are endowed with freedom of choice, and we cannot shuffle off our responsibility upon the shoulders of God or nature. We must shoulder it ourselves. It is up to us.
—Arnold J. Toynbee (British Historian)

The real man is one who always finds excuses for others, but never excuses himself.
—Henry Ward Beecher (American Protestant Clergyman)

We ought to fear a man who hates himself, for we are at risk of becoming victims of his anger and revenge. Let us then try to lure him into self-love.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (German Philosopher, Scholar)

Simply by making the effort to start something, you will be miles ahead of almost everyone else.
—Gary Player (South African Golfer)

Private interpretation in religion is like cutting your own hair.
—Austin O’Malley (American Aphorist, Ophthalmologist)

What others think of us would be of little moment did it not, when known, so deeply tinge what we think of ourselves.
—Paul Valery (French Critic, Poet)

He is not poor that has little, but he that desires much.
—Samuel Daniel (English Poet)

Imagination is not something apart and hermetic, not a way of leaving reality behind; it is a way of engaging reality.
—Irving Howe (American Critic)

Being taken for granted can be a compliment. It means that you’ve become a comfortable, trusted element in another person’s life.
—Joyce Brothers (American Psychologist)

Management is nothing more than motivating other people.
—Lee Iacocca (American Businessperson)

Seem not greater than thou art.
—Robert Burton (English Scholar, Clergyman)

I couldn’t wait for the sun to come up the next morning so that I could get out on the course again.
—Ben Hogan (American Golfer)

The language of excitement is at best picturesque merely. You must be calm before you can utter oracles.
—Henry David Thoreau (American Philosopher)

There is no greater difference between men than between grateful and ungrateful people.
—Reginald Horace Blyth (British Japanologist)

If only the strength of the love that people feel when it is reciprocated could be as intense and obsessive as the love we feel when it is not; then marriages would be truly made in heaven.
—Ben Elton (English Comedian, Writer)

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

It is better to be a has-been than a never-was.
—Cecil Parkinson (British Politician)

To do all the talking and not be willing to listen is a form of greed.
—Democritus (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing.
—Camille Pissarro (French Painter)

People entering marriage [must] enter it with a proper understanding of marriage as a God-given gift to help people grow in the virtues of love, faith and charity and to grow in unselfishness.
—A. J. Reb Materi (Canadian Clergyman)

A small spark can start a great fire.
—Emmet Fox (American New Thought Leader)

Modesty is the chastity of merit, the virginity of noble souls.
—Emile de Girardin (French Journalist)

Let us not speak of tolerance. This negative word implies grudging concessions by smug consciences. Rather, let us speak of mutual understanding and mutual respect.
—Dominique Pire (Belgian Dominican Priest)

If all difficulties were known at the outset of a long journey, most of us would never start out at all.
—Dan Rather (American Newscaster)

Our reality is influenced by our notions about reality, regardless of the nature of those notions.
—Joseph Chilton Pearce (American Author)

Writing is a struggle against silence.
—Carlos Fuentes (Mexican novelist, diplomat)

Well arranged time is the surest mark of a well arranged mind.
—Isaac Pitman (English Educator, Inventor)

Fortunately for children, the uncertainties of the present always give way to the enchanted possibilities of the future.
—Gelsey Kirkland (American Ballerina)

Freedom may come quickly in robes of peace or after ages of conflict and war, but come it will, and abide it will, so long as the principles by which it was acquired are held sacred.
—Edward Everett (American Politician)

If your self-esteem is low, perhaps focus on finding work you can succeed at. Real self-esteem comes from accomplishment.
—Marty Nemko (American Career Coach)

Analyses of others are actually expressions of our own needs and values.
—Marshall Rosenberg (American Psychologist)

The toughest part of being on a diet is shutting up about it.
—Gerald Nachman (American Entertainment Journalist)

A competent leader can get efficient service from poor troops, while on the contrary an incapable leader can demoralize the best of troops.
—John J. Pershing (American Army Officer)

The only way out is the way through, just as you cannot escape from death except by dying. Being unable to write, you must examine in writing this being unable, which becomes for the present—henceforth?—the subject to which you are condemned.
—Howard Nemerov (American Poet, Novelist)

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.
—Anne Frank (German Holocaust Victim)

It is characteristic of all deep human problems that they are not to be approached without some humor and some bewilderment.
—Freeman Dyson (American Physicist, Author)

The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides. Accept life, and you must accept regret.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (Swiss Philosopher, Writer)

Of the mental hazards, being scared is the worst. When you get scared, you get tense.
—Sam Snead (American Golfer)

Better unborn than untaught.
—Scottish Proverb

Either dance well or quit the ballroom.
—Greek Proverb