Inspirational Quotations

It is not the facts which guide the conduct of men, but their opinions about facts; which may be entirely wrong. We can only make them right by discussion.
—Norman Angell (English Economist, Pacifist)

When occasions present themselves, in which the interests of the people are at variance with their inclinations, it is the duty of the persons whom they have appointed to be the guardians of those interests, to withstand the temporary delusion, in order to give them time and opportunity for more cool and sedate reflection.
—Alexander Hamilton (American Statesman)

Humour is the weapon of unarmed people: it helps people who are oppressed to smile at the situation that pains them.
—Simon Wiesenthal (Austrian Nazi-Hunter)

When you think you have a great idea, go out of your way to talk with someone who disagrees with it. At worst, you continue to disagree with them. More often, you’ll gain valuable perspective. Fight confirmation bias like the plague.
—Morgan Housel (American Financial Journalist, Investor)

This is a work of fiction. All the characters in it, human and otherwise, are imaginary, excepting only certain of the fairy folk, whom it might be unwise to offend by casting doubts on their existence. Or lack thereof.
—Neil Gaiman (British Writer)

To bear with patience wrongs done to oneself is a mark of perfection, but to bear with patience wrongs done to someone else is a mark of imperfection and even of actual sin.
—Thomas Aquinas (Italian Catholic Priest)

O, innocence, the sacred amulet against all the poisons of infirmity, and all misfortunes, injury, and death.
—George Chapman (English Poet, Playwright)

Anger represents a certain power, when a great mind, prevented from executing its own generous desires, is moved by it.
—Pietro Aretino (Italian Author)

Be as an cup, and the universe flows into you. Be as an arrow, and the universe retreats from you.
—Zen Proverb (Japanese School of Mahayana Buddhism)

Either you decide to stay in the shallow end of the pool or you go out in the ocean.
—Christopher Reeve (American Actor)

Death and taxes and childbirth! There’s never any convenient time for any of them!
—Margaret Mitchell (American Novelist)

The status quo is the only solution that cannot be vetoed.
—Clark Kerr (American Educator)

The mark of a well educated person is not necessarily in knowing all the answers, but in knowing where to find them.
—Douglas Hugh Everett (British Physical Chemist)

A man never reaches that dizzy height of wisdom that he can no longer be lead by the nose.
—Mark Twain (American Humorist)

Be unselfish. That is the first and final commandment for those who would be useful and happy in their usefulness. If you think of yourself only, you cannot develop because you are choking the source of development, which is spiritual expansion through thought for others.
—Charles William Eliot (American Educator)

You largely constructed your depression. It wasn’t given to you. Therefore, you can deconstruct it.
—Albert Ellis (American Psychologist)

A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man; it is what he wants and must have to be good for anything. Hardship and opposition are the native soil of manhood and self-reliance.
—John Neal (American Author, Critic)

The blackest despair that can take hold of any society is the fear that living honestly is futile.
—Corrado Alvaro (Italian Novelist)

There is much of economic theory which is pursued for no better reason than its intellectual attraction; it is a good game. We have no reason to be ashamed of that, since the same would hold for many branches of mathematics.
—John Hicks (English Economist)

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.
—Galileo Galilei (Italian Astronomer)

People wish to be poets more than they wish to write poetry, and that’s a mistake. One should wish to celebrate more than one wishes to be celebrated.
—Lucille Clifton (American Poet)

Death was afraid of him because he had the heart of a lion.
—Arabic Proverb

Butterflies… not quite birds, as they were not quite flowers, mysterious and fascinating as are all indeterminate creatures.
—Elizabeth Goudge (English Novelist)

Hitch your wagon to a star. Let us not fag in paltry works which serve our pot and bag alone.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Philosopher)

A man can do all things if he but wills them.
—Leon Battista Alberti (Italian Architect)

Some lives drift here and there like reeds in a stream, depending on changing currents for their activity. Others are like swimmers knowing the depth of the water. Each stroke helps them onward to a definite objective.
—Margaret Sanger (American Social Reformer)

Better to trust the man who is frequently in error than the one who is never in doubt.
—Eric Sevareid (American Broadcast Journalist)

Hope never abandons you, you abandon it.
—George Weinberg (American Psychologist)

To me success means effectiveness in the world, that I am able to carry my ideas and values into the world—that I am able to change it in positive ways.
—Maxine Hong Kingston (American Novelist, Memoirist)

Man is the most intelligent of the animals—and the most silly.
—Diogenes Laertius (Greek Biographer)

Regret is an odd emotion because it comes only upon reflection. Regret lacks immediacy, and so its power seldom influences events when it could do some good.
—Edward William O’Rourke (American Catholic Priest)

Remember that there is a meaning beyond absurdity. Be sure that every little deed counts, that every word has power. Never forget that you can still do your share to redeem the world in spite of all absurdities and frustrations and disappointments.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel (American Jewish Rabbi)

Reason is the director of man’s will, discovering in action what is good, for the laws of well-doing are the dictates of right reason.
—Thomas Hooker (American Clergyman)

The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a man’s determination.
—Tommy Lasorda (American Baseball Player, Coach)

Thinking is like loving and dying. Each of us must do it for himself.
—Josiah Royce (American Philosopher)

God gives to us according to the measure of our hearts.
—Persian Proverb

Life is neither a good nor an evil, but simply the scene of good and evil.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (Roman Stoic Philosopher)

Every great work of art has two faces, one toward its own time and one toward the future, toward eternity.
—Daniel Barenboim (Israeli Pianist, Conductor)

To know how to dispense with things is to possess them.
—Jean-Francois Regnard (French Dramatist)

Fulfill all your obligations, attend to your daily duties, be attached to nothing, no one—and be ever ready to depart when the call comes!
—Dada J. P. Vaswani (Indian Hindu Philosopher)

Of all the passions of mankind, the love of novelty most rules the mind. In search of this, from realm to realm we roam. Our fleets come loaded with every folly home.
—Shelby Foote (American Novelist, Historian)

Jazz today, as always in the past, is a matter of thoughtful creation, not mere unaided instinct.
—Duke Ellington (American Musician)

An autobiography is a book a person writes about his own life and it is usually full of all sorts of boring details.
—Roald Dahl (British Short-Story Writer, Playwright)

I may be crazy but it keeps me from going insane.
—Waylon Jennings (American Country Musician)

When Nike says, just do it, that’s a message of empowerment. Why aren’t the rest of us speaking to young people in a voice of inspiration?
—Naomi Klein (Canadian Author, Activist)

Abiding faith does not depend on borrowed concepts. Rather, it is the magnetic force of a bone-deep, lived understanding, one that draws us to realize our ideals, walk our talk, and act in accord with what we know to be true.
—Sharon Salzberg (Buddhist Teacher)

No man has a home unless he is master of a place where he must please no one—a place where he can go and lock the door behind him.
—Gene Wolfe (American Science Fiction, Fantasy Writer)

Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel, as a reminder of your strength.
—August Wilson (American Playwright)

The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate, God made them, high or lowly, and ordered their estate.
—Cecil Frances Alexander (Irish Hymn Writer)

Try as much as possible to be wholly alive, with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell and when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.
—William Saroyan (American Playwright, Novelist)

High achievers dwell on what they do well and spend very little time evaluating themselves and their performances.
—John Eliot (American Psychologist)

Each of us is responsible for everything and to every human being.
—Simone de Beauvoir (French Philosopher)

It is not the burden but the overburden that kills the beast.
—Spanish Proverb

Life is a great and wondrous mystery, and the only thing we know that we have for sure is what is right here right now. Don’t miss it.
—Leo Buscaglia (American Motivational Speaker)

In bad fortune hold out, in good hold in.
—German Proverb

Memory is a paradise out of which fate cannot drive us.
—Alexandre Dumas fils (French Dramatist, Novelist)

There is only one way left to escape the alienation of present day society: to retreat ahead of it.
—Roland Barthes (French Literary Theorist)

One’s self-image is very important because if that’s in good shape, then you can do anything, or practically anything.
—John Gielgud (British Actor, Director)

Intelligence makes clear to us the interrelationship of means and ends. But mere thinking cannot give us a sense of the ultimate and fundamental ends. To make clear these fundamental ends and valuations and to set them fast in the emotional life of the individual, seems to me precisely the most important function which religion has to form in the social life of man.
—Albert Einstein (German-born Theoretical Physicist)

Every truth we see is one to give to the world, not to keep to ourselves alone.
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (American Social Reformer)

A person’s heart is in his feet.
—Irish Proverb

The key to why things change is the key to everything.
—James E. Burke (American Business Executive)

Ideas move rapidly when their time comes.
—Carolyn Gold Heilbrun (American Feminist Scholar)

So celebrate what you’ve accomplished, but raise the bar a little higher each time you succeed.
—Mia Hamm (American Soccer Player)

Definition of worry: duress rehearsal.
—Indian Proverb

The heart has always the pardoning power.
—Sophie Swetchine (Russian Mystic, Writer)

A few heart-whole, sincere, and energetic men and women can do more in a year than a mob in a century.
—Swami Vivekananda (Indian Hindu Monk, Mystic)

Radiant with heavenly pity, lost in care for those he knew not, save as fellow-lives.
—Edwin Arnold (English Poet)

There is a wide difference between speaking to deceive, and being silent to be impenetrable.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher, Author)

Comedy is an escape, not from truth but from despair; a narrow escape into faith.
—Christopher Fry (English Poet, Playwright)

Sorrow itself is not so hard to bear as the thought of sorrow coming. Airy ghosts that work no harm do terrify us more than men in steel with bloody purposes.
—Thomas Bailey Aldrich (American Writer)

A computer will do what you tell it to do, but that may be much different from what you had in mind.
—Joseph Weizenbaum (American Computer Scientist)

I pay no attention whatever to anybody’s praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings.
—Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Austrian Composer)

Peace comes from feelings of satisfaction when working with joy, living with hope, loving with abandonment.
—Arnold Hutschnecker (American Psychiatrist)

Success is the child of audacity.
—Benjamin Disraeli (British Head of State)

I maintain that nothing useful and lasting can emerge from violence.
—Shirin Ebadi (Iranian Human Rights Activist)

Hold your children with your heart but teach them with your hands.
—Russian Proverb

Committee—a group of men who keep minutes and waste hours.
—Milton Berle (American Entertainer)

Journalism allows its readers to witness history; fiction gives its readers an opportunity to live it.
—John Hersey (American Novelist, Journalist)

There is a certain state of health that does not allow us to understand everything; and perhaps illness shuts us off from certain truths; but health shuts us off just as effectively from others.
—Andre Gide (French Novelist)

It is not the weight of the future or the past that is pressing upon you, but ever that of the present alone. Even this burden, too, can be lessened if you confine it strictly to its own limits.
—Marcus Aurelius (Emperor of Rome, Stoic Philosopher)

True wisdom comes from the overcoming of suffering and sin. All true wisdom is therefore touched with sadness.
—Whittaker Chambers (American Journalist)

The question of originality, if it arises at all, can never be peripheral: originality is more than a requirement in good poetry, it is a description of it.
—Clive James (Australian Writer, Broadcaster, TV Critic)

Pain is real when you get other people to believe in it. If no one believes in it but you, your pain is madness or hysteria.
—Naomi Wolf (American Feminist Writer)

Life isn’t fair. It’s just fairer than death, that’s all.
—William Goldman (Hollywood Screenwriter)

May you look back on the past with as much pleasure as you look forward to the future.
—Paul Dickson (American Writer)

No man or woman who tries to pursue an ideal in his or her own way is without enemies.
—Daisy Bates (American Civil Rights Activist)

If I thought I was going to die tomorrow, I should nevertheless plant a tree today.
—Stephen Girard (French-American Banker, Philanthropist)

The trouble with retirement is that you never get a day off.
—Abe Lemons (American Basketball Coach)

Come for your inheritance and you may have to pay for the funeral.
—Yiddish Proverb

A great photograph is a full expression of what one feels about what is being photographed in the deepest sense, and is, thereby, a true expression of what one feels about life in its entirety.
—Ansel Adams (American Photographer)

Age and marriage tame the beast.
—Haitian Proverb

Woe to him who teaches men faster than they can learn.
—William C. Durant (American Industrialist)

The place where your greatest fears live is also the place where your greatest growth lies.
—Robin Sharma (Canadian Writer, Motivational Speaker)

We rarely like the virtues we have not.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

If we fight a war and win it with H-bombs, what history will remember is not the ideals we were fighting for but the methods we used to accomplish them. These methods will be compared to the warfare of Genghis Khan who ruthlessly killed every last inhabitant of Persia.
—Hans Bethe (American Physicist)

Riches are a good hand maiden, but a poor mistress.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

Greatness is not measured by what a man or woman accomplishes but by the opposition he or she has overcome to reach his goals.
—Dorothy Height (American Activist)

Ladies, just a little more virginity, if you don’t mind.
—Herbert Beerbohm Tree (English Actor-Manager)

The point is that profound but contradictory ideas may exist side by side, if they are constructed from different materials and methods. And have different purposes. Each tells us something important about where we stand in the universe, and it is foolish to insist that they must despise each other.
—Neil Postman (American Educator, Social Critic)

Fun gives you a forcible hug, and shakes laughter out of you, whether you will or no.
—David Garrick (English Playwright, Actor)

The poet enjoys the incomparable privilege of being able to be himself and others, as he wishes.
—Charles Baudelaire (French Poet)

Let those who would affect singularity with success, first determine to be very virtuous, and they will be sure to be very singular.
—Charles Caleb Colton (English Clergyman, Aphorist)

Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind.
—Jeffrey Eugenides (American Novelist)

Innovators are inevitably controversial.
—Eva Le Gallienne (American Actress)

Breath by breath, let go of fear, expectation, anger, regret, cravings, frustration, fatigue. Let go of the need for approval. Let go of old judgments and opinions. Die to all that, and fly free. Soar in the freedom of desirelessness.
—Lama Surya Das (American Buddhist Scholar)

Love touched her heart, and lo! It beats high, and burns with such brave hearts.
—Richard Crashaw (British Poet)

It’s essential to tell the truth at all times. This will reduce life’s pain. Lying distorts reality. All forms of distorted thinking must be corrected.
—John Bradshaw (American Educator)

You have to deal with the fact that your life is your life.
—Alex Haley (American Novelist, Biographer)

The world consists almost exclusively of people who are one sort and who behave like another sort.
—Zona Gale (American Novelist, Playwright)

With years a richer life begins, the spirit mellow: ripe age gives tones to violins, wine, and good fellows.
—John Townsend Trowbridge (American Author)

He who is prepared for the future and he who deals cleverly with any situation that may arise are both happy; but the fatalistic man who wholly depends on luck is ruined.
—Chanakya Neeti (Anthology of Indian Aphorisms)

We’re all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.
—Charles Bukowski (American Writer)

Something which we think is impossible now is not impossible in another decade.
—Constance Baker Motley (American Jurist)

Fear of death has been the greatest ally of tyranny past and present.
—Sidney Hook (American Social Philosopher)

Romance is the glamour which turns the dust of everyday life into a golden haze.
—Elinor Glyn (British Novelist)

Have you noticed that life, real honest-to-goodness life, with murders and catastrophes and fabulous inheritances, happens almost exclusively in the newspapers?
—Jean Anouilh (French Playwright)

It is a feeble compassion that pulls up short where self-interest begins.
—Norm Phelps (American Animal Rights Activist)

Inspiration is the act of drawing the chair up to the writing table.
—Orhan Pamuk (Turkish Author)

To say that authority, whether secular or religious, supplies no ground for morality is not to deny the obvious fact that it supplies a sanction.
—A. J. Ayer (English Philosopher)

No one is innocent after the experience of governing. But not everyone is guilty.
—Daniel Patrick Moynihan (American Academic, Politician)

Since it is not granted to us to live long, let us transmit to posterity some memorial that we have at least lived.
—Pliny the Younger (Roman Senator, Writer)

Some people bear three kinds of trouble—all they ever had, all they have now, and all they expect to have.
—Edward Everett Hale (American Unitarian Clergyman)

Caution is the parent of safety.
—Common Proverb

Facts, according to my ideas, are merely the elements of truths, and not the truths themselves; of all matters there are none so utterly useless by themselves as your mere matters of fact.
—Henry Mayhew (English Journalist)

As for courage and will—we cannot measure how much of each lies within us, we can only trust there will be sufficient to carry through trials which may lie ahead.
—Andre Norton (American Science Fiction Writer)

Don’t be too harsh to these poems until they’re typed. I always think typescript lends some sort of certainty: at least, if the things are bad then, they appear to be bad with conviction.
—Dylan Thomas (Welsh Poet)

It is an iron rule of history that what looks inevitable in hindsight was far from obvious at the time.
—Yuval Noah Harari (Israeli Historian)

Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too.
—Isabel Allende (Chilean Novelist)

There is no complete life. There are only fragments. We are born to have nothing, to have it pour through our hands.
—James Salter (American Fiction Writer)

Duty largely consists of pretending that the trivial is critical.
—John Fowles (English Novelist)

The tolerance of the skeptic … accepts the most diverse and indeed the most contradictory opinions, and keeps all his suspicions for the “dogmatist.”
—Jean Guitton (French Catholic Philosopher)

The heaviest penalty for deciding to engage in politics is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.
—Plato (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

Fear is the tax that conscience pays to guilt.
—George Sewell (English Physician, Poet)

History is a story. If history forgets or neglects to tell a story, it will inevitably forfeit much of its appeal and much of its authority as well.
—Henry Steele Commager (American Historian)

Once something becomes discernible, or understandable, we no longer need to repeat it. We can destroy it.
—Robert Wilson (American Theatremaker)

Prune these alleged friends ruthlessly from your life. You need all the positive reinforcement you can get. You need friends who think you’re fabulous, an angel in human shape, and a breath of springtime.
—Cynthia Heimel (American Humor Columnist)

When a peasant gives me his bit of cheese he’s making me a bigger present than the Prince of Làscari when he invites me to dinner. That’s obvious. The difficulty is that the cheese is nauseating. So all that remains is the heart’s gratitude which can’t be seen and the nose wrinkled in disgust which can be seen only too well.
—Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (Italian Author)

No good work is ever done while the heart is hot and anxious and fretted.
—Olive Schreiner (South African Novelist, Feminist)

If Nature had arranged that husbands and wives should have children alternately, there would never be more than three in a family.
—Laurence Housman (English Novelist, Dramatist)

There isn’t a plant or a business on earth that couldn’t stand a few improvements—and be better for them. Someone is going to think of them. Why not beat the other fellow to it?
—Roger Babson (American Economist)

Don’t worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

Boys will be boys. And even that wouldn’t matter if only we could prevent girls from being girls.
—Anthony Hope (English Author)

How little do they see what really is, who frame their hasty judgment upon that which seems.
—Robert South (English Theologian)

Nothing recedes like success.
—Bryan Forbes (English Actor, Film Director)