Inspirational Quotations

Love came down at Christmas;
Love all lovely, love divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
Stars and angels gave the sign.
—Christina Rossetti (English Poet)

Regularity in the hours of rising and retiring, perseverance in exercise, adaptation of dress to the variations of climate, simple and nutritious aliment, and temperance in all things are necessary branches of the regimen of health.
—Lydia H. Sigourney (American Poetaster, Author)

When a man has turned away from sin, reproach him no more.
—The Talmud (Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith)

Since we live in an age of innovation, a practical education must prepare a man for work that does not yet exist and cannot yet be clearly defined.
—Peter Drucker (Austrian-born Management Consultant)

If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.
—Dolly Parton (American Musician, Actress)

As with most fine things, chocolate has its season. There is a simple memory aid that you can use to determine whether it is the correct time to order chocolate dishes: any month whose name contains the letter A, E, or U is the proper time for chocolate.
—Sandra Boynton (American Humorist)

At the root of human responsibility is the concept of perfect, the urge to achieve it, the intelligence to find a path towards it, and the will to follow that path, if not to the end at least the distance needed to rise above individual limitations and environmental impediments.
—Aung San Suu Kyi (Burmese Political Activist)

All the mind’s activity is easy if it is not subjected to reality.
—Marcel Proust (French Novelist)

The average American worker has fifty interruptions a day, of which seventy percent have nothing to do with work.
—W. Edwards Deming (American Statistician)

I believe that a worthwhile life is defined by a kind of spiritual journey and a sense of obligation.
—Hillary Rodham Clinton (American Head of State)

Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light.
—Albert Schweitzer (French Theologian)

I would rather fail in a cause that will ultimately triumph than to triumph in a cause that will ultimately fail
—Woodrow Wilson (American Head of State)

We cast away priceless time in dreams, born of imagination, fed upon illusion, and put to death by reality.
—Judy Garland (American Actress, Singer)

The power to question is the basis of all human progress.
—Indira Gandhi (Indian Head of State)

Yoga is a science, and not a vague dreamy drifting or imagining. It is an applied science, a systematized collection of laws applied to bring about a definite end. It takes up the laws of psychology, applicable to the unfolding of the whole consciousness of man on every plane, in every world, and applies those rationally in a particular case. This rational application of the laws of unfolding consciousness acts exactly on the same principles that you see applied around you every day in other departments of science.
—Annie Besant (British-born Indian Theosophist)

To believe with certainty, we must begin by doubting.
—Polish Proverb

Do not say, “It is morning,” and dismiss it with a name of yesterday. See it for the first time as a newborn child that has no name.
—Rabindranath Tagore (Bengali Poet, Polymath)

Some plague the people with too long sermons; for the faculty of listening is a tender thing, and soon becomes weary and satiated.
—Martin Luther (German Protestant Theologian)

The only lasting beauty is the beauty of the heart.
—Muriel Strode (American Author, Businesswoman)

Haste is of the devil.
—The Holy Quran (Sacred Scripture of Islam)

Next to the assumption of power is the responsibility of relinquishing it.
—Benjamin Disraeli (British Head of State)

You can take no credit for beauty at sixteen. But if you are beautiful at sixty, it will be your soul’s own doing.
—Marie Stopes (British Author, Social Activist)

Treat with utmost respect your power of forming opinions, for this power alone guards you against making assumptions that are contrary to nature and judgments that overthrow the rule of reason.
—Marcus Aurelius (Emperor of Rome, Stoic Philosopher)

It is difficult to discern a serious threat to religious liberty from a room of silent, thoughtful schoolchildren.
—Sandra Day O’Connor (American Jurist)

Memories of our lives, of our works and our deeds will continue in others.
—Rosa Parks (American Civil Rights Leader)

To have joy one must share it. Happiness was born a twin.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (English Romantic Poet)

I am a liberated woman. And I do believe if a woman does equal work she should be paid equal money. But personally I am feminine and I do like male authority to lean on.
—Julie Andrews (British Actress, Singer)

Life is the flower for which love is the honey.
—Victor Hugo (French Novelist)

To understand Europe, you have to be a genius – or French.
—Madeleine Albright (Czech-born American Diplomat)

The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come.
—C. S. Lewis (Irish-born Author, Scholar)

The noblest motive is the public good.
—Virgil (Roman Poet)

An angry man opens his mouth and shuts his eyes.
—Cato the Elder (Marcus Porcius Cato) (Roman Statesman)

The double betrayal of a modern liberal arts education: it neither teaches you how to live nor how to work.
—Alain de Botton (Swiss-born British Philosopher)

My only objection to the custom of giving books as Christmas presents is perhaps the selfish one that it encourages and keeps in the game a number of writers who would be far better employed if they abandoned the pen and took to work.
—P. G. Wodehouse (English Novelist)

Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.
—John Stuart Mill (English Philosopher, Economist)

Laughter is one of the very privileges of reason, being confined to the human species.
—Thomas Carlyle (Scottish Historian, Essayist)

Don’t wait for moods. You’ll accomplish nothing.
—Pearl S. Buck (American Novelist)

I have been very happy, very rich, very beautiful, much adulated, very famous, and very unhappy.
—Brigitte Bardot (French Film Star)

I have a wife, I have sons; all these hostages have I given to fortune.
—F. L. Lucas (English Literary Critic)

I’m going to take the high road because the low road is so crowded.
—Mia Farrow (American Actress, Activist)

To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.
—George Washington (American Head of State)

The only sin is mediocrity.
—Martha Graham (American Choreographer)

Everybody knows if you are too careful you are so occupied in being careful that you are sure to stumble over something.
—Gertrude Stein (American Writer)

I don’t care what is written about me so long as it isn’t true.
—Katharine Hepburn (American Actor)

The essence of the liberal outlook is a belief that men should be free to question anything if they can support their questioning by solid arguments.
—Bertrand A. Russell (British Philosopher, Mathematician)

Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and whatever abysses nature leads, or you will learn nothing.
—Thomas Henry Huxley (English Biologist)

A daily guest is a great thief in the kitchen.
—Dutch Proverb

No fathers or mothers think their own children ugly; and this self-deceit is yet stronger with respect to the offspring of the mind.
—Miguel de Cervantes (Spanish Novelist)

I have no particular talent. I am merely inquisitive.
—Albert Einstein (German-born Theoretical Physicist)

It is necessary to try to surpass one’s self always; this occupation ought to last as long as life.
—Christina, Queen of Sweden (Swedish Monarch)

Through money or power you cannot solve all problems. The problem in the human heart must be solved first.
—The 14th Dalai Lama (Tibetan Buddhist Religious Leader)

What we do not see, what most of us never suspect of existing, is the silent but irresistible power which comes to the rescue of those who fight on in the face of discouragement.
—Napoleon Hill (American Author)

Macho doesn’t prove mucho.
—Zsa Zsa Gabor (Hungarian-born Film Actress)

To the person who does not know where he wants to go there is no favorable wind.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (Roman Stoic Philosopher)

Art is the human disposition of sensible or intelligible matter for an esthetic end.
—James Joyce (Irish Novelist)

There are only two creatures of value on the face of the earth: those with the commitment, and those who require the commitment of others.
—John Adams (American Head of State)

I believe in a lively disrespect for most forms of authority.
—Rita Mae Brown (American Writer, Feminist)

Nothing goes out of fashion sooner than a long dress with a very low neck.
—Coco Chanel (French Fashion Designer)

With wisdom grows doubt.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought.
—John Kenneth Galbraith (American Economist)

The idea shared by many that life is a vale of tears is just as false as the idea shared by the great majority, the idea to which youth and health and riches incline you, that life is a place of entertainment.
—Leo Tolstoy (Russian Novelist)

Fear is an uneasiness of the mind, upon the thought of a future evil likely to befall us.
—John Locke (English Philosopher)

There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.
—Niccolo Machiavelli (Florentine Political Philosopher)

Philosophy, rightly defined, is simply the love of wisdom.
—Cicero (Roman Philosopher)

People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them.
—George Bernard Shaw (Irish Playwright)

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.
—Carl Sagan (American Astronomer)

Where there is no counsel, the people perish; but in the multitude of counselors there is safety.
—The Holy Bible (Scripture in the Christian Faith)

Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.
—Frederic Chopin (Polish Composer, Pianist)

Truth is not introduced into the individual from without, but was within him all the time.
—Soren Kierkegaard (Danish Philosopher, Theologian)

The strength of criticism lies in the weakness of the thing criticized.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American Poet)

Difficult as it is really to listen to someone in affliction, it is just as difficult for him to know that compassion is listening to him.
—Simone Weil (French Philosopher, Political Activist)

There is no hell or heaven somewhere else, the hell is right here, when you are dishonest. The heaven is right here when you conduct yourself with honesty and truthfulness.
—Basava (Indian Hindu Philosopher)

By all means marry. If you get a good wife you will become happy, and if you get a bad one you will become a philosopher.
—Socrates (Anceient Greek Philosopher)

The Buddha’s last words instructed us to be heedful—to see our actions as important and to keep that importance in mind at all times.
—Thanissaro Bhikkhu (American Buddhist Monk)

Most of us can read the writing on the wall; we just assume it’s addressed to someone else.
—Ivern Ball (American Writer, Aphorist)

There are lots of things that you can brush under the carpet about yourself until you’re faced with somebody whose needs won’t be put off.
—Angela Carter (English Novelist, Short Story Writer)

An intelligent person spends his time by enjoying poetry and scientific literature. In contrast, a fool spends his time in his addiction to bad habits, laziness or in some kind of quarrel.
—The Hitopadesha (Indian Collection of Fables)

Death is our eternal companion. It is always to our left, an arm’s length behind us. Death is the only wise adviser that a warrior has. Whenever he feels that everything is going wrong and he’s about to be annihilated, he can turn to his death and ask if that is so. His death will tell him that he is wrong, that nothing really matters outside its touch. His death will tell him, I haven’t touched you yet.’
—Carlos Castaneda (Peruvian-born American Anthropologist)

We are slow to believe that which if believed would hurt our feelings.
—Louis Nizer (American Lawyer, Author)

It is base to filch a purse, daring to embezzle a million, but it is great beyond measure to steal a crown. The sin lessens as the guilt increases.
—Friedrich Schiller (German Poet)

Most decisions should probably be made with somewhere around 70% of the information you wish you had. If you wait for 90%, in most cases, you’re probably being slow.
—Jeff Bezos (American Businessman)

Understanding is the first step to acceptance, and only with acceptance can there be recovery.
—J. K. Rowling (English Novelist)

All formal dogmatic religions are fallacious and must never be accepted by self-respecting persons as final.
—Hypatia of Alexandria (Greek Philosopher, Mathematician)

They learn in suffering what they teach in song.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (English Poet)

Let your self go. If you can approach the world’s complexities, both its glories and its horrors, with an attitude of humble curiosity, acknowledging that however deeply you have seen, you have only scratched the surface, you will find worlds within worlds, beauties you could not heretofore imagine, and your own mundane preoccupations will shrink to proper size, not all that important in the greater scheme of things.
—Daniel C. Dennett (American Philosopher, Atheist)

When you lose a couple of times, it makes you realize how difficult it is to win.
—Steffi Graf (German Tennis Player)

If you steal something small you are a petty thief, but if you steal millions you are a gentleman of society.
—Greek Proverb

What is the price of experience?. Do men buy it for a song?. Or wisdom for a dance in the street?. No, it is bought with the price of all the man hath, his house, his wife, his children.
—William Blake (English Poet)

You will not become a saint through other people’s sins.
—Anton Chekhov (Russian Short Story Writer)

Common sense is anything but common.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher, Author)

A person who knows little likes to talk, and one who knows much mostly keeps silent. This is because a person who knows little thinks that everything he knows is important, and wants to tell everyone. A person who knows much also knows that there is much more he doesn’t know. That’s why he speaks only when it is necessary to speak, and when he is not asked questions, he keeps his silence.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (French Philosopher)

The more you adapt, the more interesting you are.
—Martha Stewart (American Businesswoman)

It’s the heart afraid of breaking that never learns to dance.
—Bette Midler (American Actress, Singer)

The most powerful weapon to conquer the devil is humility. For, as he does not know at all how to employ it, neither does he know how to defend himself from it.
—Vincent de Paul (French Catholic Saint)

Talking and eloquence are not the same.—To speak and to speak well are two things.—A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.
—Ben Jonson (English Dramatist)

In a choice between bad company and loneliness, the second is preferable.
—Spanish Proverb

The more we sweat in peace the less we bleed in war.
—Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit (Indian Politician, Diplomat)

My definition of a philosopher is of a man up in a balloon, with his family and friends holding the ropes which confine him to earth and trying to haul him down
—Louisa May Alcott (American Novelist)

Investors have very short memories.
—Roman Abramovich (Russian-Israeli Businessman)

Rarely promise, but, if lawful, constantly perform.
—William Penn (American Entrepreneur)

Destroy the seed of evil, or it will grow up to your ruin.
—Aesop (Greek Fabulist)

Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this: That you are dreadfully like other people.
—James Russell Lowell (American Poet, Critic)

Better to die than to live on with a bad reputation.
—Vietnamese Proverb

Science is but an image of the truth.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

By all means let’s be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
—Richard Dawkins (British Ethologist, Atheist)

Religion is a byproduct of fear. For much of human history, it may have been a necessary evil, but why was it more evil than necessary? Isn’t killing people in the name of God a pretty good definition of insanity?
—Arthur C. Clarke (English Science-fiction Writer)

When you make the right decision, it doesn’t really matter what anyone else thinks.
—Caroline Kennedy (American Attorney, Diplomat)

Inertia accounts for two-thirds of marriages. But love accounts for the other third.
—Woody Allen (American Film Actor, Director)

The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself in every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him.
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

It is the want to know the end that makes us believe in God, or witchcraft, believe, at least, in something.
—Truman Capote (American Novelist)

Take away the danger and remove the restraint, and wayward nature runs free.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (Roman Poet)

Having leveled my palace, don’t erect a hovel and complacently admire your own charity in giving me that for a home.
—Emily Bronte (English Novelist, Poet)

When someone we love is having difficulty and is giving us a bad time, it’s better to explore the cause than to criticize the action.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

When a field has been carefully prepared and planted with seeds, and all favorable conditions are present, such as temperature, moisture, and warmth, the seeds will germinate and grow into crops. It is said that there is nothing, however difficult, that cannot become easy through familiarization. If you persevere in the practice of these instructions, you can be sure of achieving results.
—Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche (Tibetan Buddhist Teacher)

Think about any attachments that are depleting your emotional reserves. Consider letting them go.
—Oprah Winfrey (American TV Personality)

The man that shows off, to that one who wants to convince of his value is to himself.
—Domenico Cieri (Mexican Writer)

One of the saddest lines in the world is, ‘Oh come now – be realistic.’ The best parts of this world were not fashioned by those who were realistic. They were fashioned by those who dared to look hard at their wishes and gave them horses to ride.
—Richard Nelson Bolles (American Self-Help Author)

Snobs talk as if they had begotten their own ancestors.
—Herbert Agar (American Journalist, Historian)

Take away love and our earth is a tomb.
—Robert Browning (English Poet)

It is far more important to me to preserve an unblemished conscience than to compass any object however great.
—William Ellery Channing (American Theologian, Poet)

A noble heart, like the sun, showeth its greatest countenance in its lowest estate.
—Philip Sidney (English Soldier, Poet, Courtier)

We would be able neither to remember nor to reflect nor to compare nor to think, indeed, we would not even be the person who we were a moment ago, if our concepts were divided among many and were not to be encountered somewhere together in their most exact combination.
—Moses Mendelssohn (German Jewish Philosopher)

Human happiness seems to consist in three ingredients; action, pleasure, and indolence. And though these ingredients ought to be mixed in different proportions, according to the disposition of the person, yet no one ingredient can be entirely wanting without destroying in some measure the relish of the whole composition.
—David Hume (Scottish Philosopher, Historian)

We all remember how many religious wars were fought for a religion of love and gentleness; how many bodies were burned alive with the genuinely kind intention of saving souls from the eternal fire of hell
—Karl Popper (Austrian-born British Philosopher)

The essence of knowledge is, having it, to apply it; not having it, to confess your ignorance.
—Confucius (Chinese Philosopher)

The most valuable of all talents is never using two words when one will do.
—Thomas Jefferson (American Head of State)

Misfortunes tell us what fortune is.
—Thomas Fuller (English Cleric, Historian)

The rich would have to eat money if the poor did not provide food.
—Russian Proverb

Can anything be sadder than work unfinished? Yes; work never begun.
—Christina Rossetti (English Poet)

Circumstances don’t make the man, they only reveal him to himself.
—Epictetus (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.
—Jean-Paul Sartre (French Philosopher)

During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
—George Orwell (English Novelist, Essayist, Journalist)

My weakness is wearing too much leopard print.
—Jackie Collins (English Romance Novelist)

When meditation is mastered, the mind is unwavering like the flame of a lamp in a windless place.
—The Bhagavad Gita (Hindu Scripture)

It’s nothing to be born ugly. Sensibly, the ugly woman comes to terms with her ugliness and exploits it as a grace of nature. To become ugly means the beginning of a calamity, self-willed most of the time.
—Colette (French Novelist, Performer)

Simplicity and naturalness are the truest marks of distinction.
—W. Somerset Maugham (British Novelist)

Each blade of grass has its spot on earth whence it draws its life, its strength; and so is man rooted to the land from which he draws his faith together with his life.
—Joseph Conrad (Polish-born British Novelist)

I want, by understanding myself, to understand others. I want to be all that I am capable of becoming.
—Katherine Mansfield (British Author)

I happen to feel that the degree of a person’s intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting attitudes she can bring to bear on the same topic.
—Lisa Alther (American Novelist)

The wrinkles of the heart are more indelible than those of the brow.
—Dorothee Luzy Dotinville (French Dancer, Actress)

Just as a picture is drawn by an artist, surroundings are created by the activities of the mind.
—Buddhist Teaching

Evil acts of the past are never rectified by evil acts of the present.
—Lyndon B. Johnson (American Head of State)

Tomorrow is always fresh, with no mistakes in it.
—Lucy Maud Montgomery (Canadian Novelist, Children’s Writer)

Discipline must come through liberty. . . . We do not consider an individual disciplined only when he has been rendered as artificially silent as a mute and as immovable as a paralytic. He is an individual annihilated, not disciplined.
—Maria Montessori (Italian Physician, Educator)

If one understands eternity as timelessness, and not as an unending timespan, then whoever lives in the present lives for all time.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (Austrian-born British Philosopher)

Let a man take time enough for the most trival deed, though it be but the paring of his nails. The buds swell imperceptibly, without hurry or confusion, as if the short spring days were an eternity.
—Henry David Thoreau (American Philosopher)

It’s a big world. You can loudly leave out 99% of it. People in that 1% will come to you because you have shown how much you value them.
—Derek Sivers (American Entrepreneur)