Inspirational Quotations

Learning carries within itself certain dangers because out of necessity one has to learn from one’s enemies.
—Leon Trotsky (Russian Revolutionary)

Hatred and fear blind us. We no longer see each other. We see only the faces of monsters, and that gives us the courage to destroy each other.
—Thich Nhat Hanh (Vietnamese Buddhist Religious Leader)

I hate when I read “Try that Jennifer Aniston Diet.” There was no diet!
—Jennifer Aniston (American Actress)

The pace of science forces the pace of technique. Theoretical physics forces atomic energy on us; the successful production of the fission bomb forces upon us the manufacture of the hydrogen bomb. We do not choose our problems, we do not choose our products; we are pushed, we are forced—by what? By a system which has no purpose and goal transcending it, and which makes man its appendix.
—Erich Fromm (German Social Philosopher)

Teach thy tongue to say “I do not know” and thou shalt progress.
—Moses Maimonides (Jewish Philosopher, Rabbinic Scholar)

Labor is the only prayer that Nature answers.
—Robert G. Ingersoll (American Lawyer, Orator, Agnostic)

Being born in a duck yard does not matter, if only you are hatched from a swan’s egg.
—Hans Christian Andersen (Danish Author)

In times of great stress or adversity, it’s always best to keep busy, to plow your anger and your energy into something positive.
—Lee Iacocca (American Businessperson)

There is no vice or folly that requires so much nicety and skill to manage as vanity; nor any which by ill management makes so contemptible a figure.
—Jonathan Swift (Irish Satirist)

An extreme rigor is sure to arm everything against it.
—Edmund Burke (British Philosopher, Statesman)

To those who despair of everything reason cannot provide a faith, but only passion, and in this case it must be the same passion that lay at the root of the despair, namely humiliation and hatred.
—Albert Camus (Algerian-born French Philosopher)

I had six honest serving men. They taught me all I knew. Their names were: Where, What, When, Why, How and Who.
—Rudyard Kipling (British Children’s Books Writer)

Half the misery in the world comes of want of courage to speak and to hear the truth plainly, and in a spirit of love.
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (American Abolitionist)

Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.
—James Baldwin (American Novelist, Social Critic)

The mind grows sicker than the body in contemplation of it’s suffering.
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) (Roman Poet)

When you jump for joy, beware that no one moves the ground from beneath your feet.
—Stanislaw Jerzy Lec (Polish Aphorist, Poet)

One of our ironclad rules is ‘Never do business with anybody you don’t like.’ If you don’t like somebody, there’s a reason. Chances are it’s because you don’t trust him, and you’re probably right. I don’t care who it is or what guarantees you get—cash in advance or whatever. If you do business with somebody you don’t like, sooner or later you’ll get screwed.
—Harry V. Quadracci (American Entrepreneur)

If it’s a good idea, go ahead and do it. It’s much easier to apologize than it is to get permission.
—Grace Hopper (American Mathematician)

There is really no insurmountable barrier save your own inherent weakness of purpose.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Philosopher)

To know what people really think, pay regard to what they do, rather than what they say.
—Rene Descartes (French Mathematician, Philosopher)

Happiness comes from spiritual wealth, not material wealth… Happiness comes from giving, not getting. If we try hard to bring happiness to others, we cannot stop it from coming to us also. To get joy, we must give it, and to keep joy, we must scatter it.
—John Templeton (American-British Investor)

The pursuit of happiness is often the pursuit of emptiness. Far wiser is the pursuit of contribution.
—Marty Nemko (American Career Coach, Author)

A society to be successful must maintain a balance between nurturing excellence and encouraging the average to improve.
—Lee Kuan Yew (Singaporean Statesman)

Habits of thinking need not be forever. One of the most significant findings in psychology in the last twenty years is that individuals can choose the way they think.
—Martin Seligman (American Psychologist)

Children need guidance and sympathy far more than instruction.
—Anne Sullivan Macy (American Educator)

The knowledge we have acquired ought not to resemble a great shop without order, and without an inventory; we ought to know what we possess, and be able to make it serve us in our need.
—Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (German Philosopher, Mathematician)

There is no greatness where simplicity, goodness and truth are absent.
—Leo Tolstoy (Russian Novelist)

A man who owes a little can clear it off in a little time, and, if he is prudent, he will: whereas a man, who, by long negligence, owes a great deal, despairs of ever being able to pay, and therefore never looks into his accounts at all.
—Earl of Chesterfield (English Statesman, Man of Letters)

The sweetness of life lies in usefulness, like honey deep in the heart of a clover bloom.
—Laura Ingalls Wilder (American Author of Children’s Novels)

Believe in something larger than yourself… Get involved in the big ideas of your time.
—Barbara Bush (American First Lady)

For what is a poem but a hazardous attempt at self-understanding: it is the deepest part of autobiography.
—Robert Penn Warren (American Novelist, Poet)

One does not insult the river god while crossing the river.
—Chinese Proverb

It is harder to avoid censure than to gain applause, for this may be done by one great or wise action in an age; but to escape censure a man must pass his whole life without saying or doing one ill or foolish thing.
—David Hume (Scottish Philosopher, Historian)

Getting ahead in a difficult profession—singing, acting, writing, whatever—requires avid faith in yourself. You must be able to sustain yourself against staggering blows and unfair reversals. When I think back to those first couple of years in Rome, those endless rejections, without a glimmer of encouragement from anyone, all those failed screen tests, and yet I never let my desire slide away from me, my belief in myself and what I felt I could achieve
—Sophia Loren (Italian Actor)

Where we have strong emotions, we’re liable to fool ourselves.
—Carl Sagan (American Astronomer)

To cure jealousy is to see it for what it is, a dissatisfaction with self.
—Joan Didion (American Essayist, Novelist, Memoirist)

Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering.
—Aeschylus (Greek Poet)

We can never obtain peace in the world if we neglect the inner world and don’t make peace with ourselves. World peace must develop out of inner peace.
—The 14th Dalai Lama (Tibetan Buddhist Religious Leader)

You know you’re getting old when you stop to tie your shoes and wonder what else you can do while you’re down there.
—George Burns (American Comedian)

The only people who remain misunderstood are those who either do not know what they want or are not worth understanding.
—Ivan Turgenev (Russian Novelist, Playwright)

Live out of your imagination, not your history.
—Stephen Covey (American Self-help Author)

For man there are only three important events: birth, life and death; but he is unaware of being born, he suffers when he dies, and he forgets to live.
—Jean de La Bruyere (French Author)

I doubt if one ever accepts a belief until one urgently needs it.
—Christopher Isherwood (Anglo-American Novelist, Playwright)

Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before, how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever…
—Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) (Danish Novelist, Short-story Writer)

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.
—Leonardo da Vinci (Italian Polymath)

A well governed appetite is the greater part of liberty.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (Roman Stoic Philosopher)

Objective evidence and certitude are doubtless very fine ideals to play with, but where on this moonlit and dream-visited planet are they found?
—William James (American Philosopher)

Perhaps the most distinguishing trait of visionary leaders is that they believe in a goal that benefits not only themselves, but others as well. It is such vision that attracts the psychic energy of other people, and makes them willing to work beyond the call of duty for the organization.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Hungarian-American Psychologist)

Before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.
—Harper Lee (American Novelist)

Big words seldom accompany good deeds.
—Danish Proverb

To live each day as though one’s last, never flustered, never apathetic, never attitudinizing—here is perfection of character.
—Marcus Aurelius (Emperor of Rome, Stoic Philosopher)

Everything has been figured out, except how to live.
—Jean-Paul Sartre (French Philosopher)

The highest form of vanity is love of fame.
—George Santayana (Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher)

We do not deal much in facts when we are contemplating ourselves.
—Mark Twain (American Humorist)

A docile disposition will, with application, surmount every difficulty.
—Marcus Manilius (Roman Poet)

Flattery is like cologne water, to be smelt of, not swallowed.
—Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw) (American Humorist)

If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do well matters very much.
—Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (American First Lady)

Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world. So long as you can sweeten another’s pain, life is not in vain.
—Helen Keller (American Author)

Reproof on her lips, but a smile in her eyes.
—Samuel Lover (Irish Writer, Artist, Songwriter)

Comfort is no test of truth; on the contrary, truth is often far from being “comfortable”.
—Swami Vivekananda (Indian Hindu Mystic)

Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.
—Confucius (Chinese Philosopher)

If I like chocolate it won’t surprise you that I have a few chocolates in my fridge, but if you find out I’ve got 16 warehouses full of chocolate, you’d think I was insane. All these rich guys are insane, obsessive compulsive twits obsessed with money—money is all they think about—they’re all nuts.
—John Cleese (British Comic Actor, Writer)

The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, we shall have discovered fire.
—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (French Jesuit Scientist)

Freedom is the right to question and change the established way of doing things.
—Ronald Reagan (American Head of State)

To be a revolutionary you have to be a human being. You have to care about people who have no power.
—Jane Fonda (American Actress)

Love is the last relay and ultimate outposts of eternity.
—Dante Gabriel Rossetti (British Poet, Artist)

But I like not these great successes of yours; for I know how jealous are the gods.
—Herodotus (Ancient Greek Historian)

The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (German Philosopher, Physicist)

When you overpay small people you frighten them. They know that their merits or activities entitle them to no such sums as they are receiving. As a result their boss soars out of economic into magic significance. He becomes a source of blessings rather than wages. Criticism is sacrilege, doubt is heresy.
—Ben Hecht (American Screenwriter)

I shall devote only a few lines to the expression of my belief in the importance of science … it is by this daily striving after knowledge that man has raised himself to the unique position he occupies on earth, and that his power and well-being have continually increased.
—Marie Curie (Polish-born French Physicist)

Good writing excites me, and makes life worth living.
—Harold Pinter (British Playwright)

Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh.
—Leonard Cohen (Canadian Musician, Author)

Nobody can be kinder than the narcissist while you react to life in his own terms.
—Elizabeth Bowen (Irish Novelist)

I never did anything by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.
—Thomas Edison (American Inventor)

We should seek by all means in our power to avoid war, by analyzing possible causes, by trying to remove them, by discussion in a spirit of collaboration and good will. I cannot believe that such a program would be rejected by the people of this country, even if it does mean the establishment of personal contact with the dictators.
—Neville Chamberlain (British Head of State)

There are so many girls, and so few princes.
—Liza Minnelli (American Singer, Actress)

Be humble, if thou would’st attain to Wisdom. Be humbler still, when Wisdom thou hast mastered.
—Helena Blavatsky (Ukrainian-born American Theosophist)

To question a wise man is the beginning of wisdom.
—German Proverb

Out of all virtues simplicity is my most favorite virtue. So much so that I tend to believe that simplicity can solve most of the problems, personal as well as the world problems. If the life approach is simple one need not lie so frequently, nor quarrel nor steal, nor envy, anger, abuse, kill. Everyone will have enough and plenty so need not hoard, speculate, gamble, hate. When character is beautiful, you are beautiful. That is the beauty of simplicity.
—Ela Bhatt (Indian Labor Activist)

Wise men don’t need advice. Fools won’t take it.
—Benjamin Franklin (American Founding Father, Inventor)

Anybody who believes in something without reservation, believes that this thing is right and should be, has the stamina to meet obstacles and overcome them.
—Golda Meir (Israeli Head of State)

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson (British Poet)

Borrowing is not much better than begging; just as lending with interest is not much better than stealing.
—Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (German Writer)

Events will take their course, it is no good of being angry at them; he is happiest who wisely turns them to the best account.
—Euripides (Ancient Greek Dramatist)

You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.
—Elon Musk (American Entrepreneur)

Good communication does not mean that you have to speak in perfectly formed sentences and paragraphs. It isn’t about slickness. Simple and clear go a long way.
—John Kotter (American Management Consultant)

The happiest heart that ever beat
Was in some quiet breast
That found the common daylight sweet,
And left to Heaven the rest.
—John Vance Cheney (American Poet)

Those who cannot work with their hearts achieve but a hollow, half-hearted success that breeds bitterness all around.
—A. P. J. Abdul Kalam (Indian Head of State, Scientist)

You do not reform a world by ignoring it.
—George H. W. Bush (American Head of State)

Ideas are invented only as correctives to the past. Through repeated rectification of this kind one may hope to disengage an idea that is valid.
—Gaston Bachelard (French Philosopher)

Old age is like climbing a mountain. The higher you get, the more tired and breathless you become, but your view becomes much more extensive.
—Ingmar Bergman (Swedish Film and Stage Director)

What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
—H. L. Mencken (American Journalist, Literary Critic)

People who are not in love fail to understand how an intelligent man can suffer because of a very ordinary woman. This is like being surprised that anyone should be stricken with cholera because of a creature so insignificant as the comma bacillus.
—Marcel Proust (French Novelist)

Both the good and the pleasant present themselves to a man. The calm soul examines them well and discriminates. Yeah, he prefers the good to the pleasant; but the fool chooses the pleasant out of greed and avarice.
—The Upanishads (Sacred Books of Hinduism)

If the crisis lasts moments, rapid action is critical. But if it’s simply the beginning of a broader issue, especially one where the root cause isn’t known yet, the worst thing a leader can do is act immediately.
—Brad Feld (American Entrepreneur, Investor)

Speakers who talk about what life has taught them never fail to keep the attention of their listeners.
—Dale Carnegie (American Self-Help Author)

The artist’s role is to raise the consciousness of the people. To make them understand life, the world and themselves more completely. That’s how I see it. Otherwise, I don’t know why you do it.
—Amiri Baraka (American Poet, Playwright)

Writing ought either to be the manufacture of stories for which there is a market demand—a business as safe and commendable as making soap or breakfast foods—or it should be an art, which is always a search for something for which there is no market demand, something new and untried, where the values are intrinsic and have nothing to do with standardized values.
—Willa Cather (American Novelist)

Be convinced that to be happy means to be free and that to be free means to be brave. Therefore do not take lightly the perils of war.
—Thucydides (Greek Historian)

I don’t mind their having a lot of money, and I don’t care how they employ it, but I do think that they damn well ought to admit they enjoy it.
—Ogden Nash (American Comic Poet)

Distrust all those who love you extremely upon a very slight acquaintance and without any visible reason.
—Earl of Chesterfield (English Statesman, Man of Letters)

The important thing is not what they think of me, but what I think of them.
—Queen Victoria (British Royal)

Amazing moments—when you seem to know something beyond what you know and to understand things you don’t understand—can’t be understood in this life.
—Jane Goodall (British Ethologist)

Example is the greatest of all seducers.
—French Proverb

To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (American Physician, Essayist)

There are persons who, when they cease to shock us, cease to interest us.
—F. H. Bradley (British Idealist Philosopher)

If we would just support each other—that’s ninety percent of the problem.
—Howard Gardner (American Psychologist)

The fact is always obvious much too late, but the most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy a liquid.
—J. D. Salinger (American Novelist, Short-story Writer)

When everything has to be right, something isn’t.
—Stanislaw Jerzy Lec (Polish Aphorist, Poet)

In life, as in restaurants, we swallow a lot of indigestible stuff just because it comes with the dinner.
—Mignon McLaughlin (American Journalist)

When we see ourselves in a situation which must be endured and gone through, it is best to make up our minds to meet it with firmness, and accommodate everything to it in the best way practical. This lessons the evil, while fretting and fuming only serve to increase your own torments.
—Thomas Jefferson (American Head of State)

And for a long time yet, led by some wondrous power, I am fated to journey hand in hand with my strange heroes and to survey the surging immensity of life, to survey it through the laughter that all can see and through the tears unseen and unknown by anyone.
—Nikolai Gogol (Russian Novelist, Dramatist)

We will miss everything beautiful in our own lives, because we were too busy hunting something else, losing touch.
—Henry David Thoreau (American Philosopher)

Those who act as if they know more than their boss seldom do.
—Malcolm S. Forbes (American Publisher)

This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted.
—C. S. Lewis (Irish-born Author, Scholar)

Laziness erodes a person of his enthusiasm and energy. As a result the person loses all opportunities and finally becomes dejected and frustrated. The worst thing is that he stops believing in himself.
—The Vedas (Sacred Books of Hinduism)

I urge you to work together in promoting a true, worldwide ethical mobilization which, beyond all differences of religious or political convictions, will spread and put into practice a shared ideal of fraternity and solidarity, especially with regard to the poorest and those most excluded.
—Pope Francis (Religious Leader)

I guess the definition of a lunatic is a man surrounded by them.
—Ezra Pound (American Poet, Critic)

If thou art rich, thou art poor; for, like an ass, whose back with ingots bows, thou bearest thy heavy riches but a journey, and death unloads thee.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

The idea of caring that someone is making money faster [than you] is one of the deadly sins. Envy is a really stupid sin because it’s the only one you could never possibly have any fun at. There’s a lot of pain and no fun. Why would you want to get on that trolley?
—Charlie Munger (American Investor, Philanthropist)

Look for the good, not the evil, in the conduct of members of the family.
—Yiddish Proverb

We do not succeed in changing things according to our desire, but gradually our desire changes.
—Marcel Proust (French Novelist)

Fooled once shame on you, fooled twice shame on me.
—U.S. Proverb

Love, like fire, goes out without fuel.
—Mikhail Lermontov (Russian Novelist, Poet)

Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration—courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and, above all, love of the truth.
—H. L. Mencken (American Journalist, Literary Critic)

A wonderful thing about true laughter is that it just destroys any kind of system of dividing people.
—John Cleese (British Comic Actor, Writer)

It’s easier to be original and foolish than original and wise.
—Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (German Philosopher, Mathematician)

I’ve seen a look in dogs’ eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts.
—John Steinbeck (American Novelist)

There are three things which the superior man guards against. In youth … lust. When he is strong … quarrelsomeness. When he is old … covetousness.
—Confucius (Chinese Philosopher)

An original idea. That can’t be too hard. The library must be full of them.
—Stephen Fry (English Actor, Writer)

We have to encourage the future we want rather than trying to prevent the future we fear.
—Bill Joy (American Computer Engineer)

A man’s genius is always, in the beginning of life, as much unknown to himself as to others; and it is only after frequent trials, attended with success, that he dares think himself equal to those undertakings in which those who have succeeded have fixed the admiration of mankind.
—David Hume (Scottish Philosopher, Historian)

The prospect of success in achieving our most cherished dream is not without its terrors. Who is more deprived and alone than the man who has achieved his dream?
—Brendan Behan (Irish Poet)

There is no original truth, only original error.
—Gaston Bachelard (French Philosopher)

Gratitude is not only the memory but the homage of the heart rendered to God for his goodness.
—Nathaniel Parker Willis (American Poet, Playwright)

War is like love, it always finds a way.
—Bertolt Brecht (German Poet)

As rivers, when they overflow, drown those grounds and ruin those husbandmen, which, whilst they flowed calmly betwixt their banks they fertilized and enriched, so our passions, when they grow exorbitant and unruly, destroy those virtues to which they might be very serviceable whilst kept within their bounds.
—Robert Boyle (Irish Scientist, Philosopher)

Ideal conversation must be an exchange of thought, and not, as many of those who worry most about their shortcomings believe, an eloquent exhibition of wit or oratory.
—Emily Post (American Writer, Socialite)

There is nothing so strong or safe in an emergency of life as the simple truth.
—Charles Dickens (English Novelist)

I believe love produces a certain flowering of the whole personality which nothing else can achieve.
—Ivan Turgenev (Russian Novelist, Playwright)

Men’s fortunes are on a wheel, which in its turning suffers not the same man to prosper for ever.
—Herodotus (Ancient Greek Historian)

Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.
—Toni Morrison (American Novelist)

When you give power to an executive you do not know who will be filling that position when the time of crisis comes.
—Ernest Hemingway (American Author)

Land and sea, weakness and decline are great separators, but death is the great divorcer for ever.
—John Keats (English Poet)