Inspirational Quotations

The more you struggle to live, the less you live. Give up the notion that you must be sure of what you are doing. Instead, surrender to what is real within you, for that alone is sure. As stars high above earth, you are above everything distressing. But you must awaken to it. Wake up!
—Baruch Spinoza (Dutch Philosopher)

Sure the shovel and tongs
To each other belongs.
—Samuel Lover (Irish Writer, Artist, Songwriter)

Be a good human being, a warm-hearted affectionate person. That is my fundamental belief. Having a sense of caring, a feeling of compassion will bring happiness of peace of mind to oneself and automatically create a positive atmosphere.
—The 14th Dalai Lama (Tibetan Buddhist Religious Leader)

The wise understand by themselves; fools follow the reports of others.
—Tibetan Proverb

We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.
—Carl Sagan (American Astronomer)

The difference between involvement and commitment is like ham and eggs. The chicken is involved; the pig is committed.
—Martina Navratilova (Czech-born American Sportsperson)

Marriage is three parts love and seven parts forgiveness of sins.
—Laozi (Chinese Philosopher)

Spring makes everything young again except man.
—Charles F. Richter (American Physicist, Geologist)

Faith is never identical with piety.
—Karl Barth (Swiss Protestant Theologian)

The test of a man or woman’s breeding is how they behave in a quarrel.
—George Bernard Shaw (Irish Playwright)

You have to be willing to be misunderstood if you’re going to innovate.
—Jeff Bezos (American Businessman)

The organizations of men, like men themselves, seem subject to deafness, near-sightedness, lameness, and involuntary cruelty. We seem tragically unable to help one another, to understand one another.
—John Cheever (American Novelist)

Was it a friend or foe that spread these lies? Nay, who but infants question in such wise, ’twas one of my most intimate enemies.
—Dante Gabriel Rossetti (British Poet, Artist)

It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
—Ursula K. Le Guin (Science-fiction writer)

There is something beyond our mind which abides in silence within our mind. It is the supreme mystery beyond thought. Let one’s mind and one’s subtle body rest upon that and not rest on anything else.
—The Upanishads (Sacred Books of Hinduism)

For good and evil in our actions meet; wicked is not much worse than indiscreet.
—John Donne (English Poet, Cleric)

When we start deceiving ourselves into thinking not that we want something or need something, not that it is a pragmatic necessity for us to have it, but that it is a moral imperative that we have it, then is when we join the fashionable madmen, and then is when the thin whine of hysteria is heard in the land, and then is when we are in bad trouble.
—Joan Didion (American Essayist, Novelist, Memoirist)

If a man be self-controlled, truthful, wise, and resolute, is there aught that can stay out of reach of such a man?
—The Panchatantra (Indian Collection of Fables)

Charlie Munger says that he wants to shoot fish in a barrel, but only after all the water has been let out…. When I look at the people that I would normally think of as very good investors, basically, those folks are really good investors but they aren’t fishing where the fish are. And it doesn’t matter how good of a fisherman you are if you’re not fishing where the fish are.
—Mohnish Pabrai (Indian-American Investor, Philanthropist)

Let nothing be done in your life, which will cause you fear if it becomes known to your neighbor.
—Epicurus (Greek Philosopher)

Power should be reserved for weightlifting and boats, and leadership really involves responsibility.
—Herb Kelleher (American Entrepreneur)

The tongue can conceal the truth, but the eyes never! You’re asked an unexpected question, you don’t even flinch, it takes just a second to get yourself under control, you know just what you have to say to hide the truth, and you speak very convincingly, and nothing in your face twitches to give you away. But the truth, alas, has been disturbed by the question, and it rises up from the depths of your soul to flicker in your eyes and all is lost.
—Mikhail Bulgakov (Russian Novelist, Dramatist)

To get into the best society nowadays, one has either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

The person who lives by hope will die by despair.
—Italian Proverb

What’s true is that everyone is uncomfortable with expressing anger and being critical. Anger and criticism generates rejection. And everyone hates rejection.
—Warren Farrell (American Educator, Activist)

We consume our tomorrows fretting about our yesterdays.
—Persius (Roman Poet)

Choose rather to want less, than to have more.
—Thomas a Kempis (German Religious Writer)

When you’re the victim of the behavior, it’s black and white; when you’re the perpetrator, there are a million shades of gray.
—Laura Schlessinger (American Broadcaster)

At every word a reputation dies.
—Alexander Pope (English Poet)

One seeks to make the loved one entirely happy, or, if that cannot be, entirely wretched.
—Jean de La Bruyere (French Author)

It is the individual’s task to differentiate himself from all the others and stand on his own feet. All collective identities… interfere with the fulfillment of this task. Such collective identities are crutches for the lame, shields for the timid, beds for the lazy, nurseries for the irresponsible….
—Carl Gustav Jung (Swiss Psychologist)

Reading is not just about the content of the text. It’s allocating quiet time / space to think and reflect on the issues raised by the text.
—Ben Casnocha (American Entrepreneur, Investor)

Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.
—Theodore Roosevelt (American Head of State)

We still have it in our power to rise above the fears, imagined and real, and to shoulder the great burdens which destiny has placed upon us, not for our country alone, but for the benefit of all the world. That is the only destiny worthy of America.
—Helen Keller (American Author)

If there is a single goal for all civilization, it does not mean that all shall speak a common tongue or profess a common creed, or that all shall live under a single government, or all shall follow an unchanging pattern in customs and manners. The unity of civilization is not to be sought in uniformity but in harmony. Every great culture is due to the blending of peoples of different ideals and temperaments. Egypt and Babylon, India and China, Greece and Rome, testify to this truth. Today the circle of those who participate in the cultural synthesis has become wider and includes practically the whole world. The faith of the future is in co-operation and not identification, in accommodation to fellowmen and not imitation of them, in toleration and not absolutism.
—Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (Indian Philosopher, Political Leader)

You can jail a Revolutionary, but you can’t jail the Revolution.
—Huey P. Newton (American Political Activist)

Man is a marvelous curiosity … he thinks he is the Creator’s pet … he even believes the Creator loves him; has a passion for him; sits up nights to admire him; yes, and watch over him and keep him out of trouble. He prays to him and thinks He listens. Isn’t it a quaint idea?
—Robert G. Ingersoll (American Lawyer, Orator, Agnostic)

You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.
—James Baldwin (American Novelist, Social Critic)

We must welcome the future, remembering that soon it will be the past; and we must respect the past, knowing that once it was all that was humanly possible.
—George Santayana (Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher)

Work spares us from three great evils: boredom, vice and need.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher, Author)

Man needs his difficulties because they are necessary to enjoy success.
—A. P. J. Abdul Kalam (Indian Head of State, Scientist)

Great political questions stir the deepest nature of one-half the nation, but they pass far above and over the heads of the other half.
—Wendell Phillips (American Abolitionist)

More than anything else, I believe it’s our decisions, not the conditions of our lives, that determine our destiny.
—Tony Robbins (American Self-Help Author)

To flatter and follow others, without being flattered and followed in turn, is but a state of half enjoyment.
—Jane Austen (English Novelist)

History cannot give us a program for the future, but it can give us a fuller understanding of ourselves, and of our common humanity, so that we can better face the future.
—Robert Penn Warren (American Novelist, Poet)

I am beginning to learn that it is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.
—Laura Ingalls Wilder (American Author of Children’s Novels)

The painter constructs, the photographer discloses.
—Susan Sontag (American Writer, Philosopher)

The last three or four reps is what makes the muscle grow. This area of pain divides the champion from someone else who is not a champion. That’s what most people lack, having the guts to go on and just say they’ll go through the pain no matter what happens.
—Arnold Schwarzenegger (Austrian-American Actor, Politician)

The virtuous (when injured) grieve not so much for their own pain as for the loss of happiness incurred by their injurers.
—The Jataka Tales (Genre of Buddhist Literature)

It’s never too late—never too late to start over, never too late to be happy.
—Jane Fonda (American Actress)

An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest. Learning is to the Studious, and Riches to the Careful. If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him.
—John C. Bogle (American Mutual Fund Pioneer)

Informed decision-making comes from a long tradition of guessing and then blaming others for inadequate results.
—Scott Adams (American Cartoonist)

Art is not a study of positive reality, it is the seeking for ideal truth.
—George Sand (French Novelist, Dramatist)

Our notions of happiness entrap us. We forget that they are just ideas. Our idea of happiness can prevent us from actually being happy. We fail to see the opportunity for joy that is right in front of us when we are caught in a belief that happiness should take a particular form.
—Thich Nhat Hanh (Vietnamese Buddhist Religious Leader)

I have already settled it for myself, so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free.
—Georgia O’Keeffe (American Painter)

We forget: In life, it doesn’t matter what happens to you or where you came from. It matters what you do with what happens and what you’ve been given.
—Ryan Holiday (American Author)

The shortest route often has the steepest hills.
—Caroline Schoeder (American Aphorist)

The first time you marry for love, the second for money, and the third for companionship.
—Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (American First Lady)

It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (American Novelist)

During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so. The Bible commanded that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church, after doing its duty in but a lazy and indolent way for 800 years, gathered up its halters, thumbscrews, and firebrands, and set about its holy work in earnest. She worked hard at it night and day during nine centuries and imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood. Then it was discovered that there as no such thing as witches, and never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry.
—Mark Twain (American Humorist)

What I fear is complacency. When things always become better, people tend to want more for less work.
—Lee Kuan Yew (Singaporean Statesman)

Insults should be written in the sand, and praises carved in stone.
—Arabic Proverb

Love conquers all; let us surrender to love.
—Virgil (Roman Poet)

No virtue is equal to the good of others and no vice greater than hurting others.
—Tulsidas (Indian Hindu Poet)

Nuns and married women are equally unhappy, if in different ways
—Christina, Queen of Sweden (Swedish Monarch)

People are just as wonderful as sunsets if you let them be. When I look at a sunset, I don’t find myself saying, “Soften the orange a bit on the right hand corner.” I don’t try to control a sunset, I just watch with awe as it unfolds.
—Carl Rogers (American Psychologist)

Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.
—Pablo Picasso (Spanish Painter)

It is not greed that drives the world, but envy.
—Warren Buffett (American Investor)

The contest, for ages, has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power.
—Daniel Webster (American Statesman, Lawyer)

A thousand fearful images and dire suggestions glance along the mind when it is moody and discontented with itself. Command them to stand and show themselves, and you presently assert the power of reason over imagination.
—Walter Scott (Scottish Novelist)

However great the work that God may achieve by an individual, he must not indulge in self-satisfaction. He ought rather to be all the more humbled, seeing himself merely as a tool which God has made use of.
—Vincent de Paul (French Catholic Saint)

Remember, happiness doesn’t depend upon who you are or what you have, it depends solely upon what you think.
—Dale Carnegie (American Self-Help Author)

In proportion as we perceive and embrace the truth do we become just, heroic, magnanimous, divine.
—William Lloyd Garrison (American Abolitionist)

Friends should be like books, easy to find when you need them, but seldom used.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Philosopher)

Standing armies can never consist of resolute robust men; they may be well-disciplined machines, but they will seldom contain men under the influence of strong passions, or with very vigorous faculties.
—Mary Wollstonecraft (English Writer, Feminist)

A champion is afraid of losing. Everyone else is afraid of winning.
—Billie Jean King (American Tennis Player)

Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely. But one must know the limitations of force; one must know when to blend force with a maneuver, a blow with an agreement.
—Leon Trotsky (Russian Revolutionary)

He who influences the thought of his times influences the times that follow.
—Elbert Hubbard (American Writer)

Change your life today. Don’t gamble on the future, act now, without delay.
—Simone de Beauvoir (French Philosopher)

If you have ability in a certain area, why not capitalize on it and improve it and use it?
—Wilt Chamberlain (American Sportsperson)

One does not fall “in” or “out” of love. One grows in love.
—Leo Buscaglia (American Motivational Speaker)

Our tendency is to be interested in something that is growing in the garden, not in the bare soil itself. But if you want to have a good harvest, the most important thing is to make the soil rich and cultivate it well.
—Shunryu Suzuki (Buddhist Monk, Author)

Appearances often are deceiving.
—Aesop (Greek Fabulist)

Man is an embodied paradox, a bundle of contradictions.
—Charles Caleb Colton (English Clergyman, Aphorist)

When building a team, I always search first for people who love to win. If I can’t find any of those, I look for people who hate to lose.
—Ross Perot (American Businessman)

The obstinacy of cleverness and reason is nothing to the obstinacy of folly and inanity.
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (American Abolitionist)

Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.
—Zora Neale Hurston (American Novelist)

Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid faith in yourself. You must be able to sustain yourself against staggering blows. There is no code of conduct to help beginners. That is why some people with mediocre talent, but with great inner drive, go much further than people with vastly superior talent.
—Sophia Loren (Italian Actor)

More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.
—Truman Capote (American Novelist)

Nobody should trust their virtue with necessity, the force of which is never known till it is felt, and it is therefore one of the first duties to avoid the temptation of it.
—Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (English Aristocrat, Poet)

The barrier between success is not something which exists in the real world: it is composed purely and simply of doubts about ability.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (American Head of State)

Too austere a philosophy makes few wise men; too rigorous politics, few good subjects; too hard a religion, few persons whose devotion is of long continuance.
—Montesquieu (French Political Philosopher)

Of the things men give each other the greatest is loyalty.
—Ben Hecht (American Screenwriter)

Throw out an alarming alarm clock. If the ring is loud and strident, you’re waking up to instant stress. You shouldn’t be bullied out of bed, just reminded that it’s time to start your day.
—Sharon Anderson-Gold (American Philosopher)

In prosperity we need moderation; in adversity, patience.
—Lee Iacocca (American Businessperson)

He who does not accept and respect those who want to reject life does not truly accept and respect life itself.
—Thomas Szasz (Hungarian Psychiatrist)

Much of the messy advertising you see on television today is the product of committees. Committees can criticize advertisements, but they should never be allowed to create them.
—David Ogilvy (British Advertising Executive)

I believe that traditional wisdom is incomplete. A composer can have all the talent of Mozart and a passionate desire to succeed, but if he believes he cannot compose music, he will come to nothing. He will not try hard enough. He will give up too soon when the elusive right melody takes too long to materialize.
—Martin Seligman (American Psychologist)

People are twice as biased as they think they are, which is precisely why biases are dangerous.
—Morgan Housel (American Financial Journalist, Investor)

Not to be able to bear poverty is a shameful thing; but not to know how to chase it away by work is a more shameful thing yet.
—Pericles (Athenian Statesman)

Heaven is at the feet of mothers.
—Persian Proverb

Many have had their greatness made for them by their enemies.
—Baltasar Gracian (Spanish Philosopher, Prose Writer)

You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
—Jack London (American Novelist)

If someday they say of me that in my work I have contributed something to the welfare and happiness of my fellow man, I shall be satisfied.
—George Westinghouse (American Engineer)

Labor is a pleasure in itself.
—Marcus Manilius (Roman Poet)

Charity and personal force are the only investments worth anything.
—Walt Whitman (American Poet)

Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin.
—Barbara Kingsolver (American Novelist, Essayist)

So remarkably perverse is the nature of man, that he despises those that court him, and admires whoever will not bend before him.
—Thucydides (Greek Historian)

Most people repent their sins by thanking God they ain’t so wicked as their neighbors.
—Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw) (American Humorist)

There is no companion like solitude.
One who knows how to tune himself to the inner silence,
even in the midst of the din and roar of the marketplace,
enjoys a most recreative solitude.
—Swami Chinmayananda (Indian Hindu Teacher)

A spoon does not know the taste of soup, nor a learned fool the taste of wisdom.
—Welsh Proverb

Two things we ought to learn from history: one, that we are not in ourselves superior to our fathers; another, that we are shamefully and monstrously inferior to them, if we do not advance beyond them.
—Thomas Arnold (English Educationalist)

If only we’d stop trying to be happy, we’d have a pretty good time.
—Edith Wharton (American Novelist, Short-story Writer)

Life is not so bad if you have plenty of luck, a good physique, and not too much imagination.
—Christopher Isherwood (Anglo-American Novelist, Playwright)

In this world, you must be a bit too kind to be kind enough.
—Pierre de Marivaux (French Dramatist, Author)

Never interrupt someone doing what you said couldn’t be done.
—Amelia Earhart (American Aviator)

The value of an idea lies in the using of it.
—Thomas Edison (American Inventor)

You can’t help getting older, but you don’t have to get old.
—George Burns (American Comedian)

Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.
—Marcus Aurelius (Emperor of Rome, Stoic Philosopher)

There is no real wealth but the labor of man.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (English Poet)

Unhappy is the fate of one who tries to win his battles and succeed in his attacks without cultivating the spirit of enterprise, for the result is waste of time and general stagnation.
—Sun Tzu (Chinese Military Leader)

Writing is another powerful way to sharpen the mental saw. Keeping a journal of our thoughts, experiences, insights, and learnings promotes mental clarity, exactness, and context.
—Stephen Covey (American Self-help Author)

I think if you have the opportunity to bully your opponent then you have to take that chance.
—Venus Williams (American Tennis Player)

Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.
—Calvin Coolidge (American Head of State)

The spirit of politeness is a desire to bring about by our words and manners, that others may be pleased with us and with themselves.
—Montesquieu (French Political Philosopher)

The human condition is such that pain and effort are not just symptoms which can be removed without changing life itself; they are the modes in which life itself, together with the necessity to which it is bound, makes itself felt. For mortals, the “easy life of the gods” would be a lifeless life.
—Hannah Arendt (German-American Political Theorist)

Hope is a very unruly emotion.
—Gloria Steinem (American Feminist)

Life is life – whether in a cat, or dog or man. There is no difference there between a cat or a man. The idea of difference is a human conception for man’s own advantage.
—Sri Aurobindo (Indian Mystic, Philosopher, Poet)

It’s easy to be liked: listen more than talk, praise often, and disagree rarely. The question is, is it worth the loss of integrity?
—Marty Nemko (American Career Coach, Author)

Healing yourself is connected with healing others.
—Yoko Ono (Japanese Artist, Musician)

Anything whatsoever may become the subject of a novel, provided only that it happens in this mundane life and not in some fairyland beyond our human ken.
—Murasaki Shikibu (Japanese Diarist, Novelist)

All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.
—John Kenneth Galbraith (American Economist)

Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.
—John Stuart Mill (English Philosopher, Economist)

Happy those who here on earth have dreamt of a higher vision! They will the sooner be able to endure the glories of the world to come.
—Novalis (German Romantic Poet)

The finest fury is the most controlled.
—Christopher Hitchens (Anglo-American Social Critic)

Nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (Roman Stoic Philosopher)

There is no greater sorrow than to recall a happy time in the midst of wretchedness.
—Dante Alighieri (Italian Poet, Philosopher)