Inspirational Quotations

What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Of all the evils that infest a state, a tyrant is the greatest; his sole will commands the laws, and lords it over them.
—Euripides (Ancient Greek Dramatist)

Goodness is achieved not in a vacuum, but in the company of other men, attended by love.
—Saul Bellow (Canadian-born American Novelist)

Do not keep the alabaster box of your friendship sealed up until your friends are dead. Fill their lives with sweetness. Speak approving, cheering words while their ears can hear them, and while their hearts can be thrilled and made happier. The kind of things you mean to say when they are gone, say before they go.
—George William Childs (American Publisher)

Fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn’t something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn’t get in, and walk through it, step by step.
—Haruki Murakami (Japanese Novelist)

Every human being has something, a spiritual element, that makes them want to do better, to reach higher.
—Ela Bhatt (Indian Labor Activist)

Action is but coarsened thought; thought become concrete, obscure, and unconscious.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (Swiss Philosopher, Writer)

Somewhere along the line of development we discover what we really are and then we make our real decision for which we are responsible. Make that decision primarily for yourself because you can never really live anyone else’s lie, not even your child’s. The influence you exert is through your own life and what you become yourself.
—Eleanor Roosevelt (American Humanitarian)

Talk as much philosophy as you like, worship as many gods as you please, observe ceremonies and sing devotional hymns, but liberation will never come, even after a hundred aeons, without realizing the Oneness.
—Adi Shankaracharya (Indian Hindu Philosopher)

What is beautiful is good, and who is good will soon be beautiful.
—Sappho (Greek Poet)

Instead of letting your hardships and failures discourage or exhaust you, let them inspire you. Let them make you even hungrier to succeed.
—Michelle Obama (American First Lady)

Almost all the parts of our bodies require some expense. The feet demand shoes, the legs stockings, the rest of the body clothing, and the belly a good deal of victuals. Our eyes, though exceedingly useful, ask when reasonable, only the cheap assistance of spectacles, which could not much impair our finances. But the eyes of other people are the eyes that ruin us.
—Benjamin Franklin (American Founding Father, Inventor)

If we become increasingly humble about how little we know, we may be more eager to search.
—John Templeton (American-British Investor)

He who is drunk from wine can sober up, he who is drunk from wealth cannot.
—African Proverb

I am convinced, the longer I live, that life and its blessings are not so entirely unjustly distributed as when we are suffering greatly we are inclined to suppose.
—Mary Todd Lincoln (American First lady)

Unless a capacity for thinking be accompanied by a capacity for action, a superior mind exists in torture.
—Benedetto Croce (Italian Philosopher, Literary Critic)

Absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends.
—Elizabeth Bowen (Irish Novelist)

Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
—Orson Welles (American Film Director, Actor)

A clever child brought up with a foolish one can itself become foolish. Man is so perfectible and corruptible he can become a fool through good sense.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (German Philosopher, Physicist)

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
—Common Proverb

Indignation is a submission of our thoughts, but not of our desires.
—Bertrand A. Russell (British Philosopher, Mathematician)

I make all my decisions on intuition. I throw a spear into the darkness. That is intuition. Then I must send an army into the darkness to find the spear. That is intellect.
—Ingmar Bergman (Swedish Film and Stage Director)

The passions should be purged; all may become innocent if they are well directed and moderated. Even hatred may be a commendable feeling when it is caused by a lively love of good. Whatever makes the passions purer makes them stronger, more durable, and mere enjoyable.
—Joseph Joubert (French Essayist)

Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.
—Jeremy Bentham (British Philosopher, Economist)

It’s fun to get together and have something good to eat at least once a day. That’s what human life is all about—enjoying things.
—Julia Child (American Cook, Author)

I do not feel that I am the product of chance, a speck of dust in the universe, but someone who was expected, prepared, prefigured. In short, a being whom only a Creator could put here; and this idea of a creating hand refers to God.
—Jean-Paul Sartre (French Philosopher)

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
—Leo Tolstoy (Russian Novelist)

Nothing is so perfectly amusing as a total change of ideas.
—Laurence Sterne (Irish Anglican Novelist)

Innovation by definition will not be accepted at first. It takes repeated attempts, endless demonstrations, monotonous rehearsals before innovation can be accepted and internalized by an organization. This requires ‘courageous patience’.
—Warren Bennis (American Management Consultant)

You find yourself refreshed in the presence of cheerful people. Why not make an honest effort to confer that pleasure on others? Half the battle is gained if you never allow yourself to say anything gloomy.
—Lydia Maria Child (American Abolitionist)

The desire for true happiness is nothing to feel ashamed about.
—Thanissaro Bhikkhu (American Buddhist Monk)

The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves. We cannot force love.
—William Hazlitt (English Essayist)

The father of a daughter is nothing but a high-class hostage. A father turns a stony face to his sons, berates them, shakes his antlers, paws the ground, snorts, runs them off into the underbrush, but when his daughter puts her arm over his shoulder and says, ‘Daddy, I need to ask you something,’ he is a pat of butter in a hot frying pan.
—Garrison Keillor (American Broadcaster, Writer)

I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.
—Harper Lee (American Novelist)

I realize that advice is worth what it costs–that is, nothing.
—Douglas MacArthur (American Military Leader)

No such thing as a man willing to be honest—that would be like a blind man willing to see.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (American Novelist)

Because just as good morals, if they are to be maintained, have need of the laws, so the laws, if they are to be observed, have need of good morals.
—Niccolo Machiavelli (Florentine Political Philosopher)

I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do, provided he keeps doing them until he gets a record of successful experience behind him.
—Eleanor Roosevelt (American Humanitarian)

Whatever is funny is subversive, every joke is ultimately a custard pie… a dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion.
—George Orwell (English Novelist, Essayist, Journalist)

The way to win an atomic war is to make certain it never starts.
—Omar Bradley (American Military Leader)

I learned that you can’t truly own anything, that true ownership comes only in the moment of giving.
—Mia Farrow (American Actress, Activist)

It is not moral to lie, but you don’t always have to tell the truth.
—Ignaz Bernstein (Russian-Jewish Bibliophile, Philanthropist)

If pleasures are greatest in anticipation, just remember that this is also true of troubles.
—Elbert Hubbard (American Writer)

The person who runs away exposes himself to that very danger more than a person who sits quietly.
—Jawaharlal Nehru (Indian Head of State)

Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (Austrian-born British Philosopher)

The method of the enterprising is to plan with audacity and execute with vigor.
—Christian Nestell Bovee (American Writer, Aphorist)

A man’s as miserable as he thinks he is.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (Roman Stoic Philosopher)

To understand the world one must not be worrying about one’s self.
—Albert Einstein (German-born Theoretical Physicist)

We can never be certain of our courage until we have faced danger.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (French Writer)

It’s only when the tide goes out that you learn who’s been swimming naked.
—Warren Buffett (American Investor)

The ablest man I ever met is the man you think you are.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (American Head of State)

There’s no way that you can live an adequate life without many mistakes. In fact, one trick in life is to get so you can handle mistakes. Failure to handle psychological denial is a common way for people to go broke.
—Charlie Munger (American Investor, Philanthropist)

We gain strength from other people. We give strength to each other.
—Rudy Giuliani (American Politician)

Women hate everything which strips off the tinsel of sentiment, and they are right, or it would rob them of their weapons.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (English Romantic Poet)

Beware of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in, bear it that the opposer may beware of thee.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

When it comes to the point, really bad men are just as rare as really good ones.
—George Bernard Shaw (Irish Playwright)

It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.
—Maya Angelou (American Poet)

Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will.
—Michel de Montaigne (French Essayist)

No effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost. Sometime, somewhere, somehow we shall find that which we seek.
—Helen Keller (American Author)

Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of the few: and number not voices, but weigh them.
—Immanuel Kant (Prussian German Philosopher)

The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.
—Socrates (Anceient Greek Philosopher)

A name is a kind of face whereby one is known; wherefore taking a false name is a kind of visard whereby men disguise themselves.
—Thomas Fuller (English Cleric, Historian)

He that has done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.
—Benjamin Franklin (American Founding Father, Inventor)

Old age is the most unexpected of all the things that can happen to a man.
—Leon Trotsky (Russian Revolutionary)

A man is known by the company he avoids.
—Muriel Strode (American Author, Businesswoman)

Do to others as you would have others do to you, inspires all men with that other maxim of natural goodness a great deal less perfect, but perhaps more useful: Do good to yourself with as little prejudice as you can to others.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (French Philosopher)

Honesty is a gift we can give to others. It is also a source of power and an engine of simplicity. Knowing that we will attempt to tell the truth, whatever the circumstances, leaves us with little to prepare for. We can simply be ourselves.
—Sam Harris (American Neuroscientist, Atheist, Author)

Curiosity in children, is but an appetite for knowledge.
—John Locke (English Philosopher)

The secret to humor is surprise.
—Aristotle (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

My deepest feeling about politicians is that they are dangerous lunatics to be avoided when possible and carefully humored; people, above all, to whom one must never tell the truth.
—W. H. Auden (British-born American Poet)

I’d rather regret the things I have done than the things that I haven’t.
—Lucille Ball (American Actor)

It is the eye of ignorance that assigns a fixed and unchangeable color to every object; beware of this stumbling block.
—Paul Gauguin (French Painter)

Man while he loves is never quite depraved.
—Charles Lamb (British Essayist, Poet)

Mental fight means thinking against the current, not with it. It is our business to puncture gas bags and discover the seeds of truth.
—Virginia Woolf (English Novelist)

Learning is like mercury, one of the most powerful and excellent things in the world in skillful hands; in unskillful, the most mischievous.
—Alexander Pope (English Poet)

Emulation is a noble and just passion, full of appreciation.
—Friedrich Schiller (German Poet)

Satisfaction linked with dishonor or with harm to others is a prison for the seeker.
—Zoroaster (Persian Religious Leader, Prophet)

Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (German Philosopher)

Everybody is so talented nowadays that the only people I care to honor as deserving real distinction are those who remain in obscurity.
—Thomas Hardy (English Novelist, Poet)

Even for practical purposes theory generally turns out the most important thing in the end.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (American Jurist, Author)

Better know nothing than half-know many things.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (German Philosopher, Scholar)

Five things are requisite to a good officer—ability, clean hands, despatch, patience, and impartiality.
—William Penn (American Entrepreneur)

Let’s not burn the universities yet. After all, the damage they do might be worse.
—H. L. Mencken (American Journalist, Literary Critic)

Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

The great end of life is not knowledge, but action.
—Thomas Henry Huxley (English Biologist)

In the old days villains had moustaches and kicked the dog. Audiences are smarter today. They don’t want their villain to be thrown at them with green limelight on his face. They want an ordinary human being with failings.
—Alfred Hitchcock (British-born American Film Director)

It may be long before the law of love will be recognized in international affairs. The machineries of government stand between and hide the hearts of one people from those of another.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (Indian Hindu Political leader)

Any kind of lasting success is rooted in honesty.
—Russell Simmons (American Music Promoter)

What morality requires, true statesmanship should accept.
—Edmund Burke (British Philosopher, Statesman )

Great dancers are not great because of their technique; they are great because of their passion.
—Martha Graham (American Choreographer)

It didn’t occur to me until later that there’s another truth, very simple: greed in a good cause is still greed.
—Stephen King (American Novelist)

This loving person is a person who abhors waste—waste of time, waste of human potential. How much time we waste. As if we were going to live forever.
—Leo Buscaglia (American Motivational Speaker)

Trust that man in nothing who has not a conscience in everything.
—Laurence Sterne (Irish Anglican Novelist)

Demand not that events should happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do, and you will go on well.
—Epictetus (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

What the world really needs is more love and less paperwork.
—Pearl Bailey (American Singer, Actress)

One is still what one is going to cease to be and already what one is going to become. One lives one’s death, one dies one’s life.
—Jean-Paul Sartre (French Philosopher)

Dignity and pride are of too near relationship for intermarriage.
—Dorothee Luzy Dotinville (French Dancer, Actress)

Don’t suffer fools or you’ll become one.
—Tim Ferriss (American Self-help Author)

An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may.
—William Hazlitt (English Essayist)

It is well to learn caution by the misfortunes of others.
—Publilius Syrus (Syrian-born Latin Writer)

There is no such thing as justice in the abstract; it is merely a compact between men.
—Epicurus (Greek Philosopher)

A good laugh overcomes more difficulties and dissipates more dark clouds than any other one thing.
—Laura Ingalls Wilder (American Author of Children’s Novels)

We are here not to get all we can out of life for ourselves, but to try to make the lives of others happier.
—William Osler (Canadian Physician)

It is more agreeable to have the power to give than to receive.
—Winston Churchill (British Head of State)

Mediocrity doesn’t mean average intelligence, it means an average intelligence that resents and envies its betters.
—Ayn Rand (Russian-born American Novelist)

Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.
—The 14th Dalai Lama (Tibetan Buddhist Religious Leader)

Regrets are the natural property of gray hairs.
—Charles Dickens (English Novelist)

Waste no tears over the griefs of yesterday.
—Euripides (Ancient Greek Dramatist)

Our tastes greatly alter. The lad does not care for the child’s rattle, and the old man does not care for the young man’s whore.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

The best mask for demoralization is daring.
—Lucian (Greek Satirical Writer)

If you ask me, what I have come to do in this world, I who am an artist, I will reply: I am here to live my life out loud.
—Emile Zola (French Novelist)

If the history of the past fifty years teaches us anything, it is that peace does not follow disarmament—disarmament follows peace.
—Bernard M. Baruch (American Financier)

Revolution, in order to be creative, cannot do without either a moral or metaphysical rule to balance the insanity of history.
—Albert Camus (Algerian-born French Philosopher)

Every condition of life, if attended with virtue, is undisturbed and delightful; but when vice is intermixed, it renders even things that appear sumptuous and magnificent, distasteful and uneasy to the possessor.
—Plutarch (Greek Biographer)

If you want to be successful, find someone who has achieved the results you want and copy what they do and you’ll achieve the same results.
—Tony Robbins (American Self-Help Author)

My father taught in the wise way which unfolds what lies in the child.
—Louisa May Alcott (American Novelist)

At times it is folly to hasten at other times, to delay. The wise do everything in its proper time.
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) (Roman Poet)

Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher, Author)

Ideas in secret die. They need light and air or they starve to death.
—Seth Godin (American Entrepreneur)

Never forget that absolutely everything you do is for your customers. Make every decision—even decisions about whether to expand the business, raise money, or promote someone—according to what’s best for your customers.
—Derek Sivers (American Entrepreneur)

When one is seized with a passion to understand one’s self, one has to leave behind all normal life and habitual modes of thought.
—R. K. Narayan (Indian Novelist, Short-story Writer)

Money won’t make you happy, but everybody wants to find out for themselves.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

You should pardon many things in others, nothing in yourself.
—Ausonius (Latin Poet, Rhetorician)

Nothing can have value without being an object of utility.
—Karl Marx (German Philosopher, Economist)

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.
—Henry David Thoreau (American Philosopher)

The man who does more than he is paid for will soon be paid for more than he does.
—Napoleon Hill (American Author)

As the turning of logs will make a dull fire burn, so change of studies will a dull brain.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American Poet)

Whatever you do, make it an offering to me—the food you eat, the sacrifices you make, the help you give, even your suffering.
—The Bhagavad Gita (Hindu Scripture)

There is no prejudice that the work of art does not finally overcome.
—Andre Gide (French Novelist)

If you want your life to be more rewarding, you have to change the way you think.
—Oprah Winfrey (American TV Personality)

Nothing is more sad than the death of an illusion.
—Arthur Koestler (British Writer, Journalist)

A trifle is often pregnant with high importance; the prudent man neglects no circumstance.
—Sophocles (Ancient Greek Dramatist)

Governments are necessarily continuing concerns. They have to keep going in good times and in bad. They therefore need a wide margin of safety. If taxes and debt are made all the people can bear when times are good, there will be certain disaster when times are bad.
—Calvin Coolidge (American Head of State)

The pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to.
—Alain de Botton (Swiss-born British Philosopher)

He who is greedy is always in want.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (Roman Poet)

Some men are like musical glasses; to produce their finest tones you must keep them wet.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (English Poet)

Everything has its beauty but not everyone sees it.
—Confucius (Chinese Philosopher)

If we are strong, our strength will speak for itself. If we are weak, words will be of no help.
—John F. Kennedy (American Head of State)

An exaggeration is a truth that has lost its temper.
—Khalil Gibran (Lebanese-born American Philosopher)