Inspirational Quotations

The driver knows how much the ox can carry, and keeps the ox from being overloaded. You know your way and your state of mind. Do not carry too much.
—Zen Proverb (Japanese School of Mahayana Buddhism)

I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.
—Margaret Thatcher (British Head of State)

You don’t have to think too hard when you talk to teachers.
—J. D. Salinger (American Novelist, Short-story Writer)

Drama is life with the dull parts cut out of it.
—Alfred Hitchcock (British-born American Film Director)

Happiness…that’s something you can’t achieve by taking the easy way out. Earning happiness means doing good and working, not speculating and being lazy. Laziness may look inviting, but only work gives you true satisfaction.
—Anne Frank (German Holocaust Victim)

No pleasure is intrinsically bad, but what causes pleasure is accompanied by many things that disturb pleasure.
—Epicurus (Greek Philosopher)

All men command patience, although few be willing to practice it.
—Thomas a Kempis (German Religious Writer)

Life is just a journey.
—Diana, Princess of Wales (English Royal)

Little boldness is needed to assail the opinions and practices of notoriously wicked men; but to rebuke great and good men for their conduct, and to impeach their discernment, is the highest effort of moral courage.
—William Lloyd Garrison (American Abolitionist)

No fear has any one of me; neither have I fear of any one: in my good-will to all I trust.
—The Jataka Tales (Genre of Buddhist Literature)

Don’t listen to those who say, “It’s not done that way.” Maybe it’s not, but maybe you will. Don’t listen to those who say, “You’re taking too big a chance.” Michelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor, and it would surely be rubbed out by today. Most importantly, don’t listen when the little voice of fear inside of you rears its ugly head and says, “They’re all smarter than you out there. They’re more talented, they’re taller, blonder, prettier, luckier and have connections … ” I firmly believe that if you follow a path that interests you, not to the exclusion of love, sensitivity, and cooperation with others, but with the strength of conviction that you can move others by your own efforts, and do not make success or failure the criteria by which you live, the chances are you’ll be a person worthy of your own respect.
—Neil Simon (American Playwright)

No wind favors him who has no destined port.
—Michel de Montaigne (French Essayist)

Water is the most precious, limited natural resource we have in this country…But because water belongs to no one – except the people – special interests, including government polluters, use it as their private sewers
—Ralph Nader (American Activist)

Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty and wisdom will come to you that way.
—Christopher Hitchens (Anglo-American Social Critic)

No nation became great by becoming rich. Neither does a man find enduring satisfaction in life by owning something—only by becoming something.
—Norman Vincent Peale (American Clergyman, Self-Help Author)

I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd attitude to take towards life. We are not sent into the world to air our moral prejudices. I never take any notice of what common people say, and I never interfere with what charming people do.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Love me when I least deserve it, because that’s when I really need it.
—Swedish Proverb

This life is what you make it. Not matter what, you’re going to mess up sometimes, it’s a universal truth.
—Marilyn Monroe (American Actor)

The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.
—Ayn Rand (Russian-born American Novelist)

Do not leave to the morning the business of the evening.
—Turkish Proverb

Friendship is a pretty full-time occupation if you really are friendly with somebody. You can’t have too many friends because then you’re just not really friends.
—Truman Capote (American Novelist)

You will find out that Charity is a heavy burden to carry, heavier than the kettle of soup and the full basket. But you will keep your gentleness and your smile. It is not enough to give soup and bread. This the rich can do. You are the servant of the poor, always smiling and good-humored. They are your masters, terribly sensitive and exacting master you will see and the uglier and the dirtier they will be, the more unjust and insulting, the more love you must give them. It is only for your love alone that the poor will forgive you the bread you give to them.
—Vincent de Paul (French Catholic Saint)

Man is a paradoxical being—the constant glory and scandal of this world.
—Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (Indian Philosopher, Political Leader)

It is more offensive to outshine in dignity than in personal attractions.
—Baltasar Gracian (Spanish Philosopher, Prose Writer)

There is all the difference in the world between the criminal’s avoiding the public eye and the civil disobedience’s taking the law into his own hands in open defiance. This distinction between an open violation of the law, performed in public, and a clandestine one is so glaringly obvious that it can be neglected only by prejudice or ill will.
—Hannah Arendt (German-American Political Theorist)

Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher, Author)

They say that nobody is perfect. Then they tell you practice makes perfect. I wish they’d make up their minds.
—Wilt Chamberlain (American Sportsperson)

The decay of logic results from an untroubled assumption that the particular is real and the universal is not.
—C. S. Lewis (Irish-born Author, Scholar)

Worship is a way of seeing the world in the light of God.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel (American Jewish Rabbi)

The artist belongs to his work, not the work to the artist.
—Novalis (German Romantic Poet)

Never forget that your life passes as swiftly as a flash of lightening or a wave of your hand, while you have the opportunity to practice, don’t waste a moment: devote all your energy to the spiritual path.
—Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche (Tibetan Buddhist Teacher)

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
—Abbie Hoffman (American Political Activist)

There are some things which cannot be learned quickly, and time, which is all we have, must be paid heavily for their acquiring. They are the very simplest things and because it takes a man’s life to know them the little new that each man gets from life is very costly and the only heritage he has to leave.
—Ernest Hemingway (American Author)

I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.
—Warren Buffett (American Investor)

Pride is increased by ignorance; those assume the most who know the least.
—John Gay (English Poet, Dramatist)

Self-interest is the most powerful force in the world. People in unethical, predatory, and nonsense jobs will do mental gymnastics to convince themselves they’re doing the right thing. Those who criticize the behavior of “greedy Wall Street bankers” underestimate their tendency to do the same thing if offered an eight-figure salary.
—Morgan Housel (American Financial Journalist, Investor)

A great statesman is he who knows when to depart from traditions, as well as when to adhere to them.
—John Stuart Mill (English Philosopher, Economist)

All wish to possess knowledge, but few, comparatively speaking, are willing to pay the price.
—Juvenal (Roman Poet)

Never lend books, for no one ever returns them. The only books I have in my library are those that other folks have lent me.
—Anatole France (French Novelist)

Prayer is the little implement through which men reach; where presence is denied them.
—Emily Dickinson (American Poet)

The difference between one man and another is not mere ability … it is energy.
—Thomas Arnold (English Educationalist)

Of all God’s gifts to the sighted man, color is holiest, the most divine, the most solemn.
—John Ruskin (English Art Critic)

There is but one way to tranquillity of mind and happiness; let this, therefore, be always ready at hand with thee, both when thou wakest early in the morning, and all the day long, and when thou goest late to sleep, to account no external things thine own, but commit all these to God.
—Epictetus (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

Life is a journey up a spiral staircase; as we grow older we cover the ground covered we have covered before, only higher up; as we look down the winding stair below us we measure our progress by the number of places where we were but no longer are. The journey is both repetitious and progressive; we go both round and upward.
—William Butler Yeats (Irish Poet)

Literature is a great staff, but a sorry crutch.
—Walter Scott (Scottish Novelist)

Shakespeare, Leonardo Da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, and Lincoln never saw a movie, heard a radio, or looked at a TV. They had loneliness and knew what to do with it. They were not afraid of being lonely because they knew that was when the creative mood in them would mark.
—Carl Sandburg (American Poet, Historian)

It matters not how long you live, but how well.
—Publilius Syrus (Syrian-born Latin Writer)

Nothing is more dreadful than a cold, unimpassioned indulgence. And love infallibly becomes cold and unimpassioned when it is too lightly made.
—Aldous Huxley (English Humanist)

If only people thought a little more about it, they would see that life is not worrying about so much.
—Mikhail Lermontov (Russian Novelist, Poet)

There’s no voiceless, there’s only the deliberately silenced or the purposely unheard.
—Arundhati Roy (Indian Novelist, Activist)

All oppression creates a state of war; this is no exception.
—Simone de Beauvoir (French Philosopher)

Gratitude is the memory of the heart; therefore forget not to say often, I have all I have ever enjoyed.
—Lydia Maria Child (American Abolitionist)

Not a mother, not a father will do so much, nor any other relative; a well-directed mind will do us greater service.
—The Dhammapada (Buddhist Anthology of Verses)

As the sun is best seen at his rising and setting, so men’s native dispositions are clearest seen when they are children, and when they are dying.
—Robert Boyle (Irish Scientist, Philosopher)

What would your good do if evil didn’t exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows disappeared?
—Mikhail Bulgakov (Russian Novelist, Dramatist)

Eagles don’t flock–you have to find them one at a time.
—Ross Perot (American Businessman)

It is sinful to even see the face of a man who does not feel his friend’s pain. Treat your own mountain-like pain as though it were a speck. Treat your friend’s speck-like pain as though it were a mountain.
—Tulsidas (Indian Hindu Poet)

When people ask for time, it’s always for time to say no. Yes has one more letter in it, but it doesn’t take half as long to say.
—Edith Wharton (American Novelist, Short-story Writer)

At 46 one must be a miser; only have time for essentials.
—Virginia Woolf (English Novelist)

Hair is another name for sex.
—Vidal Sassoon (Anglo-American Hairstylist)

I know of no safe repository of the ultimate power of society but people. And if we think them not enlightened enough, the remedy is not to take the power from them, but to inform them by education
—Thomas Jefferson (American Head of State)

It is no use to blame the looking glass if your face is awry.
—Nikolai Gogol (Russian Novelist, Dramatist)

Fine feathers make fine birds.
—Aesop (Greek Fabulist)

Remember that you don’t have to like or admire someone to feel compassion for that person. All you have to do is wish for that person to be happy.
—Thanissaro Bhikkhu (American Buddhist Monk)

Leaders learn by leading, and they learn best by leading in the face of obstacles. As weather shapes mountains, problems shape leaders.
—Warren Bennis (American Management Consultant)

To see victory only when it is within the ken of the common herd is not the acme of excellence.
—Sun Tzu (Chinese Military Leader)

The ability to express an idea is well nigh as important as the idea itself.
—Bernard M. Baruch (American Financier)

All successful revolutions are the kicking in of a rotten door. The violence of revolutions is the violence of men who charge into a vacuum.
—John Kenneth Galbraith (American Economist)

Sometimes the easiest way to get something done is to be a little naive about it.
—Bill Joy (American Computer Engineer)

A man should be able to hear, and to bear, the worst that could be said of him.
—Saul Bellow (Canadian-born American Novelist)

Homesickness is… absolutely nothing. Fifty percent of the people in the world are homesick all the time… You don’t really long for another country. You long for something in yourself that you don’t have, or haven’t been able to find.
—John Cheever (American Novelist)

My main point today is that usually one gets what one expects, but very rarely in the way one expected it.
—Charles F. Richter (American Physicist, Geologist)

That’s how it is sometimes when we plunge into the depths of our lives. No one can accompany us, not even those who would give up their hearts for our happiness.
—Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (Indian-born American Novelist)

In order to acquire intellect one must need it. One loses it when it is no longer necessary.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (German Philosopher, Scholar)

Humanity is not the last rung of the terrestrial creation. Evolution continues and man will be surpassed. It is for each individual to know whether he wants to participate in the advent of this new species.
—Mirra Alfassa (French-Born Indian Spiritual Guru)

All my life I believed I knew something. But then one strange day came when I realized that I knew nothing; yes, I knew nothing. And so words became void of meaning. I have arrived too late at ultimate uncertainty.
—Ezra Pound (American Poet, Critic)

Truth is best (of all that is) good. As desired, what is being desired is truth for him who (represents) the best truth.
—Zoroaster (Persian Religious Leader, Prophet)

Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lies comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, around him, and so loses all respect for himself and others.
—Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Russian Novelist)

If a man does not have an ideal and try to live up to it, then he becomes a mean, base and sordid creature, no matter how successful.
—Theodore Roosevelt (American Head of State)

Religion is the possibility of the removal of every ground of confidence except confidence in God alone.
—Karl Barth (Swiss Protestant Theologian)

We all have a duty to do good. And this commandment for everyone to do good, I think, is a beautiful path towards peace.
—Pope Francis (Religious Leader)

Friendships aren’t perfect and yet they are very precious. For me, not expecting perfection all in one place was a great release.
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (American Writer)

We like someone because, we love someone in spite of.
—Swami Chinmayananda (Indian Hindu Teacher)

Be bold. If you’re going to make an error, make a doozy, and don’t be afraid to hit the ball.
—Billie Jean King (American Tennis Player)

Fools are more to be feared than the wicked.
—Christina, Queen of Sweden (Swedish Monarch)

Psychoanalysis can unravel some of the forms of madness; it remains a stranger to the sovereign enterprise of unreason. It can neither limit nor transcribe, nor most certainly explain, what is essential in this enterprise.
—Michel Foucault (French Philosopher)

Those who eat too much or eat too little, who sleep too much or sleep too little, will not succeed in meditation. But those who are temperate in eating and sleeping, work and recreation, will come to the end of sorrow through meditation.
—The Bhagavad Gita (Hindu Scripture)

Opera is when a guy gets stabbed in the back and instead of bleeding he sings.
—Howard Gardner (American Psychologist)

It is love alone that gives worth to all things.
—Teresa of Avila (Spanish Carmelite Nun, Mystic)

The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.
—Barbara Kingsolver (American Novelist, Essayist)

Physical bravery is an animal instinct; moral bravery is a much higher and truer courage.
—Wendell Phillips (American Abolitionist)

Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.
—Andre Gide (French Novelist)

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
—Bertrand A. Russell (British Philosopher, Mathematician)

We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want.
—Laozi (Chinese Philosopher)

You never find yourself until you face the truth.
—Pearl Bailey (American Singer, Actress)

Easy way to soften a piece of feedback or criticism: turn periods into question marks.
—Ben Casnocha (American Entrepreneur, Investor)

For fast-acting relief, try slowing down.
—Lily Tomlin (American Comedy Actress)

Always fall in with what you’re asked to accept. Take what is given, and make it over your way. My aim in life has always been to hold my own with whatever’s going. Not against: with.
—Robert Frost (American Poet)

The only thing new in this world is the history that you don’t know
—Harry S. Truman (American Head of State)

You can be pleased with nothing if you are not pleased with yourself.
—Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (English Aristocrat, Poet)

The safest way to try to get what you want is to try to deserve what you want. It’s such a simple idea. It’s the golden rule. You want to deliver to the world what you would buy if you were on the other end.
—Charlie Munger (American Investor, Philanthropist)

Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct; but to find these reasons is no less an instinct.
—F. H. Bradley (British Idealist Philosopher)

Adulthood is the ever-shrinking period between childhood and old age. It is the apparent aim of modern industrial societies to reduce this period to a minimum.
—Thomas Szasz (Hungarian Psychiatrist)

Sadness flies away on the wings of time.
—Jean de La Fontaine (French Poet)

Love without friendship is like a shadow without the sun.
—Japanese Proverb

My definition of success is to live your life in a way that causes you to feel a ton of pleasure and very little pain—and because of your lifestyle, have the people around you feel a lot more pleasure than they do pain.
—Tony Robbins (American Self-Help Author)

Foolish indeed are those who trust to fortune.
—Murasaki Shikibu (Japanese Diarist, Novelist)

Hold on to your dreams for they are, in a sense, the stuff of which reality is made. It is through our dreams that we maintain the possibility of a better, more meaningful life.
—Leo Buscaglia (American Motivational Speaker)

The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it—as long as you really believe 100 percent.
—Arnold Schwarzenegger (Austrian-American Actor, Politician)

Public opinion is a weak tyrant, compared with our private opinion – what a man thinks of himself, that is which determines, or rather indicates his fate.
—Henry David Thoreau (American Philosopher)

Industry is the soul of business and the keystone of prosperity.
—Charles Dickens (English Novelist)

Stains are not seen at night.
—Hebrew Proverb

Gifts make slaves as whips make dogs.
—Inuit Proverb

I believe that the testing of the student’s achievements in order to see if he meets some criterion held by the teacher, is directly contrary to the implications of therapy for significant learning.
—Carl Rogers (American Psychologist)

Among true and real friends, all is common; and were ignorance and envy and superstition banished from the world, all mankind would be friend.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (English Poet)

Life itself is the proper binge.
—Julia Child (American Cook, Author)

Companies are rarely criticized for the things that they failed to try. But they are, many times, criticized for things they tried and failed at.
—Jeff Bezos (American Businessman)

Civilization, in the real sense of the term, consists not in the multiplication, but in the deliberate and voluntary reduction of wants. This alone promotes real happiness and contentment, and increases the capacity for service.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (Indian Hindu Political leader)

To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.
—Mary Oliver (American Poet)

When action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep.
—Ursula K. Le Guin (Science-fiction writer)

How much folly there is in human affairs.
—Persius (Roman Poet)

All great victories, be they in politics, business, art, or seduction, involved resolving vexing problems with a potent cocktail of creativity, focus, and daring. When you have a goal, obstacles are actually teaching you how to get where you want to go—carving you a path. “The Things which hurt,” Benjamin Franklin wrote, “instruct.”
—Ryan Holiday (American Author)

It takes time for a fruit to mature and acquire sweetness and become eatable; time is a prime factor for most good fortunes.
—The Vedas (Sacred Books of Hinduism)

Genius is an intellect that has become unfaithful to its destiny.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (German Philosopher)

Grown don’t mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown? What’s that suppose to mean? In my heart it don’t mean a thing.
—Toni Morrison (American Novelist)

Silence is the first door to spiritual eminence.
—Adi Shankaracharya (Indian Hindu Philosopher)

What we call education and culture is for the most part nothing but the substitution of reading for experience, of literature for life, of the obsolete fictitious for the contemporary real.
—George Bernard Shaw (Irish Playwright)

Schools currently excel in encouraging children to express opinions, but are deficient in encouraging children to say, for example, “Oh, that’s different from my perspective … tell me more.”
—Warren Farrell (American Educator, Activist)

Pride is pleasure arising from a man’s thinking too highly of himself.
—Baruch Spinoza (Dutch Philosopher)

As time goes on, you’ll understand. What lasts, lasts; what doesn’t, doesn’t. Time solves most things. And what time can’t solve, you have to solve yourself.
—Haruki Murakami (Japanese Novelist)

The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.
—David Ogilvy (British Advertising Executive)

That’s what happens when you’re angry at people. You make them part of your life.
—Garrison Keillor (American Broadcaster, Writer)

A thing is mighty big when time and distance cannot shrink it.
—Zora Neale Hurston (American Novelist)

Flowers in a city are like lipstick on a woman—it just makes you look better to have a little color.
—Lady Bird Johnson (First Lady of the United States)

Failure at a task may be the result of having tackled it at the wrong time.
—Brendan Behan (Irish Poet)

I’m not going to die,
I’m going home
Like a shooting star.
—Sojourner Truth (African-American Abolitionist)

No soul can preserve the bloom and delicacy of its existence without lonely musings and silent prayer, and the greatness of this necessity is in proportion to the greatness of evil.
—Frederic William Farrar (British Theological Writer)

It is the nature, and the advantage, of strong people that they can bring out the crucial questions and form a clear opinion about them. The weak always have to decide between alternatives that are not their own.
—Dietrich Bonhoeffer (German Lutheran Pastor)

Great joy, especially after a sudden change of circumstances, is apt to be silent, and dwells rather in the heart than on the tongue.
—Henry Fielding (English Novelist)

The truth is that most people are simply too distracted by their thoughts to have the selflessness of consciousness pointed out directly. And even if they are ready to glimpse it, they are unlikely to understand its significance.
—Sam Harris (American Neuroscientist, Atheist, Author)

The purpose of fighting is to win. There is no possible victory in defense. The sword is more important than the shield and skill is more important than either. The final weapon is the brain. All else is supplemental.
—John Steinbeck (American Novelist)

Success in the majority of circumstances depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.
—Montesquieu (French Political Philosopher)

Failure is delay, but not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead-end street.
—William Arthur Ward (American Author)

Tact is the great ability to see other people as they think you see them.
—Carl Zuckmayer (German Playwright)

All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling.
—Blaise Pascal (French Philosopher, Scientist)

All that attention to the perfect lighting, the perfect this, the perfect that, I find terribly annoying.
—Meryl Streep (American Actor)