Inspirational Quotations

No one regards what is before his feet; we all gaze at the stars.
—Ennius (Roman Poet)

The only person entitled to use the imperial ‘we’ in speaking of himself is a king, an editor, and a man with a tapeworm.
—Robert G. Ingersoll (American Lawyer, Orator, Agnostic)

Civilization rests on a set of promises; if the promises are broken too often, the civilization dies, no matter how rich it may be, or how mechanically clever. Hope and faith depend on the promises; if hope and faith go, everything goes.
—Herbert Agar (American Journalist, Historian)

The depth and strength of a human character are defined by its moral reserves. People reveal themselves completely only when they are thrown out of the customary conditions of their life, for only then do they have to fall back on their reserves.
—Leon Trotsky (Russian Revolutionary)

People lie so that others will form beliefs that are not true. The more consequential the beliefs—that is, the more a person’s well-being demands a correct understanding of the world or of other people’s opinions—the more consequential the lie.
—Sam Harris (American Neuroscientist, Atheist, Author)

Search not a Wound too deep, lest thou make a new one.
—Thomas Fuller (English Cleric, Historian)

When it comes to getting things done, we need fewer architects and more bricklayers.
—Colleen Barrett (American Businessperson)

Failure is more frequently from want of energy than want of capital.
—Daniel Webster (American Statesman, Lawyer)

What identifies an individual as a king is how other people behave towards him. All authority is assumed, and if other people don’t accept your authority then you don’t have it. Perhaps the critical thing to being a convincing figure of authority is actually not to try too hard.
—Patrick Stewart (British Actor)

The beauty of the brain is that you can still be as greedy as you like for knowledge and it doesn’t show.
—Stephen Fry (English Actor, Writer)

Nothing is lost upon a person who is bent upon growth; nothing is wasted on one who is always preparing for his work and life by keeping eyes, mind, and heart open to nature, men, books, experience. Such a man finds ministries to his education on all sides; everything cooperates with his passion for growth.
—Hamilton Wright Mabie (American Essayist, Editor)

Charity is a very complicated thing. Its important to find an area where you can really help and you can feel the results. Charity is not like feeding pigeons in the square. It is a process that requires professional management.
—Roman Abramovich (Russian-Israeli Businessman)

To have good ideas, you have to have a lot of ideas.
—Linus Pauling (American Scientist, Peace Activist)

A horse is dangerous at both ends and uncomfortable in the middle.
—Ian L. Fleming (English Novelist, Journalist)

The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you.
—B. B. King (American Blues Musician)

A valiant mind no deadly danger fears.
—Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (English Poet, Courtier)

If you can give your son or daughter only one gift, let it be enthusiasm.
—Bruce Fairchild Barton (American Advertising Executive)

You can’t pick cherries with your back to the tree.
—J. P. Morgan (American Financier, Philanthropist)

If you threw a stone into a gutter, it would only spurt filth in your face.
—R. K. Narayan (Indian Novelist, Short-story Writer)

The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan. Stick to the good plan.
—John C. Bogle (American Mutual Fund Pioneer)

Even if death were to fall upon you today like lightning, you must be ready to die without sadness and regret, without any residue of clinging for what is left behind. Remaining in the recognition of the absolute view, you should leave this life like an eagle soaring up into the blue sky.
—Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche (Tibetan Buddhist Religious Leader)

Today’s accomplishments were yesterday’s impossibilities.
—Robert H. Schuller (American Televangelist, Author)

Good wood is better than good paint.
—Vietnamese Proverb

It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love. This is how the whole scheme of things works. All good things are difficult to achieve; and bad things are very easy to get.
—Morarji Desai (Indian Political Leader )

Beginnings are usually scary and endings are usually sad, but it’s the middle that counts. You have to remember this when you find yourself at the beginning.
—Sandra Bullock (American Film Actress)

The person who seeks all their applause from outside has their happiness in another’s keeping .
—Dale Carnegie (American Self-Help Author)

It doesn’t matter how many say it cannot be done or how many people have tried it before; it’s important to realize that whatever you’re doing, it’s your first attempt at it.
—Wally Amos (American Entrepreneur)

We become more religious in proportion to our readiness to doubt and not our willingness to believe.
—Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (Indian Philosopher, Political Leader)

It is the things we are unaware of in ourselves which make us so very angry when we see them in other people.
—Irene Claremont de Castillejo (British Psychoanalyst)

At a time when opportunism is everything, when hope seems lost, when everything boils down to a cynical business deal, we must find the courage to dream. To reclaim romance. The romance of believing in justice, in freedom, and in dignity. For everybody.
—Arundhati Roy (Indian Novelist, Activist)

It costs a man only a little exertion to bring misfortune on himself.
—Menander (Greek Comic Dramatist)

An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have. The older she gets the more interested he is in her.
—Agatha Christie (British Novelist)

A bishop wrote gravely to the Times inviting all nations to destroy ‘the formula’ of the atomic bomb. There is no simple remedy for ignorance so abysmal.
—Peter Medawar (British Immunologist, Writer)

When you get to my age, and I’m 66 now, you realize that the world is a madhouse and that most people are operating in fantasy anyway. So once you realize that, it doesn’t bother you much.
—John Cleese (British Comic Actor, Writer)

Values are principles and ideas that bring meaning to the seemingly mundane experience of life. A meaningful life that ultimately brings happiness and pride requires you to respond to temptations as well as challenges with honor, dignity, and courage.
—Laura Schlessinger (American Broadcaster)

Habit is necessary; it is the habit of having habits, of turning a trail into a rut, that must be incessantly fought against if one is to remain alive.
—Edith Wharton (American Novelist, Short-story Writer)

Our dreams have to be bigger.
Our ambitions higher.
Our commitment deeper.
And our efforts greater.
This is my dream.
—Dhirubhai Ambani (Indian Businessperson)

In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute.
—Thurgood Marshall (American Jurist)

With every word we utter, with every action we take, we know our kids are watching us. We as parents are their most important role models.
—Michelle Obama (American First Lady)

Rage and grief are savage companions, but despair is the final undoing.
—Mia Farrow (American Actress, Activist)

I cannot and do not live in the world of discretion, not as a writer, anyway. I would prefer to, I assure you—it would make life easier. But discretion is, unfortunately, not for novelists.
—Philip Roth (American Novelist, Short-story Writer)

Prayer is translation. A man translates himself into a child asking for all there is in a language he has barely mastered.
—Leonard Cohen (Canadian Musician, Author)

The consumer is not a moron. She is your wife. Try not to insult her intelligence.
—David Ogilvy (British Advertising Executive)

Some men are more beholden to their bitterest enemies than to friends who appear to be sweetness itself. The former frequently tell the truth, but the latter never.
—Cato the Elder (Marcus Porcius Cato) (Roman Statesman)

When a man points a finger at someone else, he should remember that four of his fingers are pointing to himself.
—Louis Nizer (American Lawyer, Author)

To sin because mercy abounds is the devil’s logic; he that sins because of God’s mercy, shall have judgment without mercy.—Mercy is not for them that sin and fear not, but for them that fear and sin not.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr. (American Business Executive)

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of ages may be preserved by quotation.
—Isaac D’Israeli (English Writer, Scholar)

Love is not just looking at each other, it’s looking in the same direction.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery (French Novelist, Aviator)

Memory is the greatest of artists, and effaces from your mind what is unnecessary.
—Maurice Baring (British Author)

I hold this as a rule of life: Too much of anything is bad.
—Terence (Roman Comic Dramatist)

All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them.
—Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) (Danish Novelist, Short-story Writer)

Remember that what pulls the strings is the force hidden within; there lies the power to persuade, there the life—there, if one must speak out, the real man.
—Marcus Aurelius (Emperor of Rome, Stoic Philosopher)

Be moderate in prosperity, prudent in adversity.
—Periander (Tyrant of Corinth)

Independence I have long considered as the grand blessing of life, the basis of every virtue; and independence I will ever secure by contracting my wants, though I were to live on a barren heath.
—Mary Wollstonecraft (English Writer, Feminist)

Whenever there is a simple error that most laymen fall for, there is always a slightly more sophisticated version of the same problem that experts fall for.
—Amos Tversky (Israeli Cognitive Psychologist)

Success is falling nine times and getting up ten.
—Jon Bon Jovi (American Musician)

Choose the course which you adopt with deliberation; but when you have adopted it, then persevere in it with firmness.
—Bias of Priene (Greek Orator)

Horror is always aware of its cause; terror never is. That is precisely what makes terror terrifying.
—Christopher Isherwood (Anglo-American Novelist, Playwright)

The birds have vanished into the sky, and now the last cloud drains away. We sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains.
—Li Bai (Chinese Taoist Poet)

Watch people, because you can fake for a long time, but one day you’re gonna show yourself to be a phony.
—Tupac Shakur (American Rapper, Actor)

If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.
—Dolly Parton (American Musician, Actress)

Well-being is attained by little and little, and nevertheless is no little thing itself.
—Zeno of Citium (Greek Philosopher)

The liberals have not softened their view of actuality to make themselves live closer to the dream, but instead sharpen their perceptions and fight to make the dream actuality or give up the battle in despair.
—Margaret Mead (American Cultural Anthropologist)

Few of us are granted the grace to know ourselves, and until we do, maybe the best we can do is be consistent.
—Andre Agassi (American Tennis Player)

There is in gardens a plant which one ought to leave dry, although most people water it. It is the weed called envy.
—Cosimo de’ Medici (Florentine Statesman, Banker)

As she has planted, so does she harvest; such is the field of karma.
—The Guru Granth Sahib (Sacred Text of Sikhism)

Do not let one’s tongue outrun one’s sense.
—Chilon of Sparta (Spartan Magistrate)

The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated.
—H. L. Mencken (American Journalist, Literary Critic)

Frank and explicit; that is the right line to take when you wish to conceal your own mind and to confuse the minds of others.
—Benjamin Disraeli (British Head of State)

In argument similes are like songs in love; they describe much, but prove nothing.
—Matthew Prior (English Poet, Diplomat)

Education is not merely a means for earning a living or an instrument for the acquisition of wealth. It is an initiation into life of spirit, a training of the human soul in the pursuit of truth and the practice of virtue.
—Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit (Indian Politician, Diplomat)

The devil tempts all men, but idle men tempt the devil.
—Arabic Proverb

Sometimes you are in sync with the times, sometimes you are in advance, sometimes you are late.
—Bernardo Bertolucci (Italian Film Director)

When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.
—Georgia O’Keeffe (American Painter)

We are obliged to serve God both outwardly and inwardly. Outward service is expressed in the duties of the members, such as prayer, fasting, almsgiving, learning and teaching the Torah…all of which can be wholly performed by man’s physical body. Inward service, however, is expressed in the duties of the heart, in the heart’s assertion of the unity of God, in belief in him and in his Book, in constant obedience to him and fear of him, in humility before him, love for him and complete reliance upon him, submission to him and abstinence from the things hateful to him.
—Bahya ibn Paquda (Jewish Philosopher)

When you say “no” to most things, you leave room in your life to throw yourself completely into that rare thing that makes you say “HELL YEAH!”
—Derek Sivers (American Entrepreneur)

Real art is one of the most powerful forces in the rise of mankind, and he who renders it accessible to as many people as possible is a benefactor of humanity.
—Zoltan Kodaly (Hungarian Composer)

When there is an original sound in the world, it makes a hundred echoes.
—John Augustus Shedd (American Author)

Success is not measured by the heights one attains, but by the obstacles one overcomes in its attainment.
—Booker T. Washington (African-American Educationist)

As you pray to God for devotion, so also pray that you may not find fault with anyone.
—Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (Indian Hindu Philosopher)

For the creation of a masterwork of literature two powers must concur, the power of the man and the power of the moment, and the man is not enough without the moment.
—Matthew Arnold (English Poet, Critic)

Guru the washer man, disciple is the cloth
The name of God liken to the soap
Wash the mind on foundation firm
To realize the glow of Truth.
—Kabir (Indian Mystic)

When I am finishing a picture I hold some God-made object up to it—a rock, a flower, the branch of a tree or my hand—as a kind of final test. If the painting stands up beside a thing man cannot make, the painting is authentic. If there’s a clash between the two, it is bad art.
—Marc Chagall (French Painter, Graphic Artist)

Nothing ages like laziness.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (British Author, Politician)

When there is oppression, the only self-respecting thing is to rise and say this shall cease today, because my right is justice. If you are stronger, you have to help the weaker boy or girl both in play and in the work.
—Sarojini Naidu (Indian Feminist, Poet)

A belief is not true because it is useful.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (Swiss Philosopher, Writer)

But all art is sensual and poetry particularly so. It is directly, that is, of the senses, and since the senses do not exist without an object for their employment all art is necessarily objective. It doesn’t declaim or explain, it presents.
—William Carlos Williams (American Poet, Novelist, Cultural Historian)

Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life—and travel—leaves marks on you. Most of the time, those marks—on your body or on your heart—are beautiful. Often, though, they hurt.
—Anthony Bourdain (American Chef, TV Personality)

The great question which, in all ages, has disturbed mankind, and brought on them the greatest part of those mischiefs, which have ruined cities, depopulated countries, and disordered the peace of the world, has been, not whether there be power in the world, not whence it came, but who should have it.
—John Locke (English Philosopher)

I have always tried to hide my efforts and wished my works to have a light joyousness of springtime which never lets anyone suspect the labors it has cost me.
—Henri Matisse (French Painter, Sculptor)

It is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree—make sure you understand the fundamental principles, i.e. the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to.
—Elon Musk (American Entrepreneur )

‘Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and have her nonsense respected.
—Charles Lamb (British Essayist, Poet)

Silence is argument carried on by other means.
—Che Guevara (Argentine-Cuban Revolutionary)

I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.
—John D. Rockefeller (American Industrialist, Philanthropist)

Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you’re aboard, there’s nothing you can do. You can’t stop the plane, you can’t stop the storm, you can’t stop time. So one might as well accept it calmly, wisely.
—Golda Meir (Israeli Head of State)

Music creates order out of chaos: for rhythm imposes unanimity upon the divergent, melody imposes continuity upon the disjointed, and harmony imposes compatibility upon the incongruous.
—Yehudi Menuhin (British Violinist)

The quality of one’s emotional life changes over the years, doesn’t it? But the basic instincts and desires, greed and hope, seem to remain constant. In the larger scope of things, there’s a sense of fulfillment to living a creative life. So I guess that’s what keeps me going.
—Tommy Lee Jones (American Actor)

Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit.
—Abbie Hoffman (American Political Activist)

We’re flooding people with information. We need to feed it through a processor. A human must turn information into intelligence or knowledge. We’ve tended to forget that no computer will ever ask a new question.
—Grace Hopper (American Mathematician)

I leave this rule for others when I’m dead: Be always sure you’re right—THEN GO AHEAD!
—Davy Crockett (American Frontiersman, Politician)

I’ve dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they’ve gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind.
—Emily Bronte (English Novelist, Poet)

Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.
—Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Russian Novelist)

The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.
—Mary Oliver (American Poet)

Poets are like proverbs: you can always find one to contradict another.
—Jules Verne (French Novelist)

For mankind, speech with a capital S is especially meaningful and committing, more than the content communicated. The outcry of the newborn and the sound of the bells are fraught with mystery more than the baby’s woeful face or the venerable tower.
—Paul Goodman (American Novelist, Essayist)

It’s the new management’s job to look at the world as it changes, and how do we look at change and take advantage of change, rather than put our head in the ground.
—Sanford I. Weill (American Financier, Philanthropist)

My dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed—my dearest pleasure when free.
—Mary Shelley (English Novelist)

Two things are bad for the heart—running up stairs and running down people.
—Bernard M. Baruch (American Financier)

Let me give you the definition of ethics: it is good to maintain life and to further life. It is bad to damage and destroy life. And this ethic, profound and universal, has the significance of a religion. It is religion.
—Albert Schweitzer (French Theologian)

Obvious things escape attention because attention is drawn to what it wants to see, or what it thinks makes the biggest difference, which often isn’t the obvious things because obvious things are viewed as too simple to make a difference.
—Morgan Housel (American Financial Journalist, Investor)

If necessity is the mother of invention, discontent is the father of progress.
—David Rockefeller (American Businessman, Philanthropist)

I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong.
—Richard Feynman (American Physicist)

Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.
—Matsuo Basho (Japanese Poet)

Ideally, travel broadens our perspectives personally, culturally, and politically. Suddenly, the palette with which we paint the story of our lives has more colors.
—Rick Steves (American Travel Writer, Entrepreneur)

The downside, of course, is that over time religions become encrusted with precepts and ideas that are the antithesis of soul, as each faith tries to protect its doctrines and institution instead of nurturing the evolution of consciousness. If one is not careful to distinguish the genuine insights of a religion from its irrelevant accretions, one can go through life following an inappropriate moral compass.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Hungarian-American Psychologist)

Real leaders help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.
—David Foster Wallace (American Novelist, Essayist)

I am credited with being one of the hardest workers and perhaps I am, if thought is the equivalent of labor, for I have devoted to it almost all of my waking hours. But if work is interpreted to be a definite performance in a specified time according to a rigid rule, then I may be the worst of idlers.
—Nikola Tesla (Serbian-American Inventor)

It is not as a means of procuring my own happiness that I give in charity, but I love charity that I may do good to the world.
—The Jataka Tales (Genre of Buddhist Literature)

There are three roads to ruin; women, gambling and technicians. The most pleasant is with women, the quickest is with gambling, but the surest is with technicians.
—Georges Pompidou (French Statesman)

The greatest gift a parent can give a child is unconditional love. As a child wanders and strays, finding his bearings, he needs a sense of absolute love from a parent. There’s nothing wrong with tough love, as long as the love is unconditional.
—George H. W. Bush (American Head of State)

A man in love is incomplete until he has married. Then he’s finished.
—Zsa Zsa Gabor (Hungarian-born Film Actress)

We may never be strong enough to be entirely nonviolent in thought, word and deed. But we must keep nonviolence as our goal and make strong progress towards it.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (Indian Hindu Political leader)

Perseverance is failing nineteen times and succeeding the twentieth.
—Julie Andrews (British Actress, Singer)

I think that one can have luck if one tries to create an atmosphere of spontaneity.
—Federico Fellini (Italian Filmmaker)

The worst part of success is trying to find someone who is happy for you.
—Bette Midler (American Actress, Singer)

Every time I appoint someone to a vacant position, I make a hundred unhappy and one ungrateful.
—Louis XIV of France (King of France)

The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and human responsibility.
—Vaclav Havel (Czech Dramatist, Statesman)

A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him.
—Ezra Pound (American Poet, Critic)

We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.
—Edmund Burke (British Philosopher, Statesman )

Famous men have the whole earth as their memorial.
—Pericles (Athenian Statesman)

It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.
—William Tecumseh Sherman (American Military General)

Failure really isn’t terrible if you can say to yourself, hey, I know I’m gonna be successful at what I want to do some day. Failure doesn’t become a big hangup then because it’s only temporary. If failure is absolute, then it would be a disaster, but as long as it’s only temporary you can just go and achieve almost anything.
—Jerry Della Femina (American Advertising Executive)

The last day of the old year was one of those bright, cold, dazzling winter days, which bombard us with their brilliancy, and command our admiration but never our love.
—Lucy Maud Montgomery (Canadian Novelist, Children’s Writer)

Living is like working out a long addition sum, and if you make a mistake in the first two totals you will never find the right answer. It means involving oneself in a complicated chain of circumstances.
—Cesare Pavese (Italian Novelist, Poet)

But although denying that we have a special position in the natural world might seem becomingly modest in the eye of eternity, it might also be used as an excuse for evading our responsibilities. The fact is that no species has ever had such wholesale control over everything on earth, living or dead, as we now have. That lays upon us, whether we like it or not, an awesome responsibility. In our hands now lies not only our own future, but that of all living creatures with whom we share the earth.
—David Attenborough (English Naturalist, Broadcaster)

The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn’t think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential.
—Steve Ballmer (American Businessperson, Philantropist)

The lintel low enough to keep out pomp and pride; the threshold high enough to turn deceit aside; the door-band strong enough from robbers to defend: this door will open at a touch to welcome every friend.
—Henry van Dyke Jr. (American Author, Educator, Clergyman)

People are like stained glass windows—the true beauty can be seen only when there is light from within. The darker the night, the brighter the windows.
—Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (American Psychiatrist)

Birth is not the beginning of life—only of an individual awareness. Change into another state is not death—only the ending of this awareness.
—Hermes Trismegistus (Greek-Egyptian Author)

Marriage is about the most expensive way for the average man to get his laundry done.
—Burt Reynolds (American Actor)

Without cancer, I never would have won a single Tour de France. Cancer taught me a plan for more purposeful living, and that in turn taught me how to train and to win more purposefully. It taught me that pain has a reason, and that sometimes the experience of losing things—whether health or a car or an old sense of self—has its own value in the scheme of life. Pain and loss are great enhancers.
—Lance Armstrong (American Racing Cyclist )

No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions. He had money as well.
—Margaret Thatcher (British Head of State)

I am not so enamored of my own opinions that I disregard what others may think of them. … Yet I hold that completely erroneous views should be shunned.
—Nicolaus Copernicus (Polish Astronomer)