Inspirational Quotations

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)

When the ancients said a work well begun was half done, they meant to impress the importance of always endeavoring to make a good beginning.
—Polybius (Greek Historian)

Do not consider it proof just because it is written in books, for a liar who will deceive with his tongue will not hesitate to do the same with his pen.
—Moses Maimonides (Jewish Philosopher, Rabbinic Scholar)

We now have access to so much information that we can find support for any prejudice or opinion.
—David Suzuki (Canadian Scientist, Environmental Activist)

If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If there’s shouting after you, keep going. Don’t ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.
—Harriet Tubman (American Abolitionist)

It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man and the security of a god.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (Roman Stoic Philosopher)

The weaker partner in a marriage is the one who loves the most.
—Eleonora Duse (Italian Actress)

If you want to tell the untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you’ve got to find a language. Which goes for film as well as prose, for documentary as well as autobiography. Use the wrong language, and you’re dumb and blind.
—Salman Rushdie (Indian-born British Novelist)

I was taught that the human brain was the crowning glory of evolution so far, but I think it’s a very poor scheme for survival.
—Kurt Vonnegut (American Novelist)

Love is the affinity which links and draws together the elements of the world… Love, in fact, is the agent of universal synthesis.
—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (French Jesuit Scientist)

Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die tomorrow.
—James Dean (American Film Actor)

Thank you for leaving us alone but giving us enough attention to boost our egos.
—Mick Jagger (English Rock Musician)

You must not pity me because my sixtieth year finds me still astonished. To be astonished is one of the surest ways of not growing old too quickly.
—Colette (French Novelist, Performer)

When the press is the echo of sages and reformers, it works well; when it is the echo of turbulent cynics, it merely feeds political excitement.
—Alphonse de Lamartine (French Poet, Politician, Historian)

I have all reverence for principles which grow out of sentiments; but as to sentiments which grow out of principles, you shall scarcely build a house of cards thereon.
—Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (German Philosopher)

Not all who wander are lost.
—J. R. R. Tolkien (British Philologist, Writer)

The only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves.
—V. S. Naipaul (Trinidadian-British Writer)

Silence is one great art of conversation.
—William Hazlitt (English Essayist)

A legal kiss is never as good as a stolen one.
—Guy de Maupassant (French Short-story Writer)

The features come insensibly to be formed and assume their shape from the frequent and habitual expression of certain affections of the soul. These affections are marked on the countenance; nothing is more certain than this; and when they turn into habits, they must leave on it durable impressions.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (French Philosopher)

While thou livest, keep a good tongue in thy head.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

When the best things are not possible, the best may be made of those that are.
—Richard Hooker (English Theologian, Political Theorist)

No one will tell a tale of scandal, except to him who loves to hear it. Learn, then, to check and rebuke the detracting tongue, by showing that you do not listen to it but with displeasure.
—Jerome (Greek Priest)

Cold hearts can find warm words.
—Tibetan Proverb

You know, the more you can meet people from different walks of life, the better it is for you. I think the more you can create situations and experiences that give you new perspective, the better.
—Michelle Pfeiffer (American Film Actress)

Nothing leaders do is more important than hiring and developing people. At the end of the day you bet on people, not on strategies.
—Lawrence Bossidy (American Business Executive)

Want and sorrow are the wages that folly earns for itself, and they are generally paid.
—Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart (German Poet)

It is my practice to try to understand how valuable something is by trying to imagine myself without it.
—Herb Kelleher (American Entrepreneur)

Would you not like to try all sorts of lives—one is so very small—but that is the satisfaction of writing—one can impersonate so many people.
—Katherine Mansfield (British Author)

Were a man to order his life by the rules of true reason, a frugal substance joined to a contented mind is for him great riches.
—Lucretius (Roman Epicurean Philosopher)

We cannot build our own future without helping others to build theirs.
—Bill Clinton (American Head of State)

Most of the mistakes in thinking are inadequacies of perception rather than mistakes of logic.
—Edward de Bono (British Psychologist, Writer )

Smile, for everyone lacks self-confidence and more than any other one thing a smile reassures them.
—Andre Maurois (French Novelist, Biographer)

No theory is good unless it permits, not rest, but the greatest work. No theory is good except on condition that one use it to go on beyond.
—Andre Gide (French Novelist)

Science is organized common sense where many a beautiful theory was killed by an ugly fact.
—Thomas Henry Huxley (English Biologist)

Creative activity could be described as a type of learning process where teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
—Arthur Koestler (British Writer, Journalist)

You can decide to be someone who brings people together, or you can fall prey to those who wish to divide us. You can be someone who educates yourself, or you can believe that being negative is clever and being cynical is fashionable. You have a choice.
—Hillary Rodham Clinton (American Head of State)

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
—Desmond Tutu (South African Clergyman)

Teachers should be held in the highest honor. They are the allies of legislators; they have agency in the prevention of crime; they aid in regulating the atmosphere, whose incessant action and pressure cause the life-blood to circulate, and to return pure and healthful to the heart of the nation.
—Lydia H. Sigourney (American Poetaster, Author)

Men who borrow their opinions can never repay their debts.
—George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax (British Statesman, Writer)

It is an immutable law in business that words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises but only performance is reality.
—Harold S. Geneen (American Businessman)

The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.
—Milan Kundera (Czech Novelist)

The only normal people are the ones you don’t know very well.
—Alfred Adler (Austrian Psychiatrist)

I place a high moral value on the way people behave. I find it repellent to have a lot, and to behave with anything other than courtesy in the old sense of the word—politeness of the heart, a gentleness of the spirit.
—Emma Thompson (British Actress, Screenwriter)

Men best show their character in trifles, where they are not on their guard.—It is in insignificant matters, and in the simplest habits, that we often see the boundless egotism which pays no regard to the feelings of others, and denies nothing to itself.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (German Philosopher)

The only faith that wears well and holds its color in all weathers is that which is woven of conviction and set with the sharp mordant of experience.
—James Russell Lowell (American Poet, Critic)

The vocation, whether it be that of the farmer or the architect, is a function; the exercise of this function as regards the man himself is the most indispensable means of spiritual development, and as regards his relation to society the measure of his worth.
—Ananda Coomaraswamy (Indian Art Historian)

To sit alone in the lamplight with a book spread out before you, and hold intimate converse with men of unseen generations—such is a pleasure beyond compare.
—Yoshida Kenko (Japanese Poet)