Inspirational Quotations

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)

I find, by experience, that the mind and the body are more than married, for they are most intimately united; and when one suffers, the other sympathizes.
—Earl of Chesterfield (English Statesman, Man of Letters)

Art, as far as it has the ability, follows nature, as a pupil imitates his master, so that art must be, as it were, a descendant of God.
—Dante Alighieri (Italian Poet, Philosopher)

The confidence we have in ourselves arises in a great measure from that which we have in others.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (French Writer)

Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves. They cannot talk about themselves without embellishing.
—Akira Kurosawa (Japanese Film Director)

Such is the force of envy and ill-nature, that the failings of good men are more published to the world than their good deeds; and one fault of a well-deserving man shall meet with more reproaches than all his virtues will with praise.
—Nathaniel Parker Willis (American Poet, Playwright)

And for man to look upon himself as a capital good, even if it did not impair his freedom, may seem to debase him… by investing in themselves, people can enlarge the range of choice available to them. It is one way free men can enhance their welfare.
—Theodore Schultz (American Economist)

A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you’re looking down, you can’t see something that’s above you.
—C. S. Lewis (Irish-born Author, Scholar)

It’s been said that every institution is nothing but the extended shadow of one person.
—Louis V. Gerstner Jr. (American Businessman)

Patients who can get even part of the way to acknowledging their mortality ultimately do themselves an untold favor.
—Oliver Sacks (British Neurologist, Writer)

In the silence of night I have often wished for just a few words of love from one man, rather than the applause of thousands of people.
—Judy Garland (American Actress, Singer)

He who has seen one cathedral ten times has seen something; he who has seen ten cathedrals once has seen but little; and he who has spent half an hour in each of a hundred cathedrals has seen nothing at all.
—Sinclair Lewis (American Novelist)

Everyone is like a butterfly, they start out ugly and awkward and then morph into beautiful graceful butterflies that everyone loves.
—Drew Barrymore (American Film Actress)

Cherish your visions. Cherish your ideals. Cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly environment; of these, if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built.
—James Allen (British Self-Help Author)

Men would live exceedingly quiet if these two words, mine and thine were taken away.
—Anaxagoras (Greek Philosopher)

Losses have propelled me to even bigger places, so I understand the importance of losing. You can never get complacent because a loss is always around the corner. It’s in any game that you’re in—a business game or whatever—you can’t get complacent.
—Venus Williams (American Tennis Player)

A country’s greatness lies in its undying ideals of love and sacrifice that inspire the mothers of the race.
—Sarojini Naidu (Indian Feminist, Poet)

I did not think; I investigated.
—Wilhelm Roentgen (German Physicist)

Whoever honors his own sect and disparages another man’s whether from blind loyalty or with the intention of showing his own sect in a favorable light, does his own sect the greatest possible harm. Concord is best, with each hearing and respecting the other’s teachings.
—Ashoka (Emperor of India, Patron of Buddhism)

In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation.
—Guy Debord (French Philosopher)

Perhaps time’s definition of coal is the diamond.
—Khalil Gibran (Lebanese-born American Philosopher)

Just because you can prove someone wrong, doesn’t mean you should.
—Marty Nemko (American Career Coach, Author)

Spring passes and one remembers one’s innocence. Summer passes and one remembers one’s exuberance. Autumn passes and one remembers one’s reverence. Winter passes and one remembers one’s perseverance.
—Yoko Ono (Japanese Artist, Musician)

The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.
—John Maynard Keynes (English Economist)

Probably no greater honor can come to any man than the respect of his colleagues.
—Cary Grant (British-American Film Actor)

Strong managers who make tough decisions to cut jobs provide the only true job security in today’s world. Weak managers are the problem. Weak managers destroy jobs.
—Jack Welch (American Businessperson)

Facts by themselves are not great or small; it is the forces behind them that give them their real stature. Facts have value in so far as they are significant—significant of forces, of dynamic possibilities that work out in and through them. Facts in their outward form may even directly contradict the very forces that manifest through them or are embodied in them.
—Nolini Kanta Gupta (Indian Hindu Revolutionary)

Even though your kids will consistently do the exact opposite of what you’re telling them to do, you have to keep loving them just as much.
—Bill Cosby (American Actor)

Fear of life in one form or another is the great thing to exorcise.
—William James (American Philosopher)

We choose to eat meat and have therefore built slaughter houses for the animals and hospitals for us.
—Akbarali H. Jetha (Indian Author)

In me past, present, future meet—to hold long chiding conference. My lusts usurp the present tense— and strangle reason in his seat.
—Siegfried Sassoon (English Poet, Writer, Soldier)

Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is.
—The Bhagavad Gita (Hindu Scripture)

I’m working to improve my methods, and every hour I save is an hour added to my life.
—Ayn Rand (Russian-born American Novelist)

‘No’ is no answer.
—Dhirubhai Ambani (Indian Businessperson)

A dream is a wish your heart makes.
—Walt Disney (American Entrepreneur)

Chance fights ever on the side of the prudent.
—Euripides (Ancient Greek Dramatist)

Yoga is restraining the mind from taking various forms.
—Patanjali (Indian Hindu Philosopher)

A woman can be overdressed, never over-elegant.
—Coco Chanel (French Fashion Designer)

Therefore trust to thy heart, and to what the world calls illusions.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American Poet)

Look around the habitable world: how few know their own good, or knowing it, pursue.
—Juvenal (Roman Poet)

Lead, follow, or get out of the way.
—Ted Turner (American Businessperson)

We are the men of intrinsic value, who can strike our fortunes out of ourselves, whose worth is independent of accidents in life, or revolutions in government: we have heads to get money, and hearts to spend it.
—George Farquhar (Irish Dramatist)

True friends want nothing from you except the joy of your presence. No matter what you do, they will always be your friend.
—Paramahansa Yogananda (Indian Hindu Mystic)

One common slogan of the West, the importance of which the Indian citizen has not yet sufficiently grasped, is: “If you do not work, neither shall you eat”. It is by his work that an individual is enabled to earn a living.
—Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya (Indian Engineer)

As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.
—Adam Smith (Scottish Philosopher)

I have enjoyed greatly the second blooming that comes when you finish the life of the emotions and of personal relations; and suddenly find—at the age of fifty, say—that a whole new life has opened before you, filled with things you can think about, study, or read about…It is as if a fresh sap of ideas and thoughts was rising in you.
—Agatha Christie (British Novelist)

But of all other stupendous inventions, what sublimity of mind must have been his who conceived how to communicate his most secret thoughts to any other person, though very far distant either in time or place? And with no greater difficulty than the various arrangement of two dozen little signs upon paper? Let this be the seal of all the admirable inventions of man.
—Galileo Galilei (Italian Astronomer)

Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge where there is no river.
—Nikita Khrushchev (Russian Head of State)

Some believe all that parents, tutors, and kindred believe.—They take their principles by inheritance, and defend them as they would their estates, because they are born heirs to them.
—Isaac Watts (English Hymn writer)

The man who puts $10,000 additional capital into an established business is pretty certain of increased returns; and in the same way, the man who puts additional capital into his brains—information, well directed thought and study of possibilities—will as surely—yes, more surely—get increased returns. There is no capital and no increase in capital safer than that.
—Marshall Field (American Entrepreneur)

When a man teaches something he does not know to somebody else who has no aptitude for it, and gives him a certificate of proficiency, the latter has completed the education of a gentleman.
—George Bernard Shaw (Irish Playwright)

There’s only one boss: the customer. He can fire everybody from the chairman on down simply by spending his money elsewhere.
—Sam Walton (American Entrepreneur)

There’s no use running if you’re on the wrong road.
—Warren Buffett (American Investor)

A language is something infinitely greater than grammar and philology. It is the poetic testament of the genius of a race and a culture, and the living embodiment of the thoughts and fancies that have moulded them.
—Jawaharlal Nehru (Indian Head of State)

Innocence can be redefined and called stupidity. Honesty can be called gullibility. Candor becomes lack of common sense. Interest in your work can be called cowardice. Generosity can be called soft-headedness, and observe: the former is disturbing.
—Abraham Maslow (American Psychologist)

We have every reason to look forward into the future with hope and excitement. Fear nothing and no one. Work honestly. Be good, be happy. And remember that each of you is unique, your soul your own, irreplaceable, and individual in the miracle of your mortal frame.
—Pearl S. Buck (American Novelist)

Everywhere I go I’m asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them. There’s many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.
—Flannery O’Connor (American Novelist)

Another kind of love and compassion is not based on something appearing beautiful or nice, but based on the fact that the other person, just like oneself, wants happiness and does not want suffering and indeed has every right to be happy and to overcome suffering. On such a basis, we feel a sense of responsibility, a sense of closeness toward that being. That is true compassion. This is because the compassion is based on reason, not just on emotional feeling. As a consequence, it does not matter what the other’s attitude is, whether negative, or positive. What matters is that it is a human being, a sentient being that has the experience of pain and pleasure. There is no reason not to feel compassion so long as it is a sentient being.
—The 14th Dalai Lama (Tibetan Buddhist Religious Leader)

Man can will nothing unless he has first understood that he must count on no one but himself; that he is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth.
—Jean-Paul Sartre (French Philosopher)

Rely on the ordinary virtues that intelligent, balanced human beings have relied on for centuries: common sense, thrift, realistic expectations, patience, and perseverance.
—John C. Bogle (American Mutual Fund Pioneer)

Men are more apt to be mistaken in their generalizations than in their particular observations.
—Niccolo Machiavelli (Florentine Political Philosopher)

Most of us follow our conscience as we follow a wheelbarrow. We push it in front of us in the direction we want to go.
—Billy Graham (American Baptist Religious Leader)

Most people don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing. They imitate others, go with the flow, and follow paths without making their own. They spend decades in pursuit of something that someone convinced them they should want, without realizing that it won’t make them happy. Don’t.
—Derek Sivers (American Entrepreneur)

I’m not into the money thing. You can only sleep in one bed at a time. You can only eat one meal at a time, or be in one car at a time. So I don’t have to have millions of dollars to be happy. All I need are clothes on my back, a decent meal, and a little loving when I feel like it. That’s the bottom line.
—Ray Charles (American Singer)

Man is the roof and crown of creation. He may be tossed about by uncertain storms of life, but the solution to it lies in his own efforts in finding an ideal, and then raising his personality, from the level of petty emotions, to the loftier heights of the chosen ideal.
—Swami Chinmayananda (Indian Hindu Teacher)

Managers have traditionally developed the skills in finance, planning, marketing and production techniques. Too often the relationships with their people have been assigned a secondary role. This is too important a subject not to receive first line attention.
—William Hewlett (American Engineer, Businessperson)

Our careers aren’t paths so much as landscapes that are navigated. We’re free agents, entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs—each with our own unique brand.
—Keith Ferrazzi (American Author)

Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough. Not only have I found that when I talk to the little flower or to the little peanut they will give up their secrets, but I have found that when I silently commune with people they give up their secrets also—if you love them enough.
—George Washington Carver (American Scientist)

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.
—Eleanor Roosevelt (American First Lady)

The greatest honor history can bestow is that of peacemaker.
—Richard Nixon (American Head of State)

If one can only realize at heart what one’s true nature is, one then will find that it is infinite wisdom, truth, and bliss, without beginning and without end.
—Ramana Maharshi (Indian Hindu Mystic)

The only way you can live a truly creative life or know the highest happiness is by developing your own unique potential.
—Norman Vincent Peale (American Clergyman, Self-Help Author)

Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.
—John Wanamaker (American Merchant, Civil Servant)

The meaning of man’s life, as we have seen, is not measured by what he has, but by what he is. No matter how many possessions we have amassed, how much wealth we have accrued, how respected and secure our position is in society, how numerous the pieces of information we have accumulated, in moments of lucidity we may still abruptly perceive the dreadful futility of it all, the overwhelming emptiness and pointlessness of such a life.
—Stephen Batchelor (British Buddhist Author, Teacher)

Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.
—Albert Schweitzer (French Theologian)

The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, person and family history, belief systems, and often also political, nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you.
—Eckhart Tolle (German Spiritual Writer)

He who rolls up his sleeves seldom loses his shirt.
—Caroline Schoeder (American Aphorist)

Inspiration and genius—one and the same.
—Victor Hugo (French Novelist)

It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What everybody echoes or in silence passes by as true today may turn out to be falsehood tomorrow, mere smoke of opinion, which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields.
—Henry David Thoreau (American Philosopher)

What is the point of getting angry with others who are angry with you? Getting angry is senseless. It is self-destructive. If you have fire in your house it will burn down your own house, Likewise your anger will hurt you. Oh Lord, help me to deal with my anger.
—Basava (Indian Hindu Philosopher)

The human head is bigger than the globe. It conceives itself as containing more. It can think and rethink itself and ourselves from any desired point outside the gravitational pull of the earth. It starts by writing one thing and later reads itself as something else. The human head is monstrous.
—Gunter Grass (German Novelist, Poet)

It is easier to recognize other people’s mistakes than your own.
—Daniel Kahneman (American-Israeli Psychologist, Economist)

The hardest battle you’re ever going to fight is the battle to be just you.
—Leo Buscaglia (American Motivational Speaker)

People don’t change. Only their costumes do.
—Gene Moore (American Designer, Window Dresser)

It’ll take a smart person with passion over someone with years of experience any day. People with intelligence and passion will get the problem solved, no matter what.
—Carol Bartz (American Businesswoman)

Only solitary men know the full joys of friendship. Others have their family —but to a solitary and an exile his friends are everything.
—Willa Cather (American Novelist)

A diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip.
—Caskie Stinnett (American Travel Writer, Humorist)

Let war stay abroad; it makes no difficulty in coming, for the man who will have in him a strong desire for glory. I disapprove of a bird’s battling in its own home.
—Aeschylus (Greek Poet)

If all the rich and all of the church people should send their children to the public schools they would feel bound to concentrate their money on improving these schools until they met the highest ideals.
—Susan B. Anthony (American Civil Rights Leader)

Show me a good loser and I will show you a loser.
—Paul Newman (American Actor, Philanthropist)

Half the work that is done in this world is to make things appear what they are not.
—Elias Root Beadle (American Clergyman)

The important thing in my view is not to pin the blame for a mistake on somebody, but rather to find out what caused the mistake.
—Akio Morita (Japanese Entrepreneur, Engineer)

Taxes are not good things, but if you want services, somebody’s got to pay for them so they’re a necessary evil.
—Michael Bloomberg (American Businessperson)

Home is a place not only of strong affections, but of entire unreserved; it is life’s undress rehearsal, its backroom, its dressing room, from which we go forth to more careful and guarded intercourse, leaving behind us much debris of cast-off and everyday clothing.
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (American Abolitionist)

Those who grumble at the little thing that has fallen to their lot to do will grumble at everything. Always grumbling they will lead a miserable life…. But those who do their duty putting their shoulder to the wheel will see the light, and higher and higher duties will fall to their share.
—Swami Vivekananda (Indian Hindu Mystic)

Whatever you do, don’t play it safe. Don’t do things the way they’ve always been done. Don’t try to fit the system. If you do what’s expected of you, you’ll never accomplish more than others expect.
—Howard Schultz (American Businessman)

A man has as much right as a woman to a good cry now and again. The snow gave me shelter; the horse understood and gave me the time.
—Robert Frost (American Poet)

The goal ever recedes from us? The greater the progress the greater the recognition of our unworthiness? Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (Indian Hindu Political leader)

Surround yourself only with people who are going to take you higher.
—Oprah Winfrey (American TV Personality)

To be of use in the world is the only way to happiness.
—Hans Christian Andersen (Danish Author)