Inspirational Quotations

Some people regret that they have poor memories. Alas! It is much more difficult to forget.
—Dorothee Luzy Dotinville (French Dancer, Actress)

All those who suffer in the world do so because of their desire for their own happiness. All those happy in the world are so because of their desire for the happiness of others.
—Shantideva (Indian Buddhist Scholar)

The meaning of the living words that come out of the experiences of great hearts can never be exhausted by any one system of logical interpretation. They have to be endlessly explained by the commentaries of individual lives, and they gain an added mystery in each new revelation.
—Rabindranath Tagore (Indian Hindu Polymath)

An excuse is a lie guarded.
—Jonathan Swift (Irish Satirist)

When the fight begins within himself, a man’s worth something.
—Robert Browning (English Poet)

When the creations of a genius collide with the mind of a layman, and produce an empty sound, there is little doubt as to which is at fault.
—Salvador Dali (Spanish Painter)

Work performed with higher knowledge or skill, capacity or ambition, usually brings a correspondingly higher reward.
—Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya (Indian Engineer)

We pay attention with respect and interest, not in order to manipulate, but to understand what is true. And seeing what is true, the heart becomes free.
—Jack Kornfield (American Buddhist Teacher, Author)

Men resist randomness, [stock] markets resist prophecy.
—Maggie Mahar (American Journalist, Author)

The first idea that the child must acquire, in order to be actively disciplined, is that of the difference between good and evil; and the task of the educator lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility, and evil with activity.
—Maria Montessori (Italian Physician, Educator)

We differ, blind and seeing, one from another, not in our senses, but in the use we make of them, in the imagination and courage with which we seek wisdom beyond the senses.
—Helen Keller (American Author)

It is not God that is worshipped but the group or authority that claims to speak in His name. Sin becomes disobedience to authority not violation of integrity.
—Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (Indian Philosopher, Political Leader)

Let the motive be in the deed and not in the event. Be not one whose motive for action is the hope of reward.
—The Bhagavad Gita (Hindu Scripture)

There is room enough in human life to crowd almost every art and science in it. If we pass “no day without a line”—visit no place without the company of a book—we may with ease fill libraries, or empty them of their contents. The more we do, the more busy we are, the more leisure we have.
—William Hazlitt (English Essayist)

Man is more interesting than men. God made him and not them in his image. Each one is more precious than all.
—Andre Gide (French Novelist)

Greater the challenge, greater has been the achievements.
—Dhirubhai Ambani (Indian Businessperson)

Expertise is great, but it has a bad side effect: It tends to create the inability to accept new ideas.
—Dean Williams (Australian Leadership Consultant)

You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him.
—Leo Aikman (American Columnist, Humorist)

The man who enters a library is in the best society this world affords; the good and the great welcome him, surround him, and humbly ask to be allowed to become his servants.
—Andrew Carnegie (Scottish-American Industrialist, Philanthropist)

You need to try to do the impossible, to anticipate the unexpected. And when the unexpected happens, you should double the efforts to make order from the disorder it creates in your life. The motto I’m advocating is—Let chaos reign, then rein chaos. Does that mean that you shouldn’t plan? Not at all. You need to plan the way a fire department plans. It cannot anticipate fires, so it has to shape a flexible organization that is capable of responding to unpredictable events.
—Andrew Grove (Hungarian-born American Businessperson)

In expert tennis, 80% of the points are won, while in amateur tennis, 80% are lost. The same is true for wrestling, chess, and investing: Beginners should focus on avoiding mistakes, experts on making great moves.
—Eric Falkenstein (American Economist, Investor)

The most positive men are the most credulous, since they most believe themselves, and advise most with their falsest flatterer and worst enemy,—their own self-love.
—Alexander Pope (English Poet)

A person with a flexible schedule and average resources will be happier than a rich person who has everything except a flexible schedule. Step one in your search for happiness is to continually work toward having control of your schedule.
—Scott Adams (American Cartoonist)

Charity begins at home and justice begins next door.
—Charles Dickens (English Novelist)

Timing the [stock] market is a fool’s game, whereas time in the market is your greatest natural advantage.
—Nick Murray (American Financial Consultant, Author)

To whom much has been given, much is expected.
—The Holy Bible (Scripture in the Christian Faith)

Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides.
—Margaret Thatcher (British Head of State)

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher)

While praying, listen to the words very carefully. When your heart is attentive, your entire being enters your prayer without your having to force it.
—Nachman of Breslov (Ukrainian Jewish Religions Leader)

Changing your mind is one of the most difficult things we do. It is far easier to fool yourself into believing a falsehood than admit a mistake.
—Morgan Housel (American Financial Journalist, Investor)

Life is too short to be little. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply, acts boldly, and expresses himself with frankness and with fervor.
—Benjamin Disraeli (British Head of State)

No man ever got very high by pulling other people down. The intelligent merchant does not knock his competitors. The sensible worker does not knock those who work with him. Don’t knock your friends. Don’t knock your enemies. Don’t knock yourself.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson (British Poet)

Happiness is a state of which you are unconscious, of which you are not aware. The moment you are aware that you are happy, you cease to be happy. You want to be consciously happy: the moment you are consciously happy, happiness is gone.
—Jiddu Krishnamurti (Indian Philosopher)

I have seen what a laugh can do. It can transform almost unbearable tears into something bearable, even hopeful.
—Bob Hope (British-born American Comedian, Film Actor)

If we get everything that we want, we will soon want nothing that we get.
—Vernon Luchies (American Clergyman)

There is great comfort and inspiration in the feeling of close human relationships and its bearing on our mutual fortunes – a powerful force, to overcome the “tough breaks” which are certain to come to most of us from time to time.
—Walt Disney (American Entrepreneur)

Not only is there a right to be happy, there is a duty to be happy. So much sadness exists in the world that we are all under obligation to contribute as much joy as lies within our powers.
—John Sutherland Bonnell (American Preacher)

Man is not only a contributory creature, but a total creature; he does not only make one, but he is all; he is not a piece of the world, but the world itself; and next to the glory of God, the reason why there is a world.
—John Donne (English Poet, Cleric)

There’s a difference between tough-mindedness and meanness.
—Jeffrey Immelt (American Businessperson)

Devotion must not be like the flood of the rainy season in which all get washed away. Devotion should be like the river that retains water even in the hottest season.
—Kabir (Indian Mystic)

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

Enduring setbacks while maintaining the ability to show others the way to go forward is a true test of leadership.
—Nitin Nohria (Indian-American Academic)

Loving someone is setting them free, letting them go.
—Kate Winslet (English Actress)

Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.
—Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi (Persian Muslim Mystic)

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
—George Orwell (English Novelist, Essayist, Journalist)

Living a connected life leads one to take a different view. Life is less a quest than a quilt. We find meaning, love, and prosperity through the process of stitching together our bold attempts to help others find their own way in their lives. The relationships we weave become an exquisite and endless pattern.
—Keith Ferrazzi (American Author)

The more you think you know, the more closed-minded you’ll be.
—Ray Dalio (American Investor)

No one ever won a chess game by betting on each move. Sometimes you have to move backward to get a step forward.
—Amar Bose (American Entrepreneur)

There are no such things as limits to growth, because there are no limits to the human capacity for intelligence, imagination, and wonder.
—Ronald Reagan (American Head of State)

Don’t be sad, don’t be angry, if life deceives you! Submit to your grief; your time for joy will come, believe me.
—Alexander Pushkin (National Poet of Russia)

In the study of one’s personal language and self-talk it can be observed that what one thinks and talks about to himself tends to become the deciding influences in his life. For what the mind attends to, the mind considers.
—Sidney Madwed (American Poet, Author, Public Speaker)

Tragedy isn’t getting something or failing to get it, it’s losing something you already have.
—Euripides (Ancient Greek Dramatist)

There should be neither a women’s movement blaming men, nor a men’s movement blaming women, but a gender liberation movement freeing both sexes from the rigid roles of the past toward more flexible roles for their future.
—Warren Farrell (American Educator, Activist)

The past is the one thing we are not prisoners of. We can do with the past exactly what we wish. What we can’t do is to change its consequences.
—John Berger (English Art Critic, Essayist, Novelist)

It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to the feeling for the things themselves, for reality, is more important than the feeling for pictures.
—Vincent van Gogh (Dutch Painter)

Success in business does not depend upon genius. Any young man of ordinary intelligence who is normally sound and not afraid to work should succeed in spite of obstacles and handicaps if he plays the game fairly and keeps everlastingly at it.
—James Cash Penney (American Entrepreneur)

Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.
—C. S. Lewis (Irish-born British Children’s Books Writer)

Great genius takes shape by contact with another great genius, but, less by assimilation than by fiction.
—Heinrich Heine (German Poet, Writer)

Most “necessary evils” are far more evil than necessary.
—Richard Branson (British Entrepreneur)

Happiness is not in our circumstances, but in ourselves. It is not something we see, like a rainbow, or feel, like the heat of a fire. Happiness is something we are.
—John B. Sheerin (American Catholic Columnist, Editor)

Temperance is simply a disposition of the mind which binds the passion.
—Thomas Aquinas (Italian Catholic Priest)

The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between the two, the leader must become a servant and a debtor. That sums up the progress of an artful leader.
—Max De Pree (American Businessman)

The truth is that we live out our lives putting off all that can be put off; perhaps we all know deep down that we are immortal and that sooner or later all men will do and know all things.
—Jorge Luis Borges (Argentine Writer)

Learning is acquired by reading books, but the much more necessary learning, the knowledge of the world, is only to be acquired by reading men, and studying all the various facets of them.
—Earl of Chesterfield

It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.
—Yogi Berra (American Sportsperson)

To emancipate woman is to refuse to confine her to the relations she bears to man, not to deny them to her; let her have her independent existence and she will continue nonetheless to exist for him also: mutually recognising each other as subject, each will yet remain for the other an other. The reciprocity of their relations will not do away with the miracles—desire, possession, love, dream, adventure—worked by the division of human beings into two separate categories; and the words that move us—giving, conquering, uniting—will not lose their meaning. On the contrary, when we abolish the slavery of half of humanity, together with the whole system of hypocrisy that it implies, then the ‘division’ of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form.
—Simone de Beauvoir (French Philosopher)

Whatever results you’re getting, be they rich or poor, good or bad, positive or negative, always remember that your outer world is simply a reflection of your inner world. If things aren’t going well in your outer life, it’s because things aren’t going well in your inner life. It’s that simple.
—T. Harv Eker (American Motivational Speaker)

Think twice before you speak, or act once, and you will speak or act the more wisely for it.
—Benjamin Franklin (American Political leader)

Good questions outrank easy answers.
—Paul Samuelson (American Economist)

History is the enactment of ritual on a permanent and universal stage; and its perpetual commemoration.
—Norman O. Brown (American Philosopher)

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
—John F. Kennedy (American Head of State)

Did you ever observe to whom the accidents happen?. Chance favors only the prepared mind.
—Louis Pasteur (French Biologist)

Pop artists deal with the lowly trivia of possessions and equipment that the present generation is lugging along with it on its safari into the future.
—J. G. Ballard (English Novelist)

I learned…that inspiration does not come like a bolt, nor is it kinetic, energetic striving, but it comes into us slowly and quietly and all the time, though we must regularly and every day give it a little chance to start flowing, prime it with a little solitude and idleness.
—Brenda Ueland (American Journalist)

In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don’t try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present.
—Laozi (Chinese Philosopher)

The interpretation of our reality through patterns not our own, serves only to make us ever more unknown, ever less free, ever more solitary.
—Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Colombian Novelist, Short-Story Writer)

There is nothing wrong with men possessing riches. The wrong comes when riches possess men.
—Billy Graham (American Baptist Religious Leader)

Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all of us love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour—unceasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family.
—Henri Nouwen (Dutch Catholic Priest)

The pleasure of criticism takes from us that of being deeply moved by very beautiful things.
—Jean de La Bruyere

That which causes us trials shall yield us triumph: and that which make our hearts ache shall fill us with gladness. The only true happiness is to learn, to advance, and to improve: which could not happen unless we had commence with error, ignorance, and imperfection. We must pass through the darkness, to reach the light.
—Albert Pike (American Military Leader)

What experience and history teach is this—that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

The way to avoid responsibility is to say, “I’ve got responsibilities.”
—Richard Bach (American Novelist)

Self-interest is but the survival of the animal in us. Humanity only begins for man with self-surrender.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (Swiss Philosopher)

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (Roman Philosopher)

Those who make us happy are always thankful to us for being so; their gratitude is the reward of their benefits.
—Sophie Swetchine (Russian Christian Mystic)

If the people around you are spiteful and callous and will not hear you, fall down before them and beg their forgiveness; for in truth you are to blame for their not wanting to hear you.
—Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Russian Novelist)

Grief walks upon the heels of pleasure; married in haste, we repent at leisure.
—William Congreve (English Playwright)

Manner is everything with some people, and something with everybody.
—Conyers Middleton (English Clergyman)

While you have a thing it can be taken from you… but when you give it, you have given it. No robber can take it from you. It is yours then for ever when you have given it. It will be yours always. That is to give.
—James Joyce (Irish Novelist)

A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week.
—George S. Patton (American Military Leader)

Often the difference between a successful man and a failure is not one’s better abilities or ideas but the courage that one has to bet on his ideas, to take a calculated risk—and act.
—Maxwell Maltz (American Surgeon)

No one remains quite what he was when he recognizes himself.
—Thomas Mann (German Novelist)

The beauty seen, is partly in him who sees it.
—Christian Nestell Bovee

I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him.
—Galileo Galilei (Italian Astronomer)

Perfectionism is slow death.
—Hugh Prather (American Christian Author)

It takes a great deal of living to get a little deal of learning.
—John Ruskin (English Art Critic)

Intelligence recognizes what has happened. Genius recognizes what will happen.
—John Ciardi (American Poet)

It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.
—Thomas Paine (American Nationalist)

There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (American Head of State)

We know nothing of tomorrow; our business is to be good and happy today.
—Sydney Smith (English Anglican Writer)

To judge human character rightly, a man may sometimes have very small experience, provided he has a very large heart.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (English Poet)

Writing makes no noise, except groans, and it can be done everywhere, and it is done alone.
—Ursula K. Le Guin (Science-fiction writer)

Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.
—H. L. Mencken (American Journalist)

The goal should not be to make money or acquire things, but to achieve the consciousness through which the substance will flow forth when and as you need it.
—Eric Butterworth

None are more taken in by flattery than the proud, who wish to be the first and are not.
—Baruch Spinoza (Dutch Philosopher)

Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage.
—Publilius Syrus (Syrian-born Latin Writer)

The happiest is he who suffers the least pain; the most miserable, he who enjoys the least pleasure.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Swiss Philosopher)

Luck can often mean simple taking advantage of a situation at the right moment; it is possible to “make” your luck by being always prepared.
—Michael Korda

The greatest analgesic, soporific, stimulant, tranquilizer, narcotic, and to some extent even antibiotic –in short, the closest thing to a genuine panacea –known to medical science is work.
—Thomas Szasz (Hungarian Psychiatrist)

A teacher of fear can’t bring peace on earth. We have been trying to do it that way for thousands of years. The person who turns inner violence around, the person who finds peace inside and lives it, is the one who teaches what true peace is. We are waiting for just one teacher. You’re the one.
—Byron Katie (American Speaker)

Where legitimate opportunities are closed, illegitimate opportunities are seized. Whatever opens opportunity and hope will help to prevent crime and foster responsibility.
—Lyndon B. Johnson (American Head of State)

Nothing you do for children is ever wasted. They seem not to notice us, hovering, averting our eyes, and they seldom offer thanks, but what we do for them is never wasted.
—Garrison Keillor (American Author)

Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.
—Robert F. Kennedy (American Politician)

Never contend with a man who has nothing to lose.
—Baltasar Gracian

Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly.
—Thomas Jefferson (American Head of State)

The walls we build around us to keep sadness out also keep out the joy.
—Jim Rohn (American Entrepreneur)

For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.
—Aristotle (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance—it is the illusion of knowledge.
—Daniel J. Boorstin (American Historian)

Riches get their value from the mind of the possessor; they are blessings to those who know how to use them, and curses to those who do not.
—Terence (Ancient Roman Playwright)

If we subject everything to reason, our religion will have nothing mysterious or supernatural; if we violate the principles of reason, our religion will be absurd and ridiculous.
—Blaise Pascal (French Catholic Mathematician)

A single lie destroys a whole reputation of integrity.
—Baltasar Gracian

It is not the language but the speaker that we want to understand.
—The Upanishads

A bibliophile of little means is likely to suffer often. Books don’t slip from his hands but fly past him through the air, high as birds, high as prices.
—Pablo Neruda (Chilean Poet)

It requires greater courage to preserve inner freedom, to move on in one’s inward journey into new realms, than to stand defiantly for outer freedom. It is often easier to play the martyr, as it is to be rash in battle.
—Rollo May (American Philosopher)

The greatest mistake we make is living in constant fear that we will make one.
—John C. Maxwell (American Christian Professional Speaker)

Life is made up of constant calls to action, and we seldom have time for more than hastily contrived answers.
—Learned Hand

The reading of all good books is indeed like a conversation with the noblest men of past centuries who were the authors of them, nay a carefully studied conversation, in which they reveal to us none but the best of their thoughts.
—Rene Descartes (French Philosopher, Mathematician)

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (German Philosopher, Scholar)

The oppression of any people for opinion’s sake has rarely had any other effect than to fix those opinions deeper, and render them more important.
—Hosea Ballou (American Universalist Clergyman)

Never write on a subject until you have read yourself full of it.
—Jean Paul (German Novelist)

Hardly ever can a youth transferred to the society of his betters unlearn the nasality and other vices of speech bred in him by the associations of his growing years. Hardly ever, indeed, no matter how much money there be in his pocket, can he ever learn to dress like a gentleman-born. The merchants offer their wares as eagerly to him as to the veriest “swell,” but he simply cannot buy the right things.
—William James (American Philosopher)

The only abnormality is the incapacity to love.
—Anais Nin (French-American Essayist)

There is great beauty in going through life without anxiety or fear. Half our fears are baseless, and the other half discreditable.
—Christian Nestell Bovee

Age is not all decay; it is the ripening, the swelling, of the fresh life within, that withers and bursts the husk.
—George MacDonald (Scottish Christian Author)

Each misfortune you encounter will carry in it the seed of tomorrow’s good luck.
—Og Mandino

On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (German Philosopher, Scholar)

A shared vision is not an idea. It is not even an important idea such as freedom. It is, rather, a force in people’s hearts, a force of impressive power… Shared vision is vital for the learning organization because it provides the focus and energy for learning.
—Peter Senge (American Management Consultant)

If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience.
—Robert Fulghum (American Unitarian Universalist Author)

Friendship with the evil is like the shadow in the morning, decreasing every hour; but friendship with the good is like the evening shadows, increasing till the sun of life sets.
—Johann Gottfried Herder (German Lutheran Philosopher)

Love looks forward, hate looks back, anxiety has eyes all over its head.
—Mignon McLaughlin (American Journalist)

An ideal wife is any woman who has an ideal husband.
—Booth Tarkington (American Novelist)

No person has the right to rain on your dreams.
—Marian Wright Edelman (American Civil Regrets Advocate)

If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (Roman Philosopher)