Inspirational Quotations

Today marks the birthday of John Lennon (1940-1980,) English rock legend and co-founder of the Beatles, the most influential music band of the rock era.

A native of Liverpool, Lennon did not show much musical inclination as a child. He was smart but often got into trouble for his angry streak, petty crimes, and rebellious attitude.

At age 16, Lennon listened to Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and other rock-and-roll legends whose records were brought over by American sailors docking at the Liverpool port. Fascinated by rock and roll music, Lennon formed his own band with several friends and called it the Quarrymen.

Lennon met Paul McCartney at a church party in the summer of 1957. They became fast friends after Lennon learnt that McCartney could not only tune and play the guitar, but also recall the lyrics of the latest rock and roll songs. The two formed a legendary songwriting partnership that composed 180 songs. After McCartney’s friend George Harrison joined them in 1958, they formed the Beatals, which they later renamed Silver Beetles and finally the Beatles. Drummer Pete Best enlisted in 1960.

The Beatles played at various clubs around England and in Hamburg, Germany. They then returned to England and played at Liverpool’s Cavern Club where businessman Brian Epstein discovered them. After signing up as their manager, Epstein signed the Beatles with EMI records in 1962 and had drummer Pete Best replaced by Ringo Starr. By 1963, the Beatles were the most popular rock and roll band in England. The following year, they took America by storm with their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. ‘Beatlemania’ swept across Europe and America.

Lennon was the Beatles’most controversial member. His 1966 statement, “The Beatles are bigger than Jesus Christ,” instigated a religious counterattack in the United States. During the later ’60s, he used his celebrity to draw attention to various political causes and feminism. His vehement denunciation of the Vietnam War resulted in a protracted—but unsuccessful—effort by the Nixon administration to deport him from his adopted hometown of New York. His single “Give Peace a Chance” became the anti-Vietnam-War anthem in 1969.

Lennon married Yoko Ono in 1969. After the Beatles disbanded in 1970, Lennon embarked on a successful solo career. After the birth of son Sean in 1975, Lennon retired from public life and stayed home with family. In 1980, he was assassinated by Mark Chapman who had asked Lennon for his autograph only hours earlier. A few days later, Ono organized over 100,000 people gathered in New York’s Central Park and thousands others around the world to observe a 10-minute silence to honor him. A section of Central Park is designated “Strawberry Fields” in his memory.

Inspirational Quotations by John Lennon

The unknown is what it is. And to be frightened of it is what sends everybody scurrying around chasing dreams, illusions, wars peace, love, hate, all that. Unknown is what it is. Accept that it’s unknown, and it’s plain sailing.
—John Lennon (British Singer)

A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.
—John Lennon (British Singer)

There’s nothing you can know that isn’t known.
—John Lennon (British Singer)

It just was a gradual development over the years. I mean last year was ‘all you need is Love.’ This year, it’s ‘all you need is Love and peace, baby.’ Give peace a chance, and remember Love. The only hope for us is peace. Violence begets violence. You can have peace as soon as you like if we all pull together. You’re all geniuses, and you’re all beautiful. You don’t need anyone to tell you who you are. You are what you are. Get out there and get peace, think peace, and live peace and breathe peace, and you’ll get it as soon as you like.
—John Lennon (British Singer)

Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue with that; I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first—rock and roll or Christianity.
—John Lennon (British Singer)

You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
—John Lennon (British Singer)

We’ve got this gift of love, but love is like a precious plant. You can’t just accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it’s going to get on by itself. You’ve got to keep watering it. You’ve got to really look after it and nurture it.
—John Lennon (British Singer)

Everything is clearer when you’re in love.
—John Lennon (British Singer)

Work is life, you know, and without it, there’s nothing but fear and insecurity.
—John Lennon (British Singer)

I don’t care too much for money, money can’t buy me love.
—John Lennon (British Singer)

Today marks the birthday of William Faulkner (1897–1962,) the American author of novels, short stories, poetry, essays, and screenplays. He won not only the 1949 Nobel Prize for Literature, but also the Pulitzer Prize twice and the National Book Award twice.

Faulkner dropped out of high school and took a few courses at the University of Mississippi where he got a ‘D’ grade in English. He worked odd jobs as a house painter, dishwasher, and bootlegger. While working as an overnight supervisor at University of Mississippi’s Old Power Plant, he wrote The Sound and The Fury (1929) and As I Lay Dying (1930.)

Faulkner wrote As I Lay Dying in just six weeks between midnight and 4:00 AM while working at the power plant and sent it to his publisher without changing a word. Regarded his most famous novel, As I Lay Dying portrays a poor white family that accompanies a mother’s body across the state of Mississippi for burial.

Faulkner also worked as a Hollywood screenwriter for more than 50 films including To Have and Have Not (1944) and The Big Sleep (1946.)

Inspirational Quotations by William Faulkner

We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)

Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)

Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: it must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)

The salvation of the world is in man’s suffering.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)

People need trouble—a little frustration to sharpen the spirit on, toughen it. Artists do; I don’t mean you need to live in a rat hole or gutter, but you have to learn fortitude, endurance. Only vegetables are happy.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)

The end of wisdom is to dream high enough not to lose the dream in the seeking of it.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)

A writer needs three things: experience, observation, and imagination—any two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the lack of the others.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)

The past is never dead, it is not even past.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)

Man performs and engenders so much more than he can or should have to bear. That’s how he finds that he can bear anything.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)

All of us have failed to reach our dream of perfection, so I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)

A mule will labor ten years willingly and patiently for you, for the privilege of kicking you once.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)

I believe that man will not merely endure; he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among the creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of kindness and compassion.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)

Maybe the only thing worse than having to give gratitude constantly is having to accept it.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)

A man’s moral conscience is the curse he had to accept from the gods in order to gain from them the right to dream.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)

Fear is the most damnable, damaging thing to human personality in the whole world.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)

Today marks the birthday of Samuel Johnson (1709–84,) the British writer who made lasting contributions to English literature. Often referred to as Dr. Johnson and regarded as the greatest intellectual in British history, he wrote many famous essays, sermons, poetry, biographies, literary criticisms, plays, and novels.

Johnson started writing in his mid-20s, publishing essays, poems, and prose. During his 30s, he contributed more than 200 essays to magazines and launched his colossal undertaking: an authoritative Dictionary of the English Language (1755.) With the help of six mechanical assistants, Johnson completed the lexicon in nine years. Published in two volumes, it contained more than 42,000 entries. This dictionary made Johnson famous, and it remains his most enduring accomplishment.

Despite his prodigious literary output, Johnson is most remembered not for anything he wrote, but for the biography that James Boswell (1740–95) wrote of Johnson. Boswell idolized Johnson and kept scrupulously detailed diaries of his mannerisms, characteristics, routines, decisions, opinions, and everything else about his life. Boswell used these notes to write a comprehensive biography, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791). Owing to its thorough portrayal of its subject as a complete person and not just as a catalog of events and achievements in his life, The Life of Samuel Johnson is regarded the definitive precursor to modern biographies. Boswell’s records of Johnson’s numerous aphorisms also made him one of the most-quoted writers in the English language.

Inspirational Quotations by Samuel Johnson

The future is purchased by the present.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Where there is no difficulty there is no praise.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

There is no people, rude or learned, among whom apparitions of the dead are not related and believed.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Liberty is, to the lowest rank of every nation, little more than the choice of working or starving.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

A desire of knowledge is the natural feeling of mankind; and every human being whose mind is not debauched will be willing to give all that he has to get knowledge.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly than an eminent degree of curiosity.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

The best of conversations occur when there is no competition, no vanity, but a calm quiet interchange of sentiments.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Men are seldom more innocently employed than when they are honestly making money.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

A man may be so much of every thing, that he is nothing of any thing.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow; but there is something in it so like virtue, that he who is wholly without it cannot be loved.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

To convince any man against his will is hard, but to please him against his will is justly pronounced by Dryden to be above the reach of human abilities.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Marriage is the triumph of hope over experience.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Whatever enlarges hope will also exalt courage.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments; any enlargement of wishes is therefore equally destructive to happiness with the diminution of possession, and he that teaches another to long for what he never shall obtain is no less an enemy to his quiet than if he had robbed him of part of his patrimony.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Prudence is an attitude that keeps life safe, but does not often make it happy.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Life admits not of delays; when pleasure can be had, it is fit to catch it. Every hour takes away part of the things that please us, and perhaps part of our disposition to be pleased.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

I am inclined to believe that few attacks either of ridicule or invective make much noise, but by the help of those they provoke.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

The habit of looking on the best side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a year.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, of sickness, or captivity, would, without this comfort, be insupportable; nor does it appear that the happiest lot of terrestrial existence can set us above the want of this general blessing; or that life, when the gifts of nature and of fortune are accumulated upon it, would not still be wretched, were it not elevated and delighted by the expectation of some new possession, of some enjoyment yet behind, by which the wish shall at last be satisfied, and the heart filled up to its utmost extent.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

The longer we live the more we think and the higher the value we put on friendship and tenderness towards parents and friends.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

It is worth a thousand pounds a year to have the habit of looking on the bright side of things.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Sorrow is a kind of rust of the soul, which every new idea contributes in its passage to scour way.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Wickedness is always easier than virtue; for it takes the short cut to everything.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

One of the aged greatest miseries is that they cannot easily find a companion able to share the memories of the past.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Almost every man wastes part of his life in attempts to display qualities which he does not possess, and to gain applause which he cannot keep.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Try and forget our cares and sickness, and contribute, as we can to the happiness of each other.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Knowledge always desires increase, it is like fire, which must first be kindled by some external agent, but which will afterwards propagate itself.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

He that would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

It is wonderful to think how men of very large estates not only spend their yearly income, but are often actually in want of money. It is clear, they have not value for what they spend.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

It is always observable that silence propagates itself, and that the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find any thing to say.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

The first years of man must make provision for the last.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks. The flowers which scatter their odours from time to time in the paths of life, grow up without culture from seeds scattered by chance. Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

The only end of writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

I have found men to be more kind than I expected, and less just.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

A man guilty of poverty easily believes himself suspected.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

To let friendship die away by negligence and silence, is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of this weary pilgrimage.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

A man ought to read just as his inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

A wicked fellow is the most pious when he takes to it. He’ll beat you all at piety.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

No man is much pleased with a companion, who does not increase, in some respect, his fondness for himself.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Every man naturally persuades himself that he can keep his resolutions, nor is he convinced of his imbecility but by length of time and frequency of experiment.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in constant repair.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentional lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

It is strange that there should be so little reading in the world, and so much writing. People in general do not willingly read, if they can have any thing else to amuse them.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise or wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

A man who both spends and saves money is the happiest man, because he has both enjoyments.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

The vicious count their years; virtuous, their acts.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Books to judicious compilers, are useful; to particular arts and professions, they are absolutely necessary; to men of real science, they are tools: but more are tools to them.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Getting money is not all a man’s business; to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Hell is paved with good intentions.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

He who praises everybody praises nobody.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

A jest breaks no bones.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

It is better to live rich than to die rich.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Many things difficult in design prove easy in performance.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Today marks the birthday of D. H. Lawrence (1885–30,) an English author of provocative novels. Lawrence was also a successful poet, playwright, and short-story writer.

Lawrence is best known for inciting strong reactions in his readers for his radical narrative of familial and marital lives and for his brazen celebration of sexual relations. For these reasons, he waged an incessant battle with the censors.

Lawrence’s most famous novels are Sons and Lovers (1913), The Rainbow (1915), Women in Love (1920), and Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928). The Rainbow was accused of obscenity and Scotland Yard seized a thousand copies of the book upon its publication. Women in Love chronicles the quest of multiple women to forge new types of liberated personal relationships.

Lady Chatterley’s Lover is the most influential and notorious of Lawrence’s novels. It features a young aristocrat whose husband is paralyzed from the waist down and impotent. He encourages her to find a lover but disapproves her choice of his gamekeeper. Lady Chatterley’s Lover was banned from publication for more than 30 years because of its obscene themes and language. In 1960, a famous court case cleared the book of obscenity after 35 prominent writers and literary critics testified in its favor. When Penguin Books published 200,000 copies of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, the book sold out within a day and most bookstores that carried the book ran out of copies within 15 minutes.

Inspirational Quotations by D. H. Lawrence

The living moment is everything.
—D. H. Lawrence (English Novelist)

The world is wonderful and beautiful and good beyond one’s wildest imagination. Never, never, never could one conceive what love is, beforehand, never. Life can be great—quite god-like. It can be so. God be thanked I have proved it.
—D. H. Lawrence (English Novelist)

One doesn’t know, till one is a bit at odds with the world, how much one’s friends who believe in one rather generously, mean to one.
—D. H. Lawrence (English Novelist)

We don’t exist unless we are deeply and sensually in touch with that which can be touched but not known.
—D. H. Lawrence (English Novelist)

Ethics and equity and the principles of justice do not change with the calendar.
—D. H. Lawrence (English Novelist)

Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you’ve got to say, and say it hot.
—D. H. Lawrence (English Novelist)

I shall always be a priest of love.
—D. H. Lawrence (English Novelist)

The cruelest thing a man can do to a woman is to portray her as perfection.
—D. H. Lawrence (English Novelist)

Never trust the artist. Trust the tale. The proper function of a critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it.
—D. H. Lawrence (English Novelist)

Love is the flower of life, and blossoms unexpectedly and without law, and must be plucked where it is found, and enjoyed for the brief hour of its duration.
—D. H. Lawrence (English Novelist)

One sheds one’s sicknesses in books—repeats and presents again one’s emotions, to be master of them.
—D. H. Lawrence (English Novelist)

Tragedy is like strong acid—it dissolves away all but the very gold of truth.
—D. H. Lawrence (English Novelist)

Today marks the birthday of Anthony de Mello (1931–87,) a Jesuit priest from India and author of many books on spirituality.

In his writings and workshops, de Mello combined beliefs from Taoism, Buddhism, Sufism, and other Eastern spiritual traditions with Christian theology. He gained much admiration in the United States and Spain for his unconventional approach to priesthood and storytelling. The Roman Catholic Church, however, did not entirely endorse his works because they included many philosophical elements of Oriental wisdom.

De Mello’s popular books on spirituality and mysticism include Sadhana (1984,) One Minute Wisdom (1988,) and The Way to Love (1992.)

Inspirational Quotations by Anthony de Mello

Do you want a sign that you’re asleep? Here it is: you’re suffering. Suffering is a sign that you’re out of touch with the truth. Suffering is given to you that you might open your eyes to the truth, that you might understand that there’s falsehood somewhere, just as physical pain is given to you so you will understand that there is disease or illness somewhere. Suffering occurs when you clash with reality. When your illusions clash with reality, when your falsehoods clash with truth, then you have suffering. Otherwise there is no suffering.
—Anthony de Mello (Indian-born American Theologian)

As the great Confucius said, “The one who would be in constant happiness must frequently change”. Flow. But we keep looking back, don’t we? We cling to things in the past and cling to things in the present…Do you want to enjoy a symphony? Don’t hold on to a few bars of the music. Don’t hold on to a couple of notes. Let them pass, let them flow. The whole enjoyment of a symphony lies in your readiness to allow the notes to pass…
—Anthony de Mello (Indian-born American Theologian)

People mistakenly assume that their thinking is done by their head; it is actually done by the heart which first dictates the conclusion, then commands the head to provide the reasoning that will defend it.
—Anthony de Mello (Indian-born American Theologian)

Perfect love casts out fear. Where there is love there are no demands, no expectations, no dependency. I do not demand that you make me happy; my happiness does not lie in you. If you were to leave me, I will not feel sorry for myself; I enjoy your company immensely, but I do not cling.
—Anthony de Mello (Indian-born American Theologian)

When you cling, life is destroyed; when you hold on to anything, you cease to live.
—Anthony de Mello (Indian-born American Theologian)

Don’t say, “I am depressed”. If you want to say, “It is depressed,” that’s all right. If you want to say that depression is there, that’s fine; if you want to say gloominess is there, that’s fine. But not: I am gloomy. You’re defining yourself in terms of the feeling. That’s your illusion; that’s your mistake. There is a depression there right now, but let it be, leave it alone. It will pass. Everything passes, everything. Your depressions and your thrills have nothing to do with happiness. Those are swings of the pendulum. If you seek kicks or thrills, get ready for depression. Do you want your drug? Get ready for the hangover. One end of the pendulum swings over to the other.
—Anthony de Mello (Indian-born American Theologian)

Get rid of your fear of failure, your tensions about succeeding, you will be yourself. Relaxed. You wouldn’t be driving with your brakes on. That’s what would happen.
—Anthony de Mello (Indian-born American Theologian)

There is only one cause of unhappiness: the false beliefs you have in your head, beliefs so widespread, so commonly held, that it never occurs to you to question them.
—Anthony de Mello (Indian-born American Theologian)

Why don’t I see goodness and beauty everywhere? Because you cannot see outside of you what you fail to see inside.
—Anthony de Mello (Indian-born American Theologian)

I was neurotic for years. I was anxious and depressed and selfish. Everyone kept telling me to change. I resented them and I agreed with them, and I wanted to change, but simply couldn’t, no matter how hard I tried. Then one day someone said to me, Don’t change. I love you just as you are. Those words were music to my ears: Don’t change, Don’t change. Don’t change … I love you as you are. I relaxed. I came alive. And suddenly I changed!
—Anthony de Mello (Indian-born American Theologian)

To a disciple who was forever complaining about others the Master said, “If it is peace you want, seek to change yourself, not other people. It is easier to protect your feet with slippers than to carpet the whole of the earth.”
—Anthony de Mello (Indian-born American Theologian)

You’re not living until it doesn’t matter a tinker’s damn to you whether you live or die. At that point you live. When you’re ready to lose your life, you live it.
—Anthony de Mello (Indian-born American Theologian)

Today marks the birthday of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832,) the greatest icon in the German literary and cultural pantheon. This master of world literature was a polymath: not only was he a poet, novelist, playwright, historian, and natural philosopher, but he also held several government positions at Weimar and made scientific discoveries.

Goethe gained early fame with his first novel Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (1774, Eng. trans. The Sorrows of Young Werther.) Written as a collection of letters by the protagonist, this sentimental epistolary novel tells the story of a young man who falls in love with a woman engaged to another man. Goethe also wrote hundreds of essays, many volumes of lyric poetry, and an in-depth dissertation on the physics of light and color contrasting his theories against Newton’s.

Goethe is most famous for his magnum opus Faust, published as Faust, Part One (1808) and Faust, Part Two (1832.) Goethe started writing Faust at age 23 and finished it a few months before his death six decades later. This two-part poetic drama is based on a classic German legend, which in turn is based on an actual magician who lived in northern Germany in the fifteenth century. Faust tells the story of a brilliant scholar named Heinrich Faust who is very successful yet unhappy in life. He forsakes God, makes a perilous deal with the Devil and exchanges his soul for unlimited power, knowledge, and worldly pleasures. Celebrated for its themes of damnation, witchcraft, sexual betrayal, and freeform philosophic contemplation, Faust is considered one of the greatest works of German literature.

In addition to his literary work, Goethe was also a geologist, botanist, anatomist, physicist, and science historian. His most notable scientific contributions include his theory of plant metamorphosis and his theory of colors.

Inspirational Quotations by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The decline of literature indicates the decline of the nation. The two keep pace in their downward tendency.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

In praising or loving a child, we love and praise not that which is, but that which we hope for.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

It is only necessary to grow old to become more charitable and even indulgent. I see no fault committed by others that I have not committed myself.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

There is nothing more frightful than imagination without taste.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace and power in it.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

Excellence is rarely found, more rarely valued.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

A talent can be cultivated in tranquility; a character only in the rushing stream of life.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

The man who acts never has any conscience; no one has any conscience but the man who thinks.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

The greatest genius will never be worth much if he pretends to draw exclusively from his own resources.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

Certain defects are necessary for the existence of individuality.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

Continue to make the demands of the day your immediate concern, and take occasion to test the purity of your hearts and the steadfastness of your spirits. When you then take a deep breath and rise above the cares of this world and in an hour of leisure, you will surely win the proper frame of mind to face devoutly what is above us, with reverence, seeing in all events the manifestation of a higher guidance.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

The really unhappy person is the one who leaves undone what they can do, and starts doing what they don’t understand; no wonder they come to grief.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

If any man wishes to write a clear style, let him first be clear in his thoughts.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

If you want a wise answer, ask a reasonable question.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

What by a straight path cannot be reached by crooked ways is never won.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

A man’s manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

Talents are best nurtured in solitude; character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

People should talk less and draw more. Personally, I would like to renounce speech altogether and, like organic nature, communicate everything I have to say visually.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

The heights charm us, but the steps do not; with the mountain in our view we love to walk the plains.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

Freedom consists not in refusing to recognize anything above us, but in respecting something which is above us; for by respecting it, we raise ourselves to it, and, by our very acknowledgment, prove that we bear within ourselves what is higher, and are worthy to be on a level with it.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

Man… knows only when he is satisfied and when he suffers, and only his sufferings and his satisfactions instruct him concerning himself, teach him what to seek and what to avoid. For the rest, man is a confused creature; he knows not whence he comes or whither he goes, he knows little of the world, and above all, he knows little of himself.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

The man with insight enough to admit his limitations comes nearest to perfection.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

Mountains cannot be surmounted except by winding paths.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

Not the maker of plans and promises, but rather the one who offers faithful service in small matters. This is the person who is most likely to achieve what is good and lasting.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

Give me the benefit of your convictions, if you have any, but keep your doubts to yourself, for I have enough of my own.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

Science has been seriously retarded by the study of what is not worth knowing and of what is not knowable.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

People are so constituted that everybody would rather undertake what they see others do, whether they have an aptitude for it or not.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

Everyone hears only what he understands.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

The phrases that men hear or repeat continually, end by becoming convictions and ossify the organs of intelligence.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others, and in their pleasure takes joy, even as though it were his own.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

How many years must a man do nothing, before he can at all know what is to be done and how to do it.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

Nothing tells more about the character of a man than the things he makes fun of.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

The highest happiness of man is to have probed what is knowable and quietly to revere what is unknowable.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

Ambition and love are the wings to great deeds.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

Rest not. Life is sweeping by; go and dare before you die. Something mighty and sublime, leave behind to conquer time.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

A collections of anecdotes and maxims is the greatest of treasures for the man of the world, for he knows how to intersperse conversation with the former in fit places, and to recollect the latter on proper occasions.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

I respect the man who knows distinctly what he wishes. The greater part of all mischief in the world arises from the fact that men do not sufficiently understand their own aims. They have undertaken to build a tower, and spend no more labor on the foundation than would be necessary to erect a hut.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

How shall we learn to know ourselves? By reflection? Never; but only through action. Strive to do thy duty; then you shall know what is in thee.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

The older we get the more we must limit ourselves if we wish to be active.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

People do not mind their faults being spread out before them, but they become impatient if called on to give them up.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

The first and last thing required of genius is, love of the truth.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

Life is a quarry, out of which we are to mold and chisel and complete a character.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

Today marks the birthday of Saint Francis de Sales (1567–1622,) a venerated Roman Catholic priest. This patron saint of writers and journalists (his feast day is January 24) was a Bishop of Geneva.

De Sales was born to an aristocratic family of the Duchy of Savoy (composing regions of today’s Italy, France, and Switzerland.) After studying law, he decided to pursue his sense of call to a priestly vocation, much to the disappointment of his ambitious father who wanted him to engage in a political career.

At age 35, de Sales was appointed the Catholic Bishop of Geneva, just as religious divisions spread across Europe following the Protestant Reformation. Specifically, Geneva and the surrounding cantons were deeply influenced by the French theologian John Calvin. De Sales reputedly won over half of the region’s Calvinists back to Roman Catholicism through his deep faith, gentle nature, and the eloquence of his writings. His two most influential works are Introduction to the Devout Life (1609) and Treatise on the Love of God (1616.)

In Treatise on the Love of God, de Sales challenged the contemporaneous belief that only those who withdrew from society to pursue a religious calling could realize a spiritual union with God. He declared that it could also be achieved by people busy with the ordinary affairs of the world: “It is an error, or rather a heresy, to say devotion is incompatible with the life of a soldier, a tradesman, a prince, or a married woman…. It has happened that many have lost perfection in the desert who had preserved it in the world.”

De Sales described the spiritual life as one of perpetual growth and transformation. In Introduction to a Devout Life he advises, “We must not be disturbed at our imperfections since for us perfection consists in fighting against them. How can we fight against them unless we see them, or overcome them unless we face them.”

De Sales also established the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary (commonly called the Visitation Sisters) in collaboration with Saint Jane Frances de Chantal.

Inspirational Quotations by Saint Francis de Sales

Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.
—Francis de Sales (French Catholic Saint)

A quarrel between friends, when made up, adds a new tie to friendship, as … the callosity formed round a broken bone makes it stronger than before.
—Francis de Sales (French Catholic Saint)

God requires a faithful fulfillment of the merest trifle given us to do, rather than the most ardent aspiration to things to which we are not called.
—Francis de Sales (French Catholic Saint)

Flowers often grow more beautifully on dung-hills than in gardens that look beautifully kept.
—Francis de Sales (French Catholic Saint)

We must never undervalue any person.—The workman loves not to have his work despised in his presence. Now God is present everywhere, and every person is his work.
—Francis de Sales (French Catholic Saint)

Friendships begun in this world will be taken up again, never to be broken off.
—Francis de Sales (French Catholic Saint)

You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; in just the same way, you learn to love by loving.
—Francis de Sales (French Catholic Saint)

Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections, but instantly set about remedying them—every day begin the task anew.
—Francis de Sales (French Catholic Saint)

True progress quietly and persistently moves along without notice.
—Francis de Sales (French Catholic Saint)

There are no galley-slaves in the royal vessel of divine love—every man works his oar voluntarily!
—Francis de Sales (French Catholic Saint)

There was never an angry man that thought his anger unjust.
—Francis de Sales (French Catholic Saint)

We shall steer safely through every storm, so long as our heart is right, our intention fervent, our courage steadfast, and our trust fixed on God.
—Francis de Sales (French Catholic Saint)

Read carefully anything that requires your signature. Remember the big print giveth and the small print taketh away.
—H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (American Author)

It is not the criminal things that are hardest to confess, but the ridiculous and the shameful.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Swiss Philosopher)

The man who does not work for the love of work but only for money is not likely to make money nor to find much fun in life.
—Charles M. Schwab (American Businessperson)

I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I’m not absolutely sure of anything, and many things I don’t know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we’re here, and what the question might mean. I might think about it a little bit, but if I can’t figure it out, then I go on to something else. But I don’t have to know an answer…. I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn’t frighten me.
—Richard Feynman (American Physicist)

Either move or be moved.
—Colin Powell (American Military Leader)

Nobody got anywhere in the world by simply being content.
—Louis L’Amour

To be tested is good. The challenged life may be the best therapist.
—Gail Sheehy (American Journalist)

The worst is not so long as we can say, “This is the worst”.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

You might well remember that nothing can bring you success but yourself.
—Napoleon Hill (American Author)

The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.
—William Blake (English Poet)

Children have more need of models than of critics.
—Joseph Joubert (French Essayist)

When befriended, remember it; when you befriend, forget it.
—Benjamin Franklin (American Political leader)

You can’t shake hands with a clenched fist.
—Indira Gandhi (Indian Head of State)

Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice, and need.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher)

Men are disposed to live honestly, if the means of doing so are open to them.
—Thomas Jefferson (American Head of State)

Anger should never be an overnight guest.
—Neal A. Maxwell (American Mormon Religious Leader)

A stumbling block to the pessimist is a stepping-stone to the optimist.
—Eleanor Roosevelt (American First Lady)

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

Loosen the bonds of avarice from your hands and neck.
—Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi (Persian Muslim Mystic)

Cherish your human connections: your relationships with friends and family.
—Barbara Bush (American First Lady)

Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

To be able under all circumstances to practice five things constitutes perfect virtue; these five things are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness and kindness.
—Confucius (Chinese Philosopher)

You only live once; but if you live it right, once is enough.
—Unknown

There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.
—Michel de Montaigne (French Philosopher)

A young physician fattens the churchyard.
—Common Proverb