Inspirational Quotations

Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.
—Dan Quayle (American Head of State)

Nature, in her most dazzling aspects or stupendous parts, is but the background and theater of the tragedy of man.
—John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn (British Political leader)

Perception is strong and sight weak. In strategy it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things.
—Miyamoto Musashi (Japanese Buddhist)

The aim of flattery is to soothe and encourage us by assuring us of the truth of an opinion we have already formed about ourselves.
—Edith Sitwell (British Poet)

Perhaps we should comprehend these things better were it not for the persistence of the superstition that human beings habitually think. There is no more persistent superstition than this. Linn
—Nicholas Murray Butler (American Philosopher)

If an army of monkeys were strumming on typewriters, they might write all the books in the British Museum.
—Arthur Eddington (English Astrophysicist)

There is an art, or rather a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.
—Douglas Adams

It’s not what you take but what you leave behind that defines greatness.
—Howard Gardner (American Psychologist)

I have never believed that the critic is the rival of the poet, but I do believe that criticism is a genre of literature or it does not exist.
—Harold Bloom (American Literary Critic)

Bread for myself is a material question. Bread for my neighbor is a spiritual one.
—Nikolai Berdyaev (Russian Christian Philosopher)

He didn’t reject the idea so much as not react to it and watch as it floated away.
—David Foster Wallace (American Novelist)

Books worth reading once are worth reading twice; and what is most important of all, the masterpieces of literature are worth reading a thousand times.
—John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn (British Political leader)

Listen to everything, forget much, correct little.
—Pope John XXIII (Italian Catholic Religious Leader)

Having imagination, it takes you an hour to write a paragraph that, if you were unimaginative, would take you only a minute. Or you might not write the paragraph at all.
—Franklin Pierce Adams (American Columnist)

Every revolutionary idea seems to evoke three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the phrases: (1) It’s completely impossible. (2) It’s possible, but it’s not worth doing. (3) I said it was a good idea all along.
—Arthur C. Clarke (British Author)

Act boldly and unseen forces will come to your aid.
—Paulette Mitchell

Marrying a man is like buying something you’ve been admiring for a long time in a shop window. You may love it when you get it home, but it doesn’t always go with everything else in the house.
—Jean Kerr

It is the customer, and the customer alone, who casts the vote that determines how big any company should be…. The regulations laid down by the consuming public are far more potent and far less flexible than any code of law, merely through the exercise of the natural forces of trade.
—Crawford Greenewalt (American Engineer)

When I die, I want people to play my music, go wild and freak out and do anything they want to do.
—Jimi Hendrix (American Musician)

When I have been listened to and when I have been heard, I am able to re-perceive my world in a new way and to go on. It is astonishing how elements that seem insoluble become soluble when someone listens, how confusions that seem irremediable turn into relatively clear flowing streams when one is heard. I have deeply appreciated the times that I have experienced this sensitive, empathic, concentrated listening.
—Carl Rogers (American Psychologist)

Be bold-and mighty forces will come to your aid.
—Basil King

When people grow gradually rich their requirements and standard of living expand in proportion, while their present-giving instincts often remain in the undeveloped condition of their earlier days. Something showy and not-too-expensive in a shop is their only conception of the ideal gift.
—Saki (Hector Hugh Munro) (British Short Story Writer)

It is said that God gave us memory so we could have roses in winter. But it is also true that without memory we could not have self in any season. The more memories you have, the more you have. That is why, as Swift said, “No wise man ever wished to be younger.”
—George Will (American Columnist)

The creative urge is the demon that will not accept anything second rate.
—Agnes de Mille (American Dancer)

To repent is not to feel remorse, but to face one’s faults, realizing they are faults, and try one’s best not to make the same mistake again. If one does that, one is already making amends.
—Master Sheng-Yen

When things are perfect, that’s when you need to worry most.
—Drew Barrymore (American Actor)

He who has learnt to control his tongue has attained self-control in a great measure. When such a person speaks he will be heard with respect and attention. His words will be remembered, for they will be good and true. When one who is established in truth prays with a pure heart, then things he really needs come to him when they are really needed: he does not have to run after them. The man firmly established in truth gets the fruit of his actions without apparently doing anything. God, the source of all truth, supplies his needs and looks after his welfare.
—B. K. S. Iyengar (Indian Hindu Yoga Teacher)

The man who lives by himself and for himself is likely to be corrupted by the company he keeps.
—Charles Henry Parkhurst (American Clergyman)

The issues are the same. We wanted peace on earth, love, and understanding between everyone around the world. We have learned that change comes slowly.
—Paul McCartney (British Singer)

Purpose is what gives life a meaning.
—Charles Henry Parkhurst (American Clergyman)

The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances. We carry the seeds of the one or the other about with us in our minds wherever we go.
—Martha Washington (American First Lady)

Miracles never cease to amaze me. I expect them, but their consistent arrival is always delightful to experience.
—Mark Victor Hansen (American Public Speaker)

People in the States used to think that if girls were good at sports their sexuality would be affected. Being feminine meant being a cheerleader, not being an athlete. The image of women is changing now. You don’t have to be pretty for people to come and see you play. At the same time, if you’re a good athlete, it doesn’t mean you’re not a woman.
—Martina Navratilova (Czech-born American Sportsperson)

Minds are like parachutes; they work best when open.
—Felix Bloch

Let us not say, every man is the architect of his own fortune; but let us say, every man is the architect of his own character.
—George Boardman (American Baptist Minister)

Into the hands of every individual is given a marvelous power for good or evil-the silent, unconscious, unseen influence of his life. This is simply the constant radiation of what man really is, not what he pretends to be.
—William George Jordan (American Essayist)

To be happy, one must have a good stomach and a bad heart.
—Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle (French Essayist)

Life is a challenge, meet it! Life is a dream, realize it! Life is a game, play it! Life is Love, enjoy it
—Sathya Sai Baba (Indian Hindu Religious Leader)

If I could choose what of all things would be at the same time the most delightful and useful to me, I should prefer a firm religious belief to every other blessing; for this makes life a discipline of goodness; creates new hopes when all earthly ones vanish; throws over the decay of existence the most gorgeous of all lights; awakens life even in death; makes even torture and shame the ladder of ascent to paradise; and far above all combinations of earthly hopes, calls up the most delightful visions of the future, the security of everlasting joys, where the sensualist and the skeptic view only gloom, decay, annihilation, and despair.
—Humphry Davy (British Chemist)

Among the sentiments of most powerful operation upon the human heart, and most highly honorable to the human character, are those of veneration for our forefathers and of love for our posterity.
—John Quincy Adams (American Head of State)

Learning is not attained by chance. It must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.
—Abigail Adams (American First Lady)

By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.
—Nikos Kazantzakis (German Greek Philosopher)

Unhappy is the man who is not so much dissatisfied with what he has as with what the other fellow possesses.
—Chauncey Depew (American Businessperson)

This is all you have. This is not a dry run. This is your life. If you want to fritter it away with your fears, then you will fritter it away, but you won’t get it back later.
—Laura Schlessinger (American Children’s Books Writer)

Ideas are like wandering sons. They show up when you least expect them.
—Bert Williams

My early and invincible love of reading I would not exchange for all the riches of India.
—Edward Gibbon (English Historian)

The wonderful thing about books is that they allow us to enter imaginatively into someone else’s life. And when we do that, we learn to sympathize with other people. But the real surprise is that we also learn truths about ourselves, about our own lives that somehow we hadn’t been able to see before.
—Katherine Paterson (American Novelist)

The greatest events occur without intention playing any part in them; chance makes good mistakes and undoes the most carefully planned undertaking. The world’s greatest events are not produced, they happen.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (German Scientist)

The most important things are the hardest to say, because words diminish them.
—Stephen King (American Novelist)

Genius is an infinite capacity for taking life by the scruff of the neck.
—Katharine Hepburn (American Actor)

I … know what I do, and am unmoved by men’s blame, or their praise either.
—Robert Browning (English Poet)

So much to do, so little done, such things to be.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson (British Poet)

Manners easily and rapidly mature into morals.
—Horace Mann (American Educator)

This world is a dream within a dream; and as we grow older, each step is an awakening. The youth awakes, as he thinks, from childhood; the full-grown man despises the pursuits of youth as visionary; and the old man looks on manhood as a feverish dream. Death the last sleep? No! It is the last and final awakening!
—Walter Scott (Scottish Novelist)

Speak of the moderns without contempt, and of the ancients without idolatry.
—Earl of Chesterfield

Books are a guide in youth, and an entertainment for age. They support us under solitude, and keep us from becoming a burden to ourselves. They help us to forget the crossness of men and things, compose our cares and our passions, and lay our disappointments asleep. When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride, or design in their conversation.
—Jeremy Collier (English Anglican Theater Critic)

Decide which is the line of conduct that presents the fewest drawbacks and then follow it out as being the best one, because one never finds anything perfectly pure and unmixed, or exempt from danger.
—Niccolo Machiavelli (Florentine Political Philosopher)

When you publish a book, it’s the world’s book. The world edits it.
—Philip Roth (American Novelist)

Clinging to the past is the problem. Embracing change is the answer.
—Gloria Steinem (American Feminist)

In the great mass of our people there are plenty individuals of intelligence from among whom leadership can be recruited.
—Herbert Hoover (American Head of State)

When I hear somebody sigh, “Life is hard,” I am always tempted to ask, “Compared to what?”
—Sydney J. Harris (American Journalist)

Do not hover always on the surface of things, nor take up suddenly with mere appearances; but penetrate into the depth of matters, as far as your time and circumstances allow, especially in those things which relate to your profession.
—Isaac Watts (English Hymn writer)

He is rich whose income is more than his expenses; and he is poor whose expenses exceed his income.
—Jean de La Bruyere

Continuous, unflagging effort, persistence and determination will win. Let not the man be discouraged who has these.
—James Whitcomb Riley (American Children’s Books Writer)

Our humanity rests upon a series of learned behaviors, woven together into patterns that are infinitely fragile and never directly inherited.
—Margaret Mead (American Anthropologist)

It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.
—Niccolo Machiavelli (Florentine Political Philosopher)

It is easier to be a lover than a husband for the simple reason that it is more difficult to be witty every day than to say pretty things from time to time.
—Honore de Balzac (French Novelist)

The good days weren’t really so good, and tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems.
—Billy Joel (American Singer)

Part of being a winner is knowing when enough is enough. Sometimes you have to give up the fight and walk away, and move on to something that’s more productive.
—Donald Trump (American Businessperson, Head of State)

Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.
—Edward Gibbon (English Historian)

There are three stages in a person’s life, birth, their life and death. They are not conscious of birth submit to death and forget to live.
—Jean de La Bruyere

Compassion is not weakness, and concern for the unfortunate is not socialism.
—Hubert Humphrey (American Head of State)

Every man is valued in this world as he shows by his conduct that he wishes to be valued.
—Jean de La Bruyere

I have known what the enjoyments and advantages of this life are, and what are the more refined pleasures which learning and intellectual power can bestow; and with all the experience that more than three-score years can give, I now, on the eve of my departure, declare to you, that health is a great blessing; competence obtained by honorable industry is a great blessing; and a great blessing it is, to have kind, faithful, and loving friends and relatives; but that the greatest of all blessings, as it is the most ennobling of all privileges, is to be indeed a Christian.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (English Poet)

Rational free spirits are the light brigade who go on ahead and reconnoiter the ground which the heavy brigade of the orthodox will eventually occupy.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (German Scientist)

Happiness is good health and a bad memory.
—Ingrid Bergman (Swedish Actor)

The men who have done big things are those who were not afraid to attempt big things, who were not afraid to risk failure in order to gain success.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

Everyone has talent at twenty-five. The difficulty is to have it at fifty.
—Edgar Degas (French Painter)

Shape your heart to front the hour, but dream not that the hours will last.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson (British Poet)

Intellectuals can tell themselves anything, sell themselves any bill of goods, which is why they were so often patsies for the ruling classes in nineteenth-century France and England, or twentieth-century Russia and America.
—Lillian Hellman (American Playwright)

All the best stories in the world are but one story in reality—the story of escape. It is the only thing which interests us all and at all times, how to escape.
—A. C. Benson (English Essayist)

Adversity is the first path to truth: He who hath proved war, storm or woman’s rage, whether his winters be eighteen or eighty, has won the experience which is deem’d so weighty.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (English Romantic Poet)

You don’t have to be a fantastic hero to do certain things—to compete. You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated to reach challenging goals.
—Edmund Hillary (New Zealander Explorer)

If you associate enough with older people who do enjoy their lives, who are not stored away in any golden ghettos, you will gain a sense of continuity and of the possibility for a full life.
—Margaret Mead (American Anthropologist)

Some are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same—and most mothers kiss and scold together.
—Pearl S. Buck (American Novelist)

The drying up a single tear has more of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (English Romantic Poet)

That past which is so presumptuously brought forward as a precedent for the present, was itself founded on some past that went before it.
—Anne Louise Germaine de Stael

Mistakes are often the best teachers.
—James Anthony Froude (British Historian)

Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable.
—C. S. Lewis (Irish-born British Children’s Books Writer)