Inspirational Quotations

An unruly patient makes a harsh physician.
—Publilius Syrus (Syrian-born Latin Writer)

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.
—Cicero (Roman Philosopher)

He has achieved success, who has lived well, laughed often and loved much.
—Bessie Anderson Stanley (American Poet)

At very best, a person wrapped up in himself makes a small package.
—Harry Emerson Fosdick (American Baptist Clergyman)

There are good and bad times, but our mood changes more often than our fortune.
—Jules Renard (French Novelist)

The great successful men of the world have used their imagination…they think ahead and create their mental picture in all its details, filling in here, adding a little there, altering this a bit and that a bit, but steadily building – steadily building.
—Robert Collier (American Self-Help Author)

Let thy child’s first lesson be obedience, and the second will be what thou wilt.
—Benjamin Franklin (American Political leader)

Those indeed who attain any excellence commonly spend life in one pursuit, for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

He has achieved success who has worked well, laughed often, and loved much.
—Elbert Hubbard (American Writer)

Learning organizations may be a tool not just for the evolution of organizations, but for the evolution of intelligence.
—Peter Senge (American Management Consultant)

How bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes!
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

I wish more of us could understand that our increasing isolation, no matter how much it seems to express pride and self-affirmation, is not the answer to our problems.
—Arthur Ashe (American Sportsperson)

The cultured give happiness wherever they go. The uncultured whenever they go.
—Swami Chinmayananda (Indian Hindu Teacher)

Yes, there is a Nirvanah; it is in leading your sheep to a green pasture, and in putting your child to sleep, and in writing the last line of your poem.
—Khalil Gibran (Lebanese-born American Philosopher)

Fortune leaves always some door open to come at a remedy.
—Miguel de Cervantes (Spanish Novelist)

An ounce of application is worth a ton of abstraction.
—Booker T. Washington (American Educator)

Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.
—Robert Frost (American Poet)

Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs one step at a time.
—Mark Twain (American Humorist)

Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in our own sunshine
—Henry Ward Beecher (American Protestant Clergyman)

Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.
—G. K. Chesterton (English Journalist)

A society in which women are taught anything at all but the management of a family, the care of men, and the creation of the future generation, is a society which is on the way out.
—L. Ron Hubbard (American Scientologist Religious Leader)

A thing is worth precisely what it can do for you; not what you choose to pay for it.
—John Ruskin (English Art Critic)

Much rain wears the marble.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.
—Dwight D. Eisenhower (American Head of State)

Experience is the child of thought, and thought is the child of action. We cannot learn men from books.
—Benjamin Disraeli (British Head of State)

The vision that you glorify in your mind, the ideal that you enthrone in your heart—this you will build your life by, this you will become.
—James Allen

People are made of flesh and blood and a miracle fibre called courage.
—Mignon McLaughlin (American Journalist)

I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over our cities, we, too, will be remembered not for victories or defeats in battle or in politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit.
—John F. Kennedy (American Head of State)

The ideal attitude is to be physically loose and mentally tight.
—Arthur Ashe (American Sportsperson)

Think twice before pointing a finger to any one as other three fingers are always pointing towards you.
—Indira Gandhi (Indian Head of State)

In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.
—Charlie Chaplin (British Actor)

A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with—a man is what he makes of himself.
—Alexander Graham Bell (Scottish-born American Inventor)

Any man’s life will be filled with constant, unexpected encouragements of this kind if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day of his life—that is, tries to make each day reach as nearly as possible the high-water mark of pure, unselfish, useful living.
—Booker T. Washington (American Educator)

You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird… So let’s look at the bird and see what it’s doing—that’s what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.
—Richard Feynman (American Physicist)

If you have a big problem in your life, all that means is that you are being a small person!
—T. Harv Eker (American Motivational Speaker)

We never want to count on the kindness of strangers in order to meet tomorrow’s obligations. When forced to choose, I will not trade even a night’s sleep for the chance of extra profits.
—Warren Buffett (American Investor)

The race of mankind would perish, did they cease to aid each other. From the time that the mother binds the child’s head till the moment that some kind assistant wipes the death-damp from the brow of the dying, we cannot exist without mutual help. All, therefore, that need aid have a right to ask it from their fellow-mortals; no one who holds the power of granting can refuse it without guilt.
—Walter Scott (Scottish Novelist)

We learn best from experience but we never directly experience the consequences of many of our most important decisions.
—Peter Senge (American Management Consultant)

There is a science of getting rich, and it is an exact science, like algebra or arithmetic. There are certain laws which govern the process of acquiring riches, and once these laws are learned and obeyed by anyone, that person will get rich with mathematical certainty.
—Wallace Wattles (American New Thought Author)

There are moments in history when brooding tragedy and its dark shadows can be lightened by recalling great moments of the past.
—Indira Gandhi (Indian Head of State)

To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

We have found that our great philosophers and our great men of action are optimists. So, too, our most potent men of letters have been optimists in their books and in their lives. No pessimist ever won an audience commensurately wide with his genius.
—Helen Keller (American Author)

Come what may, time and the hour runs through the roughest day.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

Change has no constituency—and a perceived revolution has even less.
—Jack Welch (American Businessperson)

We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we’re in a time when there are no heroes, they just don’t know where to look.
—Ronald Reagan (American Head of State)

Every valuable human being must be a radical and a rebel, for what he must aim at is to make things better than they are.
—Niels Bohr (Danish Physicist)

Across the gulfs and barriers that now divide us, we must remember that there are no permanent enemies. Hostility today is a fact, but it is not a ruling law. The supreme reality of our time is our indivisibility as children of God and our common vulnerability on this planet.
—John F. Kennedy (American Head of State)

Man—being made reasonable, and so a thinking creature, there is nothing more worthy of his being than the right direction and employment of his thoughts, since upon this depends both his usefulness to the public and his own present and future benefit in all respects.
—William Penn (American Entrepreneur)

There is beauty everywhere. Just put your heart into your eyes.
—Hans Taeger

Action is greater than writing. A good man is a nobler object of contemplation than a great author. There are but two things worth living for: to do what is worthy of being written; and to write what is worthy of being read; and the greater of these is the doing.
—Albert Pike (American Military Leader)

We must distinguish between spirituality in general terms, which aims to make us better people, and religion. Adopting a religion remains optional, but becoming a better human being is essential.
—Matthieu Ricard (French Buddhist Monk)

Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again.
—Ronald Reagan (American Head of State)

To a people famishing and idle, the only acceptable form in which God can dare to appear is work and promise of food and wages.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (Indian Hindu Political leader)

The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.
—J. M. Barrie (Scottish Novelist)

The worthwhile problems are the ones you can really solve or help solve, the ones you can really contribute something to. No problem is too small or too trivial if we can really do something about it.
—Richard Feynman (American Physicist)

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
—George Bernard Shaw (Irish Playwright)

Family quarrels have a total bitterness unmatched by others. Yet it sometimes happens that they also have a kind of tang, a pleasantness beneath the unpleasantness, based on the tacit understanding that this is not for keeps; that any limb you climb out on will still be there later for you to climb back.
—Mignon McLaughlin (American Journalist)

Don’t fool yourself that important things can be put off till tomorrow; they can be put off forever, or not at all.
—Mignon McLaughlin (American Journalist)

The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.
—J. M. Barrie (Scottish Novelist)

My temper leads me to peace and harmony with all men; and it is peculiarly my wish to avoid any personal feuds or dissensions with those, who are embarked in the same great national interest with myself, as every difference of this kind in its consequence must be very injurious.
—George Washington (American Head of State)

Little friends may prove great friends.
—Aesop (Greek Fabulist)

The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.
—Theodore Hesburgh (American Catholic Educator)

Be of good cheer about death, and know of a certainty, that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.
—Socrates (Anceient Greek Philosopher)

How feeble are we that we’re swayed more by dubious flattery than by valid suggestions.
—Marty Nemko (American Career Coach, Author)

In my experience, there’s only one thing that will always steer you toward success: That’s to have a vision and to stick with it… Once I have a vision for a new venture, I’m going to ride that vision until the wheels come off.
—Russell Simmons (American Entrepreneur)

Even a high experience is worth nothing, when not polished and kept warm.
—Hans Taeger

It helps a lot looking at life from the perspective of one’s certain death. Try to visualize yourself at the hour of death. Just a couple of minutes each day. It’s basic Buddhist beginners practice.
—Hans Taeger

The individual or the group which organizes any society, however social its intentions or pretensions, arrogates an inordinate portion of social privilege to itself.
—Reinhold Niebuhr (American Protestant Theologian)

Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.
—Reinhold Niebuhr (American Protestant Theologian)

The death of someone we know always reminds us that we are still alive – perhaps for some purpose which we ought to re-examine.
—Mignon McLaughlin (American Journalist)

Reason is not the sole basis of moral virtue in man. His social impulses are more deeply rooted than his rational life.
—Reinhold Niebuhr (American Protestant Theologian)

In moments of progress the noble succeed, because things are going their way: in moments of decadence the base succeed for the same reason: hence the world is never without the exhilaration of contemporary success.
—George Bernard Shaw (Irish Playwright)

One’s objective should be to get it right, get it quick, get it out, and get it over… your problem won’t improve with age.
—Warren Buffett (American Investor)

Scratch the surface of any thinking ideologue and you’ll find doubts. Ask, “Ever wondered whether the other side might be right?”
—Marty Nemko (American Career Coach, Author)

There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.
—Warren Buffett (American Investor)

A single grateful thought toward heaven is the most perfect prayer.
—Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (German Writer)

The sense of impossibility is the beginning of all possibilities.
—Sri Aurobindo (Indian Yogi, Nationalist)

A radical is one of whom people say ‘He goes too far.’ A conservative, on the other hand, is one ‘who doesn’t go far enough.’ Then there is the reactionary, ‘one who doesn’t go at all.’ All these terms are more or less objectionable, wherefore we have coined the term progressive.
—Woodrow Wilson (American Head of State)

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
—Steve Jobs (American Entrepreneur)

It is proof of high culture to say the greatest matters in the simplest way.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Philosopher)

We do not know what to do with this short life, but we want another that will be eternal.
—Anatole France (French Novelist)

He who cannot command himself should obey. And many can command themselves, but much is still lacking before they can obey themselves.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (German Philosopher, Scholar)

Every stage of life has its troubles, and no man is content with his own age.
—Ausonius (Latin Poet)

We shall never be able to effect physical disarmament until we have succeeded in effecting moral disarmament.
—Ramsay MacDonald (British Head of State)

Outside show is a poor substitute for inner worth.
—Aesop (Greek Fabulist)

The love that lasts the longest is the love that is never returned.
—W. Somerset Maugham (French Playwright)

Even if misfortune is only good for bringing a fool to his senses, it would still be just to deem it good for something.
—Jean de La Fontaine (French Poet)

His vocation was orderliness, which is the basis of creation. Accordingly, when a letter came, he would turn it over in his hands for a long time, gazing at it meditatively; then he would put it away in a file without opening it, because everything had its own time.
—Salvatore Satta

The influence of each human being on others in this life is a kind of immortality.
—John Quincy Adams (American Head of State)

A man is the sum of his actions, of what he has done, of what he can do, nothing else.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (Indian Hindu Political leader)

First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (Indian Hindu Political leader)

Silence is the mother of truth.
—Benjamin Disraeli (British Head of State)

The time for action is now. It’s never too late to do something.
—Carl Sandburg (American Children’s Books Writer)

What boundary ever set limits to the service of mankind?
—Claudian (Roman Poet)

Be content with what you are, and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it.
—Martial (Ancient Roman Latin Poet)

Forgive many things in others; nothing in yourself.
—Ausonius (Latin Poet)

It is always the false that makes you suffer, the false desires and fears, the false values and ideas, the false relationships between people. Abandon the false and you are free of pain; truth makes happy, truth liberates.
—Nisargadatta Maharaj (Indian Hindu Religious Leader)

You are forgiven for your happiness and your successes only if you generously consent to share them.
—Albert Camus (Algerian-born French Philosopher)

A fool without fear is sometimes wiser than an angel with fear.
—Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor (American-born British Politician)

Truth is the most valuable thing we have, so I try to conserve it.
—Mark Twain (American Humorist)

Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher)

Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
—Mark Twain (American Humorist)