Inspirational Quotations

In the time of darkest defeat, victory may be nearest.
—William McKinley (American Head of State)

A man with a surplus can control circumstances, but a man without a surplus is controlled by them, and often he has no opportunity to exercise judgment.
—Harvey Samuel Firestone (American Businessperson)

It is wonderful what strength and boldness of purpose and energy will come from the feeling that we are in the way of duty.
—John Foster Dulles (American Lawyer)

Let us show, not merely in great crises, but in every day affairs of life, qualities of practical intelligence, of hardihood and endurance, and above all, the power of devotion to a lofty ideal.
—Theodore Roosevelt (American Head of State)

True merit, like a river, the deeper it is, the less noise it makes.
—George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax (English Political leader)

I cannot sleep for dreaming; I cannot dream but I wake and walk about the house as though I’d find you coming through some door.
—Arthur Miller (American Playwright)

Indeed, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher)

The man who does not take pride in his own performance performs nothing in which to take pride.
—Thomas J. Watson (American Businessperson)

Nothing is more powerful than an individual acting out of his conscience, thus helping to bring the collective conscience to life.
—Norman Cousins (American Journalist)

As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher)

Lost time is like a run in a stocking. It always gets worse.
—Anne Morrow Lindbergh (American Author, Aviator)

Little minds have little worries, big minds have no time for worries.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Philosopher)

Every production of genius must be the production of enthusiasm.
—Isaac D’Israeli

The capacity for hope is the most significant fact of life. It provides human beings with a sense of destination and the energy to get started.
—Norman Cousins (American Journalist)

The courage we desire and prize is not the courage to die decently, but to live manfully.
—Thomas Carlyle (Scottish Writer)

Read, read, read. Read everything—trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out the window.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)

Dreams are great. When they disappear you may still be there, but you will have ceased to live.
—Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor (American-born British Politician)

Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave.
—Thomas Browne (English Christian Author)

The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher)

To find fault, is easy; to do better may be difficult.
—Plutarch (Ancient Greek Historian)

A word spoken in season, at the right moment, is the mother of ages.
—Thomas Carlyle (Scottish Writer)

We hear the haunting presentiment of a dutiful middle age in the current reluctance of young people to select any option except the one they feel will impinge upon them the least.
—Gail Sheehy (American Journalist)

If you haven’t the strength to impose your own terms upon life, then you must accept the terms it offers you.
—T. S. Eliot (American-born British Poet)

Be happy with what you have and are, be generous with both, and you won’t have to hunt for happiness.
—William Ewart Gladstone (British Head of State)

Speech is human, silence is divine, yet also brutish and dead: therefore we must learn both arts.
—Thomas Carlyle (Scottish Writer)

Genius is present in every age, but the men carrying it within them remain benumbed unless extraordinary events occur to heat up and melt the mass so that it flows forth.
—Denis Diderot (French Philosopher)

If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time.
—Marcel Proust (French Novelist)

No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency.
—Theodore Roosevelt (American Head of State)

Friendship is the privilege of private men; for wretched greatness knows no blessing so substantial.
—Nahum Tate

People say they love truth, but in reality they want to believe that which they love is true.
—Robert Ringer (American Entrepreneur)

I do not like heroes; they make too much noise in the world. The more radiant their glory, the more odious they are.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher)

Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences.
—Norman Cousins (American Journalist)

One cannot weep for the entire world, it is beyond human strength. One must choose.
—Jean Anouilh

Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding.
—Martin Luther (German Protestant Theologian)

Happiness is not a reward—it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment—it is a result.
—Robert G. Ingersoll (American Atheist Politician)

Autobiography is probably the most respectable form of lying.
—Humphrey Carpenter (English Children’s Books Writer)

Doubt is part of all religion. All the religious thinkers were doubters.
—Isaac Bashevis Singer (Polish-born American Children’s Books Writer)

Youth is the time of getting, middle age of improving, and old age of spending.
—Anne Bradstreet (English Poet)

The superior man is the providence of the inferior. He is eyes for the blind, strength for the weak, and a shield for the defenseless. He stands erect by bending above the fallen. He rises by lifting others.
—Robert G. Ingersoll (American Atheist Politician)

If a man for whatever reason has the opportunity to lead an extraordinary life, he has no right to keep it to himself.
—Jacques Cousteau (French Military Leader)

The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to himself and to his fellow-men.
—Robert G. Ingersoll (American Atheist Politician)

We term sleep a death by which we may be literally said to die daily; in fine, so like death, I dare not trust it without my prayers.
—Thomas Browne (English Christian Author)

Everything is a gift of the universe—even joy, anger, jealously, frustration, or separateness. Everything is perfect either for our growth or our enjoyment.
—Ken Keyes, Jr. (American Motivational Speaker)

If there’s a book you really want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.
—Toni Morrison (American Novelist)

Do well and you will have no need for ancestors.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher)

Humanity is the virtue of a woman, generosity that of a man.
—George Goodman (American Economist)

Difficult times always create opportunities for you to experience more love in your life.
—Barbara De Angelis (American Lecturer)

The absence of the will to live is, alas, not sufficient to make one want to die.
—Michel Houellebecq (French Novelist)

It is better to create than to be learned; creating is the true essence of life.
—Barthold G. Niebuhr

The firefly only shines when on the wing; so it is with the mind; when we rest we darken.
—Gamaliel Bailey

There are three wants which can never be satisfied: that of the rich, who want something more; that of the sick, who want something different; and that of the traveler, who says, “Anywhere but here”.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Philosopher)

A man’s accomplishments in life are the cumulative effect of his attention to detail.
—John Foster Dulles (American Lawyer)

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts about reality.
—Theodore Roosevelt (American Head of State)

What keeps you going isn’t some fine destination but just the road you’re on, and the fact that you know how to drive.
—Barbara Kingsolver (American Novelist)

There is nothing that war has ever achieved we could not better achieve without it.
—Havelock Ellis (British Sexologist)

No matter how carefully you plan your goals they will never be more than pipe dreams unless you pursue them with gusto.
—W. Clement Stone (American Businessperson)

Nothing that was worthy in the past departs; no truth or goodness realized by man ever dies, or can die.
—Thomas Carlyle (Scottish Writer)

People who postpone happiness are like children who try chasing rainbows in an effort to find the pot of gold at the rainbow’s end… Your life will never be fulfilled until you are happy here and now.
—Ken Keyes, Jr. (American Motivational Speaker)

I care not what others think of what I do, but I care very much about what I think of what I do. That is character.
—Theodore Roosevelt (American Head of State)

Revenge is always the weak pleasure of a little and narrow mind.
—Juvenal (Roman Poet)

Conversation means being able to disagree and still continue the discussion.
—Dwight Macdonald (American Film Critic)

The most dangerous thing in the world is to try to leap a chasm in two jumps.
—David Lloyd George (British Head of State)

In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous.
—Robert G. Ingersoll (American Atheist Politician)

If you could understand a single grain of wheat, you would die of wonder.
—Martin Luther (German Protestant Theologian)

Truth is never to be expected from authors whose understanding is warped with enthusiasm.
—John Dryden (English Poet)

If people are not being told the truth about their problems, the majority not only may, but invariably must, make the wrong judgments.
—Robert G. Ingersoll (American Atheist Politician)

Think it more satisfactory to live richly than die rich.
—Thomas Browne (English Christian Author)

Readers are less and less seen as mere non-writers, the subhuman “other” or flawed derivative of the author; the lack of a pen is no longer a shameful mark of secondary status but a positively enabling space, just as within every writer can be seen to lurk, as a repressed but contaminating antithesis, a reader.
—Terry Eagleton

How important, often, is the pain of guilt, as a stimulant to amendment and reformation.
—John Foster Dulles (American Lawyer)

Peak performers see the ability to manage change as a necessity in fulfilling their missions.
—Charles A. Garfield

No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Philosopher)

Simplicity is the glory of expression.
—Walt Whitman (American Poet)

The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.
—Harvey Samuel Firestone (American Businessperson)

The ancestor of every action is a thought.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Philosopher)

Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees.
—Victor Hugo (French Novelist)

There is no road or ready way to virtue.
—Thomas Browne (English Christian Author)