Inspirational Quotations

The enemies of the truth are always awfully nice.
—Christopher Morley (American Journalist)

Great revolutions are the work rather of principles than of bayonets, and are achieved first in the moral, and afterwards in the material sphere.
—Giuseppe Mazzini (Italian Philosopher)

However well organized the foundations of life may be, life must always be full of risks.
—Havelock Ellis (British Sexologist)

In every man there is something wherein I may learn of him, and in that I am his pupil.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Philosopher)

Justice should remove the bandage from her eyes long enough to distinguish between the vicious and the unfortunate.
—Robert G. Ingersoll (American Atheist Politician)

No man has received from nature the right to give orders to others. Freedom is a gift from heaven, and every individual of the same species has the right to enjoy it as soon as he is in enjoyment of his reason.
—Denis Diderot (French Philosopher)

He who possesses virtue and intelligence, who is just, speaks the truth, and does what is his own business, him the world will hold dear.
—The Dhammapada (Buddhist Anthology of Verses)

We do not commonly find men of superior sense amongst those of the highest fortune.
—Juvenal (Roman Poet)

The discovery of what is true and the practice of that which is good, are the two most important aims of philosophy.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher)

Praise is a debt we owe unto the virtue of others, and due unto our own from all whom malice hath not made mutes, or envy struck dumb.
—Thomas Browne (English Christian Author)

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

Be steady and well-ordered in your life so that you can be fierce and original in your work.
—Gustave Flaubert (French Novelist)

We are able to find everything in our memory, which is like a dispensary or chemical laboratory in which chance steers our hand sometimes to a soothing drug and sometimes to a dangerous poison.
—Marcel Proust (French Novelist)

If you are ever in doubt as to whether to kiss a pretty girl, always give her the benefit of the doubt.
—Thomas Carlyle (Scottish Writer)

Our entire life consists ultimately in accepting ourselves as we are.
—Jean Anouilh

Whenever an individual or a business decides that success has been attained, progress stops.
—Thomas J. Watson (American Businessperson)

Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.
—Norman Cousins (American Journalist)

The more we reduce the size of our world, the more we shall be its master.
—Jacinto Benavente (Spanish Dramatists)

We deem those happy who from the experience of life have learned to bear its ills, without being overcome by them.
—Juvenal (Roman Poet)

Manhood begins when we have in any way made truce with Necessity; begins even when we have surrendered to Necessity, as the most part only do; but begins joyfully and hopefully only when we have reconciled ourselves to Necessity; and thus, in reality, triumphed over it, and felt that in Necessity we are free.
—Thomas Carlyle (Scottish Writer)

If you have a great passion it seems that the logical thing is to see the fruit of it, and the fruit are children.
—Roman Polanski (French Film Director)

I envy no man that knows more than myself, but pity them that know less.
—Thomas Browne (English Christian Author)

Foolish men imagine that because judgment for an evil thing is delayed, there is no justice; but only accident here below. Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed some day or two, some century or two, but it is sure as life, it is sure as death.
—Thomas Carlyle (Scottish Writer)

The strong man is strongest when alone.
—Friedrich Schiller (German Poet)

Bad men hate sin through fear of punishment; good men hate sin through their love of virtue.
—Juvenal (Roman Poet)

Machines are beneficial to the degree that they eliminate the need for labor, harmful to the degree that they eliminate the need for skill.
—W. H. Auden (British-born American Poet)

Whenever we seek to avoid the responsibility for our own behavior, we do so by attempting to give that responsibility to some other individual or organization or entity. But this means we then give away our power to that entity.
—M. Scott Peck (American Psychiatrist)

Never deny a diagnosis, but do deny the negative verdict that may go with it.
—Norman Cousins (American Journalist)

Make all you can, save all you can, give all you can.
—John Wesley (British Methodist Religious Leader)

Happiness never lays its finger on its pulse.
—George Goodman (American Economist)

If a woman doesn’t chase a man a little, she doesn’t love him.
—E. W. Howe (American Novelist)

All the breaks you need in life wait within your imagination. Imagination is the workshop of your mind, capable of turning mind energy into accomplishment and wealth.
—Napoleon Hill (American Author)

The devil’s most devilish when respectable.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (English Poet)

When a friend is in trouble, don’t annoy him by asking if there is anything you can do. Think up something appropriate and do it.
—E. W. Howe (American Novelist)

Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.
—Gustave Flaubert (French Novelist)

The real tragedy of the poor is the poverty of their aspirations.
—George Goodman (American Economist)

The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them.
—William Lawrence Bragg

It is not the years in your life but the life in your years that counts!
—Adlai Stevenson (American Diplomat)

Though we all have the fear and the seeds of anger within us, we must learn not to water those seeds and instead nourish our positive qualities—those of compassion, understanding, and loving kindness.
—Thich Nhat Hanh (Vietnamese Buddhist Religious Leader)

Every age needs men who will redeem the time by living with a vision of the things that are to be.
—Adlai Stevenson (American Diplomat)

The true civilization is where every man gives to every other every right that he claims for himself.
—Robert G. Ingersoll (American Atheist Politician)

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle. Every cubic inch of space is a miracle.
—Walt Whitman (American Poet)

In our sad condition our only consolation is the expectancy of another life. Here below all is incomprehensible.
—Martin Luther (German Protestant Theologian)

The hardest times for me were not when people challenged what I said, but when I felt my voice was not heard
—Carol Gilligan

What we call progress is the exchange of one nuisance for another.
—Havelock Ellis (British Sexologist)

Devout believers are safeguarded in a high degree against the risk of certain neurotic illnesses; their acceptance of the universal neurosis spares them the task of constructing a personal one.
—Sigmund Freud (Austrian Psychiatrist)

Cling steadfastly to that which is good.
—The Talmud (Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith)

If you’re not failing, you’re not trying anything.
—Woody Allen (American Actor)

We are not trying to entertain the critics. I’ll take my chances with the public.
—Walt Disney (American Entrepreneur)

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that you will do things differently.
—Warren Buffett (American Investor)

You know you are on the road to success if you would do your job, and not be paid for it.
—Oprah Winfrey (American TV Personality)

Family is just accident…. They don’t mean to get on your nerves. They don’t even mean to be your family, they just are.
—Marsha Norman (American Playwright)

Life finds its purpose and fulfillment in the expansion of happiness.
—Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (Indian Hindu Religious Leader)

When the wise is angry, he is wise no longer.
—The Talmud (Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith)

It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.
—Theodore Roosevelt (American Head of State)

The fact is, the difference between peak performers and everybody else are much smaller than everybody else thinks.
—Charles A. Garfield

Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to error that counts.
—Nikki Giovanni (American Children’s Books Writer)

It is better to live with wild beasts wandering in the mountains, than with fools even in the comfortable and heavenly halls of the Lord of Gods.
—Neetishatakam

Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.
—William James (American Philosopher)

Here is everything which can lay hold of the eye, ear and imagination—everything which can charm and bewitch the simple and ignorant. I wonder how Luther ever broke the spell.
—John Adams (American Head of State)

You can take from every experience what it has to offer you. And you cannot be defeated if you just keep taking one breath followed by another.
—Oprah Winfrey (American TV Personality)

Respectable men and women content with good and easy living are missing some of the most important things in life. Unless you give yourself to some great cause you haven’t even begun to live.
—William P. Merrill

Nothing comes merely by thinking about it.
—John Wanamaker (American Merchant, Civil Servant)

Rushing into action, you fail. Trying to grasp things, you lose them. Forcing a project to completion, you ruin what was almost ripe.
—Laozi (Chinese Philosopher)

Life exists for the love of music or beautiful things.
—G. K. Chesterton (English Journalist)

One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is that things are what they are and will be what they will be.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

There is a growing strength in women, but it’s in the forehead, not in the forearm.
—Beverly Sills (American Singer)

A mistake is simply another way of doing things.
—Katharine Graham (American Publisher)

You cannot find peace by avoiding life.
—Virginia Woolf (English Novelist)