Inspirational Quotations

As soon|Seek roses in December, ice in June;|Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff;|Believe a woman or an epitaph,|Or any other thing that’s false, before|You trust in critics.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (English Romantic Poet)

Self-respect is the fruit of discipline, the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel (American Jewish Rabbi)

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
—Isaac Asimov (Russian-born American Children’s Books Writer)

Man must be disciplined, for he is by nature raw and wild.
—Immanuel Kant (Prussian German Philosopher)

So act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.
—Immanuel Kant (Prussian German Philosopher)

To be able to look back upon one’s past life with satisfaction is to live twice.
—Martial (Ancient Roman Latin Poet)

Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.
—Kurt Vonnegut (American Novelist)

The duty of literature is to note what counts, and to light up what is suited to the light. If it ceases to choose and to love, it becomes like a woman who gives herself without preference.
—Anatole France (French Novelist)

The mind can assert anything and pretend it has proved it. My beliefs I test on my body, on my intuitional consciousness, and when I get a response there, then I accept.
—D. H. Lawrence (English Novelist)

Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.
—Albert Schweitzer (French Theologian)

A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
—Mark Twain (American Humorist)

Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.
—Thich Nhat Hanh (Vietnamese Buddhist Religious Leader)

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.
—Thich Nhat Hanh (Vietnamese Buddhist Religious Leader)

Nothing endures but personal qualities.
—Walt Whitman (American Poet)

Unclaimed promises are like uncashed cheques; they will keep us from bankruptcy, but not from want.
—Frances Ridley Havergal (English Anglican Poet)

Doubt indulged soon becomes doubt realized.
—Frances Ridley Havergal (English Anglican Poet)

The future is no more uncertain than the present.
—Walt Whitman (American Poet)

Condemn none: if you can stretch out a helping hand, do so. If you cannot, fold your hands, bless your brothers, and let them go their own way.
—Swami Vivekananda (Indian Hindu Mystic)

Life is so largely controlled by chance that its conduct can be but a perpetual improvisation.
—W. Somerset Maugham (French Playwright)

Laugh if you are wise.
—Martial (Ancient Roman Latin Poet)

Disappointment can come only to those who make appointments with the future.
—Swami Chinmayananda (Indian Hindu Teacher)

Only cowards insult dying majesty.
—Aesop (Greek Fabulist)

All business depends upon men fulfilling their responsibilities.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (Indian Hindu Political leader)

A man’s work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.
—Albert Camus (Algerian-born French Philosopher)

Little things affect little minds.
—Benjamin Disraeli (British Head of State)

No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.
—Henry Adams (American Journalist)

You can do what you have to do, and sometimes you can do it even better than you think you can.
—Jimmy Carter (American Head of State)

You are not responsible for the programming you picked up in childhood. However, as an adult, you are one hundred percent responsible for fixing it.
—Ken Keyes, Jr. (American Motivational Speaker)

Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little.
—Charlie Chaplin (British Actor)

Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.
—Albert Camus (Algerian-born French Philosopher)

I cannot discover that anyone knows enough to say definitely what is and what is not possible.
—Henry Ford (American Businessperson)

The truth comes as conqueror only because we have lost the art of receiving it as guest.
—Rabindranath Tagore (Indian Hindu Polymath)

A burnt child dreads the fire.
—English Proverb

It seemed the world was divided into good and bad people. The good ones slept better… while the bad ones seemed to enjoy the waking hours much more.
—Woody Allen (American Actor)

Without an open-minded mind, you can never be a great success.
—Martha Stewart (American Entrepreneur)

Time is a part of eternity, and of the same piece with it.
—Moses Mendelssohn (German Jewish Philosopher)

The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective.
—Warren Buffett (American Investor)

Slumps are like a soft bed. They’re easy to get into and hard to get out of.
—Johnny Bench (American Sportsperson)

Each individual should work for himself. People will not sacrifice themselves for the company. They come to work at the company to enjoy themselves.
—Soichiro Honda (Japanese Inventor)

Nobody stands taller than those willing to stand corrected.
—William Safire (American Columnist)

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.
—Isaac Asimov (Russian-born American Children’s Books Writer)

Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher)

Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. The most important product of his effort is his own personality.
—Erich Fromm (German Psychologist)

I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government: I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.
—Winston Churchill (British Head of State)

Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.
—Thomas Edison (American Inventor)

My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.
—Henry Ford (American Businessperson)

You never want to give a man a present when he’s feeling good. You want to do it when he’s down.
—Lyndon B. Johnson (American Head of State)

It’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.
—Warren Buffett (American Investor)

The most fertile soil does not necessarily produce the most abundant harvest. It is the use we make of our faculties which renders them valuable.
—Thomas Wentworth Higginson (American Unitarian Minister)

I have never found in a long experience of politics that criticism is ever inhibited by ignorance.
—Harold Macmillan (British Head of State)

Scratch a lover, and find a foe.
—Dorothy Parker (American Poet)

I pity that man who wants a coat so cheap that the man or woman who produces the cloth shall starve in the process.
—Benjamin Harrison (American Political leader)

Unless we give part of ourselves away, unless we can live with other people and understand them and help them, we are missing the most essential part of our own lives.
—Harold Taylor

One should strive and employ oneself to uplift oneself. One should never dishonor oneself. The self is one’s friend as well as one’s enemy.
—The Bhagavad Gita (Hindu Scripture)

The curse which lies upon marriage is that too often the individuals are joined in their weakness rather than in their strength –each asking from the other instead of finding pleasure in giving. It is even more deceptive to dream of gaining through the child a plenitude, a warmth, a value, which one is unable to create for oneself; the child brings joy only to the woman who is capable of disinterestedly desiring the happiness of another, to one who without being wrapped up in self seeks to transcend her own existence.
—Simone de Beauvoir (French Philosopher)

It must be borne in mind that the tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn’t a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream. It is not a disaster to be unable to capture your ideal, but it is a disaster to have no ideal to capture. It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for. Not failure, but low aim is a sin
—Benjamin Mays (American Minister)

Even if one lives for a second it must be filled with knowledge, valour, magnanimity and other good qualities. Only such a life is considered worth living. Even a crow lives a long life just by living on food offered by others. It is up to us whether we want to live like a crow or make our life worth remembering.
—Panchatantra

We cannot close ourselves off to information and ignore the fact that millions of people are out there suffering. I honestly want to help. I don’t believe I feel differently from other people. I think we all want justice and equality, a chance for a life with meaning. All of us would like to believe that if we were in a bad situation someone would help us.
—Angelina Jolie (American Actor)

Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.
—Albert Camus (Algerian-born French Philosopher)

A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.
—Edmund Burke (Irish Political leader)

My friend, the sufi is the friend of the present moment. To say tomorrow is not our way.
—Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi (Persian Muslim Mystic)

The expression “to write something down” suggests a descent of thought to the fingers whose movements immediately falsify it.
—William H. Gass (American Short Story Writer)

Only in grammar can you be more than perfect.
—William Safire (American Columnist)

Silent gratitude isn’t much use to anyone.
—Gladys Bronwyn Stern (British Novelist)

The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.
—Masanobu Fukuoka (Japanese Buddhist Polymath)

I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle.
—Jane Austen (English Novelist)

The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress.
—Charles F. Kettering (American Inventor)

We only have one future, and it will be made of our dreams, if we have the courage to challenge convention.
—Soichiro Honda (Japanese Inventor)

Do unto others 20% better than you would expect them to do unto you, to correct for subjective error.
—Linus Pauling (American Chemist)

A man is ever apt to contemplate himself out of all proportion to his surroundings.
—Christina Rossetti (English Poet)

What you do when you don’t have to determines what you will be when you can no longer help it.
—Rudyard Kipling (British Children’s Books Writer)

If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
—Frederick Douglass (American Abolitionist)

People with a culture of poverty suffer much less from repression than we of the middle class suffer and indeed, if I may make the suggestion with due qualification, they often have a hell of a lot more fun than we have.
—Brian Friel

There’s nothing more ironic or contradictory than life itself.
—Robert De Niro (American Actor)

Get into a line that you will find to be a deep personal interest, something you really enjoy spending twelve to fifteen hours a day working at, and the rest of the time thinking about.
—Earl Nightingale (American Motivational Speaker)

The promises of this world are, for the most part, vain phantoms; and to confide in one’s self, and become something of worth and value is the best and safest course.
—Michelangelo (Italian Painter)

Just as you would not permit a fellow employee to steal a piece of office equipment, you shouldn’t let anyone walk away with the time of his fellow managers.
—Andrew Grove (Hungarian-born American Businessperson)

The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught.
—Hermann Hesse (German-born Swiss Poet)

Never make forecasts, especially about the future.
—Samuel Goldwyn (Polish-born American Film Producer)

If you perform the sacrifice of doing your duty, you do not have to do anything else. Devoted to duty, man attains perfection.
—The Bhagavad Gita (Hindu Scripture)

I lay it down as a fact that if all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world.
—Blaise Pascal (French Catholic Mathematician)

Life is the faculty of spontaneous activity, the awareness that we have powers.
—Immanuel Kant (Prussian German Philosopher)