Inspirational Quotations

Very few men are wise by their own counsel, or learned by their own teaching; for he that was only taught by himself had a fool as his master.
—Ben Jonson (English Dramatist)

Men, whose trade is rat-catching, love to catch rats; the bug destroyer seizes on his bug with delight; and the suppressor is gratified by finding his vice.
—Sydney Smith (English Anglican Writer)

Who sows virtue reaps honor.
—Leonardo da Vinci (Italian Polymath)

Striving for perfection is the greatest stopper there is. You’ll be afraid you can’t achieve it … It’s your excuse to yourself for not doing anything. Instead, strive for excellence, doing your best.
—Laurence Olivier (English Actor)

The four cornerstones of character on which the structure of this nation was built are: Initiative, Imagination, Individuality and Independence.
—Eddie Rickenbacker (American Military Leader)

Desperation is the raw material of drastic change. Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape.
—William S. Burroughs (American Novelist)

If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.
—Michelangelo (Italian Painter)

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.
—Hector Berlioz (French Composer)

Life’s greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved.
—Victor Hugo (French Novelist)

We all live under the same sky, but we don’t all have the same horizon.
—Konrad Adenauer (German Head of State)

The purpose of life is not to win. The purpose of life is to grow and to share. When you come to look back on all that you have done in life, you will get more satisfaction from the pleasure you have brought into other people’s lives that you will from the times that you outdid and defeated them.
—Harold Kushner (American Jewish Religious Leader)

Desire is the key to motivation, but it’s the determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal – a commitment to excellence – that will enable you to attain the success you seek.
—Mario Andretti (Italian-born American Sportsperson)

Every act of every man is a moral act, to be tested by moral, and not by economic, criteria.
—Robert Maynard Hutchins (American Educator)

Some of us are returning to sanity, because we’re tired of the pain. We’re in a hurry. No time to mess around.
—Byron Katie (American Speaker)

I am buoyant and expansive and uncontainable–but I always was so, only I never knew it.
—Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (Indian-born American Novelist)

The nightmare always becomes laughter, once it’s understood.
—Byron Katie (American Speaker)

The more a man knows, the more he forgives.
—Catherine II of Russia (Russian Empress)

You can never get enough of what you don’t really need.
—Eric Hoffer (American Philosopher)

We must not let go manifest truths because we cannot answer all questions about them.
—Jeremy Collier (English Anglican Theater Critic)

The way to really live is to die. The passport to living is to imagine yourself in your grave. Imagine you’re lying in your coffin….Now look at your problems from that viewpoint. Changes everything, doesn’t it?
—Anthony de Mello (Indian-born American Theologian)

I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart.
—Vincent van Gogh (Dutch Painter)

Nothing makes a man more aware of his capabilities and of his limitations than those moments when he must push aside all the familiar defenses of ego and vanity, and accept reality by staring, with the fear that is normal to a man in combat, into the face of Death.
—Robert S. Johnson (American Military Leader)

There is no way to transform the world other than transforming yourself.
—Deepak Chopra (Indian-born American Physician)

Facts don’t cease to exist because they are ignored.
—Aldous Huxley (English Humanist)

The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence. He inspires self-distrust. He guides their eyes from himself to the spirit that quickens him. He will have no disciple.
—Amos Bronson Alcott (American Teacher)

The future of civilization depends on our overcoming the meaninglessness and hopelessness that characterizes the thoughts of men today.
—Albert Schweitzer (French Theologian)

Shyness has a strange element of narcissism, a belief that how we look, how we perform, is truly important to other people.
—Andre Dubus (American Short Story Writer)

The happy people are those who are producing something; the bored people are those who are consuming much and producing nothing.
—William Ralph Inge (English Anglican Clergyman)

Love is not a matter of what happens in life. It’s a matter of what’s happening in your heart.
—Ken Keyes, Jr. (American Motivational Speaker)

The only way to have a life is to commit to it like crazy.
—Angelina Jolie (American Actor)

You win some, you lose some, you wreck some.
—Dale Earnhardt (American Sportsperson)

I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument, while the song I came to sing remains unsung.
—Rabindranath Tagore (Indian Hindu Polymath)

It’s not how old you are, it’s how you are old.
—Jules Renard (French Novelist)

Toleration is the best religion.
—Victor Hugo (French Novelist)

The entire day receives order and discipline when it acquires unity. This unity must be sought and found in morning prayer. The morning prayer determines the day.
—Dietrich Bonhoeffer (German Lutheran Pastor)

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 surest way to corrupt a young man is to teach him to esteem more highly those who think alike than those who think differently.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (German Philosopher, Scholar)

If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us!—But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives is a lantern on the stern which shines only on the waves behind us.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (English Poet)

In order to be utterly happy, the only thing necessary is to refrain from comparing this moment with other moments in the past, which I often did not fully enjoy because I was comparing them with other moments of the future.
—Andre Gide (French Novelist)

I am not an Athenian or a Greek, I am a citizen of the world.
—Socrates (Anceient Greek Philosopher)

The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depend upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation, the man of manly character and of wisdom.
—Plato (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

If I were asked to give what I consider the single most useful bit of advice for all humanity it would be this: Expect trouble as an inevitable part of life and when it comes, hold you head high, look it squarely in the eye and say, “I will be bigger than you. You cannot defeat me.”
—Ask Ann Landers

No man is happy without a delusion of some kind. Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities.
—Christian Nestell Bovee

Without belittling the courage with which men have died, we should not forget those acts of courage with which men … have lived. The courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle than the courage of a final moment; but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy. A man does what he must—in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures—and that is the basis of all human morality…. In whatever arena of life one may meet the challenge of courage, whatever may be the sacrifices he faces if he follows his conscience—the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow men—each man must decide for himself the course he will follow. The stories of past courage can define that ingredient—they can teach, they can offer hope, they can provide inspiration. But they cannot supply courage itself. For this each man must look into his own soul.
—John F. Kennedy (American Head of State)

Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself.
—Michel de Montaigne (French Philosopher)

Something that has always puzzled me all my life is why, when I am in special need of help, the good deed is usually done by somebody on whom I have no claim.
—William Feather (American Publisher)

The meaning of things lies not in the things themselves, but in our attitude towards them.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery (French Novelist, Aviator)

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.
—Pablo Picasso (Spanish Painter)

Work with some men is as besetting a sin as idleness with others.
—Samuel Butler

Change, not habit, is what gets most of us down; habit is the stabilizer of human society, change accounts for its progress.
—William Feather (American Publisher)

The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds.
—John F. Kennedy (American Head of State)

Don’t write off the importance of hard work, the guts to keep at it, a definite goal, and the ability to have fun in the process. If there’s no fun in it, something’s wrong with all you’re doing.
—Norman Vincent Peale (American Clergyman, Self-Help Author)

Never hire someone who knows less than you do about what he’s hired to do.
—Malcolm Forbes (American Publisher)

The worth and value of knowledge is in proportion to the worth and value of its object.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (English Poet)

If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.
—Michelangelo (Italian Painter)

With people with only modest ability, modesty is mere honesty; but with those who possess great talent, it is hypocrisy.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (German Philosopher)

Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals.
—Jim Rohn (American Entrepreneur)

Joy descends gently upon us like the evening dew, and does not patter down like a hailstorm.
—Jean Paul (German Novelist)

If you’re finding that work, relationships, and life in general don’t make you feel energized and hopeful about the future, that’s a good indication that you’ve probably lost touch with your real self and could use some insight into the person you’ve become. The soul, like the body, accepts by practice whatever habit one wishes it to contact.
—Socrates (Anceient Greek Philosopher)

Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.
—Epicurus (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

As there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it, so reasonable arguments, challenges to magnanimity, and appeals to sympathy or justice, are folly when we are dealing with human crocodiles and boa-constrictors.
—William James (American Philosopher)

The injuries we do, and those we suffer, are seldom weighed in the same scales.
—Aesop (Greek Fabulist)

All adverse and depressing influences can be overcome, not by fighting, but by rising above them.
—Charles Caleb Colton (English Angelic Priest)

The world befriends the elephant and tramples on the ant.
—Indian Proverb

Restlessness is discontent and discontent is the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.
—Thomas Edison (American Inventor)

Any one thing in the creation is sufficient to demonstrate a Providence to a humble and grateful mind.
—Epictetus (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

The real leader has no need to direct-he is content to point the way.
—Henry Miller (American Novelist)

A tree that affords thee shade, do not order it to be cut down.
—Arabic Proverb

Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.
—Eric Hoffer (American Philosopher)

Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change.
—Bertrand A. Russell (British Philosopher)

The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge.
—Elbert Hubbard (American Writer)

Superiority to fate is difficult to gain; ’tis not conferred of any, but possible to earn.
—Emily Dickinson (American Poet)

An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy to be called an idea at all.
—Elbert Hubbard (American Writer)

When a person shows you who they really are, believe them.
—Maya Angelou (American Poet)

The want of goods is easily repaired, but the poverty of the soul is irreparable.
—Michel de Montaigne (French Philosopher)

Religion is the last refuge of human savagery
—Alfred North Whitehead (English Mathematician)

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.
—Muriel Strode (American Author, Businesswoman)

Ambition is to the mind what the cap is to the falcon; it blinds us first, and then compels us to tower by reason of our blindness.
—Charles Caleb Colton (English Angelic Priest)

Some people plant in the spring and leave in the summer. If you’re signed up for a season, see it through. You don’t have to stay forever, but at least stay until you see it through.
—Jim Rohn (American Entrepreneur)

There is nothing like dream to create the future. Utopia today, flesh and blood tomorrow.
—Victor Hugo (French Novelist)

Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

You’re neither right nor wrong because other people agree with you. You’re right because your facts are right and your reasoning is right—and that’s the only thing that makes you right. And if your facts and reasoning are right, you don’t have to worry about anybody else.
—Warren Buffett (American Investor)

I can sympathize with people’s pains, but not with their pleasures. There is something curiously boring about somebody else’s happiness.
—Aldous Huxley (English Humanist)

Know what you want to do, hold the thought firmly, and do every day what should be done, and every sunset will see you that much nearer to your goal.
—Elbert Hubbard (American Writer)

The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy; I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
—Bertrand A. Russell (British Philosopher)

Riches are for spending, and spending for honor and good actions; therefore extraordinary expense must be limited by the worth of the occasion.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power. If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich.
—Laozi (Chinese Philosopher)

In order to judge properly, one must get away somewhat from what one is judging, after having loved it. This is true of countries, of persons, and of oneself.
—Andre Gide (French Novelist)

Men are admitted into Heaven not because they have curbed and governed their passions or have no passions, but because they have cultivated their understandings. The treasures of Heaven are not negations of passion, but realities of intellect, from which all the passions emanate uncurbed in their eternal glory. The fool shall not enter into Heaven let him be ever so holy.
—William Blake (English Poet)

To live we must conquer incessantly, we must have the courage to be happy.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (Swiss Philosopher)

If you wait for tomorrow, tomorrow comes. If you don’t wait for tomorrow, tomorrow comes.
—African Proverb

How, then, find the courage for action? By slipping a little into unconsciousness, spontaneity, instinct which holds one to the earth and dictates the relatively good and useful … By accepting the human condition more simply, and candidly, by dreading troubles less, calculating less, hoping more.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (Swiss Philosopher)