Inspirational Quotations

Do not fight the darkness, let the light in and the darkness will disappear.
—Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (Indian Hindu Religious Leader)

We conquer – not in any brilliant fashion – we conquer by continuing.
—George Matheson (Scottish Theologian)

The covetous man is always poor.
—Claudian (Roman Poet)

Love people and use things. Don’t use people and love things.
—Joseph Simmons

Strange how a single conversation can change you. Or maybe it only seems that way in retrospect. A year passes and you know you feel differently, but you’re not sure what or why or how, so your mind casts back for something that might give that difference shape: a word, a glance, a touch.
—Barack Obama (American Head of State)

Success is achieved by development of our strengths, not by elimination of our weakness.
—Marilyn vos Savant (American Columnist)

The real differences around the world today are not between Jews and Arabs; Protestants and Catholics; Muslims, Croats, and Serbs. The real differences are between those who embrace peace and those who would destroy it; between those who look to the future and those who cling to the past; between those who open their arms and those who are determined to clench their fists.
—Bill Clinton (American Head of State)

We begin to die as soon as we are born, and the end is linked to the beginning.
—Marcus Manilius (Roman Poet)

Love the moment and the energy of the moment will spread beyond all boundaries.
—Corita Kent (American Artist)

I wish I could stand on a busy corner, hat in hand, and beg people to throw me all their wasted hours.
—Bernard Berenson (Russian-born American Art Historian)

One is taught by experience to put a premium on those few people who can appreciate you for what you are.
—Gail Godwin (American Novelist)

The test of good manners is to be able to put up pleasantly with bad ones.
—Wendell Willkie (American Politician)

A gentleman is one who is too brave to lie, too generous to cheat, and who takes his share of the world and lets other people have theirs.
—Paul G. Hoffman (American Businessperson)

Happiness is a matter of one’s most ordinary and everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self.
—Iris Murdoch (English Novelist)

You don’t develop courage by being happy in your relationships everyday. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.
—Barbara De Angelis (American Lecturer)

My formula for living is quite simple. I get up in the morning and I go to bed at night. In between, I occupy myself as best I can.
—Cary Grant (British-born American Actor)

Be brave enough to live creatively. The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You can’t get there by bus, only by hard work, risking, and by not quite knowing what you’re doing. What you’ll discover will be wonderful: yourself.
—Alan Alda (American Actor)

Common sense is strengthened by joy.
—Nachman of Breslov (Ukrainian Jewish Religions Leader)

Nothing contributes so much to tranquilizing the mind as a steady purpose-a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.
—Mary Shelley (English Novelist)

A word of kindness is seldom spoken in vain, while witty sayings are as easily lost as the pearls slipping from a broken string.
—George D. Prentice (American Journalist)

There are fathers who do not love their children, but there is no grandfather who does not adore his grandson.
—Victor Hugo (French Novelist)

We’ll do all right if we can capitalize on our mistakes.
—Mickey Rivers (American Sportsperson)

The biggest problem in the world could have been solved when it was small.
—Witter Bynner (American Poet)

When you finally go back to your old hometown, you find it wasn’t the old home you missed but your childhood.
—Sam Ewing (American Sportsperson)

Every failure made me more confident. Because I wanted even more to achieve as revenge. To show that I could.
—Roman Polanski (French Film Director)

If there is anything that can be called genius, it consists chiefly in the ability to give that attention to a subject which keeps it steadily in the mind, till we have surveyed it accurately on all sides.
—Thomas Reid (Scottish Philosopher)

If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are.
—Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu

Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on.
—Bob Newhart (American Comedian)

It happens a little unluckily that the persons who have the most infinite contempt of money are the same that have the strongest appetite for the pleasures it procures.
—William Shenstone (English Poet)

The purpose of life is to discover your gift. The meaning of life is to give your gift away.
—David Viscott (American Psychiatrist)

Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and to think what nobody else has thought.
—Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

Establish specific objectives, and move steadily toward them. A rudder won’t control a drifting boat; it must be underway. Similarly, you need to be moving forward to gain control of your life.
—Richard G. Scott (American Mormon Religious Leader)

Knowledge is a sacred cow, and my problem will be how we can milk her while keeping clear of her horns.
—Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

The road to happiness lies in two simple principles: find what it is that interests you and that you can do well, and when you find it, put your whole soul into it—every bit of energy and ambition and natural ability you have.
—John D. Rockefeller III (American Philanthropist)

Happiness doesn’t depend on what we have, but it does depend on how we feel towards what we have. We can be happy with little and miserable with much.
—William D. Hoard (American Elected Rep)

The trouble with experience is that by the time you have it you are too old to take advantage of it.
—Jimmy Connors (American Sportsperson)

Life’s under no obligation to give us what we expect.
—Margaret Mitchell (American Author)

Nothing is so common-place as to wish to be remarkable. Fame usually comes to those who are thinking about something else, – very rarely to those who say to themselves, “Go to, now, let us be a celebrated individual!”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (American Physician)

It has been well said that no man ever sank under the burden of the day. It is when to-morrow’s burden is added to the burden of to-day that the weight is more than a man can bear.
—George MacDonald (Scottish Christian Author)

Some individuals have developed such strong internal standards that they no longer need the opinion of others to judge whether they have performed a task well or not. The ability to give objective feedback to oneself is in fact the mark of the expert.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Persons with weight of character carry, like planets, their atmospheres along with them in their orbits.
—Thomas Hardy (English Novelist, Poet)

Three things in human life are important: The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.
—Henry James (American-born British Novelist)

Our own heart, and not other men’s opinion, forms our true honor.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (English Poet)

There is a genius in every man and woman, waiting to be brought forth.
—Wallace Wattles (American New Thought Author)

What we do best or most perfectly is what we have most thoroughly learned by the longest practice, and at length it falls from us without our notice, as a leaf from a tree.
—Henry David Thoreau (American Philosopher)

Putting off an easy thing makes it hard. Putting off a hard thing makes it impossible.
—George C. Lorimer (American Baptist Clergyman)

I believe in work, hard work, and long hours of work. Men do not breakdown from overwork, but from worry and dissipation.
—Charles Evans Hughes (American Elected Rep)

Truth is the safest lie.
—Yiddish Proverb

The root of all difficulty and conflict lies in the mind; therefore, the solution to all difficulty and conflict lies in changing the mind.
—Kusan Sunim (Korean Buddhist Priest)

After all, our worst misfortunes never happen, and most miseries lie in anticipation.
—Honore de Balzac (French Novelist)

To weep is to make less the depth of grief.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

From the earliest times the old have rubbed it into the young that they are wiser than they, and before the young had discovered what nonsense this was they were old too, and it profited them to carry on the imposture.
—W. Somerset Maugham (French Playwright)

In the same degree that we overrate ourselves, we shall underrate others; for injustice allowed at home is not likely to be correct abroad.
—Washington Allston (American Poet)

Calm self-confidence is as far from conceit as the desire to earn a decent living is remote from greed.
—Channing Pollock

Arrogance is a killer, and wearing ambition on one’s sleeve can have the same effect. There is a fine line between arrogance and self-confidence. Legitimate self-confidence is a winner. The true test of self-confidence is the courage to be open—to welcome change and new ideas regardless of their source. Self-confident people aren’t afraid to have their views challenged. They relish the intellectual combat that enriches ideas.
—Jack Welch (American Businessperson)

The bottom line is that if you become a master at handling problems and overcoming obstacles, what can stop you from success? The answer is nothing! And if nothing can stop you, you become unstoppable!
—T. Harv Eker (American Motivational Speaker)

The most intolerable pain is produced by prolonging the keenest pleasure.
—George Bernard Shaw (Irish Playwright)

I remember hearing in a talk that the more we express our gratitude to God for our blessings, the more he will bring to our mind other blessings. The more we are aware of to be grateful for, the happier we become.
—Ezra Taft Benson (American Mormon Religious Leader)

There is only one time that is important—NOW! It is the most important time because it is the only time that we have any power.
—Leo Tolstoy (Russian Novelist)

There are geniuses in trade as well as in war, or the state, or letters; and the reason why this or that man is fortunate is not to be told. It lies in the man: that is all anybody can tell you about it.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Philosopher)

To dare to live alone is the rarest courage; since there are many who had rather meet their bitterest enemy in the field, than their own hearts in their closet.
—Charles Caleb Colton (English Angelic Priest)

To have read the greatest works of any great poet, to have beheld or heard the greatest works of any great painter or musician, is a possession added to the best things in life.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne (English Poet)

It is the easiest thing in the world to obey God when He commands us to do what we like, and to trust Him when the path is all sunshine. The real victory of faith is to trust God in the dark, and through the dark.
—Theodore L. Cuyler (American Presbyterian Clergyman)

The state of your life is nothing more than a reflection of your state of mind.
—Wayne Dyer (American Motivational Writer)

Before you go and criticize the younger generation, just remember who raised them.
—Unknown

Almost always it is the fear of being ourselves that brings us to the mirror.
—Antonio Porchia (Italian Poet)

A criminal becomes a popular figure because he unburdens in no small degree the consciences of his fellow man, for now they know once more where evil is to be found.
—Carl Jung (Swiss Psychologist)

Some men have a den in their home, while others just growl all over the house.
—Unknown

If a person is not of good conduct, his/her beauty is a waste. For a person with bad character, being born in noble family is a waste. If you do not achieve any feat, being educated is a waste. If you do not spend money, having wealth is a waste.
—Chanakya Neeti

It’s the birthday of one of the best known American poets, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807—1882.) Longfellow is best remembered for poems such as “The Song of Hiawatha” (1855,) “Paul Revere’s Ride” (1861), long narrative poems such as “Evangeline” (1847) and “The Courtship of Miles Standish” (1858,) and his translation of Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy.” Some of his poems such as “There was a little girl” remain familiar to this day as rhymes and melodies.

For more details on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, see bio on the Poetry Foundation’s website. I also suggest collections of his poems and writings on Amazon, or these free downloads on the Internet Archive.

Inspirational Writings of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Thy fate is the common fate of all,|Into each life some rain must fall,|Some days must be dark and dreary.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American Poet)

The bravest are the tenderest. The loving are the daring.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American Poet)

Let nothing disturb thee, Let nothing affright thee, All things are passing, God changeth never.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American Poet)

All things come round to him who will but wait.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American Poet)

Tomorrow is the mysterious, unknown guest.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American Poet)

Some must follow and some command, though all are born of clay.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American Poet)

Hope has as many lives as a cat or a king.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American Poet)

Look not mournfully into the Past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the Present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy Future, without fear, and with a manly heart.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American Poet)

Let us then be what we are, and speak what we think, and in all things keep ourselves loyal to truth.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American Poet)

Let us then be up and doing,|With a heart for any fate,|Still achieving, still pursuing,|Learn to labor and to wait.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American Poet)

Lives of great men all remind us|We can make our lives sublime,|And, departing, leave behind us|Footprints on the sands of time.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American Poet)

The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well, and doing well whatever you do without thought of fame. If it comes at all it will come because it is deserved, not because it is sought after.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American Poet)

Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American Poet)

Love gives itself; it is not bought.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American Poet)

Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American Poet)

Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American Poet)

Sometimes we may learn more from a man’s errors than from his virtues.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American Poet)

Kind hearts are the gardens,|Kind thoughts are the roots,|Kind words are the flowers,|Kind deeds are the fruits.||Take care of your garden|And keep out the weeds,|Fill it with sunshine|Kind words and kind deeds.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American Poet)

The greatest grace of a gift, perhaps, is that it anticipates and admits of no return.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American Poet)

Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American Poet)

He spake well who said that graves are the footprints of angels.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American Poet)

The life of a man consists not in seeing visions and in dreaming dreams, but in active charity and in willing service.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American Poet)

We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a spring day or in the red fire of a long winter’s evening. Some of us let these dreams die, but others nourish and protect them; nurse them through bad days till they bring them to the sunshine and light which comes always to those who hope that their dreams will come true.
—Woodrow Wilson (American Head of State)

Genius is eternal patience.
—Michelangelo (Italian Painter)

Ours is a culture based on excess, on overproduction; the result is a steady loss of sharpness in our sensory experience. All the conditions of modern life—its material plenitude, its sheer crowdedness—conjoin to dull our sensory faculties.
—Susan Sontag (American Writer, Philosopher)

Humility is often only a feigned submission, of which we make use to render others submissive. It is an artifice of pride which abases in order to exalt itself.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld

O Lord, you know what is best for me. Let this or that be done, as you please. Give what you will, how much you will, and when you will.
—Thomas A Kempis

You are at the top when you’ve made friends with the past, are focused on the present, and optimistic about your future. … .
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Even if a farmer intends to loaf, he gets up in time to get an early start.
—E. W. Howe (American Novelist)

A bodily disease, which we look upon as whole and entire within itself, may, after all, be but a symptom of some ailment in the spiritual part.
—Nathaniel Hawthorne (American Novelist)

No enterprise can exist for itself alone. It ministers to some great need, it performs some great service, not for itself, but for others; or failing therein, it ceases to be profitable and ceases to exist.
—Calvin Coolidge (American Head of State)

When the joy of the job’s gone, when it’s no fun trying anymore, quit before you’re fired.
—Malcolm Forbes (American Publisher)

I have found some of the best reasons I ever had for remaining at the bottom simply by looking at the men at the top.
—Frank Moore Colby (American Educator)