Inspirational Quotations

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)

The biggest disease today is not leprosy or cancer or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted, uncared for, deserted by everybody. The greatest evil is the lack of love and charity, the terrible indifference towards one’s neighbor.
—Mother Teresa (Albanian Catholic Humanitarian)

The ordinary man is involved in action, the hero acts. An immense difference.
—Henry Miller (American Novelist)

Whoever does not know how to find the way to his ideal lives more frivolously and impudently than the man without an ideal.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (German Philosopher, Scholar)

It is always in the midst, in the epicenter, of your troubles that you find serenity.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery (French Novelist, Aviator)

The real tragedy of life is not being limited to one talent, but in failing to use that one talent.
—E. W. Howe (American Novelist)

Everything great in the world is done by neurotics; they alone founded our religions and created our masterpieces.
—Marcel Proust (French Novelist)

We learn our virtues from the bosom friends who love us; our faults from the enemy who hates us. We cannot easily discover our real character from a friend. He is a mirror, on which the warmth of our breath impedes the clearness of the reflection.
—Jean Paul (German Novelist)

A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is, but often prompts us to rearrange the past.
—Eric Hoffer (American Philosopher)

There are events which are so great that if a writer has participated in them his obligation is to write truly rather than assume the presumption of altering them with invention.
—Ernest Hemingway (American Author)

Religion is what keeps the poor man from murdering the rich
—Napoleon I (French Monarch)

Freedom unexercised may become freedom forfeited.
—Margaret Chase Smith

A university should be a place of light, of liberty and of learning.
—Benjamin Disraeli (British Head of State)

Always walk through life as if you have something new to learn and you will.
—Vernon Howard

Morality is always the product of terror; its chains and strait-waistcoats are fashioned by those who dare not trust others, because they dare not trust themselves, to walk in liberty.
—Aldous Huxley (English Humanist)

Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.
—Charles Caleb Colton (English Angelic Priest)

What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Men’s hearts ought not to be set against one another, but set with one another, and all against evil only.
—Thomas Carlyle (Scottish Writer)

Man ought to know that in the theater of human life, it is only for Gods and angels to be spectators.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

Contempt for happiness is usually contempt for other people’s happiness, and is an elegant disguise for hatred of the human race.
—Bertrand A. Russell (British Philosopher)

Our duty is to be useful, not according to our desires, but according to our powers.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (Swiss Philosopher)

Be like the bird, who, feeling the branch break beneath him sings, knowing that he has wings.
—Victor Hugo (French Novelist)

Politeness is an inexpensive way of making friends.
—William Feather (American Publisher)

Common-sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (English Poet)

The man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else to which he is justly entitled.
—Andrew Carnegie (Scottish-American Industrialist, Philanthropist)

We don’t need men with new ideas as much as we need men who will put energy behind the old ideas.
—William Feather (American Publisher)

Men of genius are rarely much annoyed by the company of vulgar people.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (English Poet)

Go as far as you can see, and when you get there you will see farther.
—Orison Swett Marden (American New Thought Writer)

Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself to do the thing you have to do when it ought to be done whether you like it or not. It is the first lesson that ought to be learned and however early a person’s training begins, it is probably the last lesson a person learn thoroughly.
—Thomas Henry Huxley (English Biologist)

The ability to make yourself do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not.
—Elbert Hubbard (American Writer)

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

Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires.
—Laozi (Chinese Philosopher)

The nation which forgets its defenders will be itself forgotten.
—Calvin Coolidge (American Head of State)

Shun idleness. It is a rust that attaches itself to the most brilliant metals.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher)

The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.
—Eleanor Roosevelt (American First Lady)

The emotions aren’t always immediately subject to reason, but they are always immediately subject to action.
—William James (American Philosopher)

What are numbers knit|By force or custom? Man who man would be,|Must rule the empire of himself; in it|Must be supreme, establishing his throne|On vanquished will, quelling the anarchy|Of hopes and fears, being himself alone.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (English Poet)

Our minds are often permeated by memories of the past|or worries about the future. What gets missed is the present and|right there in the moment is the doorway into timelessness.
—Ram Dass (American Hindu Teacher)

We have to create strength where it did not exist before; we have to change our natures, and become new men with new hearts, to be born again.
—Sri Aurobindo (Indian Yogi, Nationalist)

People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.
—Andrew Carnegie (Scottish-American Industrialist, Philanthropist)

No two things differ more than hurry and dispatch. Hurry is the mark of a weak mind, dispatch of a strong one. A weak man in office, like a squirrel in a cage, is laboring eternally, but to no purpose, and is in constant motion without getting on a job; like a turnstile, he is in everybody’s way, but stops nobody; he talks a great deal, but says very little; looks into everything but sees nothing; and has a hundred irons in the fire, but very few of them are hot, and with those few that are, he only burns his fingers.
—Charles Caleb Colton (English Angelic Priest)

It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.
—Tony Robbins (American Actor Author)

Keep your fears to yourself, but share your inspiration with others.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

A man that studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed.
—Napoleon Hill (American Author)

Obviously, there is little you can learn from doing nothing.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

We should know what our convictions are, and stand for them. Upon one’s own philosophy, conscious or unconscious, depends one’s ultimate interpretation of facts. Therefore it is wise to be as clear as possible about one’s subjective principles. As the man is, so will be his ultimate truth.
—Carl Jung (Swiss Psychologist)

No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher)

Arise, transcend thyself. Thou art man and the whole nature of man is to become more than himself.
—Sri Aurobindo (Indian Yogi, Nationalist)

Happiness comes when you believe in what you are doing, know what you are doing, and live what you are doing.
—Brian Tracy (American Author)

When you affirm big, believe big, and pray big, big things happen.
—Norman Vincent Peale (American Clergyman, Self-Help Author)

The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one’s self to destiny.
—Napoleon I (French Monarch)

The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.
—H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (American Author)

It is foolish to tear one’s hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness.
—Cicero (Roman Philosopher)

A leader is best when people barely know he exists, not so good when people obey and acclaim him, worse when they despise him. But of a good leader who talks little when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: “we did it ourselves.”
—Laozi (Chinese Philosopher)

There must be a reason why some people can afford to live well. They must have worked for it. I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things that we could use.
—Mother Teresa (Albanian Catholic Humanitarian)

Life, as it is called, is for most of us one long postponement.
—Henry Miller (American Novelist)

The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.
—Khalil Gibran (Lebanese-born American Philosopher)

The happiness of any given life is to be measured not by its joys and pleasures, but by the extent to which it has been free from suffering, from positive evil.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (German Philosopher)

A leader is best|When people barely know he exists,|When his work is done, his aim fulfilled,|They will say:|We did it ourselves.
—Laozi (Chinese Philosopher)

People may not remember exactly what you did, or what you said, but, they will always remember how you made them feel.
—Maya Angelou (American Poet)

It is often the failure who is the pioneer in new lands, new undertakings, and new forms of expression.
—Eric Hoffer (American Philosopher)

Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything.
—Kurt Vonnegut (American Novelist)

If you would civilize a man, begin with his grandmother.
—Victor Hugo (French Novelist)

Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.
—Socrates (Anceient Greek Philosopher)

Continuity of purpose is one of the most essential ingredients of happiness in the long run, and for most men this comes chiefly through their work.
—Bertrand A. Russell (British Philosopher)

I am always doing things I can’t do, that’s how I get to do them.
—Pablo Picasso (Spanish Painter)

Short as life is, some find it long enough to outlive their characters, their constitutions and their estates.
—Charles Caleb Colton (English Angelic Priest)

Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they’ve got a second. Give your dreams all you’ve got and you’ll be amazed at the energy that comes out of you.
—William James (American Philosopher)

Friendship is nothing else than an accord in all things, human and divine, conjoined with mutual good-will and affection.
—Cicero (Roman Philosopher)

England has two books, one which she has made and one which has made her: Shakespeare and the Bible.
—Victor Hugo (French Novelist)

Man becomes man only by his intelligence, but he is man only by his heart.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (Swiss Philosopher)

Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat. We must find each other.
—Mother Teresa (Albanian Catholic Humanitarian)

Everybody has to be somebody to somebody to be anybody.
—Malcolm Forbes (American Publisher)

Do more than belong: participate. Do more than care: help. Do more than believe: practice. Do more than be fair: be kind. Do more than forgive: forget. Do more than dream: work.
—William Arthur Ward (American Author)

Many a man has finally succeeded only because he has failed after repeated efforts. If he had never met defeat he would never have known any great victory.
—Orison Swett Marden (American New Thought Writer)