Inspirational Quotations

The timid man calls himself cautious, the sordid man thrifty.
—Publilius Syrus (Syrian-born Latin Writer)

Glory comes too late, after one as been reduced to ashes.
—Martial (Ancient Roman Latin Poet)

Like what you do, if you don’t like it, do something else.
—Paul Harvey (American Broadcaster)

Reason conquers all.
—Marcus Manilius (Roman Poet)

There’s no thrill in easy sailing when the skies are clear and blue, there’s no joy in merely doing things which any one can do. But there is some satisfaction that is mighty sweet to take, when you reach a destination that you thought you’d never make.
—Edgar Guest (English-born American Poet)

Creativity is almost always: unlearned. Ask young children, “Are you creative?” They’ll all raise a hand. By age 16, none of them will because they’ve had their creativity gently squeezed out of them by those who think conventionally.
—John Cleese (British Comic Actor, Writer)

It’s not the having, it’s the getting.
—Elizabeth Taylor (American Actress)

Differences of opinion give me but little concern; but it is a real pleasure to be brought into communication with any one who is in earnest, and who really look to God’s will as his standard of right and wrong, and judges of actions according to their greater or less conformity.
—Thomas Arnold (English Educationalist)

Home is where you come to when you have nothing better to do.
—Margaret Thatcher (British Head of State)

Every moment that I am centered in the future, I suffer a temporary loss of this life.
—Hugh Prather (American Christian Author)

When all think alike, no one is thinking very much.
—Walter Lippmann (American Journalist)

If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can make the world safe for diversity.
—John F. Kennedy (American Head of State)

Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.
—Kenny Rogers (American Singer-Songwriter)

Every beginning is a consequence. Every beginning ends something.
—Paul Valery (French Critic, Poet)

A beautiful literature springs from the depth and fullness of intellectual and moral life, from an energy of thought and feeling, to which nothing, as we believe, ministers so largely as enlightened religion.
—William Ellery Channing (American Theologian, Poet)

Cease not to be the sculptor of thine own image.
—Plotinus (Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mystic)

Nature is not cruel, only pitilessly indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous—indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose.
—Richard Dawkins (British Ethologist, Atheist)

When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve people who weren’t smart enough to get out of jury duty.
—Norm Crosby (American Comedian)

The way to peace and joy is the way of letting go. Let go of people and things: Let God take over!
—Dada J. P. Vaswani (Indian Hindu Philosopher)

The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies.
—Ray Bradbury (American Science-Fiction Writer)

How great the dignity of the soul, since each one has from its birth an angel commissioned to guard it.
—Jerome (Greek Priest)

When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him, he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply the fact that there are no bricks and no temples.
—Stephen Crane (American Writer)

The pleasure of reading without application is a dangerous pleasure. Useless books we should lay aside, and make all possible good use of those from which we may reap some fruit.
—John Foster Dulles (American Politician)

There is no substitute for virtue. Keep your thoughts virtuous. Rise above the filth that’s all around you in this world and stand tall in strength and virtue. You can do this and you will be happier for it for as long as you live. God bless you in cherishing, developing and holding on to this great gift, the quality of personal virtue.
—Gordon B. Hinckley (American Mormon Religious Leader)

Love shall be our token; love be yours and love be mine.
—Christina Rossetti (English Poet)

Old men are twice children.
—Greek Proverb

Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; but, define yourself.
—Harvey Fierstein (American Actor)

There are two kinds of fools. One says, “This is old, therefore it is good.” The other says, “This is new, therefore it is better.”
—William Ralph Inge (English Anglican Clergyman)

No art or learning is to be pursued halfheartedly…and any art worth learning will certainly reward more or less generously the effort made to study it.
—Murasaki Shikibu (Japanese Diarist, Novelist)

We are more disturbed by a calamity which threatens us than by one which has befallen us.
—John Lancaster Spalding (American Catholic Clergyman)

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.
—Arthur Ashe (American Tennis Player)

Try not to get too depressed in the part of the journey, because there’s a professional responsibility. If you are depressed, you can’t motivate your staff to extraordinary measures. So you have to keep your own spirits up even though you well understand that you don’t know what you’re doing.
—Andrew Grove (Hungarian-born American Businessperson)

Nobody abuses us more than we abuse ourselves.
—Miguel Angel Ruiz (Mexican Spiritualist Author)

The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder.
—Ralph Washington Sockman (American United Methodist Pastor)

Patience in adversity, magnanimity in ascendancy, eloquence in assembly, bravery in battle, aspiration for eminence and engrossment in the scriptures are the self-evident attributes of great men.
—Subhashita Manjari (Sanskrit Anthology of Proverbs)

In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.
—Ivan Illich (Austrian Philosopher)

Man is a gregarious animal, and much more so in his mind than in his body. He may like to go alone for a walk, but he hates to stand alone in his opinions.
—George Santayana (Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher)

An honest God is the noblest work of man.
—Robert G. Ingersoll (American Lawyer, Orator, Agnostic)

The test and the use of man’s education is that he finds pleasure in the exercise of his mind.
—Jacques Barzun (American Cultural Historian)

HISTORY: gossip well told.
—Elbert Hubbard (American Writer)

Words are like money; there is nothing so useless, unless when in actual use.
—Samuel Butler

Whatever is not nailed down is mine. What I can pry loose is not nailed down.
—Collis Potter Huntington (American Industrialist)

Show me the man who would go to heaven alone, and I will show you one who will never be admitted there.
—Owen Feltham (English Essayist)

Every rose is an autograph from the hand of God on his world about us.—He has inscribed his thoughts in these marvellous hieroglyphics which sense and science have, these many thousand years, been seeking to understand.
—Theodore Parker (American Unitarian Preacher)

Life can and does turn on a dime. One little rotation of the wheel of fortune, and we’re no longer feeling so on top of life and impervious to change.
—Sharon Salzberg (Buddhist Teacher)

In some small field each child should attain, within the limited range of its experience and observation, the power to draw a justly limited inference from observed facts.
—Charles William Eliot (American Educator)

Half-knowledge is very communicable; not so knowledge.
—Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (British Poet, Novelist)

Joy is the happiness of love—love aware of its own inner happiness. Pleasure comes from without, and joy comes from within, and it is, therefore, within reach of everyone in the world.
—Fulton J. Sheen (American Catholic Religious Leader)

Anger is the root of anxiety and mental distress. It is anger that keeps people bound to a worldly life. It even destroys righteous qualities. Therefore, put away your anger.
—Adhyatma Ramayana (Hindu Religious Text)

People must know that their ideas will be listened to and, if they have merit, acted upon. If they do, it is possible to mobilize individual creativity on a very broad scale.
—James A. Champy (American Business Consultant)

The secret of Love is the joy of self-giving.
The secret of joy is self-giving. If any part in you is without joy, it means that it has not given itself, it wants to keep itself for itself.
—Nolini Kanta Gupta (Indian Hindu Revolutionary)

Whoever has the luck to be born a character can laugh even at death. Because a character will never die! A man will die, a writer, the instrument of creation: but what he has created will never die!
—Luigi Pirandello (Italian Dramatist)

Getting even with somebody is no way to get ahead of anybody.
—Cullen Hightower (American Humorist)

Writing is to descend like a miner to the depths of the mine with a lamp on your forehead, a light whose dubious brightness falsifies everything, whose wick is in permanent danger of explosion, whose blinking illumination in the coal dust exhausts and corrodes your eyes.
—Blaise Cendrars (Swiss Poet, Writer)

He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage—he won’t encounter many rivals.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (German Philosopher, Physicist)

We should have a glorious conflagration, if all who cannot put fire into their works would only consent to put their works into the fire.
—Charles Caleb Colton (English Clergyman, Aphorist)

Write the bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble.
—Arabic Proverb

Don’t try to fix the students, fix ourselves first. The good teacher makes the poor student good and the good student superior. When our students fail, we, as teachers, too, have failed.
—Marva Collins (American Educator)

Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it’s not because they enjoy solitude. It’s because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.
—Jodi Picoult (American Novelist)

They… threw themselves into the interests of the rest, but each plowed his or her own furrow. Their thoughts, their little passions and hopes and desires, all ran along separate lines. Family life is like this—animated, but collateral.
—Rose Macaulay (British Author)

Nature thrives on patience; man on impatience.
—Paul Boese

A danger of travel is that we see things at the wrong time, before we have had a chance to build up the necessary receptivity and when new information is therefore as useless and fugitive as necklace beads without a connecting chain.
—Alain de Botton (Swiss-born British Philosopher)

One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.
—Mark Twain (American Humorist)

To be clever enough to get all that money, one must be stupid enough to want it.
—G. K. Chesterton (English Journalist)

In ancient times, do you think that there was not the ignorant, and the shallow minded? And why after all should you embrace so fondly a carcass of dead thoughts. Live in the present and shape the future, do not be casting lingering looks to the distant past for the past has passed away, never again to return.
—Subramanya Bharathi (Indian Tamil Poet)

Choice means saying no to one thing so you can say yes to another.
—Dan Millman (American Children’s Books Writer)

Quarrels often arise in marriages when the bridal gifts are excessive.
—Ausonius (Latin Poet, Rhetorician)

Mourning can be very selfish. When someone you love has died, you tend to recall best those few moments and incidents that helped clarify your sense, not of the person who has died, but of your own self.
—Russell Banks (American Author)

The great biblical tradition says that loving God and loving one’s neighbor are not two separate actions but two sides of the same action. It was the prophet Amos who bore witness to the fact that divine worship is nothing but human justice being offered to God and human justice is nothing but divine worship being lived out.
—John Shelby Spong (American Episcopal Bishop)

Your home is regarded as a model home, your life as a model life. But all this splendor, and you along with it… it’s just as though it were built upon a shifting quagmire. A moment may come, a word can be spoken, and both you and all this splendor will collapse.
—Henrik Ibsen (Norwegian Playwright)

Lift up your worries and ask for grace to get through the rest of the day.
—Sarah Ban Breathnach (American Self-help Author)

Never think that Jesus commanded a trifle, nor dare to trifle with anything He has commanded.
—Dwight L. Moody (Christian Religious Leader)

Emptiness is a symptom that you are not living creatively. You either have no goal that is important enough to you, or you are not using your talents and efforts in a striving toward an important goal.
—Maxwell Maltz (American Surgeon)

All good fortune is a gift of the gods, and you don’t win the favor of the ancient gods by being good, but by being bold.
—Anita Brookner (English Novelist, Art Historian)

Real success is finding your life work in the work that you love. That’s it. Don’t worry about making a living, don’t worry about popularity or fame. Make what you do and what you make count more than what you own.
—David McCullough (American Historian)

Our virtues are dearer to us the more we have had to suffer for them. It is the same with our children. All profound affection admits a sacrifice.
—Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues (French Moralist)

Who has never tasted what is bitter does not know what is sweet.
—German Proverb

Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes.
—Bertolt Brecht (German Poet)

How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.
—Marcus Aurelius (Emperor of Rome, Stoic Philosopher)

The monument of a great man is not of granite or marble or bronze. It consists of his goodness, his deeds, his love and his compassion.
—Alfred A. Montapert (American Engineer, Philosopher)

A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the hope of greening the landscape of idea.
—John Ciardi (American Poet)

It is no use trying to tug the glacier backwards.
—Tibetan Proverb

Politics can be relatively fair in the breathing spaces of history; at its critical turning points there is no other rule possible than the old one, that the end justifies the means.
—Arthur Koestler (British Writer, Journalist)

Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society.
—Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (English Politician)

To expect defeat is nine-tenths of defeat itself.
—Francis Marion Crawford (Italian-born American Novelist)

One man lies in his work, and gets a bad reputation; another in his manners, and enjoys a good one.
—Henry David Thoreau (American Philosopher)

The man who is kind and practices righteousness, who remains passive in the affairs of the world, who considers creatures of the world as his own self, he attains the immortal Being; the true God is ever with him.
—Kabir (Indian Mystic)

A meal without flesh is like feeding on grass.
—Indian Proverb

Effective leaders delegate, but they do not delegate the one thing that will set the standards. They do it.
—Peter Drucker (Austrian-born Management Consultant)

An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents; it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that it opponents gradually die out and that the growing generation is familiarized with the idea from the beginning.
—Max Planck (German Theoretical Physicist)

Only the liberation of the natural capacity for love in human beings can master their sadistic destructiveness.
—Wilhelm Reich (Austrian Psychoanalyst)

If you are sitting on a felled tree in a pine forest enjoying the sunshine you can easily forget what time it is. Not that you could forget your gold watch, just the time of day.
—Elfriede Jelinek (Austrian Author)

Since nothing is settled until it is settled right, no matter how unlimited power a man may have, unless he exercises it fairly and justly his actions will return to plague him.
—Frank A. Vanderlip (American Banker)

Repeat anything often enough and it will start to become you.
—Tom Hopkins (American Sales Coach)

Even after all this time the sun never says to the earth,’You owe me.’ Look what happens with a love like that, it lights the whole sky.
—Hafez (Persian Poet)

Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors.
—Jonas Salk (American Virologist)

Before you know it, if you’re not careful, you can get to feeling sorry for everybody and there’s nobody left to hate.
—William Wharton (American Novelist, Painter)

There is hope for that genius who must overcome poverty, but there is almost none for that one who must overcome wealth.
—Muriel Strode (American Author, Businesswoman)

I think you have to have a real point of view that’s your own. You have to tell it your way. And, I think that it’s a mistake to shoot for a specific magazine’s point of view because it’s never going to be as good. You have to shoot for yourself and photograph the way you believe it.
—Mary Ellen Mark (American Photojournalist)

We will always be hungry, will always want. Our bodies and minds will always crave something, even if we don’t recognize it.
—Carmen Maria Machado (American Author, Essayist)

A panic is the stampede of our self-possession.
—Antoine de Rivarol (French Writer)

Humility leads to strength and not to weakness. It is the highest form of self-respect to admit mistakes and to make amends for them.
—John J. McCloy (American Diplomat)

The names that do the serious damage are the ones we call ourselves. The stereotypes we give ourselves are the ones that matter in the long run, not the ones imposed on us by other people.
—Judith Rich Harris (American Psychologist)

Subdue fate by exerting human strength to the maximum; and if, when the effort has been made and success is not achieved, no one else can be blamed.
—The Hitopadesha (Indian Collection of Fables)

Nothing is so contemptible as the sentiments of the mob.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (Roman Stoic Philosopher)

Relationships based on obligation lack dignity.
—Wayne Dyer (American Self-help Author)

The main function of a university is not to grant degrees and diplomas, but to develop the university spirit and advance learning. The former is impossible without corporate life, the latter without honours and post-graduate.
—Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (Indian Philosopher, Political Leader)

Nowhere are prejudices more mistaken for truth, passion for reason and invective for documentation than in politics.
—John Mason Brown (American Drama Critic)

Whenever, therefore, people are deceived and form opinions wide of the truth, it is clear that the error has slid into their minds through the medium of certain resemblances to that truth.
—Socrates (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

Truth, self control, asceticism, generosity, non-injury, constancy in virtue—these are the means of success, not caste or family.
—The Mahabharata (Hindu Religious Text)

Trying and failing isn’t a small part of life, it’s much of life. The rest is just learning how to grow from it.
—Bob Goff (American Philanthropist)

Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully on canvas or write wonderful poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That’s how I get my kicks.
—Donald Trump (American Businessperson, Head of State)

Faith is a permanent and vital endowment of the human mind—a part of reason itself. The insane alone are without it.
—Eden Phillpotts (British Writer)

But I recognize no infallible authority, even in special questions; consequently, whatever respect I may have for the honesty and the sincerity of such or such an individual, I have no absolute faith in any person.
—Mikhail Bakunin (Russian Anarchist)

Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite. Or waiting around for Friday night or waiting perhaps for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil or a better break or a string of pearls or a pair of pants or a wig with curls or another chance. Everyone is just waiting.
—Theodor Seuss Geisel (‘Dr. Seuss’) (American Children’s Books Writer)

You can’t teach children to be good. The best you can do for your child is to live a good life yourself. What a parent knows and believes, the child will lean on.
—Bruno Bettelheim (Austrian-born Psychoanalyst)

You have powers you never dreamed of. You can do things you never thought you could do. There are no limitations in what you can do except the limitations of your own mind.
—Darwin P. Kingsley (American Businessman)

Our true acquisitions lie only in our charities, we gain only as we give.
—William Gilmore Simms (American Novelist)

It is only possible to live happily-ever-after on a day-to-day basis.
—Margaret Wander Bonanno (American Writer)

I sometimes say that success just happens. That’s not true. You have to make it happen. When I make up my mind to do something, I make sure it happens. You can’t wait for the phone to ring. You have to ring them.
—Lew Grade (British Theatrical Impresario)

The most familiar quotations are the most likely to be misquoted. Some misquotations are still variable, some have settled down to false versions that have obscured the true ones. They have passed over from literature into speech.
—Carl Clinton Van Doren (American Critic, Historian)

If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual.
—Frank Herbert (American Science-fiction Writer)

What is art but life upon the larger scale, the higher. When, graduating up in a spiral line of still expanding and ascending gyres, it pushes toward the intense significance of all things, hungry for the infinite?
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (English Poet)

When the time comes, even a rat becomes a tiger.
—Japanese Proverb

We are all, it seems, saving ourselves for the Senior Prom. But many of us forget that somewhere along the way we must learn to dance.
—Alan Harrington (American Novelist)