Inspirational Quotations

Orators are most vehement when they have the weakest cause, as men get on horseback when they cannot walk.
—Cicero (Roman Philosopher)

If a window of opportunity appears, don’t pull down the shade.
—Tom Peters (American Management Consultant)

People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them.
—Eric Hoffer (American Philosopher)

Don’t take life too serious. You’ll never escape it alive anyway.
—Elbert Hubbard (American Writer)

Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
—Pablo Picasso (Spanish Painter)

We are not altogether here to tolerate. We are here to resist, to control and vanquish withal.
—Thomas Carlyle (Scottish Writer)

He who allows his day to pass by without practicing generosity and enjoying life’s pleasures is like a blacksmith’s bellows; he breathes, but does not live.
—Indian Proverb

The average person puts only 25% of his energy and ability into his work. The world takes off its hat to those who put in more than 50% of their capacity, and stands on its head for those few and far between souls who devote 100%.
—Andrew Carnegie (Scottish-American Industrialist, Philanthropist)

Which of our methods of measuring could we apply to this eddying mass that is the universe? In the presence of the profundities our sole ability is to dream. Our conception, quickly winded, cannot follow creation, that vast breath.
—Victor Hugo (French Novelist)

The common man is not concerned about the passage of time, the man of talent is driven by it.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (German Philosopher)

There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.
—Elie Wiesel (Romanian-born American Writer)

Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.
—Warren Buffett (American Investor)

You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best that you have to give.
—Eleanor Roosevelt (American First Lady)

Prayer enlarges the heart until it is capable of containing God’s gift to himself.
—Mother Teresa (Albanian Catholic Humanitarian)

Men who are occupied in the restoration of health to other men, by the joint exertion of skill and humanity, are above all the great of the earth. They even partake of divinity, since to preserve and renew is almost as noble as to create.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher)

Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.
—Wayne Dyer (American Motivational Writer)

Those who give too much attention to trifling things become generally incapable of great ones.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Responsibilities gravitate to the person who can shoulder them; power flows to the man who knows how.
—Elbert Hubbard (American Writer)

He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he had failed.
—William James (American Philosopher)

Be like a sponge when it comes to each new experience. If you want to be able to express it well, you must first be able to absorb it well.
—Jim Rohn (American Entrepreneur)

Real generosity toward the future consists in giving all to what is present.
—Albert Camus (Algerian-born French Philosopher)

With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves. For they see in the eyes of others only a reflection of themselves.
—Eric Hoffer (American Philosopher)

One who never asks either knows everything or nothing.
—Malcolm Forbes (American Publisher)

A word, a look, an accent, may affect the destiny not only of individuals, but of nations. He is a bold man who calls anything a trifle.
—Andrew Carnegie (Scottish-American Industrialist, Philanthropist)

Can you really explain to a fish what it’s like to walk on land? One day on land is worth a thousand years of talking about it, and one day running a business has exactly the same kind of value.
—Warren Buffett (American Investor)

People who fly into a rage always make a bad landing.
—Will Rogers (American Actor)

Observe how soon, and to what a degree, a mother’s influence begins to operate! Her first ministration for her infant is to enter, as it were, the valley of the shadow of death, and win its life at the peril of her own! How different must an affection thus founded be from all others!
—Lydia H. Sigourney

God gave us memory that we might have roses in December.
—J. M. Barrie (Scottish Novelist)

The wise man thinks of fame just enough to avoid being despised.
—Epicurus (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn’t stop to enjoy it.
—William Feather (American Publisher)

All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me… You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.
—Walt Disney (American Entrepreneur)

One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten, and to leave off fighting at once.
—Samuel Butler

No one can tell you what is right for you except yourself. So start telling yourself what to do. If you blunder for ten years while thinking for yourself, that is rich treasure when compared with living these ten years under the mental domination of another.
—Vernon Howard

Obstacles are like wild animals. They are cowards but they will bluff you if they can. If they see you are afraid of them… they are liable to spring upon you; but if you look them squarely in the eye, they will slink out of sight.
—Orison Swett Marden (American New Thought Writer)

Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched.
—Aesop (Greek Fabulist)

Goals. There’s no telling what you can do when you get inspired by them. There’s no telling what you can do when you believe in them. There’s no telling what will happen when you act upon them.
—Jim Rohn (American Entrepreneur)

With begging and scrambling we find very little, but with being true to ourselves we find a great deal more.
—Rabindranath Tagore (Indian Hindu Polymath)

I have always been among those who believed that the greatest freedom of speech was the greatest safety, because if a man is a fool, the best thing to do is to encourage him to advertise the fact by speaking.
—Woodrow Wilson (American Head of State)

Welcome everything that comes to you, but do not long for anything else.
—Andre Gide (French Novelist)

There can be no real freedom without the freedom to fail.
—Eric Hoffer (American Philosopher)

The perfect amount of money to leave children is enough money so that they would feel they could do anything, but not so much that they would do nothing.
—Warren Buffett (American Investor)

Learning is finding out what you already know. Doing is demonstrating that you know it. Teaching is reminding others that they know just as well as you. You are all learners, doers, teachers.
—Richard Bach (American Novelist)

We say that the hour of death cannot be forecast, but when we say this we imagine that hour as placed in an obscure and distant future. It never occurs to us that it has any connection with the day already begun or that death could arrive this same afternoon, this afternoon which is so certain and which has every hour filled in advance.
—Marcel Proust (French Novelist)

Punishment is now unfashionable… because it creates moral distinctions among men, which, to the democratic mind, are odious. We prefer a meaningless collective guilt to a meaningful individual responsibility.
—Thomas Szasz (Hungarian Psychiatrist)

One way to get the most out of life is to look upon it as an adventure.
—William Feather (American Publisher)

There are obstinate and unknown braves who defend themselves inch by inch in the shadows against the fatal invasion of want and turpitude. There are noble and mysterious triumphs which no eye sees. No renown rewards, and no flourish of trumpets salutes. Life, misfortune, isolation, abandonment, and poverty and battlefields which have their heroes.
—Victor Hugo (French Novelist)

A sense of duty is useful in work, but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not endured with patient resignation.
—Bertrand A. Russell (British Philosopher)

The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.
—Elbert Hubbard (American Writer)

Of all the diversions of life, there is none so proper to fill up its empty spaces as the reading of useful and entertaining authors.
—Joseph Addison (English Essayist)

The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.
—Walt Disney (American Entrepreneur)

Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason: they made no such demand upon those who wrote them. Those works, therefore, are the most valuable, that set our thinking faculties in the fullest operation. understand them.
—Charles Caleb Colton (English Angelic Priest)

I trust that everything happens for a reason, even when we’re not wise enough to see it.
—Oprah Winfrey (American TV Personality)

Success is counted sweetest by those who ne’er succeed.
—Emily Dickinson (American Poet)

So long as a person is capable of self-renewal, he is a living being.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (Swiss Philosopher)

Man is a rational animal—so at least I have been told. Throughout a long life, I have looked diligently for evidence in favor of this statement, but so far I have not had the good fortune to come across it, though I have searched in many countries spread over three continents.
—Bertrand A. Russell (British Philosopher)

It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.
—William Blake (English Poet)

Four things come not back: the spoken word, the sped arrow, the past life, and the neglected opportunity.
—Arabic Proverb

Discipline yourself to do the things you need to do when you need to do them, and the day will come when you will be able to do the things you want to do when you want to do them!
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Sensitiveness is closely allied to egotism. Indeed, excessive sensitiveness is only another name for morbid self-consciousness. The cure for it is to make more of our objects, and less of ourselves.
—Christian Nestell Bovee

If the will is fixed on the purpose it sets itself to accomplish, then circumstances will suggest the right course; but the schemer finds himself always tripped up by the unexpected.
—Sri Aurobindo (Indian Yogi, Nationalist)

The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear.
—Herbert Agar

The older I get, the more centered I become and the more I think I really know about myself. What I know is that what other people do doesn’t really have any effect on me.
—Oprah Winfrey (American TV Personality)

At thirty a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities … And above all, accept these things.
—Albert Camus (Algerian-born French Philosopher)

Time destroys the speculation of men, but it confirms nature.
—Cicero (Roman Philosopher)

Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion … . I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.
—Kurt Vonnegut (American Novelist)

Fools take to themselves the respect that is given to their office.
—Aesop (Greek Fabulist)

Our heritage and ideals, our codes and standards – the things we live by and teach our children – are preserved or diminished by how freely we exchange ideas and feelings.
—Walt Disney (American Entrepreneur)

I can feel guilty about the past, apprehensive about the future, but only in the present can I act. The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.
—Abraham Maslow (American Psychologist)

A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.
—Winston Churchill (British Head of State)

All times are beautiful for those who maintain joy within them; but there is no happy or favorable time for those with disconsolate or orphaned souls.
—Rosalia de Castro

There are four questions of value in life… What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for, and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same. Only love.
—Don Juan DeMarco

The weaknesses of the many make the leader possible.
—Elbert Hubbard (American Writer)

How would you act differently if you knew you already had everything you need within you? Who or what would you stop chasing?
—Mastin Kipp

Intent is not a thought, or an object, or a wish. Intent is what can make a man succeed when his thoughts tell him that he is defeated. It operates in spite of the warrior’s indulgence. Intent is what makes him invulnerable. Intent is what sends a shaman through a wall, through space, to infinity.
—Carlos Castaneda (Peruvian-born American Anthropologist)

Self-destruction is the effect of cowardice in the highest extreme.
—Daniel Defoe (English Writer)

Boldness is ever blind, for it sees not dangers and inconveniences; whence it is bad in council though good in execution.—The right use of the bold, therefore, is, that they never command in chief, but serve as seconds under the direction of others.—For in council it is good to see dangers, and in execution not to see them unless they be very great.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

You can make up a quarrel, but it will always show where it was patched.
—E. W. Howe (American Novelist)

The way a man wins shows most of his character,|The way he loses shows all of it.
—Unknown

The reputation of a thousand years may be determined by the conduct of one hour.
—Japanese Proverb

The fishing is best where the fewest go, and the collective insecurity of the world makes it easy for people to hit home runs while everyone else is aiming for base hits. There is just less competition for bigger goals.
—Tim Ferriss

Charisma becomes the undoing of leaders. It makes them inflexible, convinced of their own infallibility, unable to change.
—Peter Drucker (Austrian-born Management Consultant)

A multitude of small delights constitute happiness.
—Charles Baudelaire (French Poet)

It is more easy to be wise for others than for ourselves.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld

It’s been said that knowing something doesn’t make a difference. But taking what you know and doing something with it makes all the difference.
—Steve Goodier

Progress is the activity of today and the assurance of tomorrow.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Philosopher)

A new wound makes all the old ones ache again.
—Mignon McLaughlin (American Journalist)

To know when to go away and when to come closer is the key to any lasting relationship.
—Domenico Cieri (Mexican Writer)

One difference between savagery and civilization is a little courtesy. There’s no telling what a lot of courtesy would do.
—Cullen Hightower (American Humorist)

As long as we are persistence in our pursuit of our deepest destiny, we will continue to grow. We cannot choose the day or time when we will fully bloom. It happens in its own time.
—Denis Waitley (American Motivational Speaker)

Triumph often is nearest when defeat seems inescapable.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)

Whatever is hateful to thee, do not to thy neighbor.
—The Talmud (Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith)

A great obstacle to happiness is to expect too much happiness.
—Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle (French Essayist)

The great and glorious masterpiece of man is to know how to live to purpose; all other things, to reign, to lay up treasure, to build, are at the most but mere appendixes and little props.
—Michel de Montaigne (French Philosopher)

Nothing so cements and holds together all the parts of a society as faith or credit, which can never be kept up unless men are under some force or necessity of honestly paying what they owe to one another.
—Cicero (Roman Philosopher)

I absolutely believe that people, unless coached, never reach their maximum capabilities.
—Robert Nardelli

Money is a terrible master but an excellent servant.
—P. T. Barnum (American Businessperson)