Inspirational Quotations

The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.
—Robert M. Pirsig (American Writer)

Carry on, no matter what happens. Hide your sorrows under a smile and carry on.
—Anonymous

Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper (English Poet)

The more you think of yourself as shining immortal spirit, the more eager you will be to be absolutely free of matter, body, and senses. This is the intense desire to be free.
—Swami Vivekananda (Indian Hindu Mystic)

The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.
—Theodore Isaac Rubin (American Psychiatrist)

We use a lot of experience and do it [investment returns] in our heads. We don’t like complexity and we distrust other systems and think it many times leads to false confidence. The harder you work, the more confidence you get. But you may be working hard on something that is false. We’re so afraid of that process so we don’t do it.
—Charlie Munger

Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible sun within us.
—Thomas Browne (English Christian Author)

The worst bankrupt in the world is the man who has lost his enthusiasm. Let a man lose everything else in the world but his enthusiasm and he will come through again to success.
—William Howard Arnold

Leadership usually gravitates to person who can say what he thinks.
—Anonymous

The essense of a warrior is to build an indomitable spirit and an iron will; to believe you cannot fail in doing anything.
—Miyamoto Musashi (Japanese Buddhist)

If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance.
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

We came to enjoy; we are being enjoyed. We came to rule; we are being ruled. We came to work; we are being worked. All the time, we find that. And this comes into every detail of our life.
—Swami Vivekananda (Indian Hindu Mystic)

Contemplate thy powers, contemplate thy wants and thy connections; so shalt thou discover the duties of life, and be directed in all thy ways.
—Akhenaten (Egyptian Monarch)

The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
—Walter Bagehot (English Businessperson)

We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.
—Cynthia Ozick

The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.
—Flora Whittemore

Don’t carry a grudge. While you’re carrying the grudge the other guy’s out dancing.
—Buddy Hackett (American Comedian)

The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.
—Christopher Hitchens (Anglo-American Essayist, Social Critic)

Enthusiasm is the leaping lightning, not to be measured by the horse-power of the understanding.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Philosopher)

When something does not insist on being noticed, when we aren’t grabbed by the collar or struck on the skull by a presence or an event, we take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.
—Cynthia Ozick

As the kindled fire consumes the fuel, so in the flame of wisdom the embers of action are burnt to ashes.
—The Bhagavad Gita (Hindu Scripture)

If we are to progress we must go forwards, not backwards. We can look backwards, we can learn from backwards, but we must not go backwards.
—Unknown

There’s no limit to what a man can achieve, if he doesn’t care who gets the credit.
—J. Laing Burns, Jr.

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
—Napoleon I (French Monarch)

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.
—Bertrand A. Russell (British Philosopher)

I recommend you to take care of the minutes, for the hours will take care of themselves.
—Earl of Chesterfield

The price of the democratic way of life is a growing appreciation of people’s differences, not merely as tolerable, but as the essence of a rich and rewarding human experience.
—Jerome Nathanson

It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.
—Edmund Hillary (New Zealander Explorer)

The soul never thinks without a mental picture.
—Aristotle (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

Nothing in life is more exciting and rewarding than the sudden flash of insight that leaves you a changed person not only changed, but for the better.
—Arthur Gordon

I’ve learned one thing during my time on the soccer fields:
It’s amazing how fast you can run
And the things you can do when you have a goal in mind.
It applies to the rest of my life, too.
—Unknown

Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control; these three alone lead one to sovereign power.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson (British Poet)

The wise learn from the experience of others, and the creative know how to make a crumb of experience go a long way.
—Eric Hoffer (American Philosopher)

What the mind can conceive and believe, and the heart desire, you can achieve.
—Norman Vincent Peale (American Clergyman, Self-Help Author)

Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.
—Epicurus (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

Freedom from the desire for an answer is essential to the understanding of a problem.
—Jiddu Krishnamurti (Indian Philosopher)

What ought one to say then as each hardship comes? “I was practicing for this, I was training for this.”
—Epictetus (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

A good intention clothes itself with power.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Philosopher)

To know a truth well, one must have fought it out.
—Novalis

Through zeal knowledge is gotten, through lack of zeal knowledge is lost; let a man who knows this double path of gain and loss thus place himself that knowledge may grow.
—The Dhammapada (Buddhist Anthology of Verses)

Many a man’s reputation would not know his character if they met on the street.
—Elbert Hubbard (American Writer)

You can be anything you want to be, if you only believe with sufficient conviction and act in accordance with your faith; for whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.
—Napoleon Hill (American Author)

The way of devotion is not different from the way of knowledge, or Jnana. When intelligence matures and lodges securely in the mind it becomes wisdom. When wisdom is integrated with life and becomes action it becomes Bhakti. Knowledge when it becomes fully mature is Bhakti. To believe that Jnana and Bhakti, knowledge and devotion, are different from each other is ignorance.
—Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari (Indian Hindu Political leader)

People are okay, it is their behavior that’s a problem sometimes.
—Ken Blanchard (American Author)

The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.
—Theodore Roosevelt (American Head of State)

I criticize by creation – not by finding fault.
—Cicero (Roman Philosopher)

The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already.
—John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir (Scottish Novelist)

A person in danger should not try to escape at one stroke. He should first calmly hold his own, then be satisfied with small gains, which will come by creative adaptations.
—I. Ching

A great part of life consists in contemplating what we cannot cure.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

Great work requires great and persistent effort for a long time. … Character has to be established through a thousand stumbles.
—Swami Vivekananda (Indian Hindu Mystic)

The rich invest in time; the poor invest in money.
—Warren Buffett (American Investor)

Time is really the only capital that any human being has, and the only thing he can’t afford to lose.
—Thomas Edison (American Inventor)

Here is a poem for your reflection:

Whoso has tasted the honey-sweet fruit from the stems of the lotus,
Nevermore wishes to leave it, and never once longs to go homeward;
There would he stay if he could, content, with the eaters of lotus,
Plucking and eating the lotus, forgetting that he was returning.”
* Homer, in ‘Odyssey’ (Translation: Edwin Arnold, from ‘Poets of Greece’)

I wish you and yours a happy New Year 2010.

May you be happy and successful. May you enjoy the honey-sweet fruit of well-being and serenity alluded to in the above poem. May you be filled with generosity and compassion.

May there be peace!

Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

If you believe you have a foolproof system, you’ve falied to take into consideration the creativity of fools.
—Frank Abagnale (American Fraudster)

You never conquer a mountain. You stand on the summit a few moments; then the wind blows your footprints away.
—Arlene Blum

He who waits to do a great deal of good at once, will never do anything.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

We should all be concerned about the future because we will have to spend the rest of our lives there.
—Charles F. Kettering (American Inventor)

Never frown because you never know who might be falling in love with your smile.
—Unknown

You are not what you think you are, but what you think, you are.
—Norman Vincent Peale (American Clergyman, Self-Help Author)

What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight; it’s the size of the fight in the dog.
—Unknown

To do great work a man must be very idle as well as very industrious.
—Samuel Butler

Spend time daily doing something you enjoy.|Do those things that bring inner peace.|Learn to laugh heartily and frequently.|Cultivate an attitude of hope.|Fill each day with as much love as it can possibly hold.
—Steve Goodier

We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.
—Cynthia Ozick

The spirit of a person’s life is ever shedding some power, just as a flower is steadily bestowing fragrance upon the air.
—Thomas Starr King (American Unitarian Minister)

The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him with his friendship.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Philosopher)

Selfishness is one of the qualities apt to inspire love.
—Nathaniel Hawthorne (American Novelist)

If you can’t state your position in eight words or less, you don’t have a position.
—Seth Godin (American Entrepreneur)

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
—Eleanor Roosevelt (American First Lady)

Sleep is the golden chain that ties health and our bodies together.
—Thomas Dekker

It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know.
—Henry David Thoreau (American Philosopher)

Don’t let the bozos grind you down.
—Guy Kawasaki (American Investor)

The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will become of you, depend on no one. Only the moment you reject all help are you free.
—Swami Vivekananda (Indian Hindu Mystic)

Who sees all beings in his own Self, and his own Self in all beings, loses all fear.
—The Upanishads

Conscience is the root of all true courage; if a man would be brave let him obey his conscience.
—James Freeman Clarke (American Unitarian Clergyman)

Ignorance is not bliss—it is oblivion.
—Philip Wylie (American Dramatist)

The first requisite for success is the ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem incessantly without growing weary.
—Thomas Edison (American Inventor)

The power of God is with you at all times; through the activities of mind, senses, breathing, and emotions; and is constantly doing all the work using you as a mere instrument.
—The Bhagavad Gita (Hindu Scripture)

We don’t accomplish anything in this world alone, and whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of one’s life and all the weavings of individual threads from one to another that creates something.
—Sandra Day O’Connor

It is not the brains that matter most, but that which guides them – the character, the heart, generous qualities, progressive ideas.
—Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Russian Novelist)

If you have the same ideas as everybody else but have them one week earlier than everyone else then you will be hailed as a visionary. But if you have them five years earlier you will be named a lunatic.
—Unknown

If you think about disaster, you will get it. Brood about death and you hasten your demise. Think positively and masterfully, with confidence and faith, and life becomes more secure, more fraught with action, richer in achievement and experience.
—Eddie Rickenbacker (American Military Leader)

The most gifted members of the human species are at their creative best when they cannot have their way, and most compensate for what they miss by realizing and cultivating their capabilities and talents.
—Eric Hoffer (American Philosopher)

Most people live and die with their music still unplayed. They never dare to try.
—Mary Kay Ash (American Entrepreneur)

I can’t do it never yet accomplished anything: I will try” has accomplished wonders.”
—George P. Putnam

An expert is a person who has found out by his own painful experience all the mistakes that one can make in a very narrow field.
—Niels Bohr (Danish Physicist)

Diligence is the mother of good luck, and God gives all things to industry. Work while it is called today, for you know not how much you may be hindered tomorrow. One today is worth two tomorrows; never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today.
—Benjamin Franklin (American Political leader)

The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterwards.
—Arthur Koestler

Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness; no laziness; no procrastination; never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day.
—Earl of Chesterfield

An expert is a person who has found out by his own painful experience all the mistakes that one can make in a very narrow field.
—Niels Bohr (Danish Physicist)

I am still determined to be cheerful and happy,
in whatever situation I may be; for I have also
learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness
or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.
—Martha Washington (American First Lady)

You cannot be a creator and a victim.
—Unknown