Inspirational Quotations

You’ll always miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
—Wayne Gretzky (Canadian Sportsperson)

Be this his praise, if praise be needed, as a father he succeeded.
—Edgar Guest (English-born American Poet)

Freedom to many means immediate betterment, as if by magic. Unless I can meet at least some of these aspirations, my support will wane and my head will roll just as surely as the tickbird follows the rhino.
—Julius Nyerere

My bounty is as boundless as the sea,|My love as deep; the more I give to thee,|The more I have, for both are infinite.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

Perhaps love is the process of my leading you gently back to yourself. Not to whom I want you to be, but to who you are.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery (French Novelist, Aviator)

A life without love is like a year without summer.
—Swedish Proverb

More children are punished for copying their parents, than for disobeying them. We should be what we want to see.
—Unknown

Time and money spent in helping men do more for themselves is far better than mere giving.
—Henry Ford (American Businessperson)

I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.
—Ernest Hemingway (American Author)

You’ll never prove you’re too good for a job by not doing your best.
—Ethel Merman (American Actor)

You miss 100% of the shots you never take.
—Wayne Gretzky (Canadian Sportsperson)

Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.|The soul that knows it not, knows no release from little things;|Knows not the livid loneliness of fear;|Nor mountain heights where bitter joy can hear|The sound of wings.
—Amelia Earhart (American Aviator)

Motivate them, train them, care about them, and make winners out of them… they’ll treat the customers right. And if customers are treated right, they’ll come back.
—J. W. Marriott, Jr. (American Businessperson)

Better is the enemy of good.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher)

Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.
—Hermann Hesse (German-born Swiss Poet)

There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.
—Beverly Sills (American Singer)

Fear and guilt are unpleasant bedfellows who disturb our sleep.
—Unknown

There are two big forces at work, external and internal. We have very little control over external forces such as tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, disasters, illness, and pain. What really matters is the internal force. How do I respond to those disasters? Over that, I have complete control.
—Leo Buscaglia (American Motivational Speaker)

Nonchalance is the ability to remain down to earth when everything else is up in the air.
—Earl Wilson

A friendship can weather most silly things and thrive in thin soil – but it needs a little mulch of letters and phone calls and small silly presents every so often – just to save it from drying out completely.
—Pam Brown

Why not go out on a limb? That’s where the fruit is.
—Will Rogers (American Actor)

What happens is not as important as how you react to what happens.
—Thaddeus Golas

Of course all life is a process of breaking down, but the blows that do the dramatic side of the work – the big sudden blows that come, or seem to come, from outside – the ones you remember and blame things on and, in moments of weakness, tell your friends about, don’t show their effect all at once. There is another sort of blow that comes from within – that you don’t feel until it’s too late to do anything about it, until you realize with finality that in some regard you will never be as good a man again. The first sort of breakage seems to happen quick – the second kind happens almost without your knowing it but is realized suddenly indeed. Before I go on with this short history, let me make a general observation – the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (American Novelist)

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.
—Mark Twain (American Humorist)

If you call one thing good, you must call its opposite bad. If you think it wonderful to make a big profit in your business, you will also think it terrible if you incur a large loss. The idea is to live above the opposites.
—Vernon Howard

What a luxury it is to spend time with old friends … talking, as old friends should talk, about nothing, about everything.
—Lillian Hellman (American Playwright)

I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.
—Kurt Vonnegut (American Novelist)

If everyone were clothed with integrity, if every heart were just, frank, kindly, the other virtues would be well-nigh useless, since their chief purpose is to make us bear with patience the injustice of our fellows.
—Moliere (French Playwright)

The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, nor to worry about the future, or not to anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.
—Buddhist Teaching

Things that were hard to bear are sweet to remember.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (Roman Philosopher)

Courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike deepest in the grateful and appreciating heart.
—Henry Clay (American Politician)

The question is not how many years are in your life, but how much life is in your years.
—Anonymous

Inspire me with love for my art and for thy creatures. In the sufferer let me see only the human being.
—Moses Maimonides

Your children will see what you’re all about by what you live rather than what you say.
—Wayne Dyer (American Motivational Writer)

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Courage has genius, power, and magic in it. Only engage, and then the mind grows heated. Begin it and the work is completed.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

Love is always open arms. If you close your arms about love, you will find that you are left holding only yourself.
—Leo Buscaglia (American Motivational Speaker)

It’s attitude, not aptitude, that affects your altitude.
—Unknown

Whatever you do or dream you can do – begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.
—Dale Carnegie (American Author)

If what you are doing is not moving you toward your goals, then it’s moving you away from your goals.
—Brian Tracy (American Author)

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
—Mary Oliver (American Poet)

Make each day a Masterpiece.
—John Wooden (American Sportsperson)

Skill and confidence are an unconquered army.
—George Herbert (Welsh Anglican Poet)

Dreams don’t come true. Dreams are true.
—Anonymous

And what is laughter anyway? Changing the angle of vision. That is what you love a friend for: the ability to change your angle of vision, bring back your best self when you feel worst, remind you of your strengths when you feel weak.
—Erica Jong (American Novelist)

Life gives us tragedies and heartaches, but it also gives us reasons to celebrate, and we must not allow the tragedies to stop us celebrating the good times, but celebrate them all the more.
—Rudy Giuliani (American Politician)

Execution is the job of the business leader.
—Lawrence Bossidy

Nobody gives you power. You just take it.
—Unknown

The trouble with opportunity is that it only knocks. Temptation kicks the door in.
—Unknown

Always remember, look forwards not back, believing in making your dreams all come true. Always believe in the best you can be and have faith in the things that you do.
—Unknown

Some people think it’s holding on that
makes one strong. Sometimes it’s letting go.
—Sylvia Robinson

The thing that matters is not what you bear, but how you bear it.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (Roman Philosopher)

Everything a human being wants can be divided into four components: love, adventure, power and fame.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

Wait not till tomorrow, what can be done today. For you do not know what tomorrow may bring.
—Anonymous

You should respect each other and refrain from disputes; you should not, like water and oil, repel each other, but should, like milk and water, mingle together.
—Buddhist Teaching

No matter how much progress one makes, there is always the thrill of just beginning.
—Robert H. Goddard (American Inventor)

A hug is the body’s battery re-charge.
—Unknown

I do like a little bit of butter to my bread.
—A. A. Milne (English Children’s Books Writer)

Being reproached for giving to an unworthy person, Aristotle said, ‘I did not give it to the man, but to humanity.’
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher)

A friend is someone with whom you dare to be yourself.
—Frank Hall Crane

Always follow your heart, it’s the one thing stronger than your mind.
—Rob Niemeyer

If we wish to free ourselves from enslavement, we must choose freedom and the responsibility this entails.
—Leo Buscaglia (American Motivational Speaker)

A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.
—Charles Darwin (British Naturalist)

Winners find reasons to …|Losers find excuses not to.
—Unknown

Those who do too much for their children, will soon discover they can do nothing with their children.
—Neal A. Maxwell (American Mormon Religious Leader)

From the moment it is touched, the heart cannot dry up.
—Louis Bourdaloue

I expect nothing. I fear no one. I am free.
—Nikos Kazantzakis (German Greek Philosopher)

No smile is as beautiful as the one that struggles through tears.
—Unknown

The secret of success is this: there is no secret of success.
—Elbert Hubbard (American Writer)

A friend is a person who knows all about you-and still likes you.
—Elbert Hubbard (American Writer)

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own.And you know what you know. You are the guy who’ll decide where to go.
—Theodor Seuss Geisel (‘Dr. Seuss’) (American Children’s Books Writer)

Nature arms each man with some faculty which enables him to do easily some feat impossible to any other, and thus makes him necessary to society.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Philosopher)

Genius is the ability to put into effect what is on your mind.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (American Novelist)

We are judged by our actions, not our intentions. We may have a heart of gold, but so does a hardboiled egg.
—Unknown

When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is usually the reputation of the business that remains intact.
—Warren Buffett (American Investor)

Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.
—Agnes de Mille (American Dancer)

Mourning is not the index of true love. It reflects love of the object, of its shape only, but that is not love. True love is shown by the certainty that the object of love is in the Self and that it can never become non-existent.
—Ramana Maharshi (Indian Hindu Mystic)

Success is getting and achieving what you want. Happiness is wanting and being content with what you get.
—Bernard Meltzer (American Radio Personality)

The heart has its reasons, which Reason does not know. We feel it in a thousand things. It is the heart which feels God, and not Reason. This, then, is perfect faith: God felt in the heart.
—Blaise Pascal (French Catholic Mathematician)

Be silent, or speak something worth hearing.
—Unknown

Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.
—Guillaume Apollinaire (Italian-born French Poet)

Every man is his own chief enemy.
—Anacharsis (Scythian Philosopher)

Every grown-up man consists wholly of habits, although he is often unaware of it and even denies having any habits at all.
—Georges Gurdjieff (Armenian Philosopher)

To fall into a habit is to begin to cease to be.
—Miguel de Unamuno (Spanish Essayist)

Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life. Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism. Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make yourself a happier and more productive person.
—David M. Burns

How does the meadow flower its bloom unfold? Because the lovely little flower is free down to its root, and in that freedom bold.
—William Wordsworth (English Poet)

Every man is his own worst enemy.
—Common Proverb

Life can be found only in the present moment. The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life.
—Thich Nhat Hanh (Vietnamese Buddhist Religious Leader)

Courage and modesty are the most unequivocal of virtues, for they are of a kind that hypocrisy cannot imitate; they too have this quality in common, that they are expressed by the same color.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
—Ursula K. Le Guin (Science-fiction writer)

Where there is joy there is creation. Where there is no joy there is no creation: know the nature of joy.
—The Upanishads

In any family, measles are less contagious than bad habits.
—Mignon McLaughlin (American Journalist)

Habit is a cable.—We weave a thread of it every day, and at last we cannot break it.
—Horace Mann (American Educator)

Men’s natures are alike; it is their habits that separate them.
—Confucius (Chinese Philosopher)

Habit with him was all the test of truth; “it must be right, I’ve done it from my youth.”
—George Crabbe

Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.
—Mark Twain (American Humorist)

Showing a profit means touching something and leaving it better than you found it.
—Jim Rohn (American Entrepreneur)

Strength does not come from strength, but the denial of having strength.|Weakness does not come from weakness, but the denial of having weakness.
—Unknown