Inspirational Quotations

These quotations offer inspiring and uplifting wisdom and will hopefully brighten your day.

Showing 37 through 72 of 234 quotations in this category.

"We must dare to think 'unthinkable' thoughts. We must learn to explore all the options and possibilities that confront us in a complex and rapidly changing world. We must learn to welcome and not to fear the voices of dissent. We must dare to think about 'unthinkable things' because when things become unthinkable, thinking stops and action becomes mindless."

-James W. Fulbright

"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood.... Make big plans... aim high in hope and work."

-Daniel H. Burnham

"People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates."

-Thomas Szasz

"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."

-Albert Einstein

"Let us endeavor to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry."

-Mark Twain

"This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man."

-William Shakespeare

"If you would attain to what you are not yet, you must always be displeased by what you are. For where you are pleased with yourself there you have remained. Keep adding, keep walking, keep advancing."

-Saint Augustine

"Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within."

-James Baldwin

"That you may retain your self-respect, it is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right, than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong."

-William J.H. Boetcker

"One ought, everyday, to hear a song, read a fine poem, and, if possible, to speak a few reasonable words."

-Goethe

"I always remember an epitaph which is in the cemetery at Toombstone, Arizona. It says: "Here lies Jack Williams. He done his damnedest." I think that is the greatest epitaph a man can have."

-Harry Truman

"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting."

-e. e. cummings

"I share no man's opinions; I have my own."

-Ivan Turgenev

"If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut."

-Albert Einstein

"The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been."

-Henry Kissinger

"Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many."

-unknown

"Give me the fruitful error any time, full of seeds, bursting with its own corrections. You can keep your sterile truth for yourself."

-Vilfredo Pareto

"That a man is successful who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much, who has gained the respect of the intelligent men and the love of children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who leaves the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; who never lacked appreciation of earth's beauty or failed to express it; who looked for the best in others and gave the best he had."

-Robert Louis Stevenson

"If we deny love that is given to us, if we refuse to give love because we fear pain or loss, then our lives will be empty, our loss greater."

-unknown

"Let us treat men and women well; treat them as if they were real. Perhaps they are."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The only use of a knowledge of the past is to equip us for the present. The present contains all that there is. It is holy ground; for it is the past, and it is the future."

-Alfred North Whitehead

"If people talk negatively about you, live so that no one will believe them."

-unknown

"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

"What did you do today? Is anybody happier because you passed this way? Does anyone remember that you spoke today? The day is almost over, and its toiling time is through: Is there anyone to utter now a kindly word of you? Can you say tonight in parting with the day that's slipping fast, That you helped a single person of the many that you passed? Is a single heart rejoicing over what you did or said? Does the one whose hopes were fading now with courage look ahead? Did you waste the day or use it? Was it well or sorely spent? Did you leave a trail of kindness, or a scar of discontent? As you close you eyes in slumber, do you think that you can say: You have earned one more tomorrow by what you did today?"

-unknown

"There comes a time in each life like a point of fulcrum. At that time you must accept yourself. It is not any more what you will become. It is what you are and always will be."

-John Fowles

"The most important questions in life can never be answered by anyone except oneself."

-John Fowles

"One does not discover new continents without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time."

-Andre Gide

"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

"Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over."

-F. Scott Fitzgerald

"We are here on earth to do good for others. What the others are here for, I don't know."

-W. H. Auden

"If you stop searching, you stop living, because then you're dwelling in the past. If you're not reaching forward to any growth or future, you might as well be dead."

-Wynn Bullock

"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate now knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares."

-Henri Nouwen

"Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Leadership is practiced not so much in words as in attitude and in actions."

-Harold Geneen

"Security is mostly a superstition It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable."

-Helen Keller

"Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man."

-Proverbs 3:3-4