Inspirational Quotes


Our ideals are our better selves.
– Amos Bronson Alcott

What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.
– Plutarch

Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.
– Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.
– Aristotle Onassis

Your present circumstances don't determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start.
– Nido Qubein

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.
– Robert Louis Stephenson

Don't let the fear of striking out hold you back.
– Babe Ruth

Believe you can and you're halfway there.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Don't limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve.
– Mary Kay Ash
The meaning I picked, the one that changed my life: Overcome fear, behold wonder.
– Richard Bach
You are always free to change your mind and choose a different future, or a different past.
– Richard Bach
Tears of joy are like the summer rain drops pierced by sunbeams.
– Hosea Ballou
Every charitable act is a stepping stone toward heaven.
– Henry Ward Beecher
Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.
– Henry Ward Beecher
Happiness is the natural flower of duty.
– Phillip Brooks
Give light and people will find the way.
– Ella Baker
Try to be like the turtle - at ease in your own shell.
– Bill Copeland
Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold, happiness dwells in the soul.
– Democritus
I am prepared for the worst, but hope for the best.
– Benjamin Disraeli
I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.
– Jimmy Dean
Think with your whole body.
– Taisen Deshimaru
A human being has so many skins inside, covering the depths of the heart. We know so many things, but we don't know ourselves! Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, as thick and hard as an ox's or bear's, cover the soul. Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there.
– Meister Eckhart
God always gives His best to those who leave the choice with him.
– Jim Elliot
It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.
– Harry Emerson Fosdick
Whoever is happy will make others happy too.
– Anne Frank
A place for everything, everything in its place.
– Benjamin Franklin
If it were not for hopes, the heart would break.
– Dr. Thomas Fuller
In a gentle way, you can shake the world.
– Mahatma Gandhi
Be faithful to that which exists within yourself.
– Andre Gide
A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil.
– Victor Hugo
Ideas shape the course of history.
– John Maynard Keynes
Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.
– Martin Luther King, Jr.
In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself.
– Jiddu Krishnamurti
How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!
– John Muir
Hope is some extraordinary spiritual grace that God gives us to control our fears, not to oust them.
– Vincent McNabb
A #2 pencil and a dream can take you anywhere.
– Joyce A. Myers
Nothing makes one feel so strong as a call for help.
– Pope Paul VI
Of all human activities, man's listening to God is the supreme act of his reasoning and will.
– Pope Paul VI
Thinking: The talking of the soul with itself.
– Plato
When deeds speak, words are nothing.
– Pierre Joseph Proudhon
Joy descends gently upon us like the evening dew, and does not patter down like a hailstorm.
– Jean Paul Richter
It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.
– Anthony Robbins
We can change our lives. We can do, have, and be exactly what we wish.
– Anthony Robbins
Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present.
– Jim Rohn
With self-discipline most anything is possible.
– Theodore Roosevelt
We convince by our presence.
– Walt Whitman
Man never made any material as resilient as the human spirit.
– Bern Williams
God sleeps in the minerals, awakens in plants, walks in animals, and thinks in man.
– Arthur Young
Let each man exercise the art he knows.
– Aristophanes
It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.
– Anatole France
To me, the Seventies were very inspirational and very influential... With my whole persona as Snoop Dogg, as a person, as a rapper. I just love the Seventies style, the way all the players dressed nice, you know, kept their hair looking good, drove sharp cars and they talked real slick.
– Snoop Dogg
Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel.
– Augustus Hare
This CD became something of a personal journey for me. The tone of the whole CD is uplifting and inspirational. It's an upper. We have enough downers in the world.
– Roma Downey
There is nothing stronger in the world than gentleness.
– Han Suyin
There have been many different artists that have been inspirational. I suppose the question is directed to what was the reason why I went into fantasy illustration.
– Boris Vallejo
There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.
– Edith Wharton
The single most important thing in a child's performance is the quality of the teacher. Making sure a child spends the maximum amount of time with inspirational teachers is the most important thing.
– Michael Gove
The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.
– Ben Okri
The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.
– Thomas Jefferson
The flow of Guiness into the studio was inspirational as well as nutritive.
– Carter Burwell
The authentic self is the soul made visible.
– Sarah Ban Breathnach
Space is an inspirational concept that allows you to dream big.
– Peter Diamandis
So I wanted to sing inspirational music, and that's exactly how I approached it - only the words have been changed to declare my relationship with God.
– Smokey Robinson
Since we launched the original 'Pop Idol' in England, I've remained close with Simon Fuller. Working as executive producer on 'American idol' for its first seven years not only was an inspirational journey into the heart of American pop culture, it opened my eyes to the untapped potential of the incredibly dynamic young people in this world.
– Nigel Lythgoe
Show me your hands. Do they have scars from giving? Show me your feet. Are they wounded in service? Show me your heart. Have you left a place for divine love?
– Fulton J. Sheen
Rap music's been around for too long now to be inspirational. The words are, but the music isn't.
– Alexander McQueen
Put your heart, mind, and soul into even your smallest acts. This is the secret of success.
– Swami Sivananda
President Obama called for a 'we' nation in his Inauguration Address. Art convenes. It is not just inspirational. It is aspirational. It pricks the walls of our compartmentalized minds, opens our hearts and makes us brave. And that's what we need most in our country today.
– Anna Deavere Smith
Plant thy foot firmly in the prints which His foot has made before thee.
– Joseph Barber Lightfoot
One of the things that I did before I ran for president is I was a professional speaker. Not a motivational speaker - an inspirational speaker. Motivation comes from within. You have to be inspired. That's what I do. I inspire people, I inspire the public, I inspire my staff. I inspired the organizations I took over to want to succeed.
– Herman Cain
Nothing is impossible, the word itself says 'I'm possible'!
– Audrey Hepburn
Noble deeds that are concealed are most esteemed.
– Blaise Pascal
My tastes and inspirational artists were always rather eclectic and diverse.
– Taylor Dayne
Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.
– Albert Camus
Look at a football field. It looks like a big movie screen. This is theatre. Football combines the strategy of chess. It's part ballet. It's part battleground, part playground. We clarify, amplify and glorify the game with our footage, the narration and that music, and in the end create an inspirational piece of footage.
– Steve Sabol
Let us dream of tomorrow where we can truly love from the soul, and know love as the ultimate truth at the heart of all creation.
– Michael Jackson
Lee's great gifts are teaching and inspirational guidance, not administration and management.
– Cheryl Crawford
Learning how to be still, to really be still and let life happen - that stillness becomes a radiance.
– Morgan Freeman
It's inspirational to see someone who is dying smile.
– Arlen Specter
It is only in sorrow bad weather masters us in joy we face the storm and defy it.
– Amelia Barr
It is always the simple that produces the marvelous.
– Amelia Barr
In fact, I wouldn't really call this a Gospel album, I call it more an inspirational album.
– Smokey Robinson
I've done a lot of albums and I kinda know when I'm onto something that was inspirational for me to record and create, and this was one of those projects where I really enjoyed making the album.
– Lee Ritenour
I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life - and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.
– Georgia O'Keeffe
I'd like to one day be featured on a list of inspirational people who have made a difference in the world, whether it be helping underprivileged people or putting an end to the poaching of wildlife in Africa.
– Candice Swanepoel
I will always desire to play with Bruce Springsteen. He's the most inspirational, most dedicated, most committed and most focused artist I've ever seen. I like to be around people like that.
– Max Weinberg
I wanted to do something inspirational for my children.
– Harvey Weinstein
I used to make up stuff in my bio all the time, that I used to be a professional ice-skater and stuff like that. I found it so inspirational. Why not make myself cooler than I am?
– Stephen Colbert
I try not to put anything political on the forefront of what I'm trying to do creatively. At the same time, I do think it's wonderful when I hear people say that it's inspirational that I'm an Indian woman on camera. My life is very diverse, and my friends are a diverse group of people.
– Mindy Kaling
I think the end goal, hopefully, is to take advantage of the attention I've gotten along the way and use it for good and build some communities, and as I get older I can continue to do things and be surrounded by things that are inspirational to me.
– Reggie Watts
I love inspirational R&B, like Mary J. Blige and Jennifer Hudson. I want to do that. That kind of music stays with you.
– Ashthon Jones
I love a lot of the New York bands, but Patti Smith stands out. I just read 'Just Kids' and it's an inspirational, well-written account of an emerging New York artist in the late seventies.
– James Iha
I have looked into your eyes with my eyes. I have put my heart near your heart.
– Pope John XXIII
I grew up in a bookless house - my parents didn't read poetry, so if I hadn't had the chance to experience it at school I'd never have experienced it. But I loved English, and I was very lucky in that I had inspirational English teachers, Miss Scriven and Mr. Walker, and they liked us to learn poems by heart, which I found I loved doing.
– Carol Ann Duffy
I do love to eavesdrop. It's inspirational, not only for subject matter but for actual dialogue, the way people talk.
– Lynda Barry
I believe there's an inner power that makes winners or losers. And the winners are the ones who really listen to the truth of their hearts.
– Sylvester Stallone
I believe that one defines oneself by reinvention. To not be like your parents. To not be like your friends. To be yourself. To cut yourself out of stone.
– Henry Rollins
I arise full of eagerness and energy, knowing well what achievement lies ahead of me.
– Zane Grey
I am very conscious of who I am as an artist and as an inspirational person.
– R. Kelly
I am deliberate and afraid of nothing.
– Audre Lorde