Inspirational Quotes

Never look down to test the ground before taking your next step; only he who keeps his eye fixed on the far horizon will find his right road.
Dag Hammarskjold

You can't be that kid standing at the top of the waterslide, overthinking it. You have to go down the chute.
Tina Fey

Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself.
Elie Wiesel

Women, like men, should try to do the impossible.
Amelia Earhart

Being right half the time beats being half-right all the time.
Malcolm Forbes

Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.
Edward Abbey

You will not become a saint through other people's sins.
Anton Chekhov

You are made in the image of what you desire.
Thomas Merton

Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.
Margaret Mead

It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to your enemies, but even more to stand up to your friends.
J.K. Rowling

The secret to being boring is to say everything.
Voltaire

Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts.
Edward R. Murrow

The less you speak of your greatness, the more I shall think of it.
Francis Bacon

Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.
Winston Churchill

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
William James

Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.
Oprah Winfrey

It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it.
Joseph Joubert

The only graceful way to accept an insult is to ignore it; if you can't ignore it, top it; if you can't top it, laugh at it; if you can't laugh at it, it's probably deserved.
Russell Lynes

Happiness is not the absence of problems but the ability to deal with them.
Baron de Montesquieu

Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.
Malachy McCourt

Laughter is the corrective force which prevents us from becoming cranks.
Henri Bergson

Mixing politics and religion is like mixing manure and ice cream. It doesn't do much to the manure, but it surely does ruin the ice cream.
Will Rogers

The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little.
Thomas Merton

The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.
Ernest Hemingway

The only way to let your dreams come true is to wake up.
Paul Valéry

There is nothing quite so tragic as a young cynic, because it means the person has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.
Maya Angelou

My face carries all of my memories. Why would I erase them?
Diane von Furstenberg

There's a sacredness in tears. They are not a mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than 10,000 tongues.
Washington Irving

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
Mahatma Gandhi

Intelligence is the effort to do the best you can at your particular job; the quality that gives dignity to that job, whether it happens to be scrubbing a floor or running a corporation.
J. C. Penney

Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. The only time you don't fail is the last time you try something, and it works. One fails forward toward success.
Charles F. Kettering

For changes to occur, we have to embrace them over and over. Take it step by step-- but keep moving forward--and a year from now, we'll find we've moved from here to there.
Rhonda Abrams

We cannot hide behind our boundaries, or hold onto the belief that we can survive alone.
Meg Wheatley

When you feel grateful, you become great, and eventually attract great things.
Plato

A leader's most powerful ally is his or her own example. Leaders don't just talk about doing something; they do it.
John Wooden

A man can succeed at almost anything for which he has unlimited enthusiasm.
Charles M. Schwab

Immense power is acquired by assuring yourself in your secret reveries that you were born to control affairs.
Andrew Carnegie

There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit.
Robert W. Woodruff

Some men see things as they are and ask, 'why?' I dream things that never were and ask, 'why not?'
George Bernard Shaw

No longer forward nor behind I look in hope or fear; But, grateful, take the good I find, the best of now and here.
John Greenleaf Whittier

No profit grows where is no pleasure taken . . . study what you most affect.
William Shakespeare

When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier.
Roy Disney

The quality of your attention determines the quality of other people's thinking.
Nancy Kline

One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.
Elbert Hubbard

Be like the bird that, passing on her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing that she hath wings.
Victor Hugo

This nation was built by men who took risks--pioneers who were not afraid of the wilderness, business men who were not afraid of failure, scientists who were not afraid of progress, dreamers who were not afraid of action.
Brooks Atkinson

Any committee is only as good as the most knowlegeable, determined, and vigorous person on it. There must be somebody who provides the flame.
Lady Bird Johnson

The great composer does not set to work because he is inspired, but becomes inspired because he is working.
Ernest Newman

Leaders--and you can take anyone from Roosevelt to Churchill to Reagan--inspire people with clear visions of how things can be done better. Some managers, on the other hand, muddle things with pointless complexity and detail.
Jack Welch

The artist should never try to be popular. The public should try to be more artistic.
Oscar Wilde

Don't be afraid of missing opportunities. Behind every failure is an opportunity somebody wishes they had missed.
Lily Tomlin

Advice is judged by results, not by intentions.
Cicero

Anyone who takes himself too seriously always runs the risk of looking ridiculous; anyone who can consistently laugh at himself does not.
Vaclav Havel

Rivers know this: There is no hurry. We shall get there some day.
A.A. Milne

The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.
Socrates

Don't ask what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
Howard Thurman

If you don't stick to your values when they're being tested, they're not values: They're hobbies.
Jon Stewart

Work is about a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread.
Studs Terkel

Human happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.
George Washington

Don't confuse being 'soft' with seeing the other guy's point of view.
George H.W. Bush

It is easy to work when the soul is at play.
Emily Dickinson

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all others.
Cicero

Never waste a minute thinking about people you don't like.
Dwight Eisenhower

Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has plenty; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
Charles Dickens

Even in a fake democracy, people ought to get what they want once in a while.
George Carlin

Don't surrender all your joy for an idea you used to have about yourself that isn't true anymore.
Cheryl Strayed

You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.
Cormac McCarthy

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life . . . Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
Steve Jobs

If you pluck the chicken one feather at a time, then people won't notice.
Benito Mussolini

Family values don't stop at the Rio Grande.
George W. Bush

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Martin Luther King Jr.

Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.
Walter Lippmann

The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.
Dolly Parton

Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction.
Ronald Reagan

It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.
George Washington

The true test of a man's character is what he does when no one is watching.
John Wooden

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.
Benjamin Franklin

There is at least one thing worse than fighting with allies--and that is to fight without them.
Winston Churchill

The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.
Harlan Ellison

It's fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.
Bill Gates

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.
Pablo Picasso

Every day on Earth's another chance to get it right.
Steve Earle

Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
Abraham Lincoln

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy

It is a sign of great inner insecurity to be hostile to the unfamiliar.
Anaïs Nin

Whatever is begun in anger, ends in shame.
Benjamin Franklin

A sure way to lose happiness, I found, is to want it at the expense of everything else.
Bette Davis

The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts.
John Locke

Greatness is not measured by what a man or woman accomplishes but by the opposition he or she has overcome to reach his goals.
Dorothy Height

The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.
Unknown

You don't have to be great to start but you have to start to be great.
Zig Ziglar

Sometimes you get the best light from a burning bridge.
Don Henley

People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.
Theodore Roosevelt

What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness?
John Steinbeck

If one listens to the wrong kind of music, he will become the wrong kind of person.
Aristotle

Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius, and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.
Marilyn Monroe

The things of the night cannot be explained in the day.
Ernest Hemingway

We condemn in others the wrong we don't want to face in ourselves.
Frederick Buechner

Far too many people are looking for the right person, instead of trying to be the right person.
Gloria Steinem

What they call you is one thing. What you answer to is something else.
Lucille Clifton