Frank Zappa once said, “A mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it is not open.”
Inspirational quotes about life help inspire and motivate us. They can help us through good times and bad. They are a resource to help us with our thinking.
Peruse the quotes below to see if they challenge you to be your best self.
Best Inspirational Quotes About Living
1.) It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly.
Isaac Asimov
2.) Nothing is predestined: The obstacles of your past can become the gateways that lead to new beginnings.
Ralph Blum
3.) In the midst of winter, I found there was within me an invincible summer.
Albert Careb
4.) In prosperity, our friends know us; in adversity, we know our friends.
John Churton Collins
5.) Times of great calamity and confusion have ever been productive of the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace, and the brightest thunderbolt is elicited from the darkest storm.
Charles Caleb Colton
6.) The man of virtue makes the difficulty to be overcome his first business and success only a subsequent consideration.
Confucius
7.) A gentleman can withstand hardships; it is only the small man who, when submitted to them, is swept off his feet.
Confucius
8.) A problem is a chance for you to do your best.
Duke Ellington
9.) Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune, but great minds rise above them.
Washington Irving
10.) Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win.
Jonathan Kozol
11.) A good archer is known not by his arrows but by his aim.
Thomas Fuller
12.) Adversity is the mother of progress.
Mahatma Gandhi
Pope Francis’s Inspirational Quotes
13.) However dark things are, goodness always re-emerges and spreads. Each day in our world, beauty is born anew.
14.) Practicing charity is the best way to evangelize.
15.) God’s forgiveness is stronger than any sin.
16.) To change the world, we must be good for those who cannot repay us.
17.) A little bit of mercy makes the world less cold and more just.
18.) The secret of Christian living is love. Only love fills the empty spaces caused by evil.
19.) Dear young people, do not bury your talents, the gifts that God has given you! Do not be afraid to dream of great things!
20.) Let us ask the Lord for the grace not to speak badly of others, not to criticize, not to gossip, but rather to love everyone.
Mark Twain Quotations
21.) Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
22.) If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember everything.
23.) To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.
Henry David Thoreau Inspirational Quotes
24.) All misfortune is but a stepping stone to fortune.
25.) Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.
26.) You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.
Lord Byron Sayings
27.) Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine.
28.) Adversity is the first path to truth
29.) There is no instinct like that of the heart.
About Life Journey Inspirational Quotes
30.) Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that made all the difference.
Robert Frost
31.) Success in the affairs of life often serves to hide one’s abilities, whereas adversity frequently gives one an opportunity to discover them.
Horace
32.) Adversity is wont to reveal genius, prosperity to hide it.
Horace
33.) It is interesting to notice how some minds seem almost to create themselves, springing up under every disadvantage and working their solitary but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles.
Washington Irving
34.) The rays of happiness, like those of light, are colorless when unbroken.
Henry W. Longfellow
35.) Look not mournfully into the past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the present, it is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future without fear and with a manly heart.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
36.) Don’t bunt. Aim out of the ballpark.
David Ogilvy
37.) Misfortunes often sharpen the genius.
Ovid
38.) There is no excellence uncoupled with difficulties.
Ovid
39.) Aspiring minds must sometimes sustain loss.
Plato
Noteworthy Sayings
40.) There are two things to aim at in life; first, to get what you want, and after that, to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind has achieved the second.
Logan Pearsall Smith
41.) All sunshine makes the desert.
Proverb
42.) It is not enough to take steps that may someday lead to a goal; each step must be itself a goal and a step likewise.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
43.) Who aims at excellence will be above mediocrity; who aims at mediocrity will be far short of it.
Unknown
44.) In the absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily acts of trivia.
Unknown
45.) Good fortune and bad are equally necessary to man to fit him to meet the contingencies of this life.
Unknown
Inspirational Quotes About Change
46.) If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant. If it did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.
Charlotte Bronte
47.) Adversity is the first path to truth.
Lord Byron
48.) A wise man adapts himself to circumstances as water shapes itself to the vessel that contains it.
Chinese Proverb
49.) Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater.
William Hazlitt
50.) Problems are only opportunities in work clothes.
Henry J. Kaiser
51.) It is the surmounting of difficulties that makes heroes.
Louis Kossuth
52.) A man can be as great as he wants to be. If you believe in yourself and have the courage, determination, dedication, the competitive drive, and if you are willing to sacrifice the little things in life and pay the price for the things that are worthwhile, it can be done.
Vince Lombardi
53.) Wherever we look upon this earth, the opportunities take shape within the problems.
Nelson A. Rockefeller
Inspiring William Shakespeare Quotations
54.) Sweet are the uses of adversity, which like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.
William Shakespeare
55.) A wretched soul, bruis’d with adversity, We bid be quiet when we hear it cry; But were we burthen’d with like weight of pain, As much, or more, we should ourselves complain.
William Shakespeare
56.) Surmounted difficulties not only teach but hearten us in our future struggles.
James Sharp
57.) Adversity introduces a man to himself.
Unknown
For Yearbooks
58.) All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.
Walt Disney
59.) I have spread my dreams beneath your feet. Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
W.B. Yeats
60.) Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.
Henry David Thoreau
61.) Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.
Harriet Tubman
62.) Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.
Pamela Vaull Starr
63.) It is precisely the possibility of realizing a dream that makes life interesting.
Paulo Coelho
64.) I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
Patrick Henry
65.) All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes to make it possible.
T.E. Lawrence
Inspiring Sayings for Yearbook
66.) Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.
Henry David Thoreau
67.) The end of wisdom is to dream high enough not to lose the dream in the seeking of it.
William Faulkner
68.) Those who lose dreaming are lost.
Unknown
69.) No one has ever achieved anything from the smallest to the greatest unless the dream was dreamed first.
Laura Ingalls Wilder
70.) Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.
Lanston Hughes
71.) The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
Eleanor Roosevelt
72.) Not to dream boldly may turn out to be simply irresponsible.
George Leonard
73.) Commitment leads to action. Action brings your dream closer.
Marcia Wieder
74.) Dreams are the touchstones of our character.
Henry David Thoreau
75.) The question for each man to settle is not what he would do if he had means, time, influence, and educational advantages; the question is what he will do with the things he has. The moment a young man ceases to dream or to bemoan his lack of opportunities and resolutely looks his conditions in the face and resolves to change them, he lays the cornerstone of a solid and honorable success.
Hamilton Wright Mabie
76.) The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.
Paul Valery
77.) To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.
Unknown
78.) You can do anything, but not everything.
Unknown
79.) The ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.
Unknown
80.) Just when the caterpillar thought the world was ending, he turned into a butterfly.
Unknown
Life Lessons Quotes and Proverbs
81.) It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.
Chinese Proverb
82.) We don’t know one-millionth of one percent about anything.
Thomas Edison
83.) Anyone who has never made a mistake
has never tried anything new.
Albert Einstein
84.) Our waking hours form the text of our lives, our dreams, the commentary.
Unknown
85.) Hope is the dream of the waking man.
Proverb
86.) If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true were really true,
there would be little hope of advance.
Orville Wright
87.) I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.
Wayne Gretzky
88.) Perfect is the enemy of the good.
Voltaire
Key learnings
89.) Never say more than is necessary.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
90.) You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
Mahatma Gandhi
91.) Being content creates simplicity in life.
John Heider
92.) Seek not, my soul, the life of the immortals; but enjoy to the full the resources that are within thy reach.
Pindar
93.) In teaching history, there should be extensive discussion of personalities who benefited mankind through independence of character and judgment.
Albert Einstein
94.) Don’t compromise yourself. You are all you’ve got.
Janis Joplin
95.) There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because his conscience tells him it is right…
Martin Luther
96.) That which does not kill you makes you stronger.
Nietzsche
97.) We always strive after what is forbidden and desire the things refused us.
Ovid
98.) When one door closes, another opens. But often, we look so long, so regretfully upon the closed door that we fail to see the one that has opened for us.
Helen Keller
99.) There is time for everything.
Thomas A. Edison
100.) I demolish my bridges behind me — then there is no choice but to move forward.
Fridtjof Nansen
Inspirational Quotes On Character
101.) The worst thing you can try to do is cling to something that is gone or to recreate it.
Johnette Napolitano
102.) You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters are continually flowing on.
Heraclitus
103.) Happiness does not depend on outward things but on the way we see them.
Leo Tolstoy
104.) The art of living lies less in eliminating our troubles than in growing with them.
Bernard M. Baruch
105.) Be your character what it will, it will be known, and nobody will take it upon your word.
Lord Chesterfield
106.) Nothing of character is really permanent but virtue and personal worth.
Daniel Webster
107.) Character is like a tree, and reputation is like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
Abraham Lincoln
108.) Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right path. The final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.
Anne Frank
Integrity
109.) The essential thing is not knowledge but character.
Joseph Le Conte
110.) The great hope of society is individual character.
William Ellery Channing
111.) A good name will shine forever.
Unknown
112.) A fair reputation is a plant, delicate in its nature and by no means rapid in its growth. It will not shoot up in a night like the gourd of the prophet, but, like that gourd, it may perish in a night.
Jeremy Taylor
113.) Talents are best nurtured in solitude. Character is best formed in the stormy billows of the world.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
114.) Our character is but the stamp on our souls of the free choices of good and evil we have made through life.
John C. Geikie
115.) It matters not what you are thought to be but what you are.
Publilius Syrus
Life Quotes
116.) In the stormy current of life, characters are weights or floats, which at one time make us glide along the bottom and at another maintain us on the surface.
Hippolyte Taine
117.) Character is what you think in the dark.
Dwight L. Moody
118.) Character is the real foundation of all worthwhile success.
John Hays Hammond
119.) A man’s character is like his shadow, which sometimes follows and sometimes precedes him, and which is occasionally longer, occasionally shorter than he is.
Madame de la Rochejuquelein
120.) Every man, as to character, is the creature of the age in which he lives. Very few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of their times.
Voltaire
121.) It is of little traits that the greatest human character is composed.
William Winter
122.) Character is perfectly educated will.
Novalis
The Importance of Character
Here are some positive quotes to inspire you.
123.) Character is the result of two things: Mental attitude and the way we spend our time.
Elbert Hubbard
124.) Character and personal force are the only investments that are worth anything.
Walt Whitman
125.) Every thought willingly contemplated, every word meaningly spoken, every action freely done, consolidates itself in the character and will project itself onward in a permanent continuity.
Henry Giles
126.) Character is, for the most part, simply a habit becoming fixed.
C. H. Parkhurst
127.) Character is, in the long run, the decisive factor in the life of individuals and of nations alike.
Theodore Roosevelt
128.) Go back a little to leap further.
John Clarke
129.) It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.
Theodore Roosevelt
Favorite Inspirational Quotes
130.) Half of the failures in life come from pulling one’s horse when he is leaping.
Thomas Hood
131.) I failed my way to success.
Thomas Edison
132.) If people take anything from my music, it should be motivation to know that anything is possible as long as you keep working at it and don’t back down.
Eminem
133.) Be like the flower that gives fragrance even to the hand that crushes it.
Ali Ibn Abi Talib
134.) You do not find the happy life. You make it.
Camilla Eyring Kimball
135.) Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.
Oprah Winfrey
136.) Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
137.) You will face many defeats in life, but never let yourself be defeated.
Maya Angelou
138.) The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling but in rising every time we fall.
Nelson Mandela
139.) Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.
Babe Ruth
140.) Keep smiling because life is a beautiful thing, and there’s so much to smile about.
Marilyn Monroe
141.) Life is a long lesson in humility.
James M. Barrie
142.) Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: Only love can do that.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Short Motivational Quotes
143.) When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.
Paulo Coelho
144.) Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.
Oscar Wilde
145.) I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.
Michael Jordan
146.) Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit.
Conrad Hilton
147.) A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
148.) Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.
Malcolm X
149.) Learn from yesterday. Live for today. Hope for tomorrow.
Albert Einstein
150.) If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
Dalai Lama
151.) All adventures, especially into new territory, are scary.
Sally Ride
152.) I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.
Thomas Jefferson
153.) Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.
Steve Jobs
154.) Life is trying things to see if they work.
Ray Bradbury
155.) Genius is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration.
Thomas Edison
156.) Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.
Robert Louis Stevenson
157.) The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Inspiring Insights
158.) The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.
Steve Jobs
159.) Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.
Albert Einstein
160.) Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.
John D. Rockefeller
161.) Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius, and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.
Marilyn Monroe
162.) Everything you can imagine is real.
Pablo Picasso
163.) My mission in life is not merely to survive but to thrive.
Maya Angelou
164.) Try to be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud.
Maya Angelou
165.) Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.
Marcus Aurelius
166.) Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass; it’s about learning to dance in the rain.
Vivian Greene
167.) The two most important days in your life are the day you’re born, and the day you find out why.
Mark Twain
168.) It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.
Erma Bombeck
Funny Inspirational Quotes
169.) Work until your bank account looks like a phone number.
Unknown
170.) Nothing is impossible; the word itself says, “I’m possible!
Audrey Hepburn
171.) The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking spaces.
Will Rogers
170.) By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day.
Robert Frost
172.) The light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off due to budget cuts.
Unknown
173.) A clear conscience is a sure sign of a bad memory.
Mark Twain
174.) Always remember that you are unique – just like everybody else.
Unknown
175.) Trying is the first step toward failure.
Homer Simpson
176.) Bad decisions make good stories.
Ellis Vidler
177.) If you let your head get too big, it’ll break your neck.
Elvis Presley
178.) I used to think I was indecisive, but now I’m not so sure.
Unknown
179.) When tempted to fight fire with fire, remember that the Fire Department usually uses water.
Unknown
180.) Be happy – it drives people crazy.
Unknown
181.) Be happy; it drives people crazy.
Paulo Coelho
182.) The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.
Bill Watterson
183.) To succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone, and a funny bone.
Reba McEntire
Humorous Quotes to Inspire
184.) Always laugh when you can; it is cheap medicine.
Lord Byron
185.) Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning, and you think, ‘I’m not going to make it’, but you laugh inside remembering all the times you’ve felt that way.
Charles Bukowski
186.) Listen, smile, agree, and then do whatever you were gonna do anyway.
Robert Downey Jr.
187.) Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”
Dr. Seuss
188.) You can’t have everything. Where would you put it?
Steven Wright
189.) I have to be successful because I like expensive things.
Unknown
190.) People who fly into a rage always make a bad landing.
Will Rogers
191.) Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger.
Franklin P. Jones
192.) Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.
William James
193.) I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.
Lily Tomlin
194.) Some people are like clouds: when they disappear, it’s a beautiful day.
Unknown
195.) People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.
A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh
196.) If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.
Patches O’Houlihan
Hilarious Takes
197.) If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.
Yogi Berra
198.) A mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it is not open.
Frank Zappa
199.) Even a stopped clock is right twice every day. After some years, it can boast of a long series of successes.
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
200.) We never really grow up; we only learn how to act in public.
Bryan White
201.) What if the “Hokey Pokey” is what it’s all about?
Unknown
202.) I’m sick of following my dreams, man. I’m just going to ask where they’re going and hook up with ’em later.
Mitch Hedberg
By Mike O’Halloran
Mike is the founder and editor of Sports Feel Good Stories.
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