Looking for some inspirational quotes to help inspire you? Here is our collection of famous people in history, world leaders, authors, athletes, and more who have provided some keen insights over the ages. See MENU at the bottom of the page.
Shown in a Quick Glance format for your convenience, there’s something here for everyone. Just scroll down and have a look. First, there’s a menu of many of our motivational inspirational quotations pages. And don’t miss the content below the menu.
Learning from the wise is one way to head down the path to your own wisdom.
Great Inspirational Quotations
1.) Storms make oaks take roots.
Unknown
2.) We don’t see things the way they are. We see them the way we are.
Talmud
3.) The only job where you start at the top is digging a hole.
Unknown
4.) If the going is real easy, beware! You may be headed downhill.
Unknown
5.) There’s always free cheese in the mouse traps, but the mice there ain’t happy.
Unknown
6.) A big shot is a little shot that kept shooting.
Unknown
7.) The road to success is lined with many tempting parking spaces.
Unknown
8.) Be helpful. When you see a person without a smile, give them yours.
Zig Ziglar
Check out Quotes About Failure.
Funny Quotes on Life
9.) If at first, you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no use being a damn fool about it.
W.C. Fields
10.) In three words, I can sum up everything I know about life. It goes on.
Robert Frost
11.) You’ve got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was.
Irish proverb
12.) Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.
Will Rogers
13.) If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished?
Rumi
14.) The harder you fall, the higher you bounce.
Unknown
Good Inspiring Quotes
Success is not final; failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
Winston Churchill
The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.
Confucius
All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking.
Steve Jobs
Encouraging and Uplifting Quotes
Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.
Benjamin Franklin
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
Eleanor Roosevelt
As one goes through life, one learns that if you don’t paddle your own canoe, you don’t move.
Katherine Hepburn
I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
Maya Angelou
The single most important key to success is to be a good listener.
Kelly Wearstler
Money is like an arm or a leg – use it or lose it.
Henry Ford
Winston Churchill
If you’re going through hell, keep going.
History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.
Play for more than you can afford to lose, and you will learn the game.
Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others.
We are still masters of our fate. We are still captains of our souls.
Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.
The price of greatness is responsibility.
Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.
Never, never, never give up.
Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.
Confucius Sayings
Ask yourself constantly, “What is the right thing to do?”
Silence is the true friend that never betrays.
Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.
Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.
It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.
Wayne Dyer – Uplifting Quotes
The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about.
Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.
If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.
How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.
When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It’s to enjoy each step along the way.
Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life.
You cannot be lonely if you like the person you’re alone with.
When you judge another, you do not define them; you define yourself.
Famous Benjamin Franklin Quotes
There never was a good war or a bad peace.
In my youth, I traveled much, and I observed in different countries that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course, became poorer. And on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves and became richer.
A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.
Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain, and most fools do.
Blessed is he that expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.
The absent are never without fault, nor the present without excuse.
Inspiring Quotes For Graduates
There is no education like adversity.
Benjamin Disraeli
As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information.
Benjamin Disraeli
Diligence is the Mother of Good Luck.
Benjamin Franklin
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
Mahatma Gandhi
The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
Mahatma Gandhi
Motivational Quotes
Live as if you were to die tomorrow; learn as if you were to live forever.
Mahatma Gandhi
I have found that if you love life, life will love you back.
Arthur Rubinstein
Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds you plant.
Robert Louis Stevenson
The secret of getting ahead is getting started.
Mark Twain
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Lao Tzu
Great things never come from comfort zones.
Unknown
Mahatma Gandhi
I have not the shadow of a doubt that any man or woman can achieve what I have if he or she will make the same effort and have the same hope and faith.
You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.
An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.
First, they ignore you; then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
Nobody can hurt me without my permission.
Benjamin Disraeli
Justice is truth in action.
Experience is the child of thought, and thought is the child of action.
Success is the child of audacity.
Man is not the creature of circumstances. Circumstances are the creatures of man.
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.
Time is precious, but the truth is more precious than time.
Every production of genius must be the production of enthusiasm.
Change is inevitable. In a progressive country, change is constant.
Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forego an advantage.
When I want to read a novel, I write one.
Nurture your mind with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.
Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.
The greatest good you can do for another does not just share your riches but reveal to them their own.
Short Inspirational Quotations
Inspirational quotes that are quick and easy reads.
Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.
St. Francis of Assisi
Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising up every time we fail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
We can do anything we want to do if we stick to it long enough.
Helen Keller
Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.
Abraham Lincoln
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear, and the blind can see.
Mark Twain
I think everyone should be told they’re beautiful until they believe it.
Unknown
Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.
Nelson Mandela
Change your thoughts, and you change your world.
Norman Vincent Peale
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The hero is no braver than the ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.
When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.
The years teach much, which the days never know.
Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think.
Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.
Do what you know, and perception is converted into character.
Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes by making them the fruit of his character.
Every man has a right to be valued by his best moment.
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.
Famous Emerson Quotations
Every artist was first an amateur.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.
No great man ever complains of want of opportunities.
We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities.
Most of the shadows of this life are caused by our standing in our own sunshine.
Fractures well cured make us more strong.
Every calamity is a spur and a valuable hint.
A skillful man reads his dreams for self-knowledge, yet not the details but the quality.
Pope Francis
The royal road to peace is to see others not as enemies to be opposed but as brothers and sisters to be embraced.
The family is where we are formed as people. Every family is a brick in the building of society.
Even in the worst situation of life, God waits for me; God wants to embrace me, God expects me.
Ask yourselves this question: How often is Jesus inside and knocking at the door to be let out, to come out? And we do not let him out because of our own need for security because so often, we are locked into ephemeral structures that serve solely to make us slaves and not free children of God.
Instead of being just a church that welcomes and receives by keeping the doors open, let us also try to be a church that finds new roads, that can step outside itself and go to those who do not attend Mass, to those who have quit or are indifferent.
Our prayer cannot be reduced to an hour on Sundays. It is important to have a daily relationship with the Lord.
Steve Jobs
Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful, that’s what matters to me.
My favorite things in life don’t cost any money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.
It’s better to be a pirate than to join the navy.
You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.
Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.
I’m as proud of many of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done. Innovation is saying no to a thousand things.
Helen Keller
No better author to look at for inspirational quotes than Helen Keller.
True education combines intellect, beauty, goodness, and the greatest of these is goodness.
What we have once enjoyed, we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.
As selfishness and complaint pervert the mind, so love with its joy clears and sharpens the vision.
When we do the best we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life or in the life of another.
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light.
Abraham Lincoln
A friend is one who has the same enemies as you have.
No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.
Character is like a tree, and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
I walk slowly, but I never walk backward.
Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.
Mark Twain
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
Check out the official website of Mark Twain.
Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.
If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.
Will Rogers
Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.
I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else.
There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.
Check out the Official Will Rogers site.
Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.
Be thankful we’re not getting all the government we’re paying for.
Diplomacy is the art of saying ‘Nice doggie’ until you can find a rock.
Nothing is worth more than this day.
You cannot relive yesterday.
Tomorrow is still beyond our reach.
Too many people spend money they haven’t earned to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like.
Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
Never let yesterday use up too much of today.
Jim Rohn Reflections
If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.
Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present.
Never wish life were easier; wish that you were better.
Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.
Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.
If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.
Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.
Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.
Either you run the day, or the day runs you.
Wise Words For Inspiration
These inspirational quotes might help you get over the hump.
Doubt whom you will, but never yourself.
Christian Nestell Bovee
The more difficulties one has to encounter, within and without, the more significant and the higher in inspiration his life will be.
Horace Bushnell
Try not to become a man of success but a man of value.
Albert Einstein
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.
Wayne Gretzky
The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.
Joseph Campbell
In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous.
Robert G. Ingersoll
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.
Henry David Thoreau
Inspirational Sayings for a Positive Mind
Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
Unknown
Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.
Berthold Auerbach
Nothing in this world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty.
Theodore Roosevelt
If you would create something, you must be something.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Inspiration and genius — one and the same.
Victor Hugo
The question isn’t, “Who is going to let me?” it’s, “Who is going to stop me?”
Unknown
How To Use These Inspirational Quotations
So you’ve found a quote or two that you really like; what do you do with them? Well, here are a few ideas:
Text your friends and family the quote on a Monday morning.
Include it below the sign-off on all your emails for a couple of weeks.
Make a sign.
Post it on a bulletin board or the fridge at work.
Include it in a social media post.
If you’re a writer, begin a chapter with a quote.
If you’re a teacher, use it to inspire.
And, if you’re a coach, use your favorite inspirational quote to motivate.
Read a few to a friend or family member going through tough times.
One of the things the most successful people have in common is the ability to inspire people. Sometimes a well-written or well-spoken line can help in that arena. We hope you enjoyed it.
By Mike O’Halloran
Mike is an author and founder of Greeting Card Poet.
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