This a personal collection of some of my favorite quotes.
The list you see below is not comprehensive, but ongoing.
I have assembled the best inspirational quotes, particularly those that consistently motivate me to start taking action, and applied them. It is my hope and purpose that some of these simple, powerful quotes bring your purpose to life.
These quotes are for my personal inspiration and yours as well. I read and update this page often, so feel free to check back from time to time.
“Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself.”
-Mark Twain
“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”
-St. Augustine
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
-Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love
“Entering into the Infinite is not a mere theory or sentiment. It is a vital experience which is the result of assiduous practice in inward purification. When the body is no longer believed to be, even remotely, the real man; when all appetites and desires are thoroughly subdued and purified; when the emotions are rested and calm, and when the oscillation of the intellect ceases and perfect poise is secured, then, and not till then, does consciousness become one with the Infinite; not until then is childlike wisdom and profound peace secured.”
–James Allen
“Forget mistakes. Forget failure. Forget everything except what you’re going to do now and do it. Today is your lucky day.”
-William Durant
“To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art.”
-La Rochefoucauld
“You don’t know how lucky you are being a monkey. Because consciousness is a terrible curse. I think. I feel. I suffer. And all I ask in return is the opportunity to do my work. And they won’t allow it… because I raise issues.”
“Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”
― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
“If you don’t think everyday is a good day, just try missing one.”
-Cavett Robert
“We are always works in progress. You will hurt people you love, and help people you detest. This is called being a human and it happens to everyone.”
-Adam Savage
“The sum of evil, Pascal remarked, would be much diminished if men could only learn to sit quietly in their rooms.”
-Aldous Huxley
“I will greet this day with love in my heart. And how will I do this? From now on I will look on all things with love and be born again. I will love the sun for it warms my bones; yet I will love the rain for it cleanses my spirit.
I will love the light for it shows me the way; yet I will love the darkness for it shows me the stars. I will welcome happiness as it enlarges my heart; yet I will endure sadness for it opens my soul. I will acknowledge rewards for they are my due; yet I will welcome obstacles for they are my challenge.
To do anything truly worth doing, I must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in with gusto and scramble through as well as I can.”
-Og Mandino
“The longest journey is the journey inwards…”
-Dag Hammarskjold
“Success depends on adequate knowledge: that is, it depends on sufficient knowledge of the special subject, and a variety of extraneous knowledge to produce new and original combinations of ideas.”
-Rosamund E.M. Harding
“It is better to create than to learn! Creating is the essence of life.”
-Julius Caesar
“Life is a verb; not a noun.”
-Charlotte Perkins Gilman
“When you start looking at a problem and it seems really simple with all these simple solutions, you don’t really understand the complexity of the problem. And your solutions are way too oversimplified and they don’t work. Then you get into the problem and see that it’s really complicated. And you come up with all these convoluted solutions. That’s sort of the middle and that’s where most people stop, and the solutions tend to work for a while. But the really great person will keep on going and find, sort of, the key, underlying principle of the problem. And come up with a beautiful elegant solution that works.”
-Steve Jobs
“Just Do it.”
-Nike
“Many people think in terms of either/or: either you’re nice or you’re tough. Win-win requires that you be both. It is a balancing act between courage and consideration. To go for win-win, you not only have to be empathic, but you also have to be confident. You not only have to be considerate and sensitive, you also have to be brave. To do that–to achieve that balance between courage and consideration–is the essence of real maturity and is fundamental to win-win.”
-Stephen R. Covey
“Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.”
-Henry David Thoreau
“I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation and is but a reflection of human frailty.”
– Albert Einstein
“Life, on this Earth may be likened to a great Kaleidoscope before which the scenes and facts and material substances are ever shifting and changing and all any man can do is to take these facts and substances and re-arrange them in new combinations.”
-Napoleon Hill
“Most men ebb and flow in wretchedness between the fear of death and the hardships of life; they are unwilling to live, and yet they do not know how to die.”
-Seneca
“Don’t think learning this stuff is too much trouble. If you don’t learn it, you’ll be in trouble.”
-A contributor to Wikibooks
(from College Survival Guide)
“The only thing about a man that is a man is his mind.”
-Earl Nightingale
“What wonder, then, if human beings in their search for the divine have generally preferred to look within!”
-Aldous Huxley
“Focus on increasing service. Becoming great where you are. Pile in the wood. The heat will follow.”
-William James
“It is therefore an excellent device to acquire knowledge from everybody.”
– Baltasar Gracián
“A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.”
-Albert Einstein
“A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and get to bed at night, and in between does what he wants to do.”
-Bob Dylan
“Everyone and everything is interconnected in this universe. Stay pure of heart and you will see the signs. Follow the signs, and you will uncover your destiny.”
-Jeff (from Jeff Who Lives at Home)
“It is not the repeated mistakes, the long succession of petty betrayals- though, God knows, they would give cause enough for anxiety and self-contempt- but the huge elementary mistake, the betrayal of that within me which is greater than I- in complacent adjustment to alien demands.”
– Dag Hammarskjold
“We are the most focused company that I know of or have read of or have any knowledge of. We say no to good ideas every day. We say no to great ideas in order to keep the amount of things we focus on very small in number, so that we can put enormous energy behind the ones we do choose…..It’s not just saying yes to the right products, it’s saying no to many products that are good ideas, but just not nearly as good as other ones.”
-Tim Cook
“Stay positive. Be sure to smile.”-Me
“Everything will be alright in the end. If not, it’s not the end.”
-Dennis, a former co-worker of mine and perhaps Paolo Coelho (he said this in a similar fashion)
“There can be only one permanent revolution- a moral one: the regeneration of the inner man.”
-Leo Tolstoy
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
-William Shakespeare
” I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”
-Mark Twain
“It is more shameful to distrust our friends than be deceived by them.”
-Confucius
“Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and he will become as he can and should be.”
-Goethe
“Not all that have fallen are vanquished; a king may be without a crown, A blade that was broken be brandished; and towers that were strong may fall down
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woven,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be King.”
-J.R.R Tolkien
“Courage is grace under pressure”
-Ernest Hemingway
“To be content with little is hard; to be content with much, impossible.”
–Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
“You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.”
-Henry Ford
“All life is a chance. So take it!
The person who goes furthest is the one
who is willing to do and dare.”
– Dale Carnegie
“What we think or what we know
or what we believe is, in the
end, of little consequence.
The only consequence is what we do”
– John Ruskin
“When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.”
-George Bernard Shaw
“Achievement seems to be connected
with action. Successful men and
women keep moving. They make
mistakes, but they don’t quit.”
– Conrad Hilton
“The first wealth is health.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, the man who never reads lives only one.”
– Jojen Reed
Awake, arise, and assert yourself, you dreamers of the world.
-Napoleon Hill
“Forever is composed of Nows.”
-Emily Dickenson
“All blame is a waste of time. No matter
how much fault you find with another,
and regardless of how much you
blame him, it will not change you”
– Wayne Dyer
“I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.”
-Socrates
“Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil.”
“Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.”
-Plato
“I say there is no darkness but ignorance.”
-Shakespeare
“The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is knowledge of our own ignorance.”
-Ben Franklin
“Are there no other stories in the world except yours; and are all men busy with your business? Suppose we grant the details; perhaps when the man in the street did not seem to see you it was only his cunning; perhaps when the policeman asked you your name it was only because he knew it already. But how much happier you would be if you only knew that these people cared nothing about you! How much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it; if you could really look at other men with common curiosity and pleasure; if you could see them walking as they are in their sunny selfishness and their virile indifference! You would begin to be interested in them, because they were not interested in you. You would break out of this tiny and tawdry theatre in which your own little plot is always being played, and you would find yourself under a freer sky, in a street full of splendid strangers.”
–G.K. Chesterton, (Orthodoxy, 1909)
“Nothing changed in my life since I work all the time,” Pamuk said then. “I’ve spent 30 years writing fiction. For the first 10 years I worried about money and no one asked me how much money I made. The second decade I spent money and no one was asking me about that. And I’ve spent the last 10 years with everyone expecting to hear how I spend the money, which I will not do.”
-Orhan Pamuk
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.”
– Ambrose Moon
“Do not go where the path might lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
