Inspiration Quotes

To study and constantly, is this not a pleasure? To have friends come from far away places, is this not a joy? If people do not recognize your worth, but this does not worry you, are you not a true gentleman?

~ Confucius

I have liv'd long enough for others, like the Dog in the Wheel, and it is now the Season to begin for myself: I cannot change that Thing call'd Time, but I can alter its Posture and, as Boys do turn a looking-glass against the Sunne, so I will dazzle you all.

~ Peter Ackroyd

He glanced back at the wall. How like a mirror, too, her face. Impossible; for how many people did you know who reflected your own light to you? People were more often--he searched for a simile, found one in his work--torches, blazing away until they whiffed out. How rarely did other people's faces take of you and throw back to you your own expression, your own innermost trembling thought?

~ Ray Bradbury

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. I hold that the more helpless a creature the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of humankind.

~ Mahatma Gandhi

I was kind of excited to go to jail for the first time and I learnt some great dialogue.

~ Quentin Tarantino

Reading, conversation, environment, culture, heroes, mentors, nature – all are lottery tickets for creativity. Scratch away at them and you’ll find out how big a prize you’ve won.

~ Twyla Tharp

If you believe in your heart that you are right, then you must fight with all your might to do it your way. Only dead fish swim with the stream all the time.

~ Linda Ellerbee

Starting over can be the scariest thing in the entire world, whether it’s leaving a lover, a school, a team, a friend or anything else that feels like a core part of our identity but when your gut is telling you that something here isn’t right or feels unsafe, I really want you to listen and trust in that voice.

~ Jennifer Elisabeth

[B]riefing is not reading. In fact it is the antithesis of reading. Briefing is terse, factual and to the point. Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting. Briefing closes down a subject, reading opens it up.

~ Alan Bennett

Don't ever ask for permission to follow your dreams. Follow them no matter fucking what. It's important. We have one life here and you are the author of your story, more than anybody else. You are much more responsible for your dreams coming true or not than anyone else in your life you have contacted with. So, dream big, work hard, and make it happen no matter what.

~ Jared Leto

To be taught to read—what is the use of that, if you know not whether what you read is false or true? To be taught to write or to speak—but what is the use of speaking, if you have nothing to say? To be taught to think—nay, what is the use of being able to think, if you have nothing to think of? But to be taught to see is to gain word and thought at once, and both true.

~ John Ruskin

Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new film, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul.

~ Jim Jarmusch

I'm interested in the way in which the past affects the present and I think that if we understand a good deal more about history, we automatically understand a great more about contemporary life.

~ Toni Morrison

That’s what being alive is, Thing! It’s being badly prepared for everything! Because you only get one chance, Thing!

~ Terry Pratchett

Our wounds can so easily turn us into people we don't want to be, and we hardly see it happening. Protect your heart, love yourself, and be with people who love and care for you.

~ Sue Fitzmaurice

All humanity is one undivided and indivisible family. I cannot detach myself from the wickedest soul.

~ Mahatma Gandhi

It is never too late to turn on the light. Your ability to break an unhealthy habit or turn off an old tape doesn't depend on how long it has been running; a shift in perspective doesn't depend on how long you've held on to the old view. When you flip the switch in that attic, it doesn't matter whether its been dark for ten minutes, ten years or ten decades. The light still illuminates the room and banishes the murkiness, letting you see the things you couldn't see before.Its never too late to take a moment to look.

~ Sharon Salzberg

It isn't the happy ending Ingrid and I had dreamed up, but it's all a part of what I'm working through. The way life changes. The way people and things disappear. Then appear, unexpectedly, and hold you close.

~ Nina Lacour

When I left Queen's my future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I don't know what lies around the bend, but I am going to believe that the best does. It has a fascination of its own, that bend, Marilla. I wonder how the road beyond it goes - what there is of green glory and soft, checkered light and shadows - what new landscapes - what new beauties - what curves and hills and valleys farther on.

~ L.m. Montgomery

For the poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses, and the mind is no longer in him: when he has not attained to this state, he is powerless and is unable to utter his oracles.

~ Socrates

but I have no mind for business and considered staying awake to be enough of an accomplishment.

~ David Sedaris

What in hell are you really made of, Howard? After all, it's only a building. It's not the combination of holy sacrament, Indian torture, and sexual ecstasy that you seem to make of it.Isn't it?

~ Ayn Rand

The words were unexpected, but so incisively true. So much of prayer is like that - an encounter with a truth that has sunk to the bottom of the heart, that wants to be found, wants to be spoken, wants to be elevated into the realm of sacredness.

~ Sue Monk Kidd

Even after the stormiest weather, a true warrior will still reflect the brilliant rays of the magnificent sun through both his or her eyes. You may get hit by sudden lighting or take severe beatings from the cruel wind, but you will always get back up and stand strong on your feet again, soak in the sunlight, and be prepared to get hit by even the most merciless hail - time and time again.

~ Suzy Kassem

Someday stars will wind down or blow up. Someday death will cover us all like the water of a lake and perhaps nothing will ever come to the surface to show that we were ever there. But we WERE there, and during the time we lived, we were alive. That's the truth - what is, what was, what will be - not what could be, what should have been, what never can be.

~ Orson Scott Card

But yield who will to their separation, My object in living is to uniteMy avocation and my vocationAs my two eyes make one in sight.

~ Robert Frost

MANAGE YOUR MOOD: Name 1 thing that surprised you today...Name 1 thing that moved you...Name 1 thing that inspired you...

~ Gino Norris

The first gift is Strength. May you remember to call upon it whenever you need it.

~ Charlene Costanzo

Diversity of character is due to the unequal time given to values. Only through each other will we see the importance of the qualities we lack and our unfinished soul's potential.

~ Shannon L. Alder

Facing your fears robs them of their power

~ Mark Burnett

Surround yourself with people who believe in your dreams, encourage your ideas, support your ambitions, and bring out the best in you.

~ Roy Bennett

Curiosity is the single most important attribute with which humans are born. More than a simple desire to discover or know things, curiosity is a powerful tool, like a scalpel or a searchlight. Curiosity changes us. It is also a way to effect change, perhaps even on a global level.

~ Loren Rhoads

When darkness is at its darkest, a star shines the brightest.

~ Louise Philippe

Being a role model is the most powerful form of educating...too often fathers neglect it because they get so caught up in making a living they forget to make a life.

~ John Wooden

I woke up early and took the first train to take me away from the city. The noise and all its people. I was alone on the train and had no idea where I was going, and that’s why I went there. Two hours later we arrived in a small town, one of those towns with one single coffee shop and where everyone knows each other’s name. I walked for a while until I found the water, the most peaceful place I know. There I sat and stayed the whole day, with nothing and everything on my mind, cleaning my head. Silence, I learned, is some times the most beautiful sound.

~ Charlotte Eriksson

SilenceIt has a sound, a fullness.It's heavy with sigh of tree,and space between breaths.It's ripe with pause between birdsongand crash of surf. It's golden they say.But no one tells us it's addictive.

~ Angela Long

I try hard not to judge anyone, and I try to bless everyone who is a part of my life, particularly anyone with whom I am having any problems

~ Jim Henson

The dream is to keep surprising yourself, never mind the audience.

~ Tom Hiddleston

Notice the difference between being in control and needing control.

~ Marilyn Suttle

Coincidences give you opportunities to look more deeply into your existence.

~ Doug Dillon