Inspiring Quotes

Current Favorites
Living a Meaningful Life
Movement and Change
Taking Action
Patience
Power of the Mind
Overcoming Fear
Empowerment Through Action
Adherence to Values
Inner Strength and Treasures
Qualities of Heroic Character
Interconnectedness & Interdependence
Reach Beyond Yourself
Passionate Enthusiasm
Leading Organizational Change
Other Inspiring Quotes

Current Favorites

Rollo May

"Heroes are necessary in order to enable the citizens to find their own ideals, courage and wisdom in the society. The hero carries our hopes, our aspirations, our ideals, our beliefs. In the deepest sense the hero is created by us; he or she is born collectively as our own myth. This is what makes heroism so important: it reflects our own sense of identity and from this our own heroism is molded. "
—Rollo May

Joseph Campbell

"We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us."
—Joseph Campbell

"When you follow your bliss doors will open where you would not have thought there would be doors; and where there wouldn't be a door for anyone else."
—Joseph Campbell

Marianne Williamson

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us. It's in everyone. And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fears, our presence automatically liberates others."
—Marianne Williamson

Mahatma Gandhi

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

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift."
—Albert Einstein

Mother Theresa

"People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered; Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, People may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; Be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; Succeed anyway. If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; Be honest and frank anyway. What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; Build anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; Be happy anyway. The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; Do good anyway. Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; Give the world the best you've got anyway. You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; It was never between you and them anyway."
—Mother Theresa

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Living a Meaningful Life

"Your life is a sacred journey. And it is about change, growth, discovery, movement, transformation, continuously expanding your vision of what is possible, stretching your soul, learning to see clearly and deeply, listening to your intuition, taking courageous challenges at every step along the way. You are on the path... exactly where you are meant to be right now... And from here, you can only go forward, shaping your life story into a magnificent tale of triumph, of healing, of courage, of beauty, of wisdom, of power, of dignity, and of love."
—Caroline Adams

"A journey of self-discovery beckons leaders today. The work is hard. Perhaps as difficult as anything a human being will do in life--as a person, leader, or follower. This personal development requires the courage of a pioneer, the honesty of a child, the imagination of an artist, and the confidence of the naïve, and often begins from deep despair, disillusionment, and a change of mind. The journey gives one a special energy and changes the traveler forever."
—Tom Heuerman

"No Journey carries one far unless, as it extends into the world around us, it goes an equal distance into the world within."
Lillian Smith

Life asks us to try things, make mistakes, and commit to a path of growth and maturity. Anyone can get old, but growth only comes with effort and commitment.
—Phillip Humbert

"You have a calling which exists only for you and which only you can fulfill."
—Dr. Naomi Stephan

A person's life purpose is nothing more than to rediscover, through the detours of art, or love, or passionate work, those one or two images in the presence of which his heart first opened.
—Albert Camus

"You and I want our lives to matter. We want our lives to make a real difference - to be of genuine consequence in the world. We know that there is no satisfaction in merely going through the motions, even if those motions make us successful, or even if we have arranged to make those motions pleasant. We want to know we have made some impact on the world. In fact, you and I want to contribute to the quality of life. We want to make the world work."
—Werner Erhard

"You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life." Read more... (PDF: 49K)
—Steve Jobs - Commencement address delivered at Stanford on June 12, 2005

"Life is no `brief candle' to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I've got to hold up for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations."
—George Bernard Shaw

"Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born."
—Dale E. Turner

"Observers in the full enjoyment of their bodily senses pity me, but it is because they do not see the golden chamber in my life where I dwell delighted; for, dark as my path may seem to them, I carry a magic light in my heart. Faith, the spiritual strong searchlight, illumines the way, and although sinister doubts lurk in the shadow, I walk unafraid towards the Enchanted Wood where the foliage is always green, where joy abides, where nightingales nest and sing, and where life and death are one in the Presence of the Lord."
—Helen Keller

"I like thinking of possibilities. At any time, an entirely new possibility is liable to come along and spin you off in an entirely new direction. The trick, I've learned, is to be awake to the moment."
—Doug Hall
"To move freely you must be deeply rooted."
—Bella Lewitzsky
"Live with intention. Walk to the edge. Listen hard. Practice wellness. Play with abandon. Laugh. Choose with no regret. Do what you love. Live as if this is all there is."
—Mary Anne Roadacher-Hershey

"Work and play are the same. When you're following your energy and doing what you want all the time, the distinction between work and play dissolves."
— Shakti Gawain

"Somewhere along the line we discover who we really are, and then make our real decisions for which we are responsible. Make that decision primarily for yourself because you can never really live anyone else's life."
— Eleanor Roosevelt

"Don't worry about whether or not I am now happy. Today is only chapter one. We have yet to write the book."
— Lois Wyse

"Start living now. Stop saving the good china for that special occasion. Stop withholding your love until that special person materializes. Every day you are alive is a special occasion. Every minute, every breath, is a gift from God."
—Mary Manin Morrissey

"What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others."
— Pericles

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Movement and Change

“When you’re through changing, you’re through.”
—Bruce Barton
"To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly."
—Henri Bergson

"The key to coping with change is a changeless sense of who you are, what you are about and what you value."
—Stephen Covey

"The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving."
—Oliver Wendell Holmes

"Change cannot be avoided... change provides the opportunity for innovation. It gives you the chance to demonstrate your creativity."
—Felice Jones

"You have to say no to the old ways before you can begin to find the new yes you need."
-- Betty Friedan

"Everything changes when you change."
—Jim Rohn

"It only takes one person to change your life - you.
—Ruth Casey

"Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely."
—Karen Kaiser Clark

"Maintaining a complicated life is a great way to avoid changing it."
—Elaine St. James

Taking Action

Never mistake motion for action."
—Ernest Hemingway

"It only takes one person to change your life - you."
—Ruth Casey

"Nothing changes until something changes."
—Unknown

"Throw your heart over the fence and the rest will follow!"
—Norman Vincent Peale

"Begin somewhere; you cannot build a reputation on what you intend to do."
—Liz Smith

"Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved."
—Jeremy Kitson

"You've got to get up every morning with a smile on your face, and show the world all the love in your heart. Then people gonna treat you better; You're gonna find, yes, you will, that you're beautiful as you feel."
—Carole King

"The reason so many people never get anywhere in life is because when opportunity knocks, they are out in the backyard looking for four-leaf clovers."
—Walter Chrysler

“Big shots are little shots who kept shooting.”
—Christopher Morley

Patience

“Patience is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping your gears.”
—Barbara Johnson

“Patience is passion tamed.”
—Lyman Abbott

“Patience can't be acquired overnight. It is just like building up a muscle. Every day you need to work on it.”
—Eknath Easwaran

“Patience is something you admire in the driver behind you, but not in one ahead.”
—Bill McGlashen

"Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender; it's holy ground. There is no greater investment."
—Stephen Covey

" The virtue of patience is patience."
—Unknown

"Our patience will achieve more than our force."
—Edmund Burke

"It is very strange that the years teach us patience - that the shorter our time, the greater our capacity for waiting."
—Elizabeth Taylor

“Patience is waiting. Not passively waiting. That is laziness. But to keep going when the going is hard and slow - that is patience.”
—Unknown

Power of the Mind

"On our way to the concentration camp, my mother said, 'They can take everything from you except what you put in your mind.' They took her away from me, but they could not take my freedom of thought. I was to learn that many people create their own concentration camps in their minds. To escape, you must forgive yourself and others. Accept the world as imperfect. It's not the situation, but what you do with it. Concentrate on what is left, not what was lost."
—Edie Eger
"The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes of mind!"
—William James

"We are what we imagine. Our very existence consists in our imagination of ourselves. The greatest tragedy that can befall us is to go unimagined."
—N. Scott Momaday

"Man is so made that when anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish."
—Jean De La Fontaine
"The capacity for hope is the most significant fact of life. It provides human beings with a sense of destination and the energy to get started."
—Norman Cousins

"The longest journey of any person is the journey inward."
—Dag Hammerskjold

"It sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents."
—Eric Hoffer

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Overcoming Fear

“To fight fear, act. To increase fear, wait, put off, postpone.”
—David Joseph Schwartz

"Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the dark or the man afraid of the light?
—Maurice Freehill

"Fear is nothing except a drain of energy and not a power unto itself. Trust in yourself, for therein lies the true power."
—Lori Hard
"When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid."
—Audre Lorde

"I don't worry about the storms, I am learning to sail my own ship."
—Louisa May Alcott
"Everyone has a talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads."
—Erica Jong

Empowerment Through Action

"Every day do something that will inch you closer to a better tomorrow."
—Doug Firebaugh
"Don't wait for a light to appear at the end of the tunnel, stride down there and light the bloody thing yourself."
—Sara Henderson
"A dream is just a dream. A goal is a dream with a plan and a deadline."
—Harvey Mackay

"We don't know who we are until we see what we can do."
—Martha Grimes

"Identify your problems, but give your power and energy to solutions."
—Anthony Robbins
"Success is neither magical or mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals."
—Jim Rohn
"Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved."
—Jeremy Kitson

"We can do anything we want to as long as we stick to it long enough."
—Helen Keller
"With every wish that you make comes the power to make it come true. But it is up to you to provide the work that will make it a reality. Are you using your power to make your wishes come true today?"
—Libby Rosenauer

"There is no chance, no destiny, no fate that can circumvent or hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul."
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox

"The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are." —John Burroughs

Adherence to Values

"Values bring passion, commitment, and perseverance to what we do....They drive ethics, action, and excellence...Values provide our inner compass—they tell us when we go astray—never more important than in times of chaos when traditional norms often collapse."
—Tom Heuerman

"Try not to become a (person) of success but rather try to become a (person) of value."
—Albert Einstein

"There can be no peace if the things we believe in are different from the things we do."
—Unknown

"How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something, but (instead) someone."
—Coco Chanel

"Keep true, never be ashamed of doing right. Decide on what you think is right, and stick to it."
—George Eliot

"In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing."

"A moment of choice is a moment of truth. It's the testing point of our character and competence."
—Stephen Covey
"Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values."
—Ayn Rand

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Inner Strength and Treasures

"Each one of us has a fire in our heart for something. It's our goal in life to find it and to keep it lit."
—Mary Lou Retton

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

"There is no chance, no destiny, no fate that can circumvent or hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul."
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox

"The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will."
—Vincent T. Lombardi

Freedom is actually a bigger game than power. Power is about what you can control. Freedom is about what you can unleash."
—Harriet Rubin

"Happiness belongs to those who are sufficient unto themselves. For all external sources of happiness and pleasure are, by their very nature, highly uncertain, precarious, ephemeral, and subject to change."
—Arthur Schopenhauer

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift."
—Albert Einstein

"You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call failure is not the falling down, but the staying down."
—Mary Pickford

"You have within you right now, everything you need to deal with whatever the world can throw at you."
—Brian Tracy

"The people and circumstances around me do not MAKE me what I am,
they REVEAL who I am."
—Dr. Laura Schlessinger

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Qualities of Heroic Character

Passionate Enthuasiam and Perseverance

"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming - WOW! -- What A Ride!"
—Author Unknown verance

"Anyone can slay a dragon, he told me, but try waking up every morning and loving the world all over again. That's what takes a real hero."
—Brian Andreas

We are all inspired by the incredible stories of handicapped people who write novels with their toes, cancer victims who run marathons for cancer research, bereaved parents who set up memorial funds for their lost children. How much easier is it for most of us to be small heroes simply by taking responsibility for our daily lives and transcending our ordinary obstacles?
—Danah Zohar

"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."
—Helen Keller

Leadership

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

"It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end."
—Ursula K. Lequin

"As a leader, you have to not only do the right thing, but be perceived to be doing the right thing. A consequence of seeking a leadership position is being put under intense public scrutiny, being held to high standards, and enhancing a reputation that is constantly under threat."
— Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Andrew Ward

Awareness

"Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance"
—Einstein

"A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he knows something." —Wilson Mizner

Interconnectedness and Interdependence

"We have much to do together. Let us do it in wisdom and love and joy. Let us make this the human experience."
—Gary Zukav

"If everything in the universe depends upon everything else in a fundamental way, it might be impossible to get close to a full solution by investigating parts of the problem in isolation."
—Stephen Hawking

"We did not weave the web of life; we are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves."
—Chief Seattle
"Marriage is not a love affair. A love affair has to do with immediate personal satisfaction. Marriage is an ordeal; it means yielding, time and again. That's why it's a sacrament; You give up your personal simplicity to participate in a relationship. And when you're giving, you're not giving to the other person; you're giving to the relationship."
—Joseph Campbell

Reach Beyond Yourself

"When you follow your bliss doors will open where you would not have thought there would be doors; and where there wouldn't be a door for anyone else."
—Joseph Campbell
"Man is so made that when anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish."
—Jean De La Fontaine

"Live out of your imagination, not your history."
—Stephen Covey
"Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars."
—Les Brown

"He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind."
—Leonardo Da Vinci
"If you can DREAM it, you can DO it."
—Walt Disney

"One can never consent to creep when one feels the impulse to soar."
—Helen Keller

"Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal."
—Pamela Vaull Starr

"Each of us was born with wings...(and) has the ability to go farther than we ever thought possible, to do things beyond our wildest imaginings."
—Barbara Stanny

"In each of us are places where we have never gone. Only by pressing the limits do you ever find them."
—Dr. Joyce Brothers

"Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible and achieves the impossible."
—Charles Caleb Colton
"I'm not going to limit myself just because people won't accept the fact that I can do something else."
—Dolly Parton

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Leading Organizational Change

“Companies die because their managers focus on the economic activity of producing goods and services, and they forget that their organizations’ true nature is that of a community of humans.”
— Arie DeGeus, The Living Company

“If a company’s goal is to improve shareholder value, a key priority must be its approach to human capital.”
— Watson Wyatt

"The leadership challenge of the 21st century is to achieve outstanding and sustainable business results by creating conditions for employee engagement that brings forth the vast untapped human potential in organizations—the competitive advantage of our time."
— Tom Heuerman

"The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say 'I'. And that's not because they have trained themselves not to say 'I'. They don't think 'I'. They think 'we'; they think 'team'. They understand their job to be to make the team function. They accept responsibility and don't sidestep it, but 'we' gets the credit.... This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done."
— Peter. F Drucker

"The recently released book: 12: The Elements of Great Managing by Rod Wagner and James Harder reported on Gallup data that shows, among other things, that engaged employees miss less work, quit less often, steal less from their employers, have fewer accidents (all of these by dramatic percentages), and more engaged organizations outperformed the earnings-per-share of their non-engaged competitors by 18%."
— Tom Heuerman

Other Inspiring Quotes

"To love life through our labor is to be intimate with life's inmost secrets."
—Kahlil Gibran

"You can get everything you want if you help enough others get what they want."
—Zig Ziglar

"Don't underestimate the power of learning from opposites. It gives you the impetus to dig deeper to find your clarity and authenticity."
—Marion Moss Hubbard

"We have to do the best we can. This is our sacred human responsibility."
—Albert Einstein

"A difficult reality without a vision describes despair. A hopeful vision without action describes a dream. A vision and courageous action are leadership."
—Tom Heuerman