Best 100 Inspirational Quotes to Energize and Motivate

What drives us? What is it that takes us out of bed? What helps us make it through the day? This collection of inspirational quotes is a true source of everyday incentives. Words uttered by famous people or simple phrases of concentrated wisdom serve as daily compasses, as lighthouses that light our way through storms and adorn our capes in the sunshine.

Let these quotes give you all the inspiration you need to take the next step – today. If you find them inspiring, share to let them inspire others as well.

Table of Contents

1. Short Inspirational Quotes
2. Best Famous Quotes to Inspire You
3. Inspirational Quotes About Life
4. Positive Quotes to Inspire You
5. Famous Inspirational Quotes

Short Inspirational Quotes

• All I can be is me- whoever that is. Bob Dylan
• Trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit. Moliere
• The most important decision you make is to be in a good mood. Voltaire
• I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened. Mark Twain
• It is never too late to be what you might have been. George Eliot
• What is now proved was once only imagined. William Blake
• A man who does not think for himself does not think at all. Oscar Wilde
• It is truth that liberates, not your effort to be free. Jiddu Krishnamurti
• Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone’s soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd. Rumi
• You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them. Maya Angelou
• Facing it, always facing it, that’s the way to get through. Face it. Conrad Joseph
• Re-examine all you have been told. Dismiss what insults your soul. Walt whitman
• I am not afraid… I was born to do this. Joan of Arc
• Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude. Arthur Schopenhauer
• What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality. Otto Rank
• Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway. Eleanor Roosevelt
• The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain! Dolly Parton
• Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Your sacred space is where you can find yourself over and over again. Joseph Campbell
• What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
• The function of freedom is to free someone else. Toni Morrison
• All great achievements require time. Maya Angelou
• The duty of youth is to challenge corruption. Kurt Cobain
• You’ll never find a rainbow if you’re looking down. Charlie Chaplin
• Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. Winston S. Churchill
• Everything you can imagine is real. Pablo Picasso

• It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then. Lewis Carroll
• Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions. Dalai Lama XIV
• Turn your wounds into wisdom. Oprah Winfrey
• You never fail until you stop trying. Albert Einstein
• Try again. Fail again. Fail better. Samuel Beckett
• A winner is a dreamer who never gives up. Nelson Mandela
• Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark. Rabindranath Tagore
• Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Seneca
• The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly. Friedrich Nietzsche
• Not being heard is no reason for silence. Victor Hugo
• You must expect great things of yourself before you can do them. Michael Jordan
• Be the change that you wish to see in the world. Mahatma Gandhi
• We accept the love we think we deserve. Stephen Chbosky
• I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. Thomas A. Edison
• I don’t think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains. Anne Frank
• Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m possible’! Audrey Hepburn

• Whatever you are, be a good one. Abraham Lincoln
• May you live every day of your life. Jonathan Swift
• Always do what you are afraid to do. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• None but ourselves can free our minds. Bob Marley
• It’s kind of fun to do the impossible. Walt Disney
• Try a little harder to be a little better. Gordon B. Hinckley
• Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence. Ovid
• ‎Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats. Voltaire
• Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. Theodore Roosevelt
• Peace begins with a smile.. Mother Teresa

• Travel far enough, you meet yourself. David Mitchell
• At the end of the day, let there be no excuses, no explanations, no regrets. Steve Maraboli
• Scar tissue is stronger than regular tissue. Realize the strength, move on. Henry Rollins
• A goal without a plan is just a wish. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
• Our life is what our thoughts make it. Marcus Aurelius
• The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. Theodore Parker
• No! Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try. George Lucas
• No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. Aesop
• Instead of cursing the darkness, light a candle. Ben Franklin
• Only those who attempt the absurd can achieve the impossible. Albert Einstein
• You get in life what you have the courage to ask for. Oprah Winfrey
• We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people. Arthur Schopenhauer
• Always tell what you feel. Do what you think… Gabriel García Márquez
• It is not worth the while to let our imperfections disturb us always. Henry David Thoreau
• I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul. William Ernest Henley
• It’s your life-but only if you make it so. Eleanor Roosevelt
• Most people die with their music still locked up inside them. Benjamin Disraeli
• No man is free who is not master of himself. Epictetus
• Give your weakness to one who helps. Rumi
• Great acts are made up of small deeds. Lao Tzu

Best Famous Quotes to Inspire You

• The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. Eleanor Roosevelt
• Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant. Robert Louis Stevenson
• He not busy being born is busy dying. Bob Dylan
• Dance, when you’re broken open. Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you’re perfectly free. Rumi
• 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
• Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten. Neil Gaiman
• Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. Mahatma Gandhi
• To love and win is the best thing. To love and lose, the next best. William Makepeace Thackeray
• One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. Friedrich Nietzsche
• If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one. Dolly Parton
• Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. Martin Luther King Jr.
• When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us. Helen Keller
• I can’t give you a sure-fire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time. Herbert Bayard Swope
• All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle. St. Francis Of Assisi
• The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any. Alice Walker
• Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up. Dean Karnazes
• Start a huge, foolish project, like Noah…it makes absolutely no difference what people think of you. Rumi
• Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore. Andre Gide
• Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. Nathaniel Hawthorne
• There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled.
  There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled.
  You feel it, don’t you?
  Rumi
• Courage isn’t having the strength to go on – it is going on when you don’t have strength. Napoleon Bonaparte
• If you are lazy, and accept your lot, you may live in it. If you are willing to work, you can write your name anywhere you choose. Gene Stratton-Porter
• The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference. Elie Wiesel
• I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. Albert Einstein
• Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions. Albert Einstein
• Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. Margaret Mead
• Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow. Mary Anne Radmacher
• Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. Howard Thurman
• Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own. Bruce Lee
• I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it. Vincent Van Gogh
• Come friends, it’s not too late to seek a newer world. Alfred Lord Tennyson
• Truth does not become more true by virtue of the fact that the entire world agrees with it, nor less so even if the whole world disagrees with it. Maimonides
• I believe in the hands that work, in the brains that think, and in the hearts that love…I believe in sunshine, fresh air, friendship, calm sleep, beautiful thoughts. Elbert Hubbard

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Inspirational Quotes About Life

• Amor Fati – “Love Your Fate”, which is in fact your life. Friedrich Nietzsche
• To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it. Charlie Chaplin
• There was another life that I might have had, but I am having this one. Kazuo Ishiguro
• Life’s great happiness is to be convinced we are loved. Victor Hugo
• Every moment of light and dark is a miracle. Walt Whitman
• You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go… Dr. Seuss
• Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. George Bernard Shaw
• Life is very short, and there’s no time for fussing and fighting my friends. John Lennon
• It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome. William James
• There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. Albert Einstein
• Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present. Bill Keane
• What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other? George Eliot
• The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward. Steve Maraboli
• You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching, love like you’ll never be hurt, sing like there’s nobody listening, and live like it’s heaven on earth. William W. Purkey
• Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving. Albert Einstein
• A man with outward courage dares to die; a man with inner courage dares to live. Lao Tzu
• It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting. Paulo Coelho
• When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love … Marcus Aurelius

• What’s the good of living if you don’t try a few things? Charles M. Schulz
• The question is not how to get cured, but how to live. Joseph Conrad
• Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world. William Shakespeare
• Only he who attempts the absurd is capable of achieving the impossible. Miguel de Unamuno
• The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience. Emily Dickinson
• As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters. Seneca
• The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human can alter his life by altering his attitude. William James
• It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living. Eckhart Tolle
• Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact. William James
• Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth. Benjamin Disraeli
• Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air. John Quincy Adams

Positive Quotes to Inspire You

• Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you. Walt Whitman
• If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely. Roald Dahl
• And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it. Paulo Coelho
• Kid, you’ll move mountains! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, so get on your way! Dr. Seuss
• But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. Martin Luther King, Jr.
• I have decided to be happy, because it’s good for my health. Voltaire
• Hope is the thing with feathers
  That perches in the soul
  And sings the tune without the words
  And never stops at all.
  Emily Dickinson
• A problem is a chance for you to do your best. Duke Ellington
• One small positive thought can change your whole day. Zig Ziglar
• Smile at strangers and you just might change a life. Steve Maraboli
• You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. Winnie The Pooh
• Choose to be optimistic, it feels better. Dalai Lama
• Sometimes our light goes out, but is blown again into instant flame by an encounter with another human being. Albert Schweitzer
• Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars. Norman Vincent Peale
• Nothing is permanent in this wicked world, not even our troubles. Charlie Chaplin
• Always turn a negative situation into a positive situation. Michael Jordan

Famous Inspirational Quotes

• No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. Eleanor Roosevelt
• We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. Oscar Wilde
• You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us. And the world will live as one. John Lennon
• The best thing to hold onto in life is each other. Audrey Hepburn

• What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. Martin Luther King Jr.
• Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see. Arthur Schopenhauer
• We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us. Marcel Proust
• Start by doing what is necessary, then what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible. St. Francis Of Assisi
• Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one’s weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart. Mahatma Gandhi
• I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow; but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing. Agatha Christie
• I’m not going to limit myself just because people won’t accept the fact that I can do something else. Dolly Parton
• My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance, and in inverse proportion to my expectations. Michael J. Fox
• We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another. Jonathan Swift
• The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word ‘crisis.’ One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger–but recognize the opportunity. John F. Kennedy
• No matter who you are, no matter what you did, no matter where you’ve come from, you can always change, become a better version of yourself. Madonna

• We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special. Stephen Hawking
• Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives – choice, not chance, determines your destiny. Aristotle
• All human beings should try to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why. James Thurber
• Even if you don’t have all the things you want, be grateful for the things you don’t have that you don’t want. Bob Dylan

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