What are some of the most inspiring quotes?
While growing in life, we always need words of some great people to inspire us or to motivate us to realize the meaning of life indeed. A quote a day can be therapeutic for our soul.
These 26 inspiring quotes by famous writers and philosophers will help you delve deeper into yourself and know yourself and the life and world around you more intensely.
26 Inspiring Quotes by Famous People
1. Friedrich Nietzsche
“There are no beautiful surfaces without a terrible depth”
Friedrich Nietzsche
This quote requires more understanding as it gains more profoundly in the situation we are gradually nearing.
The new wave generation is more inclined towards taking shortcuts, which might allow them to skip on the complexities and the hardships of life.
Thus they ultimately reach the wrong conclusion that everything precious and beautiful in life can be attained very easily. Also, we mostly tend to see just the surface of a person, which can be gorgeous but deceiving.
Unable to see what Nietzsche calls “terrible depth” in a person might be very delusional as you will judge situations based on their face value.
As Nietzsche says, no beautiful surfaces are created without a long process of perseverance and hard work.
It can only come with a deep and profound realization of the things around us, and of life; otherwise, the beauty would seem false.
The generations yet to mold and build themselves must learn adopting other’s techniques without shaping their real selves will make them build a false image of themselves, which will be difficult to face after some time.
2. Franz Kafka
“A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us”
Franz Kafka
While reading works by this famous author, I came across a piece of his writing, where he talks about what reading and books should do to us.
I believe it requires a higher level of understanding to extract the meaning of this quote because nowadays, we tend to read merely for a superficial sense of pleasure or happiness, which lasts for a short time.
He says, reading is not such a mere act but a more profound art of being able to penetrate inside our soul and break down the obnoxious beliefs awakening the stereotypical, deep-rooted stigmas inside us.
It should be a voice of the rebel inside every one of us and the voice of reason and not just be a gulping down of some facts. It should help us realize the vastness and the greater meaning of the worldly existence instead of us constricting us to the knowledge we already have inside us.
So it should break down the frozen sea inside us like an ax and help us realize the more profound sense of life and the essence of life itself.
3. Carl Gustav Jung
“It all depends on how we look at things”
Carl Gustav Jung
Time and again, we as humans have faced the situation of being misunderstood or being judged.
The main cause behind this is we do not seem to understand that our understanding and interpretations are relative to our perspective of looking at things.
Someone who is seeing 6 from one side can see a 9 when looked at from the opposite side. We must know that no steadfast rule or some particular system is being written down to control our thought process; instead, we should get used to looking at things in different ways.
If we blindly follow the trends of thinking and beliefs already set by the people older to us or ahead of us, we will never see a new perspective, and this will gradually narrow the possibilities for humanity.
So we should always try to remember there is not a single way to look at things but infinite, and it can vary as it all depends on how that person thinks while trying to understand that particular situation.
4. Oscar Wilde
“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all”
Oscar Wilde
This quote outlives time and generation as some time in our lives, we are just cramming our lives with worldly pleasures, which makes us push ourselves into a mere dreary existence and not what we call living.
To live is to appreciate the miracle of being alive and acknowledge the curiosity of life as it gives us the euphoric joy of absorbing the beauty all around us. If we exist, we would not be able to find any flavors in our everyday life, and we also will never be able to experience the flow of joy within ourselves.
Life is not about submitting to the existential crisis we suffer from but being able to make out of it accepting the joys and sorrows.
It is a petty disgrace to let our ephemeral lives slip by under the weight of a gloomy existence.
We should not eat, pray, sleep, sing, or study just for the sake of it. But to feel alive and the ecstatic energies inside us, which make us love the life we live.
Just existing will make you listen to a song and never try to understand what beautiful deeper meaning it tried to convey, but if you are living, you will feel the words and the music speak to you. You will dive into the essence of life.
5. Rabindranath Tagore
“The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence”
Rabindranath Tagore
This quote is essential to be understood as education is gradually getting a different meaning in our worldly lives. Education is not just about degrees, awards, and achievements, but it is overall development in the humanitarian sense.
It enlightens us, helps us get to a better understanding of ourselves and the world around us. It helps us think and reach new heights of a profound experience. It is vital that education never becomes cramming of straight facts but growing ourselves as human beings.
Education must make us more grounded and make us aware of the world. It should give us the power to dissent and the freedom to express our imaginations and ideas. It should not make us blind to the activities of the world, not concerning us.
6. William Shakespeare
”If we are true to ourselves, we cannot be false to anyone”
William Shakespeare
This quote makes us understand how important it is to be true to ourselves always. If we are not true to ourselves, we will continuously suffer from the dilemma of what is real and what is not.
Mostly we will not be at peace with ourselves, and we will feel guilty as it will strike our conscience and, in most cases, oppose it. So once we start being true to ourselves and facing ourselves, we do not need to hide and put up a false face, which might end up being untruthful to someone.
We should always be very clear about our needs and be able to face ourselves without any pretensions. Also, it is huge to avoid any inner conflict.
If you continuously keep hiding the true sides of things from yourself, you will start loving yourself, and ultimately maybe you will forget which one was your true self. This can be very distressful.
7. Rumi
” Stop acting so small. You are the entire universe in ecstatic motion”
Rumi
This is the best TED talk in one line you can give yourself. Rumi, the poet, writer, and philosopher who is so ancient compared to our 20th-century authors and writers, is one of the most contemporary and ephemeral thinkers of all time.
His words are not only erudite like a mystics, but it is influential and inspiring. We suffer from the act of demeaning ourselves now and then. We keep dropping unnecessary apologies, and also self-blaming eats us away.
8. Swami Vivekananda
”We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far”
Swami Vivekananda
Most of the time, we are not aware of our thoughts. As the age-old saying goes, ”think before you speak,” we all know how necessary it is to devote enough time to our thoughts before we talk anything.
Thoughts play a significant role in shaping up an individual as it tests his broadness of the mind and also helps him analyze critical situations before jumping to immediate conclusions. It is our concentration put n our thoughts that help us distinguish one human soul from others.
9. Milan Kundera
” To imagine-to dream about things that have not happened -is among mankind’s deepest needs”
Milan Kundera
To think of something new, we need to come out of the pattern of thoughts already being followed. We need to be unique with our imaginations and have the desire to think something which has not been thought of before.
We need to question our surroundings and ourselves more and imagine about far-reaching solutions. This is the only way we can move ahead in terms of any new renaissance; otherwise, we will stagnate ourselves at a point and won’t be able to move forward of that.
10. Albert Camus
”Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy just to be normal”
Albert Camus
For ages, people have been neglecting the mind and the fact that it needs to be looked after.
Some people are haunted by the “normalcy” around them, and now and then, they are struggling to become a part of it. Mental issues are not a myth but a genuine problem that needs to be taken care of.
This quote tells us to look around ourselves and look through people at times for many out there who are working against their will just to fit in.
We are in a utopian state where any individual who does not match the stereotype set by the society is considered abnormal and ill.
11. Charles Bukowski
“We are all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other, but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities. We are eaten up by nothing.”
Charles Bukowski
Even after knowing we are going to near the end one day, the climax, the final silence, we are not capable of leaving each other our last fragments of love.
Still, instead, we are terrorizing each other regularly to be ultimately being left with a total void and nothingness which is sucking us up.
The quote tells us how insane humankind is getting running after trivial matters. “Circus” is used to intensify the bold pretentious facade being taken up by people leaving their real truth -death.
12.Theodore Roosevelt
“Believe you can and you are halfway there.”
Theodore Roosevelt
This famous quote by Theodore Roosevelt tells us to believe in ourselves. If we believe in our potential and our work, then we will already foresee a bright future without even reaching there.
13.Albert Einstein
“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new”
Albert Einstein
These words, by one of the most outstanding scientists of all times, Albert Einstein, enlightens us that it is essential to make mistakes to accomplish great work ultimately. We need to fail in life to learn new things and improve ourselves.
This quote is among one of the greatest motivational quotes for life as we often fall back after failures. But we should be strong enough, and we should understand our mistakes make us learn.
14.John Wooden
“If you do not have the time to do it right when will you have time to do it over?”
John Wooden
John Wooden tries to say if we are always complaining about tight schedules and not being able to do our work the right way. Once it is already executed, we will not have the time to go back to it again, so we should spend enough time and be patient to execute it minutely, avoiding the chances to redo it, for we might never get that time.
15.Helen Keller
“Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into light”
Helen Keller
One of the most inspirational women of her era, Helen Keller, had made us learn to have the faith to survive our struggles. She has made us believe we can see the ray of hope and light if we want to. If we have strong faith in ourselves, we will reach the source of light crossing all obstacles.
16.Maya Angelou
“I have 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
Maya Angelou was another revolutionary thinker of her time. This quote throws light upon the most ignored issue during the tough times we are facing, emotions and feelings.
As mental health issues are going up by notches, we should remember the words the great woman who once said we must care about how we make people feel because even if everything is secondary, people do remember the feelings.
17.Oprah Winfrey
“Create the highest, grandest vision possible for your life , because you become what you believe”
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey has been an inspiration for all the women and the feminists of modern times. Here is a quote by the great personality which helps us reflect on the situations we face in life and how we should always set our ambitions and keep believing in our dreams and goals to achieve greater heights.
18.Thomas Edison
During these times, when people are fighting, and we see the worse side of advancement in science. Thomas Edison tells us that science should always be used positively and not to harm people.
19.Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson says we should not only travel where the paths lead us to, but we should also go where there is no path, and that is how we shall make new ways and create new tracks. That is how we can make our marks in life.
20.Zig Ziglar
“People often say that motivation doesn’t last.Well,neither does bathing-that’s why we recommend it daily”
Zig Ziglar
Zig Ziglar says motivation does not last forever. Just like bathing, we need to motivate ourselves every day to work and to make the motivation last.
21.Steve Jobs
“The only way to do great work is to love what you do”
Steve Jobs, the man who brought storm in the world of business and computers with his mind-boggling invention, suggests that we should always be passionate about our work; otherwise, we will never achieve success.
22.Benjamin Franklin
“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn”
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin, in this quote, talks about how a person should be fruitfully taught. Merely telling something would never improve him, but proper teaching and involvement will let a person imbibe in the knowledge thoroughly.
23.Eleanor Roosevelt
“A woman is like a tea-bag-you can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water”
-Eleanor Roosevelt
Here Eleanor Roosevelt hints upon the excessive strength and endurance capabilities of a woman. She can resist all odds and cross all obstacles, even at the cost of harming herself to the point where she metaphorically refers to burning.
Here are a few other quotes by inspirational people
24. Henry Ford
“Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs”
Henry Ford
This quote tells us that it is more difficult when we try to do all the jobs together than when we divide it into small parts. So it is always wise to divide the work and carry it out methodically without any worries.
25. Dalai Lama
“Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.”
If we try to instill in us the general meaning of this quote, then he wants to say that no significant achievements can come at the cost of nothing. We always need to step forward and take risks to achieve greater heights.
26. Winston Churchill
Our attitude always makes a big difference in whatever we do as it affects not only us but the people working with and around us. It creates an impression of who we are and our goals. It also reflects our personality.
27. Mark Twain
He says that we will regret not doing things we could do than the things we did wrong because there is nothing as terrible as missed opportunities.
We can always spare some time from our daily schedule to enlighten our souls with such inspirational words by famous writers.it does not only help us relax but also take some vital advice and motivate us to move ahead in life.
Comment your favorite quotes in the comment section below.
Last Updated on by Laveleena Sharma