Inspiring Tattoo Quotes: A Collection of Words to Ink Your Soul

"Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself."

- George Bernard Shaw

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

- Mary Oliver

"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken."

- Oscar Wilde

"Be the change that you wish to see in the world."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and most beautiful of all."

- Walt Disney Company

"Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom."

- Aristotle

"Everything you can imagine is real."

- Pablo Picasso

"I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better."

- Maya Angelou

"Nobody can hurt me without my permission."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"Live, travel, adventure, bless, and don’t be sorry."

- Jack Kerouac

"Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself."

- Rumi

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."

- Anais Nin

"Laughter is timeless. Imagination has no age. And dreams are forever."

- Walt Disney

"I am not what happened to me; I am what I choose to become."

- Carl Jung

"Why fit in when you were born to stand out?"

- Dr. Seuss

"Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion."

- Rumi

"You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star."

- Friedrich Nietzsche

"Turn your wounds into wisdom."

- Oprah Winfrey

"Love is so short, forgetting is so long."

- Pablo Neruda

"What matters most is how well you walk through the fire."

- Charles Bukowski

"I have five tattoos. One says conquer, another Svatantra, a third mind over matter. I have a heart on my collar bone, and another tattoo saying Always Mommy's Girl. I got these tattoos in different places at different times in my life and they all mean something to me."

- Ananya Birla

"The wound is the place where the Light enters you."

- Rumi

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

- Anaïs Nin

"Where there is love, there is life."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul."

- William Ernest Henley

"I have a tattoo on my wrist... and it says, 'She believed she could, so she did.'"

- Carly Pearce

"Still I rise"

- Maya Angelou

"We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty."

- Maya Angelou

"In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act."

- George Orwell

"Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions."

- Albert Einstein

"Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future."

- Oscar Wilde

"Those who are always getting burned and hammered upon in life, are the strongest ...for the mightiest strength can only come from being forged"

- Bett G8S

"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Cry. Forgive. Learn. Move on. Let your tears water the seeds of your future happiness."

- Steve Maraboli

"I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light."

- Helen Keller

"The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive."

- John Green

"Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere."

- Albert Einstein

"Without music, life would be a mistake."

- Friedrich Nietzsche

"When love is not madness it is not love."

- Pedro Calderón de la Barca

"Love is the absence of judgment."

- Dalai Lama

"We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be."

- May Sarton

"Get busy living or get busy dying."

- Stephen King

"Where there is love there is life."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"Whatever you are, be a good one."

- Abraham Lincoln

"May you live every day of your life."

- Jonathan Swift

"You cannot find peace by avoiding life."

- Michael Cunningham

"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer."

- Albert Camus

"Peace begins with a smile."

- Mother Teresa

"The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But above all, the world needs dreamers who do."

- Sarah Ban Breathnach

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

- Lao Tzu

"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

- J.R.R. Tolkien

"Pain shapes a woman into a warrior."

- R.H.Sin

"Fear is the mind-killer."

- Paul Atreides

"What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger"

- Friedrich Nietzsche

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends"

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Tattoos are like stories - they're symbolic of the important moments in your life. Sitting down, talking about where you got each tattoo and what it symbolizes, is really beautiful."

- Pamela Anderson

"Happiness is a warm puppy."

- Charles M. Schulz

"The only way to do great work is to love what you do."

- Steve Jobs

"Life is a journey that must be traveled no matter how bad the roads and accommodations"

- Oliver Goldsmith

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams"

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"Give every Day the Chance to be the Best of your Life- life is the moment now"

- Sortimo

"I will not be broken, I do not need saving. I am strong"

- carlos

"If you don’t stand for something you will fall for anything."

- Gordon A. Eadie

"Not all those who wander are lost."

- J.R.R. Tolkien

"Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it."

- Roald Dahl

"Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears."

- John Lennon

"All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream."

- Edgar Allan Poe

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."

- Friedrich Nietzsche

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world."

- J.R.R. Tolkien

"Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold."

- Zelda Fitzgerald

"Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world."

- Voltaire

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."

- Søren Kierkegaard

"Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night."

- Edgar Allan Poe

"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known."

- Carl Sagan

"What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies."

- Aristotle

"There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness."

- Friedrich Nietzsche

"Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one."

- Terry Pratchett

"Resist much, obey little."

- Walt Whitman

"Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet."

- Bob Marley

"Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been."

- Mark Twain

"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible."

- Frank Zappa

"I actually have a tattoo on the left side of my chest that says 'Blessed.' It represents how blessed I've been in my life and how thankful I am for all that I have."

- Michael Chandler

"Life is a journey that must be traveled no matter how bad the roads and accommodations."

- Oliver Goldsmith

"The only way out is through."

- Robert Frost

"I was never really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched."

- Edgar Allan Poe

"Anyone who's had a tattoo knows once you get your first one, as you're walking out the door, you're planning the next."

- Chris Evans

"Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart."

- Haruki Murakami

"Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is."

- Albert Camus

"Strength; Its what comes from the madness we survive."

- Brad

"There is no friend as loyal as a book."

- Ernest Hemingway

"Never laugh at live dragons."

- J.R.R. Tolkien

"God has no religion."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."

- George Orwell

"People haven’t always been there for me but music always has."

- Taylor Swift

"Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It’s a way of understanding it."

- Lloyd Alexander

"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead."

- Charles Bukowski

"It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane."

- Philip K. Dick

"I'm a big fan of zombies, and I have a zombie tattoo on my leg."

- Tyler Posey

"Tattooing is my social life, too, so most of my time is taken up with that. People like Henry Lewis, Mike Davis at Everlasting Tattoo."

- Margaret Cho

"I have Bob Dylan lyrics on my ribs. I'm a diehard Dylan fan, and my dad and I joke that if I ever met him, I'd have him sign his name right under my tattoo and then I'd run to the parlor to get his signature tattooed."

- Carly Chaikin

"I got my very last tattoo after my father died. I'm not getting anymore; otherwise I'll end up like Mike Tyson with a tattoo on my face."

- Seann William Scott

"My tattoo is of a cannon in Vancouver that I got in a fleeting moment of stupidity maybe 14 years ago. A lot of people have really beautiful tattoos, and I get real tattoo envy. But then other people basically just treat them like bumper stickers for their bodies."

- Ryan Reynolds

"I was freaking out when Brooks & Dunn were breaking up. I thought 'We play a ton of rodeos, and I thought this was such a cowboy deal, and I don't wear a hat. They might not think I'm a cowboy. That might sound ridiculous to a lot of people, but apparently, it meant something to me. I wound up with a cowboy tattoo from my elbow to my wrist."

- Ronnie Dunn

"I like my feet. I have a tattoo on my foot with my last name. They're dancer feet. They're pretty. My toes are proportioned nicely. And they're strong - I can pinch people with my toes."

- Caity Lotz

"I have a Superman tattoo."

- Brian Quinn

"I'm a tearless clown. If I were to get a tattoo, it would be the two masks, and they would be both smiling."

- Andy Samberg

"I don't like the showy nationalism - a tattoo, wrapping yourself in a flag - that doesn't matter to me. The way to show your patriotism and commitment is to go and support or play for your team."

- Gary Speed

"You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life."

"Still I rise."

"The only limit is the one you set yourself."

"The magic is within you"

"Do it anyway"

"The only limit is the one you set yourself"

"The only way out is through"

"You are the greatest project you will ever work on"

"Be your own sun"

"Strength through struggle."

"Let your faith be bigger than your fear."

"Create your own sunshine"

"You are enough"

"Believe in yourself."

"You can"

"I’m changing"

"Keep choosing joy"

"You are stronger than your trials"

"Dream until your dreams come true"

"Chase your dreams."

"Strength through struggle"

"If you're going through hell, keep going"

"Let your faith be bigger than your fear"

"Believe in yourself"

"Trust your vibes, energy never lies"

"live life for the moment because everything else is uncertain"

"Embrace the journey, not the destination"

"Seek discomfort"

"Perfectly imperfect"

"Breathe"

"Keep going"

"There is sun after rain, love after pain"

"No rain, no flowers"

"Look for the magic in everything"

"We acquire the strength we have overcome."

"Make it count"

"everything I'm not made me everything I am"

"The best is yet to come."

"Embrace the journey, not the destination."

"The only constant is change"

"Let your body be your canvas to tell a story"

"Don't judge my journey if you haven't lived my past"

"This too shall pass"

"Never regret anything because at one time it was exactly what you wanted"

"Stay strong, make them wonder how you're still smiling."

"Timing — a reminder to be patient"

"Stay wild / Keep me wild"

"Everything is temporary"

"If it's worth the risk, take the fall. And if it's what you want, it's worth it all."

"Life handled me with bad cards I play with what i've got"

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be"

"Just keep me where the light is"

"After every storm there is a rainbow"

"Your past is not your enemy"

"Here I am, the rabbit hearted boy frozen in the lights. I must become the Lion hearted man ready for the fight."

"Even the best fall down sometimes."

"I won't abandon hope hope won't abandon me"

"I got my first tattoo when I was 19. The one on my shoulder is an eagle. I'd go to the beach, and I'd take off my shirt, and I'd almost feel self-conscious because nobody out there had tattoos except my buddies, the guys who rode motorcycles. American-made bikes, mainly."

"Peace begins with a Smile"

"The Strongest Stand Alone"

"give me strength when I'm standing and faith when I fall"

"I can do all things through which"

"A lot of guys in jail tattoo their hands."

"I basically - I don't like tattoos, unless you're a firefighter who has a tattoo that has to do with that or a military guy. That's - those are people who should have tattoos."