Inspiration in a Nutshell: 50 Really Short Quotes to Uplift Your Spirit

"Before anything else, preparation is the key to success."

- Alexander Graham Bell

"You are never too old to set a new goal or to dream a new dream."

- C.S. Lewis

"The most important thing is to enjoy your life — to be happy — it’s all that matters."

- Audrey Hepburn

"If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of."

- Bruce Lee

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts."

- Winston Churchill

"The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."

- Oliver Goldsmith

"Believe you can and you’re halfway there."

- Theodore Roosevelt

"Life is either a great adventure or nothing."

- Helen Keller

"You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take."

- Wayne Gretzky

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be."

- Lao Tzu

"How dare you settle for less when the world made it so easy for you to be remarkable?"

- Seth Godin

"Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful."

- Joshua J. Marine

"All you need is love."

- The Beatles

"Life is very interesting…in the end, some of your greatest pains become your greatest strengths."

- Drew Barrymore

"Family is not an important thing. It’s everything."

- Michael J. Fox

"The only impossible journey is the one you never begin."

- Anthony Robbins

"The mind is everything. What you think, you become."

- Buddha

"The time is always right to do what is right."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"It is never too late to be what you might have been."

- George Eliot

"It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light."

- Aristotle

"Life is a daring adventure or it is nothing at all."

- Helen Keller

"It does not matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop."

- Confucius

"And when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it."

- Paulo Coelho

"Don’t wait around for other people to be happy for you. Any happiness you get you’ve got to make yourself."

- Alice Walker

"Success is falling nine times and getting up 10."

- Jon Bon Jovi

"Don’t worry about failure, you only have to be right once."

- Drew Houston

"Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failures are two of the surest stepping stones to success."

- Dale Carnegie

"Dream big and dare to fail."

- Norman Vaughan

"Life has no limitations, except the ones you make."

- Les Brown

"I’m not going to continue knocking on that old door that doesn’t open for me. I’m going to create my own door and walk through that."

- W.P. Kinsella

"You define your own life. Don’t let other people write your script."

- Oprah Winfrey

"The future is not something we enter. The future is something we create."

- Leonard I. Sweet

"I’m not going to continue knocking that old door that doesn’t open for me. I’m going to create my own door and walk through that."

- Ava DuVernay

"The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Love the life you live. Live the life you love."

- Bob Marley

"Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right."

- Henry Ford

"Nothing is impossible. The word itself says ‘I’m possible!’"

- Audrey Hepburn

"When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too."

- Paulo Coelho

"Keep smiling, because life is a beautiful thing and there’s so much to smile about."

- Marilyn Monroe

"Failure is a great teacher and, if you are open to it, every mistake has a lesson to offer."

- Oprah Winfrey

"Find out who you are and be that person. That’s what your soul was put on this earth to be. Find the truth, live that truth, and everything else will come."

- Ellen DeGeneres

"Do one thing every day that scares you."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"For me, becoming isn’t about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey doesn’t end."

- Michelle Obama

"I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying."

- Michael Jordan

"The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams."

- Oprah Winfrey

"Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come without leaving happier."

- Mother Teresa

"The most important thing is to enjoy your life—to be happy—it’s all that matters."

- Audrey Hepburn

"You have to believe in yourself when no one else does."

- Serena Williams

"Love yourself first and everything else falls into line."

- Lucille Ball

"In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years."

- Abraham Lincoln

"No matter how far away from yourself you may have strayed, there is always a path back. You already know who you are and how to fulfill your destiny."

- Oprah Winfrey

"The future belongs to those who prepare for it today."

- Malcolm X

"You just gotta keep going and fighting for everything, and one day you’ll get to where you want."

- Naomi Osaka

"You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them."

- Maya Angelou

"You will face many defeats in life, but never let yourself be defeated."

- Maya Angelou

"Hard things will happen to us. We will recover. We will learn from it. We will grow more resilient because of it."

- Taylor Swift

"When you have a dream, you've got to grab it and never let go."

- Carol Burnett

"The days count."

- Muhammad Ali

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

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us."

- Joseph Campbell

"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give."

- Winston Churchill

"Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to the error that counts."

- Nikki Giovanni

"If you are not willing to risk the usual, you will have to settle for the ordinary."

- Jim Rohn

"In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s life in your years."

- Abraham Lincoln

"Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood."

- Helen Keller

"Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can."

- Arthur Ashe

"Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in."

- Bill Bradley

"There are no regrets in life. Just lessons."

- Jennifer Aniston

"If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it."

- Margaret Fuller

"We cannot solve problems with the kind of thinking we employed when we came up with them."

- Albert Einstein

"It’s always better to shock people and change people’s expectations than to give them exactly what they think you can do."

- Jonah Hill

"Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant."

- Robert Louis Stevenson

"It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation."

- Herman Melville

"Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards."

- Vernon Sanders Law

"Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm."

- Abraham Lincoln

"For the great doesn’t happen through impulse alone, and is a succession of little things that are brought together."

- Vincent van Gogh

"Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway."

- John Wayne

"If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way."

- Napoleon Hill

"Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud."

- Maya Angelou

"We become what we think about most of the time."

- Earl Nightingale

"A problem is a chance for you to do your best."

- Duke Ellington

"A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new."

- Albert Einstein

"Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success."

- Henry Ford

"We will fail when we fail to try."

- Rosa Parks

"It's hard to beat a person who never gives up."

- Babe Ruth

"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken."

- Oscar Wilde

"You never lose by loving. You always lose by holding back."

- Barbara de Angelis

"I do love nothing in the world so well as you."

- Much Ado About Nothing

"Every little thing is gonna be alright."

- Bob Marley

"You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one."

- John Lennon

"One cannot step twice in the same river."

- Heraclitus

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

"The unexamined life is not worth living."

- Socrates

"Fortune favors the brave."

- Virgil

"If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat. Just get on."

- Sheryl Sandberg

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

- Brian Tracy

"If you fell down yesterday, stand up today."

- H.G. Wells

"The only thing standing between you and your goal is the story you keep telling yourself as to why you can’t achieve it."

- Jordan Belfort

"Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you."

- Ruth Bader Ginsburg

"If you prioritize yourself, you are going to save yourself."

- Gabrielle Union

"Turn your wounds into wisdom."

- Oprah Winfrey

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

- George Bernard Shaw

"I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

- Michael Jordan

"There is no courage without vulnerability."

- Brené Brown

"Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim."

- Nora Ephron

"History has shown us that courage can be contagious, and hope can take on a life of its own."

- Michelle Obama

"If you risk nothing, then you risk everything."

- Geena Davis

"Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn’t have the power to say yes."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"If you're having fun, that's when the best memories are built."

- Simone Biles

"Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor."

- Truman Capote

"Your story is what you have, what you will always have. It is something to own."

- Michelle Obama

"Optimism is a happiness magnet. If you stay positive, good things and good people will be drawn to you."

- Mary Lou Retton

"When you can’t find someone to follow, you have to find a way to lead by example."

- Roxane Gay

"Stand before the people you fear and speak your mind – even if your voice shakes."

- Maggie Kuhn

"Vitality shows not only in the ability to persist but in the ability to start over."

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any."

- Alice Walker

"You’ve got to be in it to win it."

- Tony Robbins

"Find out who you are and do it on purpose."

- Dolly Parton

"If you can do what you do best and be happy, you are further along in life than most people."

- Leonardo DiCaprio

"Always go with your passions. Never ask yourself if it’s realistic or not."

- Deepak Chopra

"When you change your thoughts, remember to also change your world."

- Norman Vincent Peale

"By being yourself, you put something wonderful in the world that was not there before."

- Edwin Elliot

"When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves."

- Viktor Frankl

"Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later."

- Og Mandino

"If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one."

- Dolly Parton

"Be persistent and never give up hope."

- George Lucas

"Believe and act as if it were impossible to fail."

- Charles Kettering

"There are so many great things in life; why dwell on negativity?"

- Zendaya

"Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn’t know you left open."

- John Barrymore

"Keep your face towards the sunshine and shadows will fall behind you."

- Walt Whitman

"Life does not have to be perfect to be wonderful."

- Annette Funicello

"The best way out is through."

- Robert Frost

"Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great."

- John D. Rockefeller

"Don’t take yourself too seriously. Know when to laugh at yourself, and find a way to laugh at obstacles that inevitably present themselves."

- Halle Bailey

"If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."

- Wayne Dyer

"Take the time to enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things."

- Robert Brault

"Life has got those twists and turns. You’ve got to hold on tight and off you go."

- Nicole Kidman

"Vitality shows not only in the ability to persist, but in the ability to start over."

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

"The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you."

- Stephanie Perkins

"Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else."

- Margaret Mead

"The harder I work, the more luck I seem to have."

- Thomas Jefferson

"There is no better compass than compassion."

- Amanda Gorman

"It’s a good place when all you have is hope and not expectations."

- Danny Boyle

"Ignore your mistakes. The number one thing to worry about is: Am I doing what I’m good at?"

- Max Levchin

"Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is."

- Vince Lombardi

"The best way out is always through."

- Robert Frost

"Never be limited by other people’s limited imaginations."

- Dr. Mae Jemison

"Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going."

- Sam Levenson

"Confident people have a way of carrying themselves that makes others attracted to them."

- Sofia Vergara

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go."

- T.S. Eliot

"You don’t always need a plan. Sometimes you just need to breathe, trust, let go and see what happens."

- Mandy Hale

"You define beauty yourself, society doesn’t define your beauty."

- Lady Gaga

"Perpetual optimism [is] a force multiplier."

- Colin Powell

"You can be everything. You can be the infinite amount of things that people are."

- Kesha

"Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right."

- Henry Ford

"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people just exist."

- Oscar Wilde

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on."

- Robert Frost

"My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me."

- Henry Ford

"Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today."

- Will Rogers

"Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place."

- Zora Neale Hurston

"Life is made of ever so many partings welded together."

- Charles Dickens

"Life is a long lesson in humility."

- J.M. Barrie

"When it comes to luck, you make your own."

- Bruce Springsteen

"The best thing to hold onto in life is each other."

- Audrey Hepburn

"Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain."

- Vivian Greene

"Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined."

- Toni Morrison

"Do not let making a living prevent you from making a life."

- John Wooden

"Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person."

- Mother Teresa

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started."

- Mark Twain

"You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough."

- Mae West

"If you don’t have any shadows you’re not in the light."

- Lady Gaga

"That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

- Neil Armstrong

"It’s fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure."

- Bill Gates

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

- Albert Camus

"It’s a toxic desire to try to be perfect. I realized later in life that the challenge is not to be perfect. It’s to be whole."

- Jane Fonda

"I never want to stop making memories with you."

- Pierre Jeanty

"History is written by the victors."

- Winston Churchill

"With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"The best revenge is massive success."

- Frank Sinatra

"Eighty percent of success is showing up."

- Woody Allen

"I sustain myself with the love of family."

- Maya Angelou

"For every minute you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city."

- George Burns

"Distance means so little, when someone means so much."

- Tom McNeal

"Friendship's the wine of life."

- Edward Young

"A friend is someone with whom you dare to be yourself."

- Frank Crane

"Rare as is true love, true friendship is rarer."

- Jean de La Fontaine

"It's the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter."

- Marlene Dietrich

"And the stars look very different today."

- David Bowie

"I won’t be afraid just as long as you stand, stand by me."

- Ben E. King

"Baby, we were born to run."

- Bruce Springsteen

"I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free."

- Michelangelo

"Happiness is not by chance, but by choice."

- Jim Rohn

"Character is power."

- Booker T. Washington

"Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile."

- Albert Einstein

"Never regret anything that made you smile."

- Mark Twain

"What’s the world for if you can’t make it up the way you want it?"

- Toni Morrison

"Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well."

- Robert Louis Stevenson

"Rise above the storm and you will find the sunshine."

- Mario Fernandez

"Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking."

- William Butler Yeats

"You don’t learn to walk by following rules, you learn by doing, and falling over."

- Richard Branson

"Carpe diem."

- Horace

"Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration."

- Thomas Edison

"The only easy day was yesterday."

- U.S. Navy SEALs

"Just do it."

- Nike

"Keep calm and carry on."

- Winston S. Churchill

"You can’t turn back the clock. But you can wind it up again."

- Bonnie Prudden

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

- Roald Dahl

"Don't find fault, find a remedy: anyone can complain."

- Henry Ford

"The world doesn't make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?"

- Oscar Wilde

"Have no fear of perfection. You'll never reach it."

- Salvador Dali

"Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results."

- Rita Mae Brown

"Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive."

- Elbert Hubbard

"No one ever fell in love without being a little bit brave."

- Mario Tomasello

"I love you more than coffee, but please don’t make me prove it."

- Elizabeth Evans

"At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet."

- Plato

"Other things may change us, but we start and end with the family."

- Anthony Brandt

"I think, therefore I am."

- René Descartes

"The best mirror is an old friend."

- George Herbert

"Families are like fudge—mostly sweet, with a few nuts."

- Les Dawson

"We were together. I forget the rest."

- Walt Whitman

"Nothing will work unless you do."

- Maya Angelou

"Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great."

- John D. Rockefeller

"People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day."

- Winnie the Pooh

"I can resist everything except temptation."

- Oscar Wilde

"Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans."

- Allen Saunders

"I’d like people to think of me as someone who cares about them."

- Princess Diana

"The greatest wealth is to live content with little."

- Plato

"Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it."

- Edmund Burke

"Doubt is a killer. You have to know who you are and what you stand for."

- Jennifer Lopez

"Love is not love until love’s vulnerable."

- Theodore Roethke

"Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened."

- Dr. Seuss

"Well done is better than well said."

- Benjamin Franklin

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."

- Rhett Butler (Clark Gable)

"Oh, the places you’ll go!"

- Dr. Seuss

"Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same."

- Emily Brontë

"Perhaps one day it will be pleasing to recall even such hardships."

- Virgil

"Less is more."

- Rone

"Life is ours, we live it our way."

- Metallica

"The world is a stage and the play is badly cast."

- Oscar Wilde

"All my life I always wanted to be someone. I see now I should have been more specific."

- Lily Tomlin

"Love is like pi—natural, irrational, and very important."

- Lisa Hoffman

"True love stories never have endings."

- Richard Bach

"Think different."

- Apple

"Impossible is nothing."

- Adidas

"Lux et Veritas."

- Yale University motto

"Excelsior!"

- New York state motto

"May the Force be with you."

- Star Wars

"Hasta la vista, baby."

- Terminator 2: Judgement Day

"Here you come again, lookin’ better than a body has a right to."

- Dolly Parton

"Running after you is like chasing the clouds."

- One Direction

"Don’t stop believin’."

- Journey

"You'll never know how slow the moments go till I'm near to you."

- Ray Nobel

"I’m looking right at the other half of me."

- Justin Timberlake

"I have a wonderful shelter, which is my family."

- José Carreras

"To succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone, and a funny bone."

- Reba McEntire

"Who, being loved, is poor?"

- Oscar Wilde

"There are two kinds of travel: first class and with children."

- Robert Benchley

"History will be kind to me for I intend to write it."

- Winston S. Churchill

"The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing."

- Walt Disney

"I’m writing a book. I’ve got the page numbers done."

- Steven Wright

"All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players."

- William Shakespeare

"I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member."

- A.A. Milne

"Before you marry a person you should first make them use a computer with slow Internet to see who they really are."

- Will Ferrell

"Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason."

- Jerry Seinfeld

"The reason I talk to myself is because I’m the only one whose answers I accept."

- George Carlin

"If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to."

- Dorothy Parker

"Trying is the first step toward failure."

- Homer Simpson

"I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me."

- Noel Coward

"A horse! A horse! My Kingdom for a horse!"

- William Shakespeare

"Why do they call it rush hour when nothing moves?"

- Robin Williams

"I want my children to have all the things I couldn’t afford. Then I want to move in with them."

- Phyllis Diller

"Some people have no idea what they’re doing, and a lot of them are really good at it."

- George Carlin

"No man goes before his time — unless his boss leaves early."

- Groucho Marx

"There is no sunrise so beautiful that it is worth waking me up to see it."

- Mindy Kaling

"A day without sunshine is like, you know, night."

- Steve Martin

"I always arrive late at the office, but I make up for it by leaving early."

- Charles Lamb

"Cogito, ergo sum. (I think, therefore, I am.)"

"I never dreamed about success, I worked for it."

"Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning."

"If you want to see the rainbow, be ready to face the rain first."

"Giving up doesn’t always mean you are weak … sometimes it means that you are strong enough to let go."

"Talk to yourself like someone you love."

"Children can be the absolute best thing to ever happen to you or they can be the absolute worst thing to ever happen to you. However, you are the determining factor."

"Hate is NOT the opposite of love. To totally ignore someone is the opposite of love."

"Life gives you the test first, then the lesson. Test first. Then the lesson."

"Running away from a problem only increases the distance from the solution."

"Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today."

"Forgiveness is for yourself. Understanding this will ease the path of your life."

"A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it."

"Home isn't where you're from, it's where you find light when all grows dark."

"Love your curves and all your edges, all your perfect imperfections."

"Traveling in the company of those we love is home in motion."

"Time spent with Cats is never wasted."

"Friendship multiplies the good of life and divides the evil."

"Attitude is the ‘little thing’ that makes a big difference."

"Don’t walk away to teach someone a lesson. Walk away because you learned yours."

"Of all possessions a friend is the most precious."

"Let's face it, friends make life a lot more fun."

"To friendship every burden's light."

"It is the same life, whether we spend it laughing or crying."

"Insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops."

"A friend is one soul abiding in two bodies."

"There are only a few things that can truly change a person's personality. Bad health is certainly one of them."

"The best revenge is not giving a shit."

"Most people would rather be certain they are miserable, than risk being happy."

"The secret to getting ahead is getting started."

"Be good to people for no reason."

"If you judge people you have no time to love them."

"In time of test, family is best."

"Dream until your dreams come true."

"If you remember me, then I don’t care if everyone else forgets."

"Take a chance, it could only make you stronger. Do your dance."

"One of the saddest feelings in life is to grow old and realize these two facts: you were truly brilliant and you wasted it."

"Semper Fidelis."

"Until you become comfortable with being alone you will never know if you are choosing someone out of love or loneliness."

"Keep looking up … that’s the secret of life."

"Love is the whole thing. We are only pieces."

"True friends are always together in spirit."

"Awards become corroded. Friends gather no dust."

"Sticking with your family is what makes it a family."

"The truth is we don’t mature with years. We mature with damage."

"Many men can make a fortune but very few can build a family."

"Life becomes easier when you learn to accept the apology you never got."

"And here we are in heaven, For you are mine."

"Don’t you be so nice to me; I fall in love so easily."

"No friendship is an accident."

"Our most basic instinct is not for survival but for family."

"I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have."

"The family is the first essential cell of human society."

"Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else."

"The memories you make with your family are everything."

"Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional."

"I never forget a face—but in your case, I’ll be glad to make an exception."