Short and Simple Inspirational Quotes to Uplift Your Spirit

"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

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

- Edwin Elliot

"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

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

- Viktor Frankl

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

- Napoleon Hill

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

- Og Mandino

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

- Oprah Winfrey

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

- Dolly Parton

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

- Will Rogers

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

- Marilyn Monroe

"Be persistent and never give up hope."

- George Lucas

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

- Paulo Coelho

"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

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

- Margaret Mead

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

- Walt Whitman

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

- Mandy Hale

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

- Audrey Hepburn

"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

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

- Henry Ford

"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

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

- Bob Marley

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

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"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

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

- Wayne Dyer

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

- Maya Angelou

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

- Robert Brault

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

- Leonard I. Sweet

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

- Nicole Kidman

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

- Malcolm X

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

- Alice Walker

"Life is a long lesson in humility."

- J.M. Barrie

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

- Oprah Winfrey

"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

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

- Lao Tzu

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

- Max Levchin

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

- Jim Rohn

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

- Les Brown

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

- Abraham Lincoln

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

- Maya Angelou

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

- Helen Keller

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

- Earl Nightingale

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

- Drew Barrymore

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

- Helen Keller

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

- Charles Dickens

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

- Jon Bon Jovi

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

- Dale Carnegie

"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

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

- Lady Gaga

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

- Jennifer Aniston

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

- Henry Ford

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

- Margaret Fuller

"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

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

- Albert Einstein

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

- C.S. Lewis

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

- Gabrielle Union

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

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"Your self-worth is determined by you. You don't have to depend on someone telling you who you are."

- Beyoncé

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

- Audrey Hepburn

"You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose."

- Dr. Seuss

"Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference."

- Winston Churchill

"To bring about change, you must not be afraid to take the first step. We will fail when we fail to try."

- Rosa Parks

"All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them."

- Walt Disney

"Don't sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them."

- Madam C.J. Walker

"I am lucky that whatever fear I have inside me, my desire to win is always stronger."

- Serena Williams

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

- Aristotle

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

- Anaïs Nin

"Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong."

- Ella Fitzgerald

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

- Maya Angelou

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

- Dolly Parton

"All dreams are within reach. All you have to do is keep moving towards them."

- Viola Davis

"When you put love out in the world it travels, and it can touch people and reach people in ways that we never even expected."

- Laverne Cox

"Give light and people will find the way."

- Ella Baker

"It always seems impossible until it's done."

- Nelson Mandela

"Don’t count the days, make the days count."

- Muhammad Ali

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

- Geena Davis

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

- Toni Morrison

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

- Carol Burnett

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

- Eleanor Roosevelt

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

- Bruce Springsteen

"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

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

- Taylor Swift

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

- Michelle Obama

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

- Oscar Wilde

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

- Lady Gaga

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

- Mary Lou Retton

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

- Naomi Osaka

"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

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

- Duke Ellington

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

- Bonnie Prudden

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

- Roxane Gay

"There is no better compass than compassion."

- Amanda Gorman

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

- Maggie Kuhn

"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

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

- Alice Walker

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

- Robert Frost

"Impossible is for the unwilling."

- John Keats

"No pressure, no diamonds."

- Thomas Carlyle

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

- Serena Williams

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

- Carol Burnett

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

- Audrey Hepburn

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

- Mother Teresa

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

- Oprah Winfrey

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

- Michael Jordan

"You’ve got to be in it to win it."

- Tony Robbins

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

- Confucius

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

- Dolly Parton

"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

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

- Sofia Vergara

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

- Leonardo DiCaprio

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

- Kesha

"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

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

- Stephanie Perkins

"These things are good things."

- Dr. Seuss

"That is one good thing about this world ... there are always sure to be more springs."

- L.M. Montgomery

"Each of us is more than the worst thing we've ever done."

- Bryan Stevenson

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

- Wayne Gretzky

"At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done—then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago."

- Frances Hodgson Burnett

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

- J.R.R. Tolkien

"There are years that ask questions and years that answer."

- Zora Neale Hurston

"You make a life out of what you have, not what you're missing."

- Kate Morton

"The bad news is time flies. The good news is you're the pilot."

- Michael Altshuler

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

- Herman Melville

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

- Danny Boyle

"Keep your face always toward the sunshine, and shadows will fall behind you."

- Walt Whitman

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

- Paulo Coelho

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

- Robert Louis Stevenson

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

- Drew Houston

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

- Vernon Sanders Law

"Dream big and dare to fail."

- Norman Vaughan

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

- Abraham Lincoln

"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

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

- Vincent van Gogh

"I've got nothing to do today but smile."

- Simon and Garfunkel

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

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

"You rarely win, but sometimes you do."

- Harper Lee

"Champions keep playing until they get it right."

- Billie Jean King

"That's what I consider true generosity: You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing."

- Simone de Beauvoir

"Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them."

- Marcus Aurelius

"If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you'll never get it done."

- Bruce Lee

"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

"As we work to create light for others, we naturally light our own way."

- Mary Anne Radmacher

"No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another."

- Charles Dickens

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

- Albert Einstein

"Do your little bit of good where you are; it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world."

- Desmond Tutu

"Do anything, but let it produce joy."

- Walt Whitman

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

- George Eliot

"Anything is possible with sunshine and a little pink."

- Lilly Pulitzer

"It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

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

- Alexander Graham Bell

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

- Lucille Ball

"Do one thing every day that scares you."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

- Thomas A. Edison

"It's how you deal with failure that determines how you achieve success."

- David Feherty

"One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things."

- Henry Miller

"No exact recipe for today. Gather all available ingredients and whip yourself up something delicious."

- Lin Manuel Miranda

"Lay plans for something big by starting with it when small."

- Lao Tzu

"It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are."

- E.E. Cummings

"I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go."

- Langston Hughes

"Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work in hand. The Sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus."

- Alexander Graham Bell

"Every strike brings me closer to the next home run."

- Babe Ruth

"Walk to your goal firmly and with bold steps."

- Harvey Mackay

"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken."

- Oscar Wilde

"It is not enough to have a good mind; the important thing is to use it well."

- René Descartes

"I believe great people do things before they are ready."

- Amy Poehler

"Thou must gather thine own sunshine."

- Nathaniel Hawthorne

"You cannot change what you are, only what you do."

- Philip Pullman

"Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring."

- Marilyn Monroe

"Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time."

- Ruth Bader Ginsburg

"Pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it."

- Paulo Coelho

"You’re braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think."

- A.A. Milne

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

- Winston Churchill

"A champion is defined not by their wins but by how they can recover when they fall."

- Serena Williams

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined."

- Henry David Thoreau

"Nothing is impossible. The word itself says, 'I'm possible!'"

- Audrey Hepburn

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

- Theodore Roosevelt

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

- George Bernard Shaw

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

- Nora Ephron

"The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do."

- Steve Jobs

"If my mind can conceive it, if my heart can believe it, then I can achieve it."

- Muhammad Ali

"All our dreams can come true — if we have the courage to pursue them."

- Walt Disney

"If you don't like the road you're walking, start paving another one!"

- Dolly Parton

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started."

- Mark Twain

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

- Buddha

"You become what you believe."

- Oprah Winfrey

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

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

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

- Brian Tracy

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

- Anthony Robbins

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

- Ruth Bader Ginsburg

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

- Oliver Goldsmith

"You are the one that possesses the keys to your being. You carry the passport to your own happiness."

- Diane von Furstenberg

"We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: We have the power to imagine better."

- J.K. Rowling

"For there is always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it."

- Amanda Gorman

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

- Mahatma Gandhi

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

- Audrey Hepburn

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

- Mother Teresa

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

- Henry Ford

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

- Michael Jordan

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

- Neil Armstrong

"There is no greater thing you can do with your life and your work than follow your passions–in a way that serves the world and you."

- Richard Branson

"You get in life what you have the courage to ask for."

- Oprah Winfrey

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

- Sam Levenson

"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

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

- Princess Diana

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

- H.G. Wells

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

- Albert Einstein

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

- Dr. Mae Jemison

"Character is power."

- Booker T. Washington

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

- Vince Lombardi

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

- Sheryl Sandberg

"In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different."

- Coco Chanel

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

- Confucius

"Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen."

- Michael Jordan

"In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity."

- Albert Einstein

"We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained."

- Marie Curie

"Only when we're drowning do we understand how fierce our feet can kick."

- Amanda Gorman

"Great things are done by a series of small things brought together."

- Vincent van Gogh

"Light tomorrow with today."

- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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

- Anais Nin

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

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"It is often the small steps, not the giant leaps, that bring about the most lasting change."

- Queen Elizabeth II

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

- Winston Churchill

"Once you face your fear, nothing is ever as hard as you think."

- Olivia Newton John

"Be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else."

- Judy Garland

"Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence."

- Vince Lombardi

"We will fail when we fail to try."

- Rosa Parks

"The most difficult thing is the decision to act; the rest is merely tenacity."

- Amelia Earhart

"What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today."

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

"You are your best thing."

- Toni Morrison

"There is nothing impossible to they who will try."

- Alexander the Great

"Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does."

- William James

"Take your victories, whatever they may be, cherish them, use them, but don't settle for them."

- Mia Hamm

"You are imperfect, you are wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging."

- Brené Brown

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

- Maya Angelou

"The only approval you need is your own."

- Amanda Gorman

"Perpetual optimism [is] a force multiplier."

- Colin Powell

"Never regret anything that made you smile."

- Mark Twain

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

- John Wooden

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

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

- Jennifer Lopez

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

- Robert Louis Stevenson

"The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing."

- Voltaire

"Eighty percent of success is showing up."

- Woody Allen

"There is no courage without vulnerability."

- Brené Brown

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

- Mario Fernandez

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

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"Oh, the places you’ll go!"

- Dr. Seuss

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

- William Butler Yeats

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

- Albert Camus

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

- Bill Gates

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

- Richard Branson

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."

- Helen Keller

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

- Toni Morrison

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

- Jim Rohn

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

- T.S. Eliot

"Carpe diem."

- Horace

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

- Plato

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

- Michelle Obama

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

- Thomas Edison

"The best way out is always through."

- Robert Frost

"Turn your wounds into wisdom."

- Oprah Winfrey

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

- Virgil

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

- William Shakespeare

"I think, therefore I am."

- René Descartes

"Less is more."

- Rone

"If you see someone without a smile, give 'em yours!"

- Dolly Parton

"Embrace the glorious mess that you are."

- Elizabeth Gilbert

"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

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

- Steven Wright

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

- Robin Williams

"My favorite machine at the gym is the vending machine."

- Caroline Rhea

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

- Noel Coward

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

- Dorothy Parker

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

- Lily Tomlin

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

- Will Ferrell

"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

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

- Jerry Seinfeld

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

- Allen Saunders

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

- Groucho Marx

"The only easy day was yesterday."

- U.S. Navy SEALs

"Just do it."

- Nike

"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

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

"People begin to become successful the minute they decide to be."

"Just believe in yourself. Even if you don’t, pretend that you do and, at some point, you will."

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

"Don't tell people your plans."

"Stay foolish to stay sane."

"I can and I will."

"Semper Fidelis."

"Nothing changes if nothing changes."

"When nothing goes right, go left."