The BEST Inspirational Quotes and Sayings:

It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things. -Elinor Smith

True happiness is not made in getting something. True happiness is becoming something. This can be done by being committed to lofty goals. We cannot become something without commitment. -Ashton

It is terrible to speak well and be wrong. -Sophocles

I do not think there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature. -John Rockefeller

THE POWER OF A COMPELLING CAUSE RESTS IN THE SOUL OF ITS CREATOR, because a cause springs from the soul. It is a spiritual statement from one soul that cannot be the result of many. It comes from a deep place of knowing, some conviction that a richly imagined future could in some way, dramatically and positively, change the world. -Lance 

Secretan, author “Inspirational Leadership”

Within our dreams and aspirations we find our opportunities. -Sue Ebaugh

Your aspirations are your possibilities. -Dr. Samuel Johnson

There is no shame in having fallen. Nor any shame in being born into a lowly estate. There is only shame in not struggling to rise. And also shame for not wishing to attain the better. Or not dreaming about it and praying for it. -Samuel Amalu

Not failure, but low aim, is crime. -J.R. Lowell

Ambition is the spur that makes man struggle with destiny. It is heaven’s own incentive to make purpose great and achievement greater. -Donald G. Mitchell

Some of us have great runways already built for us. If you have one, take OFF! But if you don’t have one, realize it is your responsibility to grab a shovel and build one for yourself and for those who will follow after you. -Amelia Earhart

One never learns by success. Success is the plateau that one rests upon to take breath and look down from upon the straight and difficult path, but one does not climb upon a plateau. -Josephine Preston Peabody

Take a look at those two open hands of yours. They are tools with which to serve, make friends, and reach out for the best in life. Open hands open the way to achievement. Put them to work today. -Wilfred A. Patterson

I have always admired the ability to bite off more than one can chew and then chew it. -William DeMille

Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve! -Andrew Carnegie

You may be whatever you resolve to be. Determine to be something in the world, and you will be something. “I cannot,” never accomplished anything; “I will try,” has wrought wonders. -J. Hawes

Man ought always to have something that he prefers to life; otherwise life itself will seem to him tiresome and void. -Seume

There is a close connection between getting up in the world and getting up in the morning. -Anon.

The greatest discovery of my age is that men can change their circumstances by changing the attitude of their mind. -William James

To think we are able is almost to be so; to determine upon attainment is frequently attainment itself; earnest resolution has often seemed to have about it almost a savor of omnipotence. -S. Smiles

It is not for man to rest in absolute contentment. He is born to hopes and aspirations as the sparks fly upward, unless he has brutified his nature and quenched the spirit of immortality which is his portion. -Southey

The man who is born with a talent which he is meant to use finds his greatest happiness in using it. -Johann von Goethe

Every year I live I am more convinced that the waste of life lies in the love we have not given, the powers we have not used, the selfish prudence that will risk nothing, and which, shirking pain, missed happiness as well. No one ever yet was the poorer in the long run for having once in a lifetime “let out all the length of the reins.” -Mary Cholmondeley

The man without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder–a waif, a nothing, a no man. Have a purpose in life, and, having it, throw such strength of mind and muscle into your work as God has given you. -Carlyle

Providence has nothing good or high in store for one who does not resolutely aim at something high or good. A purpose is the eternal condition of success. -T.T. Munger

A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires. -H.W. Beecher

If you want the secondary greatness of recognized talent, focus first on primary greatness of character. -Stephan R. Covey

The growth of the human mind is still high adventure, in many ways, the highest adventure on earth. -Norman Cousins

Can you think of anything more permanently elating than to know that you are on the right road at last? -Vernon Howard

I am suffocated and lost when I have not the bright feeling of progression . -Margaret Fuller

Success soon palls. The joyous time is when the breeze first strikes your sails, and the waters rustle under your bows. -Charles Buxton

“If virtue promises happiness, prosperity and peace, then progress in virtue is progress in each of these…” -Epictetus

The world turns aside to let any man pass who knows whither he is going. -David Starr Jordan

It is never too late to be what you might have been. -George Eliot

Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside them was superior to circumstance. -Bruce Barton

He who wishes to fulfill his mission in the world must be a man of one idea, that is, of one great overmastering purpose, overshadowing all his aims, and guiding and controlling his entire life. -Julius Bate

You are here to enrich the world and you impoverish yourself if you forget that errand. -Woodrow Wilson

People are the custodians of the world’s wealth; if you want them to hand some over to you, you have to be nice to people! -Stuart Wilde

You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him. -?

You never will be the person you can be if pressure, tension and discipline are taken out of your life. -James G. Bilkey

Deep within man dwell these slumbering powers; powers that would astonish him, that he never dreamed of possessing; forces that would revolutionize his life if aroused and put into action. -Orison Marden

***People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are they who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them. -George Bernard Shaw***