The Big List of Motivational and Thought-Provoking Quotes

Sometimes there is a quote or saying that really resonates with you. It can be from someone who you would not expect at all, as you will see by some of the quotes below. Sometimes there are many that strike a chord with you.
This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.

Sometimes there is a quote or saying that really resonates with you. It can be from someone who you would not expect at all, as you will see by some of the quotes below. Sometimes there are many that strike a chord with you. One of the simplest and most inspiring things you can do for yourself is to keep an open mind of the source, write it down, and keep it somewhere that it can be seen often. I carry mine with me in a planner each day so that they are always at hand. I add to my list every time I hear something that really strikes a chord. What a simple way to give yourself that boost you need, exactly when you need it. I hope some of these resonate with you a well!

Motivational and Thought Provoking Quotes From People You Never Though Would Inspire You!

1) "Character is doing the right thing when nobody's looking." -- J.C. Watts

2) "Not all those who wander are lost." -- J.R. R. Tolkein

3) "There is no substitute for hard work." -- Thomas Edison

4) "Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane, and the pessimist the parachute." -- Gil Stein

5) "The distance is nothing; it's only the first step that is difficult." -- Marquise du Deffand

6) "It doesn't matter if I don't succeed in something. What matters is if I learn from my mistakes." -- Linda Evans

7) "If you don't like something change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain." -- Maya Angelou

8) "He that is good for making excuses, is seldom good for anything else." -- Benjamin Franklin

9) The grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for." -- Allan K Chalmers

10) "Well done is better than well said." -- Benjamin Franklin

11) "The worst loneliness is not to be comfortable with yourself." -- Mark Twain

12) "People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they are not on your road, doesn't mean they've gotten lost." -- Dalai Lama

13) "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." -- Plato

14) "If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything." -- Mark Twain

15) "A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval." -- Mark Twain

16) "Don't go around saying the world owes you something. The world owes you nothing. It was here first." -- Mark Twain

17) "The dictionary is the only place where success comes before work." -- Mark Twain

18) "The odds of hitting your target go up dramatically when you aim at it." -- Mal Pancoast

19) "Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." -- Thomas Edison

20) "Success if getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get." -- Dale Carnegie

21) "Nobody can bring you peace but yourself." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

22) "What you do speaks so loud, that I cannot hear what you say." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

23) "For every minute you remain angry, you give up 60 seconds of peace of mind." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

24) "What lies behind us, and what lies before us, are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

25) "To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

26) "Try and fail, but don't fail to try." -- Stephen Kaggwa

27) "The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure." -- Eriksson

28) "To be great, is to be misunderstood." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

29) "The only person you are destined to become, is the person you decide to be." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

30) "To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else, is the greatest accomplishment." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

31) "Every saint has a past. Every sinner has a future." -- Oscar Wilde

32) "Always forgive your enemies, nothing annoys them so much." -- Oscar Wilde

33) "Be yourself, everyone else is already taken." -- Oscar Wilde

34) "I have the simplest of tastes. I am always satisfied with the best." -- Oscar Wilde

35) "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking up at the stars." -- Oscar Wilde

36) "To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all." -- Oscar Wilde

37) "There is no beauty without some strangeness." -- Edgar Allen Poe

38) "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge." -- Charles Darwin

39) "All that we see or seem is but a scream within a scream." -- Edgar Allen Poe

40) "I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become." -- Carl Jung

41) "The mind is everything. What you think, you become." -- Buddha

42) "Don't make a permanent decision for a temporary emotion." -- unknown

43) "Life is too short to spend another day at war with yourself." -- Confucius

44) "Nothing haunts us like the things we don't say." -- Mitch Albom

45) "We ARE our choices." -- J.P. Sartre

46) "Most people would learn from their mistakes, if they weren't so busy denying them." -- Harold J. Smith

47) "If the simple things in life don't put a smile on your face, then you will never truly be happy." -- unknown

48) "Make is simple, but significant." -- Don Draper

49) "Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves." -- Confucius

50) "Forgiveness doesn't mean you excuse the crime. It only means you are no longer willing to be the victim." -- Unknown

51) "I'm rarely bored alone; I am often bored in groups and crowds." -- Laurie Halgoe

52) "When you complain, you make yourself the victim. Leave the situation, change the situation, or accept it. All else is madness." -- Eckhart Tolle

53) "What is love? Love is absence of judgement." -- Dalai Lama

54) "Be a voice, not an echo." -- Albert Einstein

55) "Alice: This is impossible. The Mad Hatter: Only if you believe it is."

56) "When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be." -- Lao Tzu

57) "Do not wish for, what you will not work for." -- Unknown

58) "If it wasn't for failures, I wouldn't know what strength looked like." -- Byron Pulsifer

59) "The only way a relationship will last, is if you see your relationship as a place you go to give, and NOT a place you go to take." -- Anthony Robbins

60) "Shared joy is double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow." -- Swedish Proverb

61) "The joy in life is to be used for a purpose. I want to be all used up when I die." -- George Bernard Shaw

62) "No matter the time of day, no matter who is watching, and no matter what the situation, personal integrity doesn't take a holiday." -- Byron Pulsifer

63) "He who angers you, conquers you." -- Elizabeth Kenny

Popular in the Community

Close

HuffPost Shopping’s Best Finds

MORE IN LIFE