Inspiration Quotations

If you don't drive your business, you will be driven out of business.

Learn to... be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not.

Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle.

We build too many walls and not enough bridges.

The opinion which other people have of you is their problem, not yours.

You have to dream before your dreams can come true.

Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all.

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

Act like you expect to get into the end zone.

A straight path never leads anywhere except to the objective.

Intense love does not measure, it just gives.

The most rewarding things you do in life are often the ones that look like they cannot be done.

The reason women don't play football is because 11 of them would never wear the same outfit in public.

Today, more than ever before, life must be characterized by a sense of Universal responsibility, not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life.

We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.

Reality is just a crutch for people who can't cope with drugs.

Inspiration comes from within yourself. One has to be positive. When you're positive, good things happen.

My inspiration can come from anything - films, the street, paparazzi pictures.

You always draw inspiration from your family or your parents if they've proven to be inspirational. My mother is someone who's always been inspirational to me.

Any job very well done that has been carried out by a person who is fully dedicated is always a source of inspiration.

I think a lot of songwriters would agree that it's often easier to find inspiration in misery.

The great composer does not set to work because he is inspired, but becomes inspired because he is working. Beethoven, Wagner, Bach and Mozart settled down day after day to the job in hand with as much regularity as an accountant settles down each day to his figures. They didn't waste time waiting for inspiration.

You can't be afraid to fail. It's the only way you succeed - you're not gonna succeed all the time, and I know that.

Every mind which has given itself to self-expression in art is aware of a directing agency outside its conscious control which it has agreed to label 'inspiration'.

Feminism, unlike almost every other social movement, is not a struggle against a distinct oppressor - it's not the ruling class or the occupiers or the colonizers - it's against a deeply held set of beliefs and assumptions that we women, far too often, hold ourselves.

My inspiration are the woman, friendship, and loneliness.

Inspiration is one thing and you can't control it, but hard work is what keeps the ship moving. Good luck means, work hard. Keep up the good work.

When Nike says, just do it, that's a message of empowerment. Why aren't the rest of us speaking to young people in a voice of inspiration?

Inspiration is an awakening, a quickening of all man's faculties, and it is manifested in all high artistic achievements.

You never know where your influences are going to come from, or where you're going to find your inspiration.

To me, obstacles in life build character. You have to be able to overcome adversity in order to succeed and appreciate the simple things life has to offer... that's where most of my inspiration for writing and singing comes from.

Be what you are. This is the first step toward becoming better than you are.

In terms of style I typically veer toward a certain masculinity. My style inspirations range from images of my father in his 1970s suits, to Tilda Swinton, to Hugh Hefner, to Sharon Stone and her ferocious sexuality, to handsome men I see on the streets of New York.

It is okay to be an outsider, a recent arrival, new on the scene - and not just okay, but something to be thankful for. ... Because being an insider can so easily mean collapsing the horizons, can so easily mean accepting the presumptions of your province.

Inspiration comes from so many sources. Music, other fiction, the non-fiction I read, TV shows, films, news reports, people I know, stories I hear, misheard words or lyrics, dreams

Do not worry about the incarnation of ideas. If you are a poet, your works will contain them without your knowledge - they will be both moral and national if you follow your inspiration freely.

I really do believe that God is love, one of deep affection and grace and forgiveness and inspiration.

The single thing all women need in the world is inspiration, and inspiration comes from storytelling.

Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once.

There exist limitless opportunities in every industry. Where there is an open mind, there will always be a frontier.

Cease trying to work everything out with your minds. It will get you nowhere. Live by intuition and inspiration and let your whole life be Revelation.

Most of life is routine - dull and grubby, but routine is the momentum that keeps a man going. If you wait for inspiration you'll be standing on the corner after the parade is a mile down the street.

One ends up relying on pure musical inspiration, and failing that, the music won't lead to anything good, or it will alienate all but the most die-hard fans.

I think my stubbornness, hardheadedness and stupidity is what has allowed me to play for 20 years.

I think that's given inspiration to other musicians. I know, particularly through the 90s, a lot of bands would cite Rush as an influence. I don't think it was so much our music, but more the way we really stuck to our guns.

He grows daily more capable of following any inspiration without technical effort, and also of letting inspiration come to him through meticulous observation.

Beethoven, Wagner, Bach, and Mozart settled down day after day to the job in hand. They didn't waste time waiting for inspiration.

True music must repeat the thought and inspirations of the people and the time.

Things are never so bad they can't be made worse.

There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.

These rough sketches, which are born in an instant in the heat of inspiration, express the idea of their author in a few strokes, while on the other hand too much effort and diligence sometimes saps the vitality and powers of those who never know when to leave off.

It is time we in Scotland put England in its proper place and instead of our leaning on England and taking inspiration from her, we should lean and turn to Europe, for it is there our future prosperity lies.

One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.

The craft of writing is all the stuff that you can learn through school; go to workshops and read books. Learn characterization, plot and dialogue and pacing and word choice and point of view. Then there's also the art of it which is sort of the unknown, the inspiration, the stuff that is noncerebral.

When we clear the physical clutter from our lives, we literally make way for inspiration and 'good, orderly direction' to enter.

'Inspiration' is a word used by people who aren't really doing anything.

My inspiration was the game itself, not any individual player in it.

You can never quit. Winners never quit, and quitters never win.

If you want to live a memorable life, you have to be the kind of person who remembers to remember.

My father was an inspiration to me; I made a few movies with him and I loved working with him. Everything about him - his whole approach to work, as well as his love, enthusiasm and respect for it and other people in the business - was inspiring. I was very lucky to have him as a role model.

Country music is three chords and the truth.

The most powerful force ever known on this planet is human cooperation - a force for construction and destruction.

Oh, Spring! I want to go out and feel you and get inspiration. My old things seem dead. I want fresh contacts, more vital searching.

When people ask about inspirations, and you're like 'oh, it was a flower or a mountain or a pony', some people just think you're insane. I'm worried to come across that way.

What I would say to filmmakers, if I may be so bold or so arrogant, is to draw inspiration from other filmmakers, but go to the place in your own gut where everything is nothing. That's a very Zen thing to say, but that place of nothing is where real creativity comes out of.

Domestic abuse happens only in intimate, interdependent, long-term relationships - in other words, in families - the last place we would want or expect to find violence.

I have drawn inspiration from the Marine Corps, the Jewish struggle in Palestine and Israel, and the Irish

A brand is a voice and a product is a souvenir.

Science sometimes falls short when trying to fathom the depths of our essence - and our inspiration comes from that essence.

Comedy was why I got into acting the first place. Peter Sellers was a huge influence on my wanting to act. I grew up with him and found him hysterical. The Pink Panther films were an inspiration, from my earliest childhood days, when I was watching them with my brother and my dad.

I have stepped outside my comfort zone enough to know that, yes, the world does fall apart, but not in the way that you fear.

The very air in which you live is an inspiration.

As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.

I don't believe you have to be better than everybody else. I believe you have to be better than you ever thought you could be.

We spend our time responding rationally to a world which we understand and recognize, but which no longer exists.

If I waited for inspiration every time I sat down to write a song I probably would be a plumber today.

There's no difference between fame and infamy now. There's a new school of professional famous people that don't do anything. They don't create anything.

Education in the past has been too much inspiration and too little information.

I have real admiration for chefs who can maintain an edge and find new inspiration in their cooking after many years.

I've been very lucky, from the beginning. I've found that as long as you're fundamentally good - as long as you're not being bad to people - people give you a lot of room to be yourself, because being yourself is being honest. And that's what people want to see.

Inspiration comes from everywhere: books, art, people on the street. It is an interior process for me.

You have to have a dream so you can get up in the morning.

Every great inspiration is but an experiment - though every experiment we know, is not a great inspiration.

Just as it is true that a stream cannot rise above its source, so it is true that a national literature cannot rise above the moral level of the social conditions of the people from whom it derives its inspiration.

My mom and I have always been there for each other. We had some tough times, but she was always there for me.

Leaders get out in front and stay there by raising the standards by which they judge themselves - and by which they are willing to be judged.

I guess it could be said that the inspiration for 'Requiem for a Dream' is watching the American dream not only destroy so many lives in the U.S., but infect the rest of the world with its obsession with getting more, ignoring the deadly effect that has on the planet.

I have witnessed the softening of the hardest of hearts by a simple smile.

I guess my inspiration is this - I like to pretend that every story that ever happened to 'Batman' was real and is part of this one guy's life.

I am one of those people who thrive on deadlines. Nothing brings on inspiration more readily than desperation.

If I can be an inspiration for someone, that's fine, but just don't look down on me. Don't say, 'Oh, you're in a wheelchair.

Wherever you look there are inspirations, books, literature, paintings, landscapes, everything. Just living is an inspiration.

The number of children is not growing any longer in the world. We are still debating peak oil, but we have definitely reached peak child.

Being a father has been, without a doubt, my greatest source of achievement, pride and inspiration. Fatherhood has taught me about unconditional love, reinforced the importance of giving back and taught me how to be a better person.

Art is not supposed to change the world, to change practical things, but to change perceptions. Art can change the way we see the world. Art can create an analogy.

For me, our beaches have always been a source of personal inspiration.

A healthy attitude is contagious but don't wait to catch it from others. Be a carrier.

The greatest gift is not being afraid to question.

Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience.

I owe a debt of gratitude to two other living Justices. Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg paved the way for me and so many other women in my generation. Their pioneering lives have created boundless possibilities for women in the law. I thank them for their inspiration and also for the personal kindnesses they have shown me.