Inspiring Quotations | Page 2

The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.

We can't help everyone, but everyone can help someone.

My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.

The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.

Whatever you want in life, other people are going to want it too. Believe in yourself enough to accept the idea that you have an equal right to it.

The old idea of a composer suddenly having a terrific idea and sitting up all night to write it is nonsense. Nighttime is for sleeping.

My 94-year-old grandmother has always been so inspiring to me. She is kind, smart, brave, and independent. After graduating number one in her medical school class at a time when it was extremely rare for women to attend medical school, she worked with the World Health Organization in North Africa to eradicate tuberculosis.

There may be people who have more talent than you, but there's no excuse for anyone to work harder than you do - and I believe that.

When we put our trust in diplomacy, it is not because it is an inspiring or uplifting discourse or because it helps us see the common humanity in others. The stylized circumlocutions of diplomats can make them seem ridiculous or irrelevant: they never seem to be talking about what is really going on.

I want to say a little something that's long overdue, the disrespect to women has got to be through. To all the mothers and the sisters and the wives and friends, I wanna offer my love and respect till the end.

It's best to have failure happen early in life. It wakes up the Phoenix bird in you so you rise from the ashes.

It's the moms of this nation - single, married, widowed - who really hold this country together. We're the mothers, we're the wives, we're the grandmothers, we're the big sisters, we're the little sisters, we're the daughters. You know it's true, don't you? You're the ones who always have to do a little more.

Without community service, we would not have a strong quality of life. It's important to the person who serves as well as the recipient. It's the way in which we ourselves grow and develop.

A man with money is no match against a man on a mission.

Church attendance is as vital to a disciple as a transfusion of rich, healthy blood to a sick man.

Mama and Daddy King represent the best in manhood and womanhood, the best in a marriage, the kind of people we are trying to become.

Family involvement is a valuable thing and playing together actively can be the '90s version of it. Instead of just watching, you can do it together... something we don't spend enough time on. We can motivate and excite each other about fitness.

Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever... it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.

Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.

It's very important to have the right clothing to exercise in. If you throw on an old T-shirt or sweats, it's not inspiring for your workout.

Man is a genius when he is dreaming.

It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams.

By all these lovely tokens September days are here, With summer's best of weather And autumn's best of cheer.

As a musician I tell you that if you were to suppress adultery, fanaticism, crime, evil, the supernatural, there would no longer be the means for writing one note.

Good humor is a tonic for mind and body. It is the best antidote for anxiety and depression. It is a business asset. It attracts and keeps friends. It lightens human burdens. It is the direct route to serenity and contentment.

Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence.

Hating the Yankees is as American as pizza pie, unwed mothers, and cheating on your income tax.

If there's specific resistance to women making movies, I just choose to ignore that as an obstacle for two reasons: I can't change my gender, and I refuse to stop making movies.

I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself.

The key to life is your attitude. Whether you're single or married or have kids or don't have kids, it's how you look at your life, what you make of it. It's about making the best of your life wherever you are in life.

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

Tactics, fitness, stroke ability, adaptability, experience, and sportsmanship are all necessary for winning.

The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.

I was born with music inside me. Music was one of my parts. Like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart. Like my blood. It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me-like food or water.

The only love affair I have ever had was with music.

The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which must also make you lonely.

The biggest risk is not taking any risk... In a world that changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.

A strong woman is a woman determined to do something others are determined not be done.

To me, photography is an art of observation. It's about finding something interesting in an ordinary place... I've found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.

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

The road to success is always under construction.

I have seen three emperors in their nakedness, and the sight was not inspiring.

You have to enable and empower people to make decisions independent of you. As I've learned, each person on a team is an extension of your leadership; if they feel empowered by you they will magnify your power to lead.

A strong, positive self-image is the best possible preparation for success.

Cinema should make you forget you are sitting in a theater.

Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen.

Never make your home in a place. Make a home for yourself inside your own head. You'll find what you need to furnish it - memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things. That way it will go with you wherever you journey.

Success is not built on success. It's built on failure. It's built on frustration. Sometimes its built on catastrophe.

Some people say I have attitude - maybe I do... but I think you have to. You have to believe in yourself when no one else does - that makes you a winner right there.

In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences.

You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.

Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can - there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did.

I will keep smiling, be positive and never give up! I will give 100 percent each time I play. These are always my goals and my attitude.

It's hard to talk about it without sounding like a hippie. But trees are really inspiring to me. They're like the masters of the earth.

Still round the corner there may wait, A new road or a secret gate.

I think with motherhood and child-rearing in general, everyone's going to tell you how to do it and why. I've always said to other mothers and women when they've asked me, that you have to find your own way and find out what works for your family, at all costs.

I always said God was against art and I still believe it.

Nobody will ever notice that. Filmmaking is not about the tiny details. It's about the big picture.

You don't just accidentally show up in the World Series.

It's always inspiring to me to meet people who feel that they can make a difference in the world. That's their motive, that's their passion... I think that's what makes your life meaningful, that's what fills your own heart and that's what gives you purpose.

Fathers and mothers have lost the idea that the highest aspiration they might have for their children is for them to be wise... specialized competence and success are all that they can imagine.

Who's a boy gonna talk to if not his mother?

The Bible will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from the Bible.

It's not necessary to go far and wide. I mean, you can really find exciting and inspiring things within your hometown.

Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.

For me life is continuously being hungry. The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer.

With the supermarket as our temple and the singing commercial as our litany, are we likely to fire the world with an irresistible vision of America's exalted purpose and inspiring way of life?

When my mother had to get dinner for 8 she'd just make enough for 16 and only serve half.

Chaotic people often have chaotic lives, and I think they create that. But if you try and have an inner peace and a positive attitude, I think you attract that.

Freedom is the open window through which pours the sunlight of the human spirit and human dignity.

As musicians and artists, it's important we have an environment - and I guess when I say environment, I really mean the industry, that really nurtures these gifts. Oftentimes, the machine can overlook the need to take care of the people who produce the sounds that have a lot to do with the health and well-being of society.

A lot of people refuse to do things because they don't want to go naked, don't want to go without guarantee. But that's what's got to happen. You go naked until you die.

Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.

The musician is perhaps the most modest of animals, but he is also the proudest.

I invite everyone to chose forgiveness rather than division, teamwork over personal ambition.

Without poets, without artists, men would soon weary of nature's monotony.

I was always at peace because of the way my mom treated me.

Dream on it. Let your mind take you to places you would like to go, and then think about it and plan it and celebrate the possibilities. And don't listen to anyone who doesn't know how to dream.

It is nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.

The best, most beautiful, and most perfect way that we have of expressing a sweet concord of mind to each other is by music.

A little flattery will support a man through great fatigue.

Being a mom has made me so tired. And so happy.

With few exceptions, music has been for some centuries the art which has devoted itself not to the reproduction of natural phenomena, but rather to the expression of the artist's soul, in musical sound.

What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.

Fashion is killing women's body image of themselves.

Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.

The moment I have realized God sitting in the temple of every human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him - that moment I am free from bondage, everything that binds vanishes, and I am free.

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it.

The jarring change going from an urban environment to an extremely remote natural environment is extremely inspiring. It's constantly stimulating, it's like a slap in the face.

Today, Arizona's sons and daughters, mothers and fathers are proudly serving their country.

I love watching old sitcoms. It's very inspiring to watch 'Mary Tyler Moore' and 'Golden Girls.' I have watched them over and over again for years.

I don't see a day when teenagers don't read. They are very enthusiastic. That is so inspiring to me.

John Legend is a cool guy. He likes to chill, is easy to talk to and hang out with. He's also inspiring on a musical level.

The best actors instinctively feel out what the other actors need, and they just accommodate it.

Greatness is not measured by what a man or woman accomplishes, but by the opposition he or she has overcome to reach his goals.

On the plains of hesitation lie the blackened bones of countless millions who at the dawn of victory lay down to rest, and in resting died.

Struggle is a never ending process. Freedom is never really won, you earn it and win it in every generation.

Today there are people trying to take away rights that our mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers fought for: our right to vote, our right to choose, affordable quality education, equal pay, access to health care. We the people can't let that happen.

To the former child migrants, who came to Australia from a home far away, led to believe this land would be a new beginning, when only to find it was not a beginning, but an end, an end of innocence - we apologise and we are sorry. To the mothers who lost the maternal right to love and care for their child - we apologise, and we are sorry.

You can't please everyone, and you can't make everyone like you.