Here are some of my favorite quotes that have stayed with me over the years. The topics are varied from social class to children to just good, fun quotes, but there’s lasting value in every one of these quotes and they never get old, no matter how many times I read and share them.
15 Inspiring Quotes
1. “Every man dies. Not every man really lives.” -William Wallace in Braveheart
2. “Well, we have to end apartheid, for one, slow down the nuclear arms race, stop terrorism and world hunger. We have to provide food and shelter for the homeless and oppose racial discrimination and promote civil rights, while also promoting equal rights for women. We have to encourage a return to traditional moral values. Most importantly, we have to promote general social concern and less materialism in young people.” Patrick Bateman in American Psycho
3. “Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.”
-Kahlil Gibran, On Children, The Prophet
4. “And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.”
-Kahlil Gibran, On Friendship, The Prophet
5. “We have precious few occasions nowadays for the mind to settle itself in stillness by a fire.
Instead, we watch television at the end of the day, a pale electronic fire energy, and pale in comparison. We submit ourselves to constant bombardment by sounds and images that come from minds other than our own, that fill our heads with information and trivia, other people’s adventures and excitement and desires. Watching television leaves even less room in the day for experiencing stillness. It soaks up time, space and silence, a soporific, lulling us into mindless passivity. Newspapers do much the same. They are not bad in themselves, but we frequently conspire to use them to rob ourselves of many precious moments in which we might be living more fully.” -Jon Kabat–Zinn, Wherever You Go, There You Are
6. “Then, as now, I was fundamentally anti-bourgeois. To me this does not mean that I do not like beautiful things or desire material well-being. It means that I do not sit around longing to be rich, and that I believe hedonistic materialism to be a central aspect of an imperialist colonialism that perpetuates and maintains white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.” -bell hooks, Outlaw Culture
7. “Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind, and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful.” -Lord Henry in The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
8. “True intellectual inquiry is always subversive.” -Chris Hedges, Death of the Liberal Class
9. “Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art. Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike.” -Margot Fonteyn
10. “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” -Mark Twain
11. “Every person above the ordinary has a certain mission that they are called to fulfill.” -Goethe
12. “Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.” -Albert Einstein
13. “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.” -Albert Einstein
14. “The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwise you begin excusing yourself. You must see the writing as emerging like a long scroll of ink from the index finger of your right hand; you must see your left hand erasing it.” – Margaret Atwood
15. “Be careful what you water your dreams with. Water them with worry and fear and you will produce weeds that choke the life from your dream. Water them with optimism and solutions and you will cultivate success. Always be on the lookout for ways to turn a problem into an opportunity for success. Always be on the lookout for ways to nurture your dream.” -Lao Tzu
Any favorite quotes you’d like to share? I really enjoyed putting some of my favorite quotes on one page, I think this is going to become a regular feature…
