The 85 Most Inspirational Life Quotes

Take wrong turns. Talk to strangers. Open unmarked doors. And if you see a group of people in a field, go find out what they are doing. Do things without always knowing how they’ll turn out. Randall Munroe, xkcd: volume 0

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. Søren Kierkegaard

Beware the barrenness of a busy life. Socrates

Life is beautiful, as long as it consumes you. When it is rushing through you, destroying you, life is gorgeous, glorious. It’s when you burn a slow fire and save fuel, that life’s not worth having. D. H. Lawrence

Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: if you’re alive, it isn’t. Richard Bach

If you try, you risk failure. If you don’t, you ensure it. Anonymous

Let life be an adventure. Live your life to the fullest, unfettered by fear of the ghosts and goblins of what might occur. Calamity and death happen as well to those who hide from life as to those who squeeze every drop of zest from it. Jonathan Lockwood Huie

So keep your head high, keep your chin up, and most importantly, keep smiling, because life’s a beautiful thing and there’s so much to smile about. Marilyn Monroe

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. Albert Einstein

Life is a spell so exquisite that everything conspires to break it. Emily Dickinson

If you do what you need, you’re surviving. If you do what you want, you’re living. Unknown

One day, you’re 17 and you’re planning for someday. And then quietly, without you ever really noticing, someday is today. And then someday is yesterday. And this is your life. John Green

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined. Henry David Thoreau

Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man. Benjamin Franklin

Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, you ought to set up a life you don’t need to escape from. Seth Godin

Live today, for tomorrow it will all be history. Anonymous

Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass… It’s about learning to dance in the rain. Vivian Greene

If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present. Lao Tzu

Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced. Soren Kierkegaard

Life is not always a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well. Jack London

Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them. Marcus Aurelius

The best time to plant a tree is twenty-five years ago. The second best time is today. Unknown

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. Thomas A. Edison

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. E. E. Cummings

Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone. Pablo Picasso

Be so good they can’t ignore you. Steve Martin

Variety’s the very spice of life that gives it all its flavour. William Cowper

Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get. Forrest Gump

Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry. Mark Twain

Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans. John Lennon

The unexamined life is not worth living. Socrates

What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, ‘This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!’ Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, ‘Never have I heard anything more divine’? Friedrich Nietzsche

If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things. Albert Einstein

Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it.

Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it.

Hatred darkens life; love illumines it.
Martin Luther King Jr

The trick is to enjoy life. Don’t wish away your days, waiting for better ones ahead. Marjorie Pay Hinckley

The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time. Mark Twain

The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things. Rilke

When I was 5 years old my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when i grew up. I wrote down “Happy”. They told me i didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life. John Lennon

A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved. Kurt Vonnegut

The most common form of despair is not being who you are. Søren Kierkegaard

Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly. THOMAS JEFFERSON

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Steve Jobs

The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering. Bruce Lee

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage. Anais Nin

Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life Omar Khayyam

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I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘if this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.’ Kurt Vonnegut

We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will. Chuck Palahniuk

Life’s journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting HOLY CRAP… WHAT A RIDE! Hunter S Thompson

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time. Jack London

Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life is a sexually transmitted disease and the death rate is 100%. R.D Laing

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid. Albert Einstein

Life is short, break the rules. Forgive quickly, kiss slowly. Love truly. Laugh uncontrollably and never regret anything that makes you smile. Mark Twain

Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final. Rainer Maria Rilke

I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again. F. Scott Fitzgerald

Let us toast to animal pleasures, to escapism, to rain on the roof and instant coffee, to unemployment insurance and library cards, to absinthe and good hearted landlords, to music and warm bodies and contraceptives and to the ‘good life’ whatever it is & wherever it happens to be. Hunter S. Thompson

Love the life you live, and live the life you love. Bob Marley

You’re not your job. You’re not how much money you have in the bank. You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You’re not your f***ing khakis. You’re the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world. Tyler Durden

Enjoy life! This is not a rehearsal. Anonymous

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.

Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.

Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies.

Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.

Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.

Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.

Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.

Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.

Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.

Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.

Give the world the best you have anyway. Mother Theresa

Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough. Emily Dickinson

Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. Carl Sagan

Someday, somewhere – anywhere, unfailingly, you’ll find yourself, and that, and only that, can be the happiest or bitterest hour of your life. Pablo Neruda

The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one. Unknown

If you don’t build your dream someone will hire you to help build theirs. Tony Gaskins

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. African Proverb