Famous Life Quotes

Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got. There is no yesterday, no tomorrow, it's all the same .... day.
-- Janis Joplin

Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to entertain your old pain. The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life. What is it you would let go of today?
-- Mary Manin Morrissey

Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.
-- Erica Jong

Find out who you are and do it on purpose.
-- Dolly Parton

Hope is a thing with feathers
That perches in the soul;
And sings the tune without words
And never stops at all.
-- Emily Dickinson

I am Me. In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me. Everything that comes out of me is authentically mine, because I alone chose it -- I own everything about me: my body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions, whether they be to others or myself. I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears. I own my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes. Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me. By so doing, I can love me and be friendly with all my parts. I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other aspects that I do not know -- but as long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously and hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles and ways to find out more about me. However I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time is authentically me. If later some parts of how I looked, sounded, thought, and felt turn out to be unfitting, I can discard that which is unfitting, keep the rest, and invent something new for that which I discarded. I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do. I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive, and to make sense and order out of the world of people and things outside of me. I own me, and therefore, I can engineer me. I am me, and I am Okay.
-- Virginia Satir

I am not afraid…I was born to do this.
-- Joan of Arc

I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived. Curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt

I really don't think life is about the I-could-have-beens. Life is only about the I-tried-to-do. I don't mind the failure but I can't imagine that I'd forgive myself if I didn't try.
-- Nikki Giovanni

I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt

If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner.
-- Tallulah Bankhead

If you realized how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought.
-- Peace Pilgrim

If you want the rainbow, you've got to put up with the rain.
-- Dolly Parton

It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know of wonder and humility.
-- Rachel Carson

It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.
-- Agnes Repplier

It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to your enemies, but even more to stand up to your friends.
-- J. K. Rowling

Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in life has a purpose.
-- Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Love comes when manipulation stops; when you think more about the other person than about his or her reactions to you. When you dare to reveal yourself fully. When you dare to be vulnerable.
-- Dr. Joyce Brothers

Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get — only what you are expecting to give — which is everything. What you will receive in return varies. But it really has no connection with what you give. You give because you love and cannot help giving.
-- Katharine Hepburn

Love is the only thing that we can carry with us when we go, and it makes the end so easy.
-- Louisa May Alcott

Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.
-- Harriet Beecher Stowe

Never let a problem to be solved become more important than the person to be loved.
-- Barbara Johnson



No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
-- Marianne Williamson

People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within.
-- Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Pure love is a willingness to give without a thought of receiving anything in return.
-- Peace Pilgrim

Sometimes questions are more important than answers.
-- Nancy Willard

Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get.
-- Ingrid Bergman

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt

The greater your capacity to love, the greater your capacity to feel the pain.
-- Jennifer Aniston

The more anger towards the past you carry in your heart, the less capable you are of loving in the present.
-- Barbara De Angelis

The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for.
-- Maureen Dowd

To be kind to all, to like many and love a few, to be needed and wanted by those we love, is certainly the nearest we can come to happiness.
-- Mary Stuart

The soul should always stand ajar. Ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.
-- Emily Dickinson

The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.
-- Anna Quindlen

Though I am grateful for the blessings of wealth, it hasn't changed who I am. My feet are still on the ground. I'm just wearing better shoes.
-- Oprah Winfrey

We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same.
-- Anne Frank

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt

You know it's love when all you want is that person to be happy, even if you're not part of their happiness.
-- Julia Roberts

You never find yourself until you face the truth.
-- Pearl Bailey

You never lose by loving. You always lose by holding back.
-- Barbara De Angelis

Great Inspirational and motivational quotes

Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough.
-- Oprah Winfrey



Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
-- Helen Keller



Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so you shall become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.
-- James Allen



Even if I don't reach all my goals, I've gone higher than I would have if I hadn't set any.

-- Danielle Fotopoulis



Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.
-- Denis Waitley



Feeling grateful or appreciative of someone or something in your life actually attracts more of the things that you appreciate and value into your life.
-- Christiane Northrup



Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson




I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.
-- Helen Keller



I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it for I shall not pass this way again.

-- Stephen Grellet



If everything is smooth sailing right from the beginning, we cannot become people of substance and character. By surmounting paining setbacks and obstacles, we can create a brilliant history of triumph that will shine forever. That is what makes life so exciting and enjoyable. In any field of endeavour, those who overcome hardships and grow as human beings are advancing towards success and victory in life.
-- Daisaku Ikeda



If one advances confidently in the direction of one's dreams, and endeavors to live the life which one has imagined, one will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

-- Henry David Thoreau



In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
-- Albert Camus




It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
-- Ralph Waldo



It's not what you do once in a while, it's what you do day in and day out that makes the difference.
-- Jenny Craig



Let us give something to each person we meet: joy, courage, hope, assurance, or philosophy, wisdom, a vision for the future. Let us always give something.
-- Daisaku Ikeda



Love grows by giving. The love we give away is the only love we keep. The only way to retain love is to give it away.

-- Elbert Hubbard



Taking action is how you GIVE your gift and live a life of true service to yourself and others. And that doesn't mean that your life's work has to be something that seems grand and noble. The real key to being of service and living your purpose is simply to do what you LOVE to do -- whatever it may be.
-- Rebecca Fine



The credit belongs to those who are actually in the arena, who strive valiantly; who know the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spend themselves in a worthy cause; who at the best, know the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if they fail, fail while daring greatly, so that their place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.


-- Theodore Roosevelt



The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn, the bird waits in the egg, and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities.
-- James Allen



The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with
compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.
-- Elisabeth Kübler-Ross



The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.
-- Amelia Earhart



Thoughts mixed with definiteness of purpose, persistence, and a burning desire are powerful things.
-- Napoleon Hill



To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children...to leave the world a better place...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson




Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
-- Mark Twain



Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinion drown your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
-- Steve Jobs