Inspiration quotes
5.2K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside inspiration — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"Persistence isn't very glamorous. If genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration, then as a culture we tend to lionize the one percent. We love its flash and dazzle. But great power lies in the other ninety-nine percent."
"Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration's shove or society's kiss on your forehead."
"When I think of talking, it is of course with a woman. For talking at its best being an inspiration, it wants a corresponding divine quality of receptiveness, and where will you find this but in a woman?"
"Hiring someone to write your autobiography is like hiring someone to take a bath for you"
"It was Ba's inspiration which helped me reach the heights of my inner self. She was my priceless jewel."
"Be congruent, be authentic, be your true self."
"Just like all great stories, our fears focus our attention on a question that is as important in life as it is in literature: What will happen next?"
"Keep your thinking right and your business will be right."
"Forget about your folklore. I can take a few inspirations, but I can certainly not do an homage. That's not my trip. I'm a fashion vampire. I take what I need and I leave the rest."
"Love is a kind of military service"
"Well, when it comes to inspiration, I come from San Diego originally - it's an un-media-hyped, sleepy sort of town, big on beach culture you know?"
"Time - the one asset none of us are ever gonna get more of."
"The thirst for something other than what we have…to bring something new, even if it is worse, some emotion, some sorrow; when our sensibility, which happiness has silenced like an idle harp, wants to resonate under some hand, even a rough one, and even if it might be broken by it."
"When your mind is set in meditative equipoise, you can see reality exactly as it is"
"You yourself must earnestly practice, the enlightened ones only proclaim the path."
"When phenomena are individually analyzed as selfless, and what has been analyzed is meditated upon, that is the cause for attaining the fruit, nirvana. One does not go to peace through any other cause"
"The sudden passing of Jack Bruce is terribly sad news. One of the greatest rock bassists to ever live and a true and profound inspiration to countless musicians. He was one of my first bass heroes and was a major influence on my playing and my music. My heartfelt condolences to his family and fans."
"The gods have provided me with clear and compelling signs of what it means to live in conformity to nature. They did their part. So far as their gifts, aid, and inspiration are concerned, nothing prevented me from following the path prescribed by nature. If from time to time I have strayed from this path, the fault lies with me and with my failure to heed the gods' signs, or rather, their explicit instructions."
"In the next 15 or 20 years, I hope I'll be the richest man in the world. That's one of my goals. I want to be a billionaire. I want to get to a position where generation on generation don't have to worry about nothing. I don't want family members from my kids to my son's kids to never have to worry. And I can't do that now just playing basketball."
"No Englishman is ever fairly beaten"
