Photos In Collaboration With Quin Schrock
My Love of Words
I’ve always been fascinated by words. I love how they capture our imagination, transport us to other worlds, and ignite the inspiration that lies within us all. But mostly, I love that the right words, at the right time, can feel like they were written just for you. That feeling is an important reminder that despite our differences, at our very core we all share in the human experience.
Below are some inspirational quotes from amazing people that struck me as being full of hope, wisdom, and personality. I hope these words resonate with you as well. Or if nothing else, make you stope and think a little differently.
If you have any favorite quotes of your own, I’d be grateful to hear them! There’s no shortage of beautiful, moving, or thought provoking words out there. And I tend to think the more we share the better!
Motivational Quotes To Live By
Quote 1
I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re doing something. So that’s my wish… Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life. Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, do it. Make your mistakes, next year and forever. // Neil Gaiman
Quote 2
To be successful you must be unique, you must be so different that if people want what you have, they have to come to you to get it. // Walt Disney
Quote 3
It’s a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you’re ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There is almost no such thing as ready. There is only now. And you may as well do it now. Generally speaking, now is as good a time as any. // Hugh Laurie
Quote 4
The important thing is this: to be ready at any moment to sacrifice what you are for what you could become. // Charles Dickens
quote 5
A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance… You have no choice but to accept things as they are, or to seriously seek something else. . . . // Hunter S. Thompson
Quote 6
Travel is not reward for working, it’s education for living. // Anthony Bourdain
Quote 7
In order to be able to make it, you have to put aside the fear of failing and the desire of succeeding. You have to do these things completely and purely without fear, without desire. Because things that we do without lust of result are the purest actions we shall ever take. // Alan Moore
Quote 8
[H]ow do you know who you are and what works for you if you don’t find out where the edge is, where’s your line? You’ve got to step over it to know where it is. // Brad Pitt
Quote 9
Often we imagine that we will work hard…arrive at some distant goal, and then we will be happy. This is a delusion. Happiness is the result of a life lived with purpose. Happiness is not an objective. It is the movement of life itself, a process, an activity. // Ethan Hawke
Quote 10
Work hard in silence, let your success be your noise. // Frank Ocean
Quote 11
For what it’s worth…it’s never too late, or in my case too early, to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit. Start whenever you want. You can change or stay the same. There are no rules… We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you’ve never felt before. I hope you meet people who have a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of, and if you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start over again. // F. Scott Fitzgerald
Quote 12
You won’t find reasonable men at the tops of tall mountains. // Hunter S. Thompson
Quote 13
In the forest, there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. Every day, the straight tree would say to the crooked tree, ‘Look at me…I’m tall, and I’m straight, and I’m handsome. Look at you…you’re all crooked and bent over. No one wants to look at you.’ And they grew up in that forest together. And then one day the loggers came, and they saw the crooked tree and the straight tree, and they said, ‘Just cut the straight trees and leave the rest.’ So the loggers turned all the straight trees into lumber and toothpicks and paper. And the crooked tree is still there, growing stronger and stranger every day. // Tom Waits
Quote 14
Anything that just costs money is cheap. // John Steinbeck
Quote 15
We are all responsible for our actions, our behavior, and our words, and we must take responsibility for everything we say and do. When you get your head wrapped around that, you can no longer think of life as a series of random events—you participate in life in a way you didn’t previously. I am an architect of my destiny. I am in charge. I bring that to me, or I push it away. You can no longer blame other people for things that happened to you. // Madonna
Quote 16
I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. // Maya Angelou
Quote 17
Each of us must confront our own fears, must come face to face with them. How we handle our fears will determine where we go with the rest of our lives. To experience adventure or to be limited by the fear of it. // Judy Blume
Quote 18
Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain. // Jack Kerouac
Quote 19
The thing I really want to emphasize is…when you have a dream, it doesn’t often come at you screaming in your face. Sometimes a dream almost whispers… it never shouts… So you have to, every day of your lives, be ready to hear what whispers in your ear. // Steven Spielberg
Quote 20
We love what we love. Reason does not enter into. In many ways, unwise love is the truest love. Anyone can love a thing because. That’s as easy as putting a penny in your pocket. But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect. // Patrick Rothfuss
Quote 21
The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were. // John F. Kennedy
What are some of your favorite words of wisdom? If you feel like sharing in the comments, I’d absolutely love to read some of them!
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This too shall pass.
Bible
Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.
Maya Angelous
And most recently heard this inspiring quote from Lady Gaga
“It’s not about how many times you get rejected or you fall down and get beaten up, but how many times you stand up, and are brave and you keep on going…”
Lady Gaga
Those are all beautiful Gina. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you sharing them with me. I also enjoy that there seems to be a common theme of strength and perseverance running through all three.
Those were very inspiring. My favorites were Hunter S. Thompson’s and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s
Thanks!! I really enjoy those too. I was actually surprised to find that I was drawn to so many of Hunter S. Thompson’s words. For some reason I thought they would all just be about getting high lol.
Love this post, Jess! The images relate perfectly to the quotes.
"The nonpermanent appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons. They arise from sense perception and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed."
Bhagavad-gītā As It Is
"I am losing precious days. I am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing in this trivial world of men. I must break away and get out into the mountains to learn the news!"
John Muir
These are fantastic Kirtan! Thank you so much for sharing. I actually have never heard that particular quote from John Muir. Always so insightful. Also, I never know whether to call you K.P. or Kirtan, so please do let me know if you have a preference!
Kirtan 🙂 Thanks, Jess!
Love the quotes! Very inspiring, a different perspective and food for thought for sure!
Glad you liked them Francois! Enjoy the rest of your Sunday. 🙂
Love the quotes you shared! This one is one of my favourites, from Amyr Klink I believe.
"A man needs to travel. By his own means, not by stories, images, books or TV. By his own, with his eyes and feet, to understand what he is. To some day plant his own trees and give them some value. To know the cold to enjoy the heat. To feel the distance and lack of shelter to be well under his own ceiling. A man needs to travel to places he doesn’t know to break this arrogance that makes us see the world as we imagine it, and not simply as it is or may be. That makes us teachers and doctors of what we have never seen, when we should just be learners, and simply go see it."
That’s fantastic Magali! My uncle used to ask me all the time why I wanted to travel when I could just enjoy the world on TV from the comfort of my couch, and I never quite knew how to answer him. I wish I would have had this quote then! Thank you for taking the time to share it.
Love the quotes you put on these posts…they do inspire us to push harder and do great things.
Here’s some quick quotes that I put on my last few posts:
"The climb might be tough and challenging, but the view is worth it.There is a purpose for that pain; you just can’t always see it right away." (Victoria Arlen)
"You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul. (Swami Vivekananda)
"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all." (Helen Keller)
"Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did." (Newt Gingrich)
"All you need is the plan, the road map, and the courage to press on to your destination." (Earl Nightingale)
Hope they will in one way or another inspire you too… 😉
Stephane
(steffyj0nes)
Thanks for sharing Stephane! Those are all great. I actually almost included the Helen Keller one in this blog, so I’m glad you did. 🙂
I saw this quote years ago and, thankfully, had to wherewithal to screenshot it. It’s been in my photo library ever since and is a nice reminder when I happen upon it every once and awhile –
“Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.” -Hemingway
Thanks Sullivan! Hemingway has some really amazing insights on life, and this is no exception. I particularly like the last couple sentences. Really drives it home. I need to get better photographing or writing things down when I see them!
Hi Jess! A cool collection you got up there! Thanks for sharing. My favorites come from this poem, ‘The Invitation’ by Oriah Mountain Dreamer-
"It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself.
I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty every day.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, ‘Yes!’ It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments."
Connie, thank you so much for sharing. That last line in particular gave me goosebumps. I spend so much of my time on social media that I often forget to stop and take the time to think about whether I like myself. What a beautiful idea, and way of expressing it. Thanks again!
Thank you Jess, I needed these.
Thank you so much Jess for these quotes. I shared them with my bff and my brother.
Here’s my favourite one from Oscar Wilde, the wise man:
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
That first picture, you must be fearless! wow! #adventure
Jess – I love your blog and every one of these quotes. So inspirational indeed. Started out my day perfectly. Thank you.
Thank you so much Sandy! I’m so glad that you enjoyed the quotes. I might have to start my day that way tomorrow. 😉
Wonderful quotes thanks for share keep it up.
For more latest collection of positive and inspirational quotes to read and get inspired.
Thanks so much, Dennis! Really appreciate that.
Good
Beautiful and inspiring, thank you. 😊
Glad you enjoyed them!
Wow this is wonderful it’s gonna work for me thanks
So happy to hear that!
Your blog serves as a reminder to always choose kindness and spread positivity.
Absolutely love this collection of inspirational quotes! Living our best life is about embracing positivity, seizing opportunities, and striving for personal growth. These quotes serve as powerful reminders to stay resilient, motivated, and to embrace the journey toward a fulfilling life. Each phrase resonates differently but collectively encourages us to chase our dreams, overcome obstacles, and cherish every moment. Thank you for sharing these empowering words that ignite motivation and inspire us to live our lives to the fullest! 🌟✨
IQOS This too shall pass.
TREMENDOUS
Your choice of quotes is outstanding. A kind of my hobby is reading thoughts of exceptional people who left a deep mark in human lives. Positive attitude can do much. The same as a random act of kindness. Your contribution to make a difference has no price.
Thank you so much! I have found a lot of inspiration from these quotes over the years.