Inspiration To Do Quotes & Sayings

Which direction do we take? The one prompted by the passions or the one indicated by the star which shines in your conscience? The Magi heard the answer: "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it is written by the prophet" ... enlightened by these words, they chose to press forward to the very end. — Pope Benedict XVI

Uplift & Inspire, do not be envious of others success. You are given the same hours in a day. Make it worthwhile! Instead of focusing on what someone else is doing, pay attention to how you're living and make the best of life — Amaka Imani Nkosazana

The great lesson of biography is to show what man can be and do at his best. A noble life put fairly on record acts like an inspiration to others. — Samuel Smiles

Do not be troubled if you do not immediately receive from God what you ask Him; for He desires to do something even greater for you, while you cling to Him in prayer. — Evagrius Ponticus

Charity is in the heart of man, and righteousness in the path of men. Pity the man who has lost his path and does not follow it and who has lost his heart and does not know how to recover it. When people's dogs and chicks are lost they go out and look for them and yet the people who have lost their hearts do not go out and look for them. The principle of self-cultivation consists in nothing but trying to look for the lost heart. — Mencius

The cruise was the conduit for what would become my third book. While I was traveling and writing for ctnow, women across the United States and from the Caribbean emailed not to ask about my geographic journey but my existential one. "How do you find the courage to travel on your own?" they wondered. "How do you keep from getting lonely? Don't you feel self-conscious eating out alone?" After the first 30 emails like these I thought, There's a book here. It would be eight years before I published Postcards and Pearls: Life Lessons from Solo Moments on the Road. But the inspiration for publication came during the cruise. — Gina Greenlee

I don't know what's wrong with this world, but I do know what's right with it: Love. I have studied enough history to see that no matter how cruel the behavior of tyrants and no matter how dark the moments have been, Love has always prevailed. Always. — Steve Maraboli

We were taught to be good, and we were taught to be careful. But in this world, sometimes, I do not think we can be the two at once. — Marguerite Bennett

When we get the inspiration from Heave to do something. We do it now. We don't procrastinate. — William R. Walker

There is no finer company than inspiration, but its very goodness will leave you heartsick when it goes. So do not waste time asking it to wipe its feet. Embrace it at the treshold. — Benjamin Wood

Do not ignore inspiration, it is your guide to self discovery. — E'yen A. Gardner

My question to the atheist is, do you want an atheist world or a peaceful world? And to the believer, do you want a religious world or a peaceful world? Religious orientation doesn't define peace, but the answer here may define one's true nature. — Abhijit Naskar

Not a lot of contemporary fiction is written about brothers and sisters. Salinger's Franny and Zooey was an inspiration for me. In Franny and Zooey, the sister gets in trouble and the brother comes to help her out. But I wanted to make sure that in my novel the sister had more to do than lie around on a sofa muttering, which is what Franny does for two-thirds of Salinger's novel. — K.M. Soehnlein

Could it be that we don't want to think badly of Woodrow Wilson? We seem to feel that a person like Helen Keller can be an inspiration only so long as she remains uncontroversial, one-dimensional. We don't want complicated icons. "People do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions," Helen Keller pointed out. "Conclusions are not always pleasant."41 Most of us automatically shy away from conflict, and understandably so. We particularly seek to avoid conflict in the classroom. — James W. Loewen

I am open to the guidance of synchronicity, and do not let expectations hinder my path. — Dalai Lama

It took until the end of her life for me to cherish each day with my mother the way I naturally did with my brother. At the end, I loved my mother simply, without request to do better in any way, or be more capable in any way. I simply loved that she was there, and she was my mother.
I wish I did that more often in my life. I will do that more often in my life for those who are still here. — Darcy Leech

I like to take inspiration from people who do things that I could never do. — Allison Winn Scotch

I used to tell the story about as a young man in high school one of the professors came in and put a broad white sheet on the board with a dot in the right hand corner and said, "Boys, what do you see?" And we all shouted, a black dot. He stood back and said, "not a single one of you saw the broad white sheet, you all saw the black dot." He went on to tell us to focus on the broader picture, don't focus on the negative. — Kofi Annan

Humility is a fertile soil where spirituality grows and produces the fruit of inspiration to know what to do. It gives access to divine power to accomplish what must be done. An individual motivated by a desire for praise or recognition will not qualify to be taught by the Spirit. An individual who is arrogant or who lets his or her emotions influence decisions will not be powerfully led by the Spirit. — Richard G. Scott

In the rare moments I permitted any stillness, I noted a small fluttering at the pit of my belly, a barely perceptible disturbance. The faint whisper of a word would sound in my head: writing. At first I could not say whether it was heartburn or inspiration. The more I listened, the louder the message became: I needed to write, to express myself through written language not only so that others might hear me but so that I could hear myself. The gods, we are taught, created humankind in their own image. Everyone has an urge to create. Its expression may flow through many channels: through writing, art, or music or through the inventiveness of work or in any number of ways unique to all of us, whether it be cooking, gardening, or the art of social discourse. The point is to honor the urge. To do so is healing for ourselves and for others; not to do so deadens our bodies and our spirits. When I did not write, I suffocated in silence. — Gabor Mate

We were very poor. But between the covers of books I could go anywhere, I could be anybody, I could do anything. I began to read about people of great accomplishment. As I read those stories, I began to see a connecting thread. I began to see that the person who had the most to do with you and what happened to you in life, is you. You make decisions. You decide how much energy you want to put behind that decision. — Ben Carson

Everyone works in the service of man. We doctors work directly on man himself ... The great mystery of man is Jesus: 'He who visits a sick person, helps me,' Jesus said ... Just as the priest can touch Jesus, so do we touch Jesus in the bodies of our patients ... We have opportunities to do good that the priest doesn't have. Our mission is not finished when medicines are no longer of use. We must bring the soul to God; our word has some authority ... Catholic doctors are so necessary! — Gianna Beretta Molla

There is a beautiful and life-enhancing alternative outlook that offers insight, consolation, inspiration and meaning, which has nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with the best, most generous, most sympathetic understanding of human reality. — A.C. Grayling

I have a binging imagination and thus a mental hoarding problem.
What I need to do is host an estate sale in my heavy head
and invite those suffering from creative block in through the porches of my ears to browse through the crowded unorganized trove of
curious coinages, precious epiphanies and junky minutiae and take away inspiration while uncluttering my poor mind. — Stephen Stokes

Once You Realize your Purpose in Life, do whatever it Takes within Good means in order to Fulfill your Destiny. This is Your Life, No One can Live it for You. The Journey is Yours. — Amaka Imani Nkosazana

When love dies, the heart's ashes do not leave on the wind - they rest on the mantelpiece of the soul, darkening the sunrise we once saw to be beautiful. — A.M. Hudson

I want to change the world and I used to think I needed to do some big, significant thing. More recently I see this can be accomplished one relationship at a time. — Oliver Thomas

We do not consider our principles as dogmas contained in books that are said to come from heaven. We derive our inspiration, not from heaven, or from an unseen world, but directly from life. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Motivation and inspiration energize people, not by pushing them in the right direction as control mechanisms do but by satisfying basic human needs for achievement, a sense of belonging, recognition, self-esteem, a feeling of control over one's life, and the ability to live up to one's ideals. Such feelings touch us deeply and elicit a powerful response. — John P. Kotter

Every time you do a good deed you shine the light a little farther into the dark. And the thing is, when you're gone that light is going to keep shining on, pushing the shadows back. — Charles De Lint

Thought is the mental imagery of what you want to do, have or achieve. — Jaachynma N.E. Agu

I really do think inspiration comes from day-to-day life. I think there's things that pique our interest - not necessarily aha! moments - but things that just kinda make you raise your eyebrows. And those are often the moments that are the seeds of inspiration. Sometimes they're in a great conversation with friends, sometimes they're things you see live, something you read, a movie trailer you watch ... I think inspiration is kind of laid out there. One thing we have to practice is recognizing when it happens, and recording that moment so we can come back to it. — Phil Kay

I see a bird carrying me and carrying you, with us as its wings, beyond the dream, to a journey that has no end and no beginning, no purpose and no goal. I do not speak to you, and you do not speak to me; we listen only to the music of silence. Silence is the friend's trust of friend, imagination's self-confidence between rain and rainbow.
A rainbow is inspiration provoking the poet, uninvited, the infatuation of the poet with the prose of the Quran.
Which of your Lord's blessings do you disown?
We are absent, you and I; we are present, you and I.
And absent.
Which of your Lord's blessings do you disown? — Mahmoud Darwish

If this incomplete ayaan hirsi wants fame sooo much then she shouldn't use religion as a base to be known. Some people justify their in justifications by selling their souls to the devil, ayaan I'm sure u have taken the time to read the bible. Do tell me it's stance on woman comparing to men ... — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

For me, songwriting is something I have to do ritually. I don't just wait for inspiration; I try to write a little bit every day. — Sean Lennon

Christ willed to suffer and be despised and do you dare complain of the same? Christ had adversaries and backbiters; and do you wish to have all men your friends and benefactors? When shall your patience attain her crown if no adversity befalls you? If you are willing to suffer naught that is against you, how will you be the friend of Christ? — Thomas A Kempis

Three great actions:
To do what is right,
To love mercy, and
To walk humbly with Yahweh. — Lailah Gifty Akita

The Secret to Flight

Don't flap your wings so hard. It only exhausts you.

Close your eyes. Lean into the currents, say yes. Let the wind raise you higher and higher. So easy. That's what Eagles do.

Oh, this is the secret to life as well. — Kamal Ravikant

Our stories are drive by who we are and what we do, and not by the events that happens to us. — Holly Smale

I really want to feel that I'm in a very balanced and good place in my life. And I do feel that. But I think it's always important to learn and draw little bits of inspiration from wherever we can. — Kyle Shewfelt

Ideas doesn't make anyone rich, it is what you use it to do that makes you rich. — Michael Bassey Johnson

Why do you have to choose what type of woman you are? Why do you have to label yourself anything? — Beyonce Knowles

I do not need some guy around in order to get inspiration, in order to make a great record, in order to live my life, in order to feel okay about myself. And I wanted to show my fans the same thing. — Taylor Swift

Do you live in a mine field or a garden? When we live in a minefield mentality, we explode with the weeds of worry, doubt, fear, lack and limitation. Choose to cultivate your inner garden! — Michael Beckwith

The way my mom dressed was one of my earliest inspirations, in those '80s suits with shoulder pads and things like that. For years, I ran away from that style. But now, all I want to do is shoulder pads and nipped-in waists and padded hips and peplums and poufed dresses. — Jason Wu

And I still don't know what I would do next. I still don't know how to become an adult. But I know for sure that my parents would be proud of me, proud of their three daughters, no matter what path we choose. And it doesn't matter if we get lost or choose the wrong path, because what matters is choosing to get back up once again. — Marcella Purnama

You are to make your own way prosperous ... Even God cannot do it for you; you will have to do it yourself by doing the right things; taking right decisions, talking right, thinking right, being at the right place with the right-kind of people and by reading the right materials. — Jaachynma N.E. Agu

There are artists, true performers that have come before me who have been a big inspiration to me. I hope I do the same for others. — Janet Jackson

Everyone including YOU suffers when you refuse to BE all & DO all you can — Fela Durotoye

It has taken time and the blundering wisdom and anarchic greed of our ancestry to construct the modern city of consolidated institutions. It is a great historically amassed communal creation. If you fly above it at night, it is a jeweled wonder of the universe, floating like a giant liner on the sea of darkness. It is smart, accomplished, sophisticated, and breathtakingly beautiful. And it glimmers and sparkles as all things breakable glimmer and sparkle. You wonder how much God had to do with this, how much of the splendor and insolence of the modern city creatively built from the disparate intentions of generations of men comes of the inspiration of God. Because it is the city of the unremarked God, the sometime-thing God, the God of history. — E.L. Doctorow

You have to do your own work; Enlightened Ones will only show the way. Those who practise meditation will free themselves from the chains of death — Gautama Buddha

A Christian knows when it is time to speak of God and when it is better to say nothing and to let love alone speak. He knows that God is love and that God's presence is felt at the very time when the only thing we do is to love. — Pope Benedict XVI

This is the practice school of writing. Like running, the more you do it, the better you get at it. Some days you don't want to run and you resist every step of the three miles, but you do it anyway. You practice whether you want to or not. You don't wait around for inspiration and a deep desire to run ... That's how writing is too ... One of the main aims in writing practice is to learn to trust your own mind and body; to grow patient and nonaggressive. — Natalie Goldberg

Let's quit fiddling with religion and do something to bring the world to Christ. — Billy Sunday

When a young person, even a gifted one, grows up without proximate living examples of what she may aspire to become
whether lawyer, scientist, artist, or leader in any realm
her goal remains abstract. Such models as appear in books or on the news, however inspiring or revered, are ultimately too remote to be real, let alone influential. But a role model in the flesh provides more than inspiration; his or her very existence is confirmation of possibilities one may have every reason to doubt, saying, 'Yes, someone like me can do this. — Sonia Sotomayor

The relationship between violence and nonviolence in this country is interesting. The fact of the matter is, you know, people do respond to riots. The 1968 Housing Act was in large response to riots that broke out after Dr. Martin Luther King was killed. They cited these as an actual inspiration. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

Whatever you do, don't wait to start those dreams. — Richie Norton

Some dudes just know what they know, and they are fine with it. They might obsess with sex as much as you do, but never really explore some of the more advanced topics. These guys need their horizons expanded and you are just the girl to do it for him. — Roberto Hogue

Normal is the greatest enemy with regard to creating the new. And the way of getting around this is you have to understand normal not as reality, but just a construct. And a way to do that, for example, is just travel to a lot of different countries and you'll find a thousand different ways of thinking the world is real, all of which are just stories inside of people's heads. That's what we are too. Normal is just a construct, and to the extent that you can see normal as a construct in yourself, you have freed yourself from the constraints of thinking this is the way the world is. Because it isn't. This is the way we are. — Alan Kay

I loved her; I was sorry not to have had the time and the inspiration to insult her, to do her some injury, to force her to keep some memory of me. — Marcel Proust

But the grind has begun. The windows don't open, and even the availability of near-constant jokes about Jews and Mormons fails to stem the tide of frustration, decay. We've reached the end of pure inspiration, and are now somewhere else, something implying routine, or doing something because people expect us to do it, going somewhere each day because we went there the day before, saying things because we have said them before, and this seems like the work of a different sort of animal, contrary to our plan, and this is very very bad. — Dave Eggers

We can become inspired to shape a higher, more ideal future, and when we do, miracles happen. — James Redfield

Do you know what it takes to do [a global art project]? People, energy, glue. — JR

All you have to do is put one word after another, and remember how great it feels to be a writer. — Stephanie Lennox

If you take your inspiration from nature, you don't invent anything, because what you want to do is to interpret something. But still, everything passes throught your imagination. What you produce at the end is very different from the reality you started with. — Brassai

It would be very interesting to speculate on what the human imagination is going to do with a frontierless world where it must seek its inspiration in uniformity rather than variety, in sameness rather than contrast, in safety rather than peril, in probing the harmless nuances of the known rather than the thundering uncertainties of unknown seas or continents. The dreamers, the poets, and the philosophers are after all but instruments which make vocal and articulate the hopes and aspirations and the fears of a people.

The people are going to miss the frontier more than words can express. For four centuries they heard its call, listened to its promises, and bet their lives and fortunes on its outcome.

It calls no more... — Walter Prescott Webb

You wanna grow up to be a trivia question?" she asked, challenging me. "Or do you wanna make a difference in the world? — Dan Gutman

Scientists used to do an experiment whereby a dog's repeated reward for performing a task was unaccountably replaced by punishment. The dog, knowing it would be penalized for doing well or doing badly, would become melancholic and inactive. This and other unforeseeable results were funded by taxing up to sixty percent of people's earnings. People became strangely melancholic and inactive
— Steve Aylett

Keep the remembrance of your real nature alive, even while working, and avoid haste which causes you to forget. Be deliberate. Practice meditation to still the mind and cause it to become aware of its true relationship to the Self which supports it. Do not imagine that it is you who are doing the work. Think that is the underlying current which is doing it. Identify yourself with the current. — Ramana Maharshi

If you won't push someone up, the least you can do is not to pull him down. — Nana Awere Damoah

When I'm not writing, I'm thinking about writing. Filling pages and people with inspiration. When my thoughts don't want to rest on a page, we argue. We argue that one merely is ready just too comfortable playing in The Nile [denial] river. So we compromise. We grow,
water metaphors
and plant simile trees
of golden-almond
manifested love dreams.
Then at that moment, we forgot what we were arguing about.
Beauty can do that for you.
That's the beauty of writing. — Antonia Perdu

Bilbo and Frodo overcome the objections of the Baggins side of themselves in order to embrace the Quests that await them. Sometimes we have the same struggles as they do. The Took in us wants to pursue dreams, and the Baggins part wants to stay safe and conventional. Too often we heed the negative thinking that convinces us that we do not have the time, money, energy, or opportunity to make our desires come true. We think we have too many other obligations blocking our way. Sometimes we also saddle ourselves with the false guilt that tells us it is not right to do anything for ourselves, especially if we have a family to take care of first. We must not abandon our true responsibilities, of course, but would it not be better if we could fulfill them in a way that fed our soul and not just our pocketbook and got us excited about going to work rather than dreading the drudgery? — Anne Marie Gazzolo

It is an extraordinary thing to meet your heroes and find them to be everything you hoped they would be. — Simon Pegg

Knowing why you're doing something provides the inspiration and motivation to give the extra perspiration needed to persevere when things go south..
..Purpose provides the ultimate glue that can help you stick to the path you've set. When what you do matches your purpose, your life just feels in rhythm, and the path you beat with your feet seems to match the sound in your head and heart. Live with purpose and don't be surprised if you actually hum more and even whistle while you work. — Gary Keller

My inspirations don't come from outer space, they just come to me. I have no idea why they come when they do. — Joe Satriani

To have what you have never had, you have to do what you have never done. — Roy Bennett

My mother was a great inspiration to me to always do my best. My father has always been my mentor and friend. They taught me the basic principle that guides most all that I do: faith, focus, finish. — Larry Fitzgerald

When I use people I know, all of my instincts seem to go dead, and if I'm getting anywhere near myself then I can't do it. It's actually a real weakness! I hate writing personal essays, I don't think I'm especially good at it. I like just encountering [my characters], discovering them. I love the escape of just being surrounded by all these people who are nothing like people I know. But I don't find it hard to be in the middle of a different life, with a different set of habits and way of thinking and talking. That seems to come easily to me. — Jennifer Egan

I do not think there is a person in this world who has been a more ardent admirer of him than I have been. His life and work have been an inspiration to the whole earth, shedding light in the dark places which so sadly needed light. His memory calls forth my most sincere homage, love, and esteem.

{Burbank on the great Robert Ingersoll, whom he admired so much that he requested Ingersoll's eulogy for his brother, Ebon Ingersoll, to be read at his own funeral} — Luther Burbank

I think my mom is the inspiration of me wanting to do film and TV and be an actor because she loved film so much. She loved, like, horror films and action films, so growing up, she loved watching all the Charles Bronson films and all the westerns. — Rick Gonzalez

All you need to do is recognize your true position as the witness. You only have to do this for some time, until the spell is broken. Even after the spell is broken these mental tendencies may arise, but without any power, just like you can see the moon in the daylight. — Mooji

If we do not control our minds with our Buddha nature, do not practice seriously, are not honest to ourselves and do not examine our behaviors strictly, we will definitely be possessed by Maya. Being possessed does not necessary mean that we become delirious or our faces become horribly distorted. When we do not walk on the right path, we will be walking on Maya's path. — Ching Hai

Mostly, in song writing, my experience is that there isn't so much inspiration as hard work. You sit there for hours, days and weeks with a guitar and piano until something good comes. But the urge to write is something you have to have. A conviction, an ambition to write and never stop until you think, 'This is the best I can do.' — Bjorn Ulvaeus

I have occupied this idle, empty winter with writing a story. It has been written to please myself, without thought of my own vanity or modesty, without regard for other people's feelings, without considering whether I shock or hurt the living, without scrupling to speak of the dead.

The world, I know, is changing. I am not indifferent to the revolution that has caught us in its mighty skirts, to the enormity of the flood that is threatening to submerge us. But what could I do? In the welter of the surrounding storm, I have taken refuge for a moment on this little raft, constructed with the salvage of my memory. I have tried to steer it into that calm haven of art in which I still believe. I have tried to avoid some of the rocks and sandbanks that guard its entrance.

[from the introduction] — Dorothy Bussy

It is when we think we can act like God, that all respect is lost, and I think this is the downfall of peace. We lie if we say we do not see color and culture and difference. We fool ourselves and cheat ourselves when we say that all of us are the same. We should not want to be the same as others and we should not want others to be the same as us. Rather, we ought to glory and shine in all of our differences, flaunting them fabulously for all to see! It is never a conformity that we need! We need not to conform! What we need is to burst out into all these beautiful colors! — C. JoyBell C.

As soon as you feel too old to do a thing, do it. — Margaret Deland

If you keep focusing on what people have to say or will say about you, you will lose focus of what God has called you to do. Never let distractions bother you...if you do, you will only be giving your energy to an unworthy cause. — Kemi Sogunle

The field of earth and of our human nature is now no longer barren but full of the seed of divine life. But it takes time for the seed to grow, for the Kingdom to come, and we are commanded to pray and work for that coming, that growth, even if we do not yet see the fruits, or even the blossoms, or even the leaves ... — Peter Kreeft

Master: When a human being asks 'WHO AM I?', the honest answer is eternal silence.
Disciple: Do we make noise to feel that silence, Master? — Saurabh Sharma

All you ought to be worrying about now is order (not about how to impose it on chaos, wish is the opposite of art, but about how to bring it out of chaos, which is art itself). And your worrying about this ought not to be a tortured thing - God knows there's enough torture growing wild in everybody's life so that nobody in his right mind needs to cultivate it - but a serene thing. Don't, in other words, jazz yourself up into a nervous wreck. Be quiet, be as sane as you can, and let the work come out of you. If it's to come, it will; if it's not, no amount of self-induced frenzy is going to hep it along.
One final piece of solemn, teacherly advice, and I do mean this: Try to like yourself a little better. — Blake Bailey

Strength comes from struggle. When you learn to see your struggles as opportunities to become stronger, better, wiser, then your thinking shifts from "I can't do this" to "I must do this. — Toni Sorenson

When you do great things, Expect greater things. None of your works are done in vain. You will achieve what you set forth to accomplish! — Amaka Imani Nkosazana

If you are to be successful ... you will need to be inspired. You will need to receive revelation. I will give you one piece of advice: Go to bed early and get up early. If you do, your body and mind will become rested and then in the quiet of those early morning hours, you will receive more flashes of inspiration and insight than at any other time of the day. — Harold B. Lee

So he could not be hasty or impatient. If he pushed forward impulsively, he would fail to see the signs and omens left by God along his path.
God placed them along my path. He had surprised himself with the thought. Until then, he had considered the omens to be things of this world, Like eating or sleeping, or like seeking love or finding a job. he had never thought of them in terms of a language used by God to indicate what he should do. — Paulo Coelho

Looking back, if I had to live my life over, there are things I would do differently, but the one thing I would not change is my charitable giving. I'm particularly thankful for my father's advice to set goals so high that they can't possibly be achieved during a lifetime and to give help where help is needed most. That inspiration keeps me energized and eager to keep working hard every day on giving back and making the world a better place for generations to come. — Ted Turner

There is not a man in the country that can't make a living for himself and family. But he can't make a living for them and his government, too, the way his government is living. What the government has got to do is live as cheap as the people — Will Rogers

The biggest and first obstacle any artist faces is not believing they can do something. You have the talent. Just believe you are capable of doing it, because you are. Writing anything, for anyone, regardless of expertise, is like crossing the Atlantic in a canoe. What you are doing is saying "I don't know how to row". Start rowing, you will get there. Just know it will take time and perseverance, but you will get there! — Aaron Denius Garcia

The slow pace of our perfection has to be borne with patience, provided that on our part we always do whatever we can to continue advancing. — St. Francis De Sales

It's easy to think that people will like you more if you do whatever they tell you to do, but it's quite the opposite. People don't appreciate pushovers - they use them. — Osayi Emokpae Lasisi

People always ask me
"Son what does it take
To reach out and touch your dreams?"
To them I always say
Are you hungry?
Are you thirsty?
Is it a fire that burns you up inside?
How bad do you want it?
How bad do you need it?
Are you eating, sleeping, dreaming
With that one thing on your mind?
How bad do you want it?
How bad do you need it?
Cause if you want it all
You've got to lay it all out on the line — Tim McGraw