Long Inspirational Quotes & Sayings

A decent life, even a short life, will always be far better than an exceptionally long life lived in ruin. — Steven J. Carroll

The wheel turns. Blue above, green below, we wander a long way, but love is what the cup of our soul contains when we leave the world and the flesh. — Louise Murphy

As long as we encourage a culture of victim hood, said Monty, with the rhythmic smoothness of self-quotation, we will continue to raise victims. And so the cycle of underachievement continues. — Zadie Smith

The tunnel is lit at long intervals, so in the dark space between each dim lamp, I fear that I am lost until a shoulder bumps mine. In the circles of light I am safe again. — Veronica Roth

To walk in Time, perhaps, as men walk on long roads ... to see the lie of old and even forgotten lands, to behold ancient men walking, and to hear their languages as they spoke them, in the days before the days, when tongues of forgotten lineage were heard in kingdoms long fallen by the shores of the Atlantic.
J.R.R. Tolkien: The Lost Road — J.R.R. Tolkien

As long as you are trying to be something other than what you actually are, your mind wears itself out. But if you say, 'This is what I am, it is a fact that I am going to investigate and understand,' then you can go beyond. — Jack Kornfield

One day when I die, I will take your tears in me; as provision for my long journey to the gods. — Kristian Goldmund Aumann

It is tempting to call for better leadership, but we probably expect too much from the leaders of the nations. Those nations are too big, the connections not strong enough, the commitment to the future not long enough. It is better to look smaller, to our now-smaller organisations, to local communities and cities, to families and clusters of friends, to small networks of portfolio people with time to give to something bigger than themselves. We have to fashion our own directions in our own places. — Charles Handy

Life is never simple or without challenges. If it is, it will not last long. So stop worrying that because your life is complicated you're doing something wrong. Enjoy the lessons in life, and the chaos they bring. It means you're alive! — Shane E. Bryan

Belief, like fear or love, is a force to be understood as we understand the theory of relativity and principals of uncertainty. Phenomena that determine the course of our lives. Yesterday, my life was headed in one direction. Today, it is headed in another. Yesterday, I believe I would never have done what I did today. These forces that often remake time and space, that can shape and alter who we
imagine ourselves to be, begin long before we are born and continue after we perish. Our lives and our choices, like quantum trajectories, are understood moment to moment. That each point of intersection, each encounter, suggest a new potential direction. Proposition, I have fallen in love with Luisa Rey. Is this possible? I just met her and yet, I feel like something important has happened to me. — David Mitchell

You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous and true and also fierce you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her. She was meant to be wooed and won by youth. — Winston S. Churchill

Michael staggered to his feet and turned to face his worst nightmare. Baal stood before him, a smirk on his face. He wore his signature grey, pinstripe, three-piece suit, and casually twisted his pinky ring on his long and slender well-manicured finger. As it rotated Michael caught a glimpse of the rubies in the skull's eye sockets. His black hair was slicked back, the sight of his false appearance made Michael sick to his stomach. — Wendy Owens

A river season will last as long as it takes you to reach your new
place. If you get into the river and let it take you where you need to
be, your river season will last an afternoon. But if you fear change
and struggle and hold on to the rocks, the river season will last and
last. It will not end until your body becomes exhausted, your grip
weakens, your hands slide off the rocks and the current takes you to
your new place. — Andrew Kaufman

Whatever you want to be, it is okay with me as long as you never forget to be happy. — Debasish Mridha

To all those who doubt the power of exercise -- and I was one of you -- take it from me: physical fitness has translated into an intellectual fitness I could not have imagined... I've learned that "I don't need to go for a run today" comes out of the same part of my brain as "I don't need to confront my vice president today about the low performance of his department." One suffer-session at a time, I have trained that part of my brain to endure short-term pain in exchange for long-term benefits. — Edward Stevens

If there was a moral issue involved, she would, of course, defend her position to the end. But long ago her mother had taught her that often it is the little things over which people battle foolishly, losing friends, disturbing peace of mind, destroying serenity with no end in view save that they continue to defend the position they have already taken. It was far better, her mother pointed out, to give in gracefully, remembering that a fight in a lesser cause is never worth the struggle. She maintained that by doing so one gained everything really worth having, serenity, sweetness, and inner strength. — Loula Grace Erdman

Unhappy memories are persistent. They're specific, and it's the details that refuse to leave us alone. Though a happy memory may stay with you just as long as one that makes you miserable, what you remember softens over time. What you recall is simply that you were happy, not necessarily the individual moments that brought about your joy.
But the memory of something painful does just the opposite. It retains its original shape, all bony fingers and pointy elbows. Every time it returns, you get a quick poke in the eye or jab in the stomach. The memory of being unhappy has the power to hurt us long after the fact. We feel the injury anew each and every time we think of it. — Cameron Dokey

It's a great paradox and a great injustice that writers write because we fear death and want to leave something indestructable in our wake, and at the same time, are drawn to things that kill: whiskey and cigarette, unprotected sex and deep fried burritos.
It's true that you can get away with drinking and smoking and sunbathing when you're in your teens and twenties, and it's true that rock stars are free to die at twenty-nine, but a lit star needs a long life. — Ariel Gore

I never can love you deep enough or long enough to satisfy me. — Debasish Mridha

Whoever said that thing about how no man is an island probably doesn't live on one. — Tim Hall

Deciding to commit yourself to long term results rather than short term fixes is as important as any decision you'll make in your lifetime. — Anthony Robbins

If you want something bad enough, take the steps needed to make it happen, no matter how long it takes. Sometimes you get lucky and can skip some steps, but most of the time you can't. The secret to achieving any goal is nothing more than putting in the necessary time and effort. — Bill Loguidice

No matter how long your night may have been, as the earth remains, your morning will definitely come. — Pedro Okoro

I might face death any minute now! But I should try not to put myself in harms' way as long as I can live. Of course it is not important if I die, because this is going to happen anyway. I know my purpose, my purpose is: How will my life or death impact the lives of others? — Samad Behrangi

Keep doing good deeds long enough and you'll probably turn out a good man in spite of yourself. — Louis Auchincloss

It is a sweet thing that we serve a dissatisfied God who has destinations in mind for us that we would never choose for ourselves. It really is a good thing that he will not be satisfied until he has gotten us exactly where he created us and re-created us to be. Most of us would have been satisfied to stay at home, and many of us would have quit the journey long before it was completed. But our heavenly Father won't give up until each one of his children has completed the journey. — Paul David Tripp

You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. — Winston S. Churchill

The more you face the truth, the angrier you will probably become. You have a right to be angry about being sexually abused. You have a right to be angry with the perpetrator, regardless of who it was, how long ago the sexual abuse occurred, or how much he/she has changed. — Beverly Engel

Where were we?" she said.
"Getting credit," I said.
"What about it?"
"Well, it's nice to get credit."
The spokes of her rear wheel spun behind the curtain of her long skirt. She looked like a photograph from a hundred years ago. She turned her wide eyes on me. "Is it?" she said. — Jerry Spinelli

As long as they don't harm the environment, pay taxes, and don't do it in my bed, it's none of my business. — John Duover

Because that happened to me when I was little, this is how I will now treat other people"; "Because so and so beat me up and hurt me a long time ago, that gives me the right to treat people the way I treat them, today"; "Because life was hard on me, life should be hard on everyone else around me" - does this sound/ look familiar? It's called victim mentality. When people choose to be the direct product of everything that happened to them, the direct product of every single pair of hands that hurt them. And the world, to these people, must bend over backwards in order to accommodate their wounds. Some people don't want to be loved; they just want to make the world pay. — C. JoyBell C.

no need to remember anything as long as you say only the truth. — Toge Aprilianto

Often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us. — Helen Keller

Immortals are constrained by ancient rules. But a hero can go anywhere, challenge anyone, as long as he has the nerve.
-Chiron — Rick Riordan

You may not know what the outcome will be, but you have to try to give yourself a future, no matter how long it takes. You have to hold on to hope. — Peter W. Smorynski

You can't escape the existential suffering of life as long as you are living. So get used to it. — Debasish Mridha

Lost in the impossible pleasure of finding that soul and body that fits up perfectly to yours, lost in the starburst patterns that wait behind their eyelids when all that matters is that they are both here, now, for as long as they can be. — Kay Simone

These are universals, as is the fear women feel during times of political upheaval that occur in what could still be called the outside world of men--whether during the Taiping Rebellion so many years ago or today for women in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Sudan, or even right here in this country in the post-9/11 era. On the surface, we as American women are independent, free, and mobile, but at our cores we still long for love, friendship, happiness, tranquility, and to be heard. — Lisa See

Scars are medals branded on the flesh, and your enemies will be frightened by them because they are proof of your long experience of battle. — Paulo Coelho

What would you think of an engineer who expounded the art of flying without revealing the secrets of the engine and propeller? That's what you do, you engineer of the human soul. Just that. You're a coward. You want the raisins out of my cake but you don't want the thorns of my roses. Haven't you too, little psychiatrist, been cracking silly jokes about me? Haven't you ridiculed me as "the prophet of bigger and better orgasms"? Have you never heard the whimpering of a young wife whose body has been desecrated by an impotent husband? Or the anguished cry of an adolescent bursting with unfulfilled love? Does your security still mean more to you than your patient? How long will you go on valuing your respectability above your medical mission? How long will you refuse to see that your pussyfooting procrastination is costing millions their lives? — Wilhelm Reich

You know not what you are capable of doing; you cannot sound the ocean of thought within you. You must labor, keep at it, and dig deep and long before you will begin to realize much. Be inactive - mourn because you were not created a giant in intellect, and you will die a fool. — L.G. Abell

The closer I got to my finish line, that rubbley (ph) rocky coast of Ross Island, the more I started to realize that the biggest lesson that this very long, very-hard walk might be teaching me is that happiness is not a finish line and that if we can't feel content on our journeys amidst the mess and the striving that we all inhabit - the open loops, the half-finished to-do lists, the could-do-better-next-times - then we might never feel it. — Ben Saunders

There are ultimate truths you cannot hide from no matter how high you climb or how long you sit alone. Everything is on its way somewhere, even if that place feels like nowhere. — LeighLa Graham

He who runs with the platypus is no more a man than he who swallows chesnuts — Chief Long Spear Who Hunts Beavers

When harsh words cut you down and open long-forgotten wounds,may you, beloved daughter of a King,stand tall in your dignity and worth. — Joan Campbell

Rap music's been around for too long now to be inspirational. The words are, but the music isn't. — Alexander McQueen

True success is not the end of the journey; true success is a journey without an end. So many people relax after achieving something and they forget the undone. They neglect their untapped destiny and they halt their journey of life not reaching their real and true destination. Whilst we have life, we must live life. Whilst we have life, we must give a true meaning to life. Whilst we have life, we must dare to do the undone; though the road is weary; though we may be having a sense of fulfillment, and though we might have done something! Let us awake and pursue with all zeal and tenacity until we get to the real end of our true purpose and destiny, such that long after we are gone, the voice of our footprints will speak to inspire, build and raise a generation of champions ! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

It's been a long, hard day, and bit by bit you have been transformed into a single, vertical, barely ambulatory ache. All that awaits you now is another long, lonely night on the hard, cold ground. "What am I doing out here?" you ask yourself. "I must be mad!" Indeed, you are mad. Otherwise right now you could be warm and cozy and stretched out in front of your beloved TV, munching popcorn and swigging down ice-cold brew, just like a civilized person. "Oh well," you sigh to yourself. "I'd better stop and get a fire going. — Patrick F. McManus

She had been given a wonderful gift: life. Sometimes it was cruelly taken away too soon, but it's what you did with it that counted, not how long it lasted. — Cecelia Ahern

Fear no more as long as her memory surrounds you like a ghost ... cry no more as long as she weeps for you like a willow. — Munia Khan

Some things fall apart so that other things can fall together. This is the nature of life. We can view it from our short-term perspective or we can trust the long-term process of creation. Nothing new can come about without including pieces of something that once was. A nebula explodes scattering its debris across the universe. It appears as if something has gone wrong, but this is how new worlds are created. — Emily Maroutian

Come, said my Soul
Such verses for my Body let us write, (for we are one,)
That should I after death invisibly return,
Or, long, long hence, in other spheres,
There to some group of mates the chants resuming,
(Tallying Earth's soil, trees, winds, tumultuous waves,)
Ever with pleas'd smiles I may keep on,
Ever and ever yet the verses owning - as, first, I here and now,
Signing for Soul and Body, set to them my name, — Walt Whitman

A little extravagance can be defensible, so long as you buy the right things, appraising them for their payoff potential. Ask yourself 'can the object, in any way, be construed as a life investment?' by 'life investment' we mean something that will not only appreciate monetarily, but that will also a) save you money in the long-term, or b) grant you status, cultural enrichment, and/or intense pleasure. — Shelly Branch

And she thinks perhaps that is what love is: letting someone else see that part of you that shatters like glass...They will grow old together, broken together, and as long as they both don't completely shatter at the same time, they might find a way to pick each other off the ground. — Thomas Christopher Greene

By his own assessment, he was no genius. He had "no great quickness of apprehension or wit" or "power to follow a long and purely abstract train of thought." On the many occasions when I share those feelings, I find it encouraging to review those words because that Englishman did okay for himself - his name was Charles Darwin. — Leonard Mlodinow

As long as we don't cut off our hearts, the inner workings of the universe illuminate before us. — Rivera Sun

I sometimes think we expect too much of Christmas Day. We try to crowd into it the long arrears of kindliness and humanity of the whole year. As for me, I like to take my Christmas a little at a time, all through the year. And thus I drift along into the holidays - let them overtake me unexpectedly - waking up some find morning and suddenly saying to myself: 'Why, this is Christmas Day! — Ray Stannard Baker

The most exquisite paradox ... as soon as you give it all up, you can have it all. As long as you want power, you can't have it. The minute you don't want power, you'll have more than you ever dreamed possible. — Ram Dass

PATTY: Hannah, what happened to me was awful, and it happened a long time ago, but I try not to dwell on it. It's with me, is who I am, but I won't allow it to shape me. — Sam Crescent

I expect to see the coming decades transform the planet into an art form; the new man, linked in a cosmic harmony that transcends time and space, will sensuously caress and mold and pattern every facet of the terrestrial artifact as if it were a work of art, and man himself will become an organic art form. There is a long road ahead, and the stars are only way stations, but we have begun the journey. To be born in this age is a precious gift, and I regret the prospect of my own death only because I will leave so many pages of man's destiny - if you will excuse the Gutenbergian image - tantalizingly unread. But perhaps, as I've tried to demonstrate in my examination of the postliterate culture, the story begins only when the book closes. — Marshall McLuhan

Push the door open the discovery could be, great that when the rain is long gone the sun might shine — Edward Malatji

Though our paths may have diverged, you must continue to live out your life with all your might, you must never consider your own life to be something insignificant, and you must never forget about your friends for as long as you live. — Hiro Mashima

You can cover a great deal of Countries in books. — Andrew Long

George Bernard Shaw of England stopped over just long enough to make one speech in Bombay, India, started a war and 100 Indians killed each other. That's what I call good speech-making. The only enthusiasm any of our speakers can rouse is a demand to kill the speaker. — Will Rogers

Though in this world there are phenomena that might justly be termed "strange," there are no phenomena that cannot -- given sufficient information -- be explained. This is not to suggest that for every effect there is a cause, of course. That is an assumption that we are not prepared to make, less it launch us ineluctably down the path of determinism. This is only to suggest, rather, that there is no "thing" that exists without some relation to at least one other "thing," and it is the matrix of a "thing's" relationship that determines its meaning in the larger context of the world. Even something strange can be explained by tracing its relational lines of flight, however casual or casual they may be. — Dustin Long

I can assure you that every degree of mind and spirit that I possess will be devoted to the long-range interests of the United States and to the cause of freedom around the world. — John F. Kennedy

She had long ago learned not to refuse when God brought a need to her attention. — Robin Lee Hatcher

Your true passions will rise you up before the sun, to pick you up where you left off long after the moon went to bed. When we respond to the beckon of these kinds of intrinsic dreams they will make exciting the most tedious of work, they will lighten the heaviest of burdens, and will enable us to focus with laser precision on whatever array of tasks may be at hand for their progress. — Connie Kerbs

No road is to long for him who advances slowly and does not hurry and no attainment is beyond his reach who equips himself with patience to achieve it — Jean De La Bruyere

Don't try to change the world; just change yourself. Why? Because the whole world is only relative to the eyes that are looking at it. Your world actually only exists for as long as you exist and with the death of you, includes the death of your world. Therefore, if there is no peace in your heart; you will find no peace in this world, if there is no happiness in your life; you will find no happiness anywhere around you, if you have no love in your heart; you will not find love anywhere and if you do not fly around freely inside your own soul like a bird with perfectly formed wings; then there will never be any freedom for you regardless if you are on a mountaintop removed from all attachments to all of mankind! Even the mountaintop cannot give you freedom if it is not already flying around there inside your own soul! So I say, change yourself. Not the world. — C. JoyBell C.

Destinations are overrated, as long as your moving, your going somewhere — Sarah Dessen

The amount of money you owe doesn't matter; as long as you use it for good — Sandra Chami Kassis

At times, look back towards your ancient days, drink deep from the eternal fountain of wisdom long gone, and then look ahead. — Abhijit Naskar

Some of you may feel that if you don't do something soon to change your life, you will be left by the roadside, alone, homeless and in despair. But is the despair not there as you reach and grapple to create or manifest your desires through your own effort and will? What happens if or when those things appear in your life? Joy? Peace? Or a temporary sense of relief?

What if it is relief from the wanting you have been craving for so long, not the outcome, but the relief from the constant wanting. — Kelly Martin

Uninvited, the thought of you stayed too late in my head,
so I went to bed, dreaming you hard, hard, woke with your name,
like tears, soft, salt, on my lips, the sound of its bright syllables
like a charm, like a spell.

Falling in love
is glamorous hell; the crouched, parched heart
like a tiger ready to kill; a flame's fierce licks under the skin.
Into my life, larger than life, beautiful, you strolled in.

I hid in my ordinary days, in the long grass of routine,
in my camouflage rooms. You sprawled in my gaze,
staring back from anyone's face, from the shape of a cloud,
from the pining, earth-struck moon which gapes at me

as I open the bedroom door. The curtains stir. There you are
on the bed, like a gift, like a touchable dream.

"You — Carol Ann Duffy

More often than not, at the end of the day (or a month, or a year), you realize that your initial idea was wrong, and you have to try something else. These are the moments of frustration and despair. You feel that you have wasted an enormous amount of time, with nothing to show for it. This is hard to stomach. But you can never give up. You go back to the drawing board, you analyze more data, you learn from your previous mistakes, you try to come up with a better idea. And every once in a while, suddenly, your idea starts to work. It's as if you had spent a fruitless day surfing, when you finally catch a wave: you try to hold on to it and ride it for as long as possible. At moments like this, you have to free your imagination and let the wave take you as far as it can. Even if the idea sounds totally crazy at first. — Edward Frenkel

Some people are known, they have the platform and presence, but still remain irrelevant. They know you and what you do, but they don't need you or your offering. I see too many people with a platform but without substance, again this is not sustainable. Lack of substance can only relegate your talent or skill towards the league of the mediocre, if at all you become much by superficial branding then you will become the best of the worst. You don't have what it takes but you depend on your ability to sell substandard offerings to the market. It will not last for long, but quickly become irrelevant. — Archibald Marwizi

For as long as life breathes in us, we must continue to hope, to believe, to trust, to run our race, and to finish it with flying colors. — Kcat Yarza

You become what you think about all day long. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

When the present feels as endless as an impossibly long hallway between airport terminals, white and sterile and numb, we're particularly receptive to signs. — Kate Bolick

I guess in all my years, what I heard more than anything else was: a mere town cannot support a discount store for very long. — Sam Walton

There are times in our lives when we labor so hard, for so long, that it may feel that we have nothing to show for it. That we have failed. We get discouraged, because we don't achieve what we yearned for or anticipated.
But a lack of desired results doesn't mean we failed ... it means we have locked our sights on the end result, instead of focusing on the process itself.
No one can guarantee your success.
What you can do, however, is consistently act - progressing towards your goals, so that your chances of success grows exponentially with each step you take. — Jaime Buckley

That's all you've got for me?" I drew a long breath and let it out slowly. "You know. I might be able to get more clues from Google. — Jayde Scott

The strong manly ones in life are those who understand the meaning of the word patience. Patience means restraining one's inclinations. There are seven emotions: joy, anger, anxiety, adoration, grief, fear, and hate, and if a man does not give way to these he can be called patient. I am not as strong as I might be, but I have long known and practiced patience. And if my descendants wish to be as I am, they must study patience. — Tokugawa Iehiro

I long to look at my holiday season with eyes that see the Christ in Christmas. — Ann Marie Stewart

Magnificent beauty of nature inviting you to long for her, to love her, and then purify your heart and mind with the illuminating beauty of nature. — Debasish Mridha

I'm not suffering Trisha, I've never suffered all these years, someone long back taught me by example that its very easy to be content with one's solitude. I've enjoyed mine all these years. — Dixy Gandhi

I saw on his face a glimpse of his past. The damage, the unhappiness and the pain, and I wondered what kind of skeletons he has been hiding and for how long. It's one of those mutual attraction moments that are unexplainable, but as real as anything you've ever seen. Almost like my soul knows his soul. — Cyma Rizwaan Khan

I have lived long enough to see real, significant changes made for the good...and I have been fortunate enough to have participated in some of them...One person can make a difference!
(Father Ted Hesburgh, C.S.C., quoted in our book, God's Icebreaker by Jill A. Boughton and Julie Walters) — Jill A. Boughton

THEO: You should walk a fucking mile before you judge a situation. You should put yourself in someone else's shoes before you blame, or judge, or pity. It takes a long time to wear down someone's confidence, and it takes much more strength of will to walk away than it does to take another punch. — Con Riley

No matter where life takes you ... the place where you stand at any moment is holy ground. Love hard and love wide and love long, and you will find goodness in it. — Susan Vreeland

The secret to success: Don't stop to admire yourself too often. I only stopped to admire my work after I wrote eight books, before that, I never once admired myself for accomplishing anything in my profession. Don't stop to admire yourself too much, instead, admire people who have achieved more than you have, because that gives you something to keep on looking forward to. But when the time comes that you should take a look at the greatness you have done, make sure you take a really long and hard good look at it! Make sure you know your own greatness. — C. JoyBell C.

I have come to accept the feeling of not knowing where I am going. And I have trained myself to love it. Because it is only when we are suspended in mid-air with no landing in sight, that we force our wings to unravel and alas begin our flight. And as we fly, we still may not know where we are going to. But the miracle is in the unfolding of the wings. You may not know where you're going, but you know that so long as you spread your wings, the winds will carry you. — C. JoyBell C.

There are choices," she thought, when she had sat long enough. "There are always choices. — Neil Gaiman

The moon shines in my body, but my blind eyes cannot see it:
The moon is within me, and so is the sun.
The unstruck drum of Eternity is sounded within me; but my deaf ears cannot hear it.
So long as man clamors for the I and the Mine, his works are as naught:
When all love of the I and the Mine is dead, then the work of the Lord is done.
For work has no other aim than the getting of knowledge:
When that comes, then work is put away.
The flower blooms for the fruit: when the fruit comes, the flower withers.
The musk is in the deer, but is seeks it not within itself: it wanders in quest of grass. — Kabir

Even a stopped clock is right twice every day. After some years, it can boast of a long series of successes. — Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach

Perhaps the most pressing need for there to be a forever after, is because that is how long it will take man to thank his Creator for all His wondrous deeds. — Sara Loo

As long as you have hope, you can survive any harsh condition. — Lailah Gifty Akita

As long as you SIT, you Stay In Trouble. Once you STAND, you Shift Toward A New Direction, take a STEP, and Start To Embrace Purpose, then WALK to Welcome Abundance, Love and Knowledge. — Niquenya D. Fulbright

We're none of us quite so sure of our place in the world that we can't be rocked off our feet by bad times. It's the getting back up again that counts. Not that you fall, but getting back up again counts for more in the long run. — Mercedes Lackey