229 Famous Quotes to Inspire and Encourage You
I’ll show you the best quotes by famous people
You ever hear a quote that just sticks with you? Like, it hits you right in the heart and makes you stop for a second? Yeah—me too.
I’ve been collecting little quotes like that for years. Some make me smile, some make me think, and a few honestly changed the way I see things.
Today I want to share a few of my favorite famous quotes with you. They’ve helped me on hard days, and I hope they do the same for you.
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You’ll see my favorite famous quotes
- “Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.” — Les Brown
- “It is never too late to be what you might have been.” — George Eliot
- “It is not our abilities that show what we truly are… it is our choices.” — Harry Potter
- “Each person must live their life as a model for others.” — Rosa Parks
- “You can’t help what you feel, but you can help how you behave.” — Margaret Atwood
- “Time is a created thing. To say ‘I don’t have time’ is like saying, ‘I don’t want to.’” — Lao Tzu
- “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” — John Heywood
- “Life isn’t a matter of milestones, but of moments.” — Rose Kennedy
- “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” — Arthur Ashe
- “The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.” — Charles R. Swindoll
- “It’s a good place when all you have is hope and not expectations.” — Danny Boyle
- “Knowledge is power.” — Francis Bacon
- “Life is made of ever so many partings welded together.” — Charles Dickens
- “It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.” — Aristotle
- “The best way out is through.” — Robert Frost
- “Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to the error that counts.” — Nikki Giovanni
- “Always go with your passions. Never ask yourself if it’s realistic or not.” — Deepak Chopra
- “Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.” — Theophrastus
- “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” — Thomas Edison
- “The purpose of our lives is to be happy.” — Dalai Lama
- “The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” — Ayn Rand
- “Everything you can imagine is real.” — Pablo Picasso
- “The secret to getting ahead is getting started.” — Mark Twain
- “Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans.” — John Lennon
- “Opportunities don’t happen. You create them.” — Chris Grosser
- “Fall seven times and stand up eight.” — Japanese Proverb
- “The purpose of life is a life of purpose.” — Robert Byrne
- “In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun.” — Mary Poppins
- “Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.” — Gloria Steinem
- “Life is a journey, not a destination.” — T.S. Eliot
- “Once you face your fear, nothing is ever as hard as you think.” — Olivia Newton-John
- “I failed my way to success.” — Thomas Edison
- “You never achieve real success unless you like what you’re doing.” — Dale Carnegie
- “A person’s a person, no matter how small.” — Horton Hears a Who! by Dr. Seuss
- “Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort.” — John Ruskin
- “Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later.” — Og Mandino
- “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” — Confucius
- “Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” — Napoleon Hill
- “I don’t go by the rule book… I lead from the heart, not the head.” — Princess Diana
- “The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.” — Vidal Sassoon
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- “This too shall pass.” — Persian Proverb
- “The secret of success is to do the common thing uncommonly well.” — John D. Rockefeller
- “The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain!” — Dolly Parton
- “The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and most beautiful of all.” — Mulan
- “Start before you’re ready.” — Steven Pressfield
- “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” — Steve Jobs
- “You’ll never do a whole lot unless you’re brave enough to try.” — Dolly Parton
- “You define your own life. Don’t let other people write your script.” — Oprah Winfrey
- “When you have a dream, you’ve got to grab it and never let go.” — Carol Burnett
- “The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.” — Jimmy Johnson
- “Do not let making a living prevent you from making a life.” — John Wooden
- “If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.” — Bruce Lee
- “Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.” — Babe Ruth
- “There’s love enough in this world for everybody, if people will just look.” — Kurt Vonnegut
- “Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.” — C.S. Lewis
- “Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going.” — Sam Levenson
- “I never dreamed about success. I worked for it.” — Estée Lauder
- “Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all the time thing.” — Vince Lombardi
- “It is not the strength of the body that counts, but the strength of the spirit.” — J.R.R. Tolkien
- “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.” — Jackie Robinson
- “Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” — Theodore Roosevelt
- “Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale.” — Hans Christian Andersen
- “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” — Peter Drucker
- “Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.” — Eugene O’Neill
- “Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” — William James
- “I go to seek a Great Perhaps.” — François Rabelais
- “We pass through this world but once.” — Stephen Jay Gould
- “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” — Tim Notke
- “The only impossible journey is the one you never begin.” — Tony Robbins
- “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” — Mae West
- “Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.” — Alexander Graham Bell
- “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: It goes on.” — Robert Frost
- “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” — Oscar Wilde
- “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” — Lao Tzu
- “Success is falling nine times and getting up 10.” — Jon Bon Jovi
- “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” — Wayne Gretzky
- “Be where you are; otherwise you will miss your life.” — Buddha
- “The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.” — Bruce Lee
- “A problem is a chance for you to do your best.” — Duke Ellington
- “Find out who you are and do it on purpose.” — Dolly Parton
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- “Despite the forecast, live like it’s spring.” — Lilly Pulitzer
- “Great things come from hard work and perseverance. No excuses.” — Kobe Bryant
- “The best revenge is massive success.” — Frank Sinatra
- “There is no perfection, only life.” — Milan Kundera
- “Either you run the day or the day runs you.” — Jim Rohn
- “Success is only meaningful and enjoyable if it feels like your own.” — Michelle Obama
- “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
- “The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.” — Leo Tolstoy
- “Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.” — Maya Angelou
- “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” — Walt Disney
- “We should live our lives as though Christ was coming this afternoon.” — Jimmy Carter
- “It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.” — Herman Melville
- “Nothing is impossible, the word itself says, ‘I’m possible!’” — Audrey Hepburn
- “Yesterday is but today’s memory and tomorrow is today’s dream.” — Khalil Gibran
- “Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.” — Truman Capote
- “Nothing is more honorable than a grateful heart.” — Seneca
- “Say something positive, and you’ll see something positive.” — Jim Thompson
- “Living an experience, a particular fate, is accepting it fully.” — Albert Camus
- “We become what we think about most of the time.” — Earl Nightingale
- “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” — Nelson Mandela
- “Get busy living or get busy dying.” — Stephen King
- “The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.” — Malcolm X
- “You can be everything. You can be the infinite amount of things that people are.” — Kesha
- “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” — Oscar Wilde
- “Being happy never goes out of style.” — Lilly Pulitzer
- “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
- “Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.” — John Wayne
- “I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.” — Thomas Jefferson
- “The difference between winning and losing is most often not quitting.” — Walt Disney
- “All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.” — Mark Twain
- “Always remember, your focus determines your reality.” — George Lucas
- “Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.” — John D. Rockefeller
- “Leave nothing for tomorrow which can be done today.” — Abraham Lincoln
- “Life is ours to be spent, not to be saved.” — D. H. Lawrence
- “Great men are not born great, they grow great.” — The Godfather
- “If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.” — Napoleon Hill
- “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” — Helen Keller
- “You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.” — Margaret Thatcher
- “A dead end is just a good place to turn around.” — Naomi Judd
- “Life is tough my darling, but so are you.” — Stephanie Bennett Henry
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- “Self-care is how you take your power back.” — Lalah Delia
- “I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
- “It’s what you do right now that makes a difference.” — Black Hawk Down
- “The unexamined life is not worth living.” — Socrates
- “It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” — Epictetus
- “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.” — Amelia Earhart
- “Life is a long lesson in humility.” — James M. Barrie
- “Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.” — Albert Einstein
- “Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.” — Mark Twain
- “Life does not have to be perfect to be wonderful.” — Annette Funicello
- “There are so many great things in life; why dwell on negativity?” — Zendaya
- “I would rather die of passion than of boredom.” — Vincent van Gogh
- “People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.” — A. A. Milne
- “Each day comes bearing its gifts. Untie the ribbon.” — Ann Ruth Schabacker
- “It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.” — Confucius
- “Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.” — John Wooden
- “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” — Walt Disney
- “Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.” — Oscar Wilde
- “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” — Socrates
- “It’s amazing how a little tomorrow can make up for a whole lot of yesterday.” — John Guare
- “The time is always right to do what is right.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
- “If you are not willing to risk the usual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.” — Jim Rohn
- “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” — Albert Einstein
- “If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.” — Albert Einstein
- “If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.” — Dolly Parton
- “A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.” — John F. Kennedy
- “Life is short, but it is wide. This too shall pass.” — Rebecca Wells
- “If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time.” — Steve Jobs
- “The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same.” — Colin R. Davis
- “Life is short and it is here to be lived.” — Katharine Hepburn
- “If you light a lamp for somebody, it will also brighten your path.” — Gautam Buddha
- “There is no substitute for hard work.” — Thomas Edison
- “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” — Forrest Gump
- “The only way to do great work is to love what you do.” — Steve Jobs
- “Happy is the man who can make a living by his hobby.” — George Bernard Shaw
- “Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.” — Abraham Lincoln
- “Dream big and dare to fail.” — Norman Vaughan
- “Try to be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud.” — Maya Angelou
- “An unexamined life is not worth living.” — Socrates
- “The mystery of life isn’t a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.” — Frank Herbert
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- “The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure very much.” — William Hazlitt
- “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” — Mahatma Gandhi
- “You’ll miss the best things if you keep your eyes shut.” — Dr. Seuss
- “Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right.” — Henry Ford
- “Keep your face to the sunshine and you can never see the shadow.” — Helen Keller
- “You’ve got to be in it to win it.” — Tony Robbins
- “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt
- “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” — George Bernard Shaw
- “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” — Albert Einstein
- “The best way to predict your future is to create it.” — Abraham Lincoln
- “Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in.” — Bill Bradley
- “The best thing to hold onto in life is each other.” — Audrey Hepburn
- “The key to success is to develop a winning edge.” — Brian Tracy
- “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” — Robert F. Kennedy
- “A small leak will sink a great ship.” — Benjamin Franklin
- “If at first you don’t succeed, then skydiving definitely isn’t for you.” — Steven Wright
- “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” — Lao Tzu
- “In the long run, the sharpest weapon of all is a kind and gentle spirit.” — Anne Frank
- “Your most important investment is in yourself.” — Warren Buffett
- “Don’t worry about failure, you only have to be right once.” — Drew Houston
- “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” — Winston Churchill
- “To be, or not to be, that is the question.” — William Shakespeare
- “Believe and act as if it were impossible to fail.” — Charles Kettering
- “You will face many defeats in life, but never let yourself be defeated.” — Maya Angelou
- “Don’t find fault, find a remedy: anyone can complain.” — Henry Ford
- “Not all those who wander are lost.” — J.R.R. Tolkien
- “It does not matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop.” — Confucius
- “Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.” — George Addair
- “Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” — William Penn
- “Life has no limitations, except the ones you make.” — Les Brown
- “You become what you believe.” — Oprah Winfrey
- “Living might mean taking chances, but they’re worth taking.” — Lee Ann Womack
- “Whatever we believe about ourselves and our ability comes true for us.” — Susan L. Taylor
- “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” — Wayne Dyer
- “Your attitude is either the lock on or key to your door of success.” — Denis Waitley
- “Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.” — Will Rogers
- “You can’t have everything. Where would you put it?” — Steven Wright
- “Courage is grace under pressure.” — Ernest Hemingway
- “Life is trying things to see if they work.” — Ray Bradbury
- “All serious daring starts from within.” — Eudora Welty
- “The big lesson in life, baby, is never be scared of anyone or anything.” — Frank Sinatra
- “Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is.” — Vince Lombardi
- “Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it.” — Charles R. Swindoll
- “Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams.” — Oprah Winfrey
- “I didn’t fail the test. I just found 100 ways to do it wrong.” — Benjamin Franklin
- “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” — C.S. Lewis
- “You have to believe in yourself when no one else does.” — Serena Williams
- “The pen is mightier than the sword.” — Edward Bulwer-Lytton
- “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” — Lao Tzu
- “Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot, but make it hot by striking.” — William Butler Yeats
- “We tend to get what we expect.” — Norman Vincent Peale
- “Be persistent and never give up hope.” — George Lucas
- “Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes.” — Jim Carrey
- “It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” — Alfred Tennyson
- “I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse.” — Florence Nightingale
- “If you don’t have any shadows, you’re not in the light.” — Lady Gaga
- “We are here to add what we can to life, not to get what we can from life.” — William Osler
- “Do one thing every day that scares you.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
- “It’s fun to do the impossible.” — Walt Disney
- “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” — Zig Ziglar
- “You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.” — Beverly Sills
- “There are no regrets in life. Just lessons.” — Jennifer Aniston
- “Even miracles take a little time.” — Cinderella
- “Love the life you live. Live the life you love.” — Bob Marley
- “Success is achieved and maintained by those who try and keep trying.” — W. Clement Stone
- “If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it.” — Margaret Fuller
- “The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” — Michael Altshuler
- “Keep your face towards the sunshine and shadows will fall behind you.” — Walt Whitman
Why should I read these quotes by famous people?
Well, I’ll tell you what I’ve learned. Sometimes, when I’m feeling sad, tired, or just not sure what to do next, a small quote can help a lot.
It’s just a sentence or two, but it can change how I feel. It’s kind of like hearing a kind word from a friend. It reminds me I’m not alone.
Famous people have gone through hard things too. They’ve made mistakes, had big dreams, and learned lessons along the way.
When they share their words, we can learn from them. We don’t have to figure out everything by ourselves.
Quotes can make us feel brave. They can make us smile. They can even help us get back up when we fall down.
I like to keep my favorite quotes in a notebook. Sometimes I read them when my day is hard. It helps more than I ever thought it would.
What are your favorite famous quotes?
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