55 Inspirational Quotes about Life
Let these uplifting sayings see you through disappointments in life and give you strength to keep on fighting
I love witty sayings, especially those that managed to stuff a lifetime of wisdom into a few simple lines. Strangely, I’ve rarely used quotes in my posts. I guess it’s because I do not have a centralized depository of quotes that I like, and I don’t particularly enjoy plowing through a mass of life quotes on the web.
Until now, that is. Recently, I began to put my act together and started to collect life inspirational quotes. And I am sharing my collection with you, if you don’t mind another web page full of quoted text. Who knows? You might even find a life- or health-transforming mantra in this list of quotes.
I intend to expand my collection into other genres of quotations in the future: Those that are funny, those that give hope, and not forgetting quotes that are cynical and sarcastic.
They don’t necessarily have to be sayings from famous people, as long as they are inspirational, clever, funny, or meaningful. So, please share them in the comments if you know of any great quotes. And don’t forget to credit them. Thank you so much in advance!
Inspirational Life Quotes
The quotations below are loosely divided into five sets of ten for ease of browsing. My favorite quotes are marked with a 
icon. What are yours?
Attitude Toward Life Matters
Inspirational Quotes about Life Set 1
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We could all take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.
– Author Unknown -
Life is just a chance to grow a soul.
– A. Powell Davies -
Most people can look back over the years and identify a time and place at which their lives changed significantly. Whether by accident or design, these are the moments when, because of a readiness within us and a collaboration with events occurring around us, we are forced to seriously reappraise ourselves and the conditions under which we live and to make certain choices that will affect the rest of our lives.
– Frederick F. Flack -
How far you go in life depends on you being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these.
– George Washington Carver -
Our attitude toward life determines life’s attitude towards us.
– John N. Mitchell -
Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
– Mark Twain -
An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.
– Martin Luther King, Jr. -
One might well say that mankind is divisible into two great classes: hosts and guests.
– Max Beerbohm -
How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one’s culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.
– Barry Lopez -
Do not worry about what people are thinking about you — for they are not thinking.
– Author Unknown -
Pessimism…is, in brief, playing the sure game. You cannot lose at it; you may gain. It is the only view of life in which you can never be disappointed.
– Thomas Hardy -
Never stand so high upon a principle that you cannot lower it to suit the circumstances.
– Winston Churchill
Uncover Your Dreams & Live it!
Inspirational Quotes about Life Set 2
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Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.
– Bernice Johnson Reagon -
If you really want to do something, you will find a way. If you don’t, you will find an excuse.
– Author Unknown -
Don’t be afraid to take big steps. You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps.
– David Lloyd George -
Love doesn’t make the world go ’round; love is what makes the ride worthwhile.
– Franklin P. Jones -
Nothing else matters much — not wealth, nor learning, nor even health — without this gift: the spiritual capacity to keep zest in living. This is the creed of creeds, the final deposit and distillation of all important faiths: that you should be able to believe in life.
– Harry Emerson Fosdick -
Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
– Howard Thurman -
Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today.
– James Dean -
Remember that no man loses any other life than this which he now lives, nor lives any other than this which he now loses.
– Marcus Aurelius -
It’s faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth living.
– Oliver Wendell Holmes -
Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.
– Terry Pratchett -
Don’t let what you can’t do interfere with what you can do.
– Author Unknown -
If you wait to do everything until you’re sure it’s right, you’ll probably never do much of anything.
– Win Borden
What is Life Really?
Inspirational Quotes about Life Set 3
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And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.
– Abraham Lincoln -
Life is like a tin of sardines. We are all looking for the key.
– Alan Bennett -
Life is a process. We are a process. The universe is a process.
– Anne Wilson Schaef -
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.
– Annie Dillard -
My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I’m happy. I can’t figure it out. What am I doing right?
– Charles Schulz -
I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived. Curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.
– Eleanor Roosevelt -
Life is a long lesson in humility.
– James M. Barrie -
Men for the sake of getting a living forget to live.
– Margaret Fuller -
Be on the alert to recognise your prime at whatever time of your life it may occur.
– Muriel Spark -
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
– Thomas Edison
Loosen Up, Life is Not a War!
Inspirational Quotes about Life Set 4
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Anything worth taking seriously is worth poking fun at.
– Author Unknown -
As long as your mistakes are new ones, you can argue that you are making progress.
– Author Unknown -
Experience is something you get just after you need it.
– Author Unknown -
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.
– Bertrand Russell -
Idleness is only a coarse name for my infitnite capacity for living in the present.
– Cyril Connolly -
Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.
– Elbert Hubbard -
Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth.
– Erma Bombeck -
And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.
– Friedrich Nietzsche -
Find enough clever things to say, and you’re a Prime Minister; write them down and you’re a Shakespeare.
– George Bernard Shaw -
It’s okay to let yourself go, just as long as you let yourself back.
– Mike Jagger
How to Live
Inspirational Quotes about Life Set 5
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Expect nothing, live frugally on surprise.
– Alice Walker -
Discipline is making the choice between what you want now and what you want most.
– Author Unknown -
I love my past. I love my present. I’m not ashamed of what I’ve had, and I’m not sad because I have it no longer.
– Colette -
Life is relationships; the rest is just details.
– Gary Smalley -
A steady income is an invitation to mediocrity.
– Author Unknown -
However mean your life is, meet it and live it: do not shun it and call it hard names. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Things do not change, we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.
– Henry David Thoreau -
Make lots of money. Enjoy the work. Operate within the law. Choose any two of three.
– Jack Dee -
Everything has been figured out, except how to live.
– Jean-Paul Sartre -
Everything you now do is something you have chosen to do. Some people don’t want to believe that. But if you’re over age twenty-one, your life is what you’re making of it. To change your life, you need to change your priorities.
– John C. Maxwell -
Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.
– Maria Robinson -
Live your life and forget your age.
– Norman Vincent Peale
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Tnx. You have made my day through these inspirational quotations. Pls I need more it.
You’re welcome, Rosemary! You can find more interesting quotes in these articles: Inspirational Quotes from 4 Spiritual Teachers, Inspirational Quotes about Life for Greeting Cards and Humorous Quotes on Life. Take care.
Wow I love these little life quotes they put a smile on may face. At the moment im enjoying writing a book on poetry im only sixteen and I love all these beautiful things I also do photography (see my website above) but just a big thanks to the people who took the time and effort to make this site what it is and take care all.
Welcome to The Conscious Life, CTaylor! And thank you for taking the time to pen a comment. I wish you success in your poetry writing!
all quotes are very inspirational for me
thank you
Thank you for your kind words, girma. Hope these inspirational quotes will uplift and give you strength.
the inspirational life quotes really make my day
I believe I could share these meaningful quotes with my students. Thank you.
I certainly hope that your students will find something that’s personally motivational for them from these inspirational life quotes. Thanks for your support, James!
A very nice compilation. Too good to be read again and again.
Yesterday was non violence ay, birthday of Mahatma Gandhi and i would sure ly like to post one of his quotes-
“Earlier I believed God is truth
Now I believe Truth is God”
That’s a very meaningful quote, Aswani. Thanks for sharing it with us.
What a great idea! One of my favorite quotes is by Roger Federer and is very simple:
“It’s nice to be important, but more important to be nice.”
Hey Vin, good to see you here. And thanks for sharing your favorite quote. I look forward to having more interaction with you in the future.