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60 Selected Best Famous Quotes 

In this posting you will find my selection of the very best 60 quotes, from nearly a decade of 

collecting them. They range from the profound to the intriguing to the just plain funny.

One way or the other, you‘ll surely find many of them to be thought -provoking and

entertaining.

This selection is, of course, based solely on my personal taste (and even that varies largely

from day to day according to my mood). You are welcome to browse the entire collection and

look for your own favorite ones or contribute new quotes from your own personal collection.

Wisdom Quotes

1. You can do anything, but not everything.

 — David Allen

2. Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing

left to take away.

 — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

3. The richest man is not he who has the most, but he who needs the least.

 — Unknown Author

4. You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take. — Wayne Gretzky

5. Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more

important than fear. — Ambrose Redmoon

6. You must be the change you wish to see in the world.

 — Gandhi

7. When hungry, eat your rice; when tired, close your eyes. Fools may laugh at me, but wise

men will know what I mean.

 — Lin-Chi

8. The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate

mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy

when it is thinking.

 — A. A. Milne

9. To the man who only has a hammer, everything he encounters begins to look like a nail.

 — Abraham Maslow

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10. We are what we repeatedly do; excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.

 — Aristotle

11. A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.

 — Baltasar Gracian

12. Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought.

 — Basho13. Watch your thoughts; they become words.

Watch your words; they become actions.

Watch your actions; they become habits.

Watch your habits; they become character.

Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

 — Lao-Tze

14. Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas

closer together.

 — Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

15. What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence.

The only consequence is what we do. — John Ruskin

16. The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but seeing with new eyes.

 — Marcel Proust

17. Work like you don‘t need money, love like you‘ve never been hurt, and dance like no

one‘s watching 

 — Unknown Author18. Try a thing you haven‘t done three times. Once, to get over the fear of doing it. Twice, to

learn how to do it. And a third time, to figure out whether you like it or not. — Virgil Garnett Thomson

19. Even if you‘re on the right track, you‘ll get run over if you just sit there. 

 — Will Rogers

20. People often say that motivation doesn‘t last. Well, neither does bathing –  that‘s why we

recommend it daily. — Zig Ziglar

Funny Quotes

21. Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children

and no theories. — John Wilmot

22. What the world needs is more geniuses with humility, there are so few of us left. — Oscar Levant

23. Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much. — Oscar Wilde

24. I‘ve gone into hundreds of [fortune-teller's parlors], and have been told thousands of 

things, but nobody ever told me I was a policewoman getting ready to arrest her.

 — New York City detective

25. When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve people whoweren‘t smart enough to get out of jury duty. 

 — Norm Crosby

26. Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.

 — Kurt Vonnegut

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27. Just the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed

at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the

Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

 — Carl Sagan

28. My pessimism extends to the point of even suspecting the sincerity of the pessimists.

 — Jean Rostand29. Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world.

 — Lily Tomlin

30. I quit therapy because my analyst was trying to help me behind my back.

 — Richard Lewis

31. We‘ve heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the complete

works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know that is not true.

 — Robert Wilensky

32. If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do

they get smart just in time to ask questions?

 — Scott Adams

33. If the lessons of history teach us anything it is that nobody learns the lessons that historyteaches us.

 — Anon

34. When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. Now I‘m beginning to

believe it.

 — Clarence Darrow

35. Laughing at our mistakes can lengthen our own life. Laughing at someone else‘s can

shorten it.

 — Cullen Hightower

36. There are many who dare not kill themselves for fear of what the neighbors will say.

 — Cyril Connolly

37. There‘s so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?

 — Dick Cavett

38. All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny

it.

 — H. L. Mencken39. I don‘t mind what Congress does, as long as they don‘t do it in the streets and frighten th e

horses.

 — Victor Hugo

40. I took a speed reading course and read ‗War and Peace‘ in twenty minutes. It involves

Russia.

 — Woody Allen

Otherwise Intelligent Quotes

41. The person who reads too much and uses his brain too little will fall into lazy habits of 

thinking.

 — Albert Einstein

42. Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it. — André Gide

43. It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. — Aristotle

44. I‘d rather live with a good question than a bad answer. — Aryeh Frimer

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45. We learn something every day, and lots of times it‘s that what we learned the day before

was wrong.

 — Bill Vaughan

46. I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter.

 — Blaise Pascal

47. Don‘t ever wrestle with a pig. You‘ll both get dirty, but the pig will enjoy it.   — Cale Yarborough48. An inventor is simply a fellow who doesn‘t take his education too seriously. 

 — Charles F. Kettering

49. Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels

about dogs.

 — Christopher Hampton

50. Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no

self.

 — Cyril Connolly

51. Never be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all, you could be missing out on the joke of the

century. — Dame Edna Everage

52. I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it.

 — Edith Sitwell

53. Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a

car that you are still paying for – in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and

the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it. — Ellen Goodman

54. The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. — Ellen Parr

55. Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn‘t.  

 — Erica Jong

56. Some people like my advice so much that they frame it upon the wall instead of using it.

 — Gordon R. Dickson

57. The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you‘re still a rat.  

 — Lily Tomlin

58. Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence.

 —Napoleon (Hanlon‘s Razor) 

59. Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not, and a sense of 

humor was provided to console him for what he is.

 — Oscar Wilde

60. When a person can no longer laugh at himself, it is time for others to laugh at him. — Thomas Szasz

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101 Most Inspiring Quotes of All Time,

―I am always doing things I can‘t do. That is how I get to do them.‖ -Pablo Picasso

Lately I have been regularly posting inspiring quotes on Facebook and Twitter. If you haven‘tadded me on Facebook and Twitter, please feel free to do so.

The thing I love about inspiring quotes is they pack so much wisdom in so few words. Some

of them are really mind and heart opening – just reading them has the power to give you an

eureka! moment. Based on the feedback I‘ve been getting from others, it seems that they

share the same sentiments too.

Since the quotes are so popular, I decided to put together 101 of the most inspiring quotes so

that all of you can benefit from these golden words of wisdom. These are quotes which

have been meticulously hand-picked by me while surfing the net, reading books, or simply

quotes I write when I get an epiphany moment. I have grouped the quotes into broadcategories below for easy reference.

For the quotes that resonate with you, make sure to put them around you through your

environment so you are always reminded of them. Some examples of good places to place

these quotes are:

  Mobile welcome message

  Life handbook 

  Noticeboard and/or walls in your room

  Desktop wallpaper

  Cover of your folder  Working desk 

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  Photo frames in your house or office

Since I was a student, I have always been a big fan of motivational quotes. It‘s one of my

habits to surround myself with these quotes. Today, I have these quotes in places such as my

mobile welcome message, my noticeboard in my bedroom, my life handbook and my office

so I‘m always in the face of inspiration. I recommend to do  it too, because it‘s really a greatsource of positive energy

I present to you 101 of the most inspiring quotes of all time:

Quotes on Life

© rebecca-lily 

1.  ―The consequences of today are determined by the actions of the past. To change your

future, alter your decisions today.‖ ~ Anonymous 

2.  ―There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The

other is as though everything is a miracle.‖ – Albert Einstein

3.  ―And in the end, it‘s not the years in your life that count. It‘s the  life in your years.‖ –  

Abraham Lincoln

4.  ―When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully

upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.‖ –  

Alexander Graham Bell

5. 

―Your time is limited, so don‘t waste it living someone else‘s life. Don‘t be trappedby dogma —  which is living with the results of other people‘s thinking. Don‘t let the

noise of others‘ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most importantly,

have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already knowwhat you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.‖ - Steve Jobs

6.  ―We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings

having a human experience‖ – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

7.  ―We must not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to

arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time.‖ – T. S. Eliot

8.  ―There‘s no next time. It‘s now or never.‖ 

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9.  ―For every effect there is a root cause. Find and addressthe root cause rather than try to fix the effect, as there is no end to the latter.‖ 

10. ―When you don‘t get what you want, you suffer. If you get it, you suffer too sinc e you

can‘t hold on to it forever.‖ – Peaceful Warrior, on the fallacy of attachment

11. ―Every moment you get is a gift. Spend it on things that matter. Don‘t spend it by

dwelling on unhappy things.‖ 

12. ―There are no ordinary moments. There is always something going on.‖ – Peaceful

Warrior

13. ―What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies

within us‖ – Ralph Waldo Emerson

14. Everything around us is made up of energy. To attract positive things in your life,

start by giving off positive energy.

15. Don‘t put off living to next week, next month, next year or next decade. The onlytime you‘re ever living is in this moment. 

16. Don‘t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It

was here first. – Mark Twain

17. Life is a gift. Never forget to enjoy and bask in every moment you are in.

18. The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced – Art

Van Der Leeuw19. ―My life is my message.‖ – Gandhi

20. ―If wrinkles must be written upon our brow, let them not be written upon the heart.

The spirit should not grow old.‖ – James A. Garfield

21. ―Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.‖  

22. ―In the beginning you will fall into the gaps in between thoughts – after practicing for

years, you become the gap.‖ – J.Kleykamp (Regarding meditation) 

23. ―Take care of your body. It‘s the only place you have to live.‖ ~ Jim Rohn  

Quotes on Purpose

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1.  ―Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life… Therein he cannot be re-

 placed, nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone‘s task is as unique as is his

specific opportunity to implement it.‖ – Viktor Frankl

2.  ―Your work is to discover your work and then, with all your heart, to give yourself toit.‖ – Buddha

3.  ―One person with a belief is equal to a force of 99 who have only interests.‖ –  John

Stuart Mill

4.  ―Nothing is likely to help a person overcome or endure troubles than the

consciousness of having a task in life.‖ ~ Victor Frankl 

5.  ―Make your life a mission –  not an intermission‖ ~ Unknown 

6.  ―Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished. If you‘re alive, it

isn‘t.‖ ~ Richard Bach 

Quotes on Past, Present and Future

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1.  ―Don‘t let the past steal your present‖ – Cherralea Morgen

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2.  ―One has to live in the present. Whatever is past is gone beyond recall; whatever is

future remains beyond one‘s reach, until it becomes present. Remembering the past

and giving thought to the future are important, but only to the extent that they help

one deal with the present.‖ – S.N. Goenka

3.  ―It doesn‘t matter where you are, you are nowhere compared to where you can go.‖ ~

Bob Proctor4.  ―We are all here for some special reason. Stop being a prisoner of your past. Become

the architect of your future.‖ – Robin Sharma

5.  The more you take responsibility for your past and present, the more you are able to

create the future you seek.

6.  ―Be present –  it is the only moment that matters.‖ Peaceful Warrior

7.  ―Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery. And today? Today is a gift. That‘s why

we call it the present.‖ – B. Olatunji

8.  ―Nobody gets to live life backward. Look ahead, that is where your future lies.‖ ~

Ann Landers

9.  ―Holding on to anything is like holding on to your breath. You will suffocate. The

only way to get anything in the physical universe is by letting go of it. Let go & it will be yours forever‖. – Deepak Chopra

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10. Don‘t put off living to next week, next month, next year or next decade. The onlytime you‘re ever living is in this moment. 

11. ―There‘s no next time. It‘s now or never.‖ 

12. ―One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put

off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon-insteadof enjoying the roses blooming outside our windows today.‖ – Dale Carnegie

13. ―Never let your memories be greater than your dreams.‖ – Doug Ivester

14. ―Your imagination is your preview of life‘s coming attractions.‖ ~ Albert Einstein 

15. ―To create more positive results in your life, replace ‗if only‘ with ‗next time‘.‖  

16. ―We think about all of our tomorrows, but we don‘t know how many they are, so let‘s

start making the most of our Todays!‖ ~ Ivana Trump  

17. ―The wise man must remember that while he is a descendant of the past, he is a parentof the future.‖ ~ Herbert Spencer  

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18. ―What you are is what you have been. What you‘ll be is what you do now.‖ – Buddha

1.19.  ―Everyone faces challenges in life. It‘s a matter of how you learn to overcome

them and using them to your advantage.‖ 

Quotes on Dreams and Passion

1.  ―It is never too late to be what you might have been.‖ – George Eliot

2. 

―If what you‘re doing is not your passion, you have nothing to lose.‖ 3.  ―At first dreams seem impossible, then improbable, then inevitable.‖ – Christopher

Reeve

4.  ―Remembering you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of 

thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to

follow your heart.‖ ~ Steve Jobs. 

5.  ―Do what you love and the money will follow.‖ – Marsha Sinetar

6.  ―The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work.‖ – Richard Bach

7.  ―Don‘t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive.And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who are alive.‖ –  

Howard Thurman

8.  ―All our dreams can come true –  if we have the courage to pursue them.‖ – WaltDisney

9.  ―If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; tha t is where they

should be. Now put foundations under them.‖ – Henry David Thoreau

10. ―No matter where you are in life right now, no matter who you are, no matter how old

you are – it is never too late to be who you are meant to be.‖ – Esther & Jerry Hicks

11. ―There‘s nothing capricious in nature, and the implanting of a desire indicates that its

gratification is in the constitution of the creature that feels it.‖ – Ralph Waldo

Emerson

12. ―Don‘t be afraid of the space between your dreams and reality. If you can dream it,

you can make it so.‖ – Belva Davis

13. ―I challenge you to make your life a masterpiece. I challenge you to join the ranks of those people who live what they teach, who walk their talk.‖ ~ Tony Robbins

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14. ―The world makes way for the man who knows where he is going.‖ – Ralph Waldo

Emerson

15. ―Your goals are the road maps that guide you and show you what is possible for your

life.‖ – Les Brown16. ―Make no small plans for they have no power to stir the soul.‖ – Niccolo Machiavelli

17. ―No dreamer is ever too small; no dream is ever too big.‖ – Anonymous

18. ―Never let your memories be greater than your dreams.‖ – Doug Ivester

19. ―You got a dream, you gotta  protect it. People can‘t do something themselves, they

wanna tell you you can‘t do it. If you want something, go get it. Period.‖ –  Pursuit of 

Happyness (Movie)

20. ―History shows us that the people who end up changing the world –  the great political,

social, scientific, technological, artistic, even sports revolutionaries – are always nuts,until they are right, and then they are geniuses.‖ – John Eliot

21. ―You will not do incredible things without an incredible dream.‖ – John Eliot

22. ―Instead of thinking about what you are going to do when you retire, think about howyou can do that now and make a living from it.‖

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23. ―Don‘t be pushed by your problems; be led by your dreams.‖ 

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24. ―Everything you want should be yours: the type of work you want; the relationships

you need; the social, mental, and aesthetic stimulation that will make you happy and

fulfilled; the money you require for the lifestyle that is appropriate to you; and any

requirement that you may (or may not) have for achievement or service to others. If 

you don‘t aim for it all, you‘ll never get it all. To aim for it requires that you know

what you want‖ ~ Richard Koch 25. ―I am not my memories. I am my dreams.‖ ~ Terry Hostetler  

26. ―You are never too old to set another  goal or to dream a new dream.‖ – Les Brown

27. ―Your imagination is your preview of life‘s coming attractions.‖ ~ Albert Einstein 

28. ―Every second you spend thinking about someone else‘s dreams you take time away

from your own.‖ – Yogi Ramen

29. ―What the mind can conceive, it can achieve.‖ – Napoleon Hill

30. ―20 years from now you will be disappointed by the things you didn‘t do than by the

one‘s you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the

trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover‖ ~ Mark Twain  

Quotes on Goals

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1.  ―In life, as in football, you won‘t go far unless you know where the goalposts are.‖ –  

Arnold H. Glasgow

2.  ―When we are motivated by goals that have deep meaning, by dreams that need

completion, by pure love that needs expressing, then we truly live life.‖ – Greg

Anderson

3.  ―The most important thing about goals is having one.‖ – Geoffry F. Abert

4.  ―The only reason we don‘t have what we want in life is the reasons we create why we

can‘t have them.‖ ~Tony Robbins 

5.  ―The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and

down the field and never score.‖ – Bill Copeland

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6.  ―If you don‘t design your own life plan, chances are you‘ll fall into someone else‘s

 plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.‖ – Jim Rohn

7.  ―Everything is always created twice, first in the mind and then in reality.‖ 

8.  ―You need a plan to build a house. To build a life, it is even more important to have a

plan or goal.‖ – Zig Ziglar

9.  ―The tragedy of life doesn‘t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in havingno goals to reach.‖ ~ Benjamin Mays 

10. ―People with clear, written goals, accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than

 people without them could ever imagine.‖ 

11. ―A goal is a dream with a deadline.‖ Napolean Hill 

Quotes on Hard Work

1.  I don‘t believe in luck. Luck = Leaving things to chance and outside world. I believe

in being harbingers of our fate, taking action and creating our own path and destiny in

life. Your life is yours to create –  Don‘t let others do it for you. 2.  ―There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, learning

from failure.‖~ Colin Powell 

3.  ―The harder I work, the luckier I get.‖ – Gary Player

4.  Success is 99% attitude and 1% aptitude.

5.  ―It is your attitude, not your aptitude, that determines your altitude.‖ – Zig Ziglar

Quotes on Change

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1.  ―Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are

the ones we‘ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.‖ – Barack Obama

2.  ―All great changes are preceded by chaos.‖ ~ Deepak Chopra  

3.  ―Change is not pleasant, But change is constant. Only when we change and grow,

We‘ll see a world we never know.‖ ~From Wisdom of The Orange Woodpecker  

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4.  You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward

what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it

to master you. ~ Sri Ram

5.  ―Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.‖ – Jim Rohn

Quotes on Truth and Honesty

1.  ―The greatest advantage of speaking the truth is that you don‘t have to remember what

you said.‖ 

2.  ―Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.  

Quotes on Imagination and Creativity

1.  ―Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.‖ ~ Albert

Einstein.

2.  ―Your imagination is your preview of life‘s coming attractions.‖ ~ Albert Einstein 3.  ―All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.‖

~ Pablo Picasso

4.  ―Man‘s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.‖ –  

Oliver Wendell Holmes