Life can sometimes be rough. It can also be glorious. Regardless of circumstances or events its always nice to have some positive words of inspiration to help keep you going. Here is a list of just some of the words of inspiration that I have come across to help your day go better, or continue strong.
ADVERSITY
The human spirit is stronger than anything than can happen to it.
~George C. Scott
Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which, in prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant.
~Horace
What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.
~Friedrich Nietzsche
If you’re going through hell, keep going.
~Winston Churchill
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
~Kahlil Gibran
When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.
~Thomas Jefferson
I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot… and missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is precisely why I succeed.
~Michael Jordan
Don’t Quit
When things go wrong as they sometimes will;
When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill
When the funds are low, and the debts are high
And you want to smile, but have to sigh;
When care is pressing you down a bit-
Rest if you must, but do not quit.
Success is failure turned inside out;
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt;
And you can never tell how close you are
It may be near when it seems so far;
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit-
It’s when things go wrong that you must not quit.
~Author Unknown
AUTHENTICITY
To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best night and day, to make you everybody else–means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
~E. E. Cummings
Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel, as a reminder of your strength.
~August Wilson
The greatest thing in the world
is to know how to be one’s own self.
~Michel de Montaigne
If one is estranged from oneself,
then one is estranged from others too.
If one is out of touch with oneself,
then one cannot touch others.
~Anne Morrow Lindbergh
CHANGE
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
~Mahatma Gandhi
The Serenity Prayer
God, grant me:
Serenity – to accept the things I cannot change
Courage – to change the things I can, and
Wisdom – to know the difference.
~Reinhold Neibuhr
As human beings,
our greatness lies not so much
in being able to remake the world…
as in being able to remake ourselves.
~Mahatma Gandhi
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
~Mahatma Gandhi
The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.
~M. Scott Peck
COURAGE AND FAITH
I am not afraid of storms,
for I am learning to sail my ship.
~Louisa May Alcott
You have to accept whatever comes
and the only important thing is
that you meet it with courage and
with the best you have to give.
~Eleanor Roosevelt
Be not afraid of life.
Believe that life is worth living,
and your belief will help you create the fact.
~ William James
What great thing would you attempt
if you knew you could not fail?
~Robert H. Schuller
And the day came
when the risk to remain tight in a bud
became more painful
than the risk it took to blossom.
~Anais Nin
Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out.
~James Bryant Conant
Faith……….
When you come to the edge of all the light you have,
and are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown,
faith is knowing one of two things will happen:
There will be something solid to stand on,
or you will be taught how to fly.
~Patrick Overton
Nothing is to be feared. It is only to be understood.
~Marie Curie
DEATH AND GRIEF
“There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief…and unspeakable love.”
~Washington Irving
There is no despair so absolute
as that which comes from the first moments
of our first great sorrow,
when we have not yet known
what it is to have suffered and be healed,
to have despaired and recovered hope.
~George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)
Every blade in the field —
every leaf in the forest —
lays down its life in its season
as beautifully as it was taken up.
~Henry David Thoreau
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight.
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there — I do not die.
~Mary Frye
When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.
~Henri Nouwen
The pain passes, but the beauty remains.
~Pierre Auguste Renoir
GOALS
Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.
~Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
HOPE
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
There are two ways of spreading light-
To be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.
~Edith Wharton
As far as we can discern,
the sole purpose of human existence
is to kindle a light of meaning
in the darkness of mere being.
~Carl Gustav Jung
ISOLATION
The less you open your heart to others, the more your heart suffers.
~Deepak Chopra
LEARNING
It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.
~John Wooden
The first problem for all of us, men and women,
is not to learn, but to unlearn.
~Gloria Steinem
Doubt is the necessary tool of knowledge.
~Paul Tillich
When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail.
~Abraham Maslow
LIFE BALANCE
Speech by Bryan Dyson, CEO of Coca-Cola Inc. from 1959-1994
Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them – work, family, health, friends and spirit … and you’re keeping all of these in the air.
You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls – family, health, friends and spirit – are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for Balance in your life.
LIFE LESSONS
Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is a beauty, admire it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is life, fight for it!
~Mother Teresa
In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life.
It goes on.
~Robert Frost
PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY
Everything can be taken from us but one thing
— the last of the human freedoms —
to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.
~Viktor Frankl
POTENTIAL
There is no agony like
bearing an untold story inside of you.
~Maya Angelou
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions.
Small people always do that,
but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
~Mark Twain
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that
other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are born to make manifest the glory that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously
give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence
automatically liberates others.
~Marianne Williamson
RELATIONSHIPS
Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They came through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
~Kahlil Gibran
An eye for an eye, and the whole world would be blind.
~Kahlil Gibran
The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.
~Morrie Schwartz
The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances; if there is any reaction, both are transformed.
~Carl Jung
When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished how much he had learned in seven years.
~Mark Twain
In raising my children, I have lost my mind but found my soul.
~Lisa T. Shepherd
It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.
~Friedrich Nietzsche
There will be ups and there will be downs, there will be times when things make sense, there will be times when they won’t, but you’ll always be on an adventure of meaning if you live for self, family, and others.
~Christopher Reeve
SUCCESS
To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children;
to earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;
to appreciate beauty;
to find the best in others;
to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child,
a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition;
to know even one life has breathed easier because you lived.
This is to have succeeded.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
THOUGHTS
We don’t see things as they are. We see things as we are.
~Anais Nin
If we understood the power of our thoughts,
we would guard them more closely.
If we understood the awesome power of our words,
we would prefer silence to almost anything negative.
In our thoughts and words we create
our own weaknesses and our own strengths.
Our limitations and joys begin in our hearts.
We can always replace negative with positive.
~Betty Eadie
TRUSTING YOURSELF
The teacher is within,
So you have to learn to be still.
You have to live your life
So that you are listening within
No matter what you are doing.
~Bartholomew
WORDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT
Making the best of life is what you do with what happens to you.
~Joneric Bohman
You are the best and only you there is.
~Joneric Bohman
Choose life not death, love not fear.
~Joneric Bohman
Summary
Many of these are famous words of inspiration yet there are countless others that you can find all over. You can find words of inspiration and encouragement in books, movies, on the internet, even from family and friends. If you are looking for words of motivation and inspiration and didn’t find one here feel free to leave a comment with it.