QUOTATIONS

Quotes for Writers on Motivation

"Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th."

—Julie Andrews

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit."

—Aristotle

"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right."

—Isaac Asimov

"Talent does what it can; genius does what it must."

—Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

"The artist must possess the courageous soul that dares and defies."

—Kate Chopin

"The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible."

—Arthur C. Clarke

"If you do not hope, you will not find what is beyond your hopes."

—St. Clement of Alexandra

"Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do."

—Leonardo da Vinci

"It's never too late to be what you might have been."

—George Eliot

"It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, 'Always do what you are afraid to do.'"

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn."

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

"We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities."

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."

―Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The best way out is always through."

—Robert Frost

"To gain your own voice, you have to forget about having it heard."

—Allen Ginsberg

"The only way to do great work is to love what you do."

—Steve Jobs

"Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome."

—Samuel Johnson

"The best luck of all is the luck you make for yourself."

—Douglas MacArthur

"Everybody makes their own fun. If you don't make it yourself, it isn't fun. It's entertainment."

—David Mamet

"Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash."

—George S. Patton

"To achieve the impossible, it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought."

—Tom Robbins

"Believe you can and you're halfway there."

—Theodore Roosevelt

"Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us."

—Samuel Smiles

"Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking."

—William B. Sprague

"Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy."

—Pyotr Tchaikovsky

"Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice, and need."

—Voltaire

"Without inspiration the best powers of the mind remain dormant. There is a fuel in us which needs to be ignited with sparks."

—Johann Gottfried Von Herder

"Seek the lofty by reading, hearing and seeing great work at some moment every day."

—Thornton Wilder

"Luck is believing you're lucky."

—Tennessee Williams

"And all may do what has by man been done."

—Edward Young