Whats the most inspirational quote you ever heard?

[dittes]

Hey guys I'm rebuilding http://inmeno.com (INspire ME NOw) and would like to ask you what quotes inspired you most.

"Why join the navy if you can be a pirate?" by Steve Jobs is one of the quotes that inspired me a lot...

[robwhitley]

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that 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

[yolesaber]

This might be a bit unorthodox, but Max Yasgur's address to the crowd at Woodstock has always inspired me:

"I'm a farmer, I don't know how to speak to twenty people at one time, let alone a crowd like this. But I think you people have proven something to the world — not only to the Town of Bethel, or Sullivan County, or New York State; you've proven something to the world. This is the largest group of people ever assembled in one place. We have had no idea that there would be this size group, and because of that you've had quite a few inconveniences as far as water, food, and so forth. Your producers have done a mammoth job to see that you're taken care of... they'd enjoy a vote of thanks. But above that, the important thing that you've proven to the world is that a half a million kids — and I call you kids because I have children that are older than you are — a half million young people can get together and have three days of fun and music and have nothing but fun and music, and I God Bless You for it!"

Although I do not explicitly subscribe to "hippie" ideals, there is something very moving about the way he addresses a group of people often looked back upon in mockery or disdain - it reinforces that they not only truly believed in something, but that they most importantly then put said beliefs into action.

[JimmyJenkins]

We stand on a mountain pass in the midst of whirling snow and blinding mist, through which we get glimpses now and then of paths which may be deceptive. If we stand still we shall be frozen to death. If we take the wrong road we shall be dashed to pieces. We do not certainly know whether there is any right one. What must we do? 'Be strong and of a good courage.' Act for the best, hope for the best, and take what comes. ... If death ends all, we cannot meet death better."

- James Fitzjames Stephen

“I started my life with a single absolute: that the world was mine to shape in the image of my highest values and never to be given up to a lesser standard, no matter how long or hard the struggle."

- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

"Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt."

- Shakespeare

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear"

- Mark Twain

"The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty"

- Winston Churchill

"Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none."

- William Shakespeare

"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

- Maya Angelou

[subrat_rout]

1. "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." - Wayne Gretzky?

An optional one- 2. Happiness = Outcome - Expectations. The key to enjoying life is keeping expectations low to the degree that you're always pleasantly surprised. (do not remember who told this)

2.

[AtTheLast]

Back in the day, I had a No Fear shirt with this quote on it. Good stuff.

[wh-uws]

My personal favorite

"It's not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or when the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worth cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat. "

- Theodore Roosevelt

[gadders]

"Up to a point a man's life is shaped by environment, heredity, and movements and changes in the world about him; then there comes a time when it lies within his grasp to shape the clay of his life into the sort of thing he wishes to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune, or the quirks of fate. Everyone has it within his power to say , this I am today, that I shall be tomorrow. The wish, however, must be implemented by deeds."

Louis L'Amour, The Walking Drum

[gadders]

Also, all of the poem "If" by Rudyard Kipling

[hasenj]

This might sound pretty mundane compared to what most people usually quote, but I found this very enlightening

"When you except to run into brick walls you usually don’t go as fast as you can. When you let go of fear and focus on results, it’s freeing and effective."

It's by a tumblrer http://infjdoodles.tumblr.com/post/28056863738/

[codegeek]

Some of my favorites:

"Always borrow money from a pessimist. They don't expect to be paid back"

"Money is not everything. but make sure you make enough of it before talking such nonsense"

"Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference"

"If you don't like something change it; if you can't change it, change the way you think about it"

"You'll always miss 100% of the shots you don't take"

[gadders]

As a similar one liner I heard the other day:

"If you're forced to eat shit, don't nibble."

[israelyc]

"The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he is always doing both." - Lao-Tzu

[Sabrosa]

He had disciplined his body to hardship, his appetite to need, his thought to fact, his tongue to silence. He was “the first to enter the battle,” said the hostile Livy, “and the last to leave the field.”

Will Durant on Hannibal Barca, in Heroes of History

[dawson]

I bookmarked this website some months back and still visit it at least once a week http://www.quotegarden.com/effort.html

[adrianwaj]

Maybe have it tweet out at intervals, and accept quotes via twitter.

RSS feed produces quotes at intervals as set within url.

[countessa]

"Every neighborhood should have a bazooka and a responsible adult should know where it is." -Kilgor Trout, Timequake

[xauronx]

"Some people let life happen to them. Other people make life happen."

[alpine]

'I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.'

Henry David Thoreau