Motivational and Inspirational Quotes Collection

Welcome to my collection of inspirational and motivational quotations. Reading and collecting books of quotations is one of my hobbies. Whenever I'm feeling down or have a looming personal problem, I turn to my books for some inspiration and words of wisdom.

The quotes in each of the categories listed below are some of my personal favorites that I've collected over the years. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

The maxims of men disclose their hearts. - French Proverb

On the subject of quotes and proverbs.....

One must be a wise reader to quote wisely and well.
Amos Bronson Alcott

To select well among old things, is almost equal to inventing new ones. Nicholas Charles Trublet

I have gathered a posie of other men's flowers, and nothing but the thread that binds them is my own.
Michel de Montaigne

Proverbs are mental gems gathered in the diamond districts of the mind.
William R. Alger

I am but a gatherer and disposer of other men's stuff. - Sir Henry Wotton

Stealing someone else's words frequently spares the embarrassment of eating your own.
Peter Anderson

A short saying oft contains much wisdom.
Sophocles

It often happens that the quotations constitute the most valuable part of a book.
Vicesimus Knox

A collection of rare thoughts is nothing less than a cabinet of intellectual gems.
William B. Sprague

Brevity is the soul of wit.
William Shakespeare, Hamlet

Good sayings are like pearls strung together.
Chinese Proverb

A proverb is to speech what salt is to food.
Arabic Proverb

Better one line that will survive the author than a hundred books outlived.
Anonymous

Proverbs are the cream of a nation's thought.
Unknown

There is not less wit, not less invention, in applying rightly a thought one finds in a book, than in being the first author of that book.
Pierre Boyle

A maxim is the exact and noble expression of an important and indisputable truth. Good maxims are the germs of all excellence; when firmly fixed on the memory, they nourish the will.
Joseph Joubert

Why aren't more gems from our great authors scattered over the country? Great books aren't within everybody's reach.
S. T. Coleridge

Nothing gives an author so much pleasure as to find his works respectfully quoted by other learned authors.
Benjamin Franklin

Good things, when short, are twice as good.
Baltasar Gracián

It is delightful to transport one's self into the spirit of the past, to see how a wise man has thought before us, and to what glorious height we have at last reached.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Know the great men of your age.
Baltasar Gracián

A thing is never too often repeated which is never sufficiently learned.
Seneca

Time is of of no account with great thoughts, which are as fresh today as when they first passed through their authors' minds ages ago.
Samuel Smiles

The diamond may adorn royalty, regardless of personal worth; but jewels of thought render even poverty illustrious and sublime.
Gems for the Fireside

There is only one categorical imperative: Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become universal law.
Immanuel Kant

A proverb is much light condensed in one flash.
Simmons

Human success is a quotation from overhead.
Charles H. Parkhurst

There is as much ingenuity in making an felicitous application of an passage as in being the author of it.
St. Evremond

A fine quotation is a diamond in the hand of a man of wit and a pebble in the hand of a fool.
Joseph Roux

Few maxims are true from every point of view.
Marquis de Lac de Clapiers Vauvenargue

A well-cultivated mind is, so to speak, made up of all the minds of preceding ages; it is only one single mind which has been educated during all this time.
Bernard de Bovier de Fontenelle

Maxims are the condensed good sense of nations.
Sir J. Mackintosh

A proverb is a wise saying, old yet radiant with novelty.
Erasmus

Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind, than in the one where they sprung up.
Oliver Wendell Holmes

Always have a book at hand, in the parlor, on the table, for the family; a book of condensed thought and striking anecdote, of sound maxims and truthful apothegms. It will impress on your own mind a thousand valuable suggestions, and teach your children a thousand lessons of truth and duty. Such a book is a casket of jewels for your housebold.
Tryon Edwards

Important "Quote of the Day" Notice: Please note that while some daily quote or daily text message groups may link to this site, this site currently does not have a "quote of the day" feature and is not affiliated with any Yahoo groups, MSN groups, religious groups, Upoc groups or other organizations that send out daily inspirational messages. The owners of those sites are solely responsible for any quotes or messages they send out to the members of their groups.

When I quote others I do so in order to express my own ideas more clearly. - Michel de Montaigne