Quotes about inspiration
page 4

“Because I know you, Percy Jackson. In many ways, you are impulsive, but when it comes to your friends, you are as constant as a compass needle. You are unswervingly loyal, and you inspire loyalty. You are the glue that will unite the seven.”

Rick Riordan book The Son of Neptune

Source: The Son of Neptune

Way, Loyalty

“I write when I'm inspired, and I see to it that I'm inspired at nine o'clock every morning.”

Peter de Vries (1910–1993) American editor and novelist

“Through the years, I have learned there is no harm in charging oneself up with delusions between moments of valid inspiration.”

Steve Martin (1945) American actor, comedian, musician, author, playwright, and producer

Source: Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life

Learning

“We can become inspired to shape a higher, more ideal future, and when we do, miracles happen.”

James Redfield book The Tenth Insight: Holding the Vision

Source: The Tenth Insight: Holding the Vision

Future

“Men are not dogs. We merely think we are and, on occasion, act as if we are. But, by believing in our nobler nature, women have the amazing power to inspire us to live up to it.”

Neil Strauss book The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists

Source: The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists (2005)

Women, Men, Dogs, Nature

“Let us beware of common folk, common sense, sentiment, inspiration, and the obvious.”

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet

Sense

“We should be inspired by people… who show that human beings can be kind, brave, generous, beautiful, strong-even in the most difficult circumstances.”

Rachel Corrie (1979–2003) American anti-war and human rights activist

People, Beauty, Strong

“Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it yourself. Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To convince them, you must yourself, believe.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Tear

“Inspiration is God making contact with itself.”

Ram Dass (1931–2019) American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the 1971 book Be Here Now

God

“Christian, n.: one who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

Source: The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
Context: Christian, n. One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teachings of Christ so long as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.

Books

“Inspiration comes of working every day.”

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet

“All the opportunities you let slip by! The idea, the inspiration just doesn´t come fast enough. Instead of being open, you´re closed up tight. That´s the worst sin of all - the sin of omission.”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Mandarins

Source: The Mandarins

Idea

“And pity--people who inspire it in you are actually very powerful people. To get someone else to take care of you, to feel sorry for you--that takes a lot of strength, smarts, manipulation. Very powerful people.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: The Secret Life of Prince Charming

People, Feeling

“All you can ever achieve is a sense of your soul. You gain little glimpses of its light, colors, and contours. You feel the inspiration of its possibilities and the wonder of its mysteries.”

John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

Color, Feeling, Soul, Sense

“The lunatic is all idée fixe, and whatever he comes across confirms his lunacy. You can tell him by the liberties he takes with common sense, by his flashes of inspiration, and by the fact that sooner or later he brings up the Templars.”

Umberto Eco book Foucault's Pendulum

Source: Foucault's Pendulum

Sense

“The beauty of nature has been one of the great inspirations in my life.”

Jim Henson (1936–1990) American puppeteer

Life, Beauty, Nature

“I had an inspiration once. I woke up one morning and I knew that it was my task to swallow fifty asprin. It was my task:my job for the day.-17 Girl Interrupted”

Susanna Kaysen book Girl, Interrupted

Source: Girl, Interrupted

Girl

“I think an inspirational quote can get you through hard times.”

E. Lockhart book We Were Liars

Source: We Were Liars

Quotes, Thinking, Time

“Who knows where inspiration comes from. Perhaps it arises from desperation. Perhaps it comes from the flukes of the universe, the kindness of the muses.”

Amy Tan (1952) American novelist

Universe

“All the effort in the world won't matter if you're not inspired.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Diary

Source: Diary

World, Effort

“People are inspired to do remarkable things to find and be with the one they love.”

Greg Behrendt (1963) American comedian

Source: He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys

Love, People

“A woman of seven and twenty, said Marianne, after pausing a moment, can never hope to feel or inspire affection again.”

Jane Austen book Sense and Sensibility

Source: Sense and Sensibility

Hope, Feeling

“Nothing inspires forgiveness quite like revenge.”

Scott Adams (1957) cartoonist, writer

Forgiveness, Revenge

“What are friends for? They are the ultimate reflection of yourself. Always surround yourself with people who inspire you and return the favor by giving them the best of you.”

Jenny McCarthy (1972) American model, comedian, actress, author, activist, and game show host

Source: Love, Lust & Faking It: The Naked Truth About Sex, Lies, and True Romance

People

“Teachers are to inspire; librarians are to fulfill.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Teachers

“I don't wait for inspiration. I'm not, in fact, quite sure what inspiration is, but I'm sure that if it is going to turn up, my having started work is the precondition of its arrival.”

Quentin Blake (1932) English cartoonist, illustrator and children's writer

Source: Words and Pictures

Waiting

“I only write when I am inspired. Fortunately I am inspired at 9 o'clock every morning.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

“My main inspiration is sardonic British TV critics like Charlie Brooker, whose excellent show Screenwipe is fully on Youtube, and I recommend everyone watch it. He used to write for a PC magazine I read fanatically as a child. My own style is a mixture of him, possibly Douglas Adams, and internet writers like Seanbaby, Old Man Murray, or Something Awful. I’m such a rip-off.”

Ben Croshaw (1983) English video game journalist

http://www.geek.com/interview-zero-punctuations-yahtzee/
Other Articles

Reading

“Your great demonstration which marks this day in the City of Washington is only representative of many like observances extending over our own country and into other lands, so that it makes a truly world-wide appeal. It is a manifestation of the good in human nature which is of tremendous significance. More than six centuries ago, when in spite of much learning and much piety there was much ignorance, much wickedness and much warfare, when there seemed to be too little light in the world, when the condition of the common people appeared to be sunk in hopelessness, when most of life was rude, harsh and cruel, when the speech of men was too often profane and vulgar, until the earth rang with the tumult of those who took the name of the Lord in vain, the foundation of this day was laid in the formation of the Holy Name Society. It had an inspired purpose. It sought to rededicate the minds of the people to a true conception of the sacredness of the name of the Supreme Being. It was an effort to save all reference to the Deity from curses and blasphemy, and restore the lips of men to reverence and praise. Out of weakness there began to be strength; out of frenzy there began to be self-control; out of confusion there began to be order. This demonstration is a manifestation of the wide extent to which an effort to do the right thing will reach when it is once begun. It is a purpose which makes a universal appeal, an effort in which all may unite.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Authority and Religious Liberty (1924)

Life, Men, People, World

“In most of the old colonial world, the struggle for independence is coming to an end. Even in areas behind the Curtain, that which Jefferson called "the disease of liberty" still appears to be infectious. With the passing of ancient empires, today less than 2 percent of the world's population lives in territories officially termed "dependent." As this effort for independence, inspired by the American Declaration of Independence, now approaches a successful close, a great new effort — for interdependence — is transforming the world about us. And the spirit of that new effort is the same spirit which gave birth to the American Constitution. That spirit is today most clearly seen across the Atlantic Ocean. The nations of Western Europe, long divided by feuds far more bitter than any which existed among the 13 colonies, are today joining together, seeking, as our forefathers sought, to find freedom in diversity and in unity, strength.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1962, Address at Independence Hall

World, Disease, Birth, Effort

“I simply wanted to advance the field of artificial intelligence so that computers could do what they do best (organize and analyze information) to help people do what they do best, those inspired leaps of intuition that fuel original ideas and breakthroughs.”

Paul Allen (1953–2018) American inventor, investor and philanthropist

The Washington Post: "Thought process: Building an artificial brain" http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2015/09/30/brain/ (30 September 2015)

People, Intelligence, Idea, Help

“Seen in the light of evolution, biology is, perhaps, intellectually the most satisfying and inspiring science. Without that light it becomes a pile of sundry facts -- some of them interesting or curious but making no meaningful picture as a whole.”

Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900–1975) geneticist and evolutionary biologist

"Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution" (1973)

Light, Science

“While we can doubtless look to some wide changes in the shapes of social relationships as a result of contemporary libertarian movements, and especially to an increase in workers' involvement in decision-making at the place of work and in the development of forms of democracy more direct and more sensitive to modern conditions, it is unlikely that the general outcome will be the wholly non-governmental society of which libertarians now and in the past have dreamed. The value of anarchism is likely to remain primarily in its force as an inspiring idea, an activating vision…”

George Woodcock (1912–1995) Canadian writer of political biography and history, an anarchist thinker, an essayist and literary critic

Postscript (July 1973)
Anarchism : A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements (1962)

Dreams, Democracy, Idea, Decision

“There is not in history a more splendid and inspiring example of self-control, of self-sacrifice, of courage and of manliness.”

Steve Turner (1949) British writer

Source: The Band That Played On (Thomas Nelson, 2011), p. 193

History, Courage

“I was overjoyed when I was taken to a show of the American Abstract Artists Group in '37. They were all alive and they were American! My escort further interested me when he told me the two best abstract artists in America were not in the show — Arshile Gorky and Willem de Kooning, whom I met a couple of months later — when I began to study with him [with Willem de Kooning]. When Miss Nochlin says, 'What is important is that women face up to the reality of their history,' well, the point is, artists are always choosing their history from day to day and their history follows them as much as it precedes them. Were American artists 'facing up to the reality of their history' when they turned to the School of Paris or to German Expressionism or Dada or Surrealism or de Stijl or the Bauhaus instead of to Copley, Peale, Eakins, Blake or Ryder; was Picasso facing up to the reality of his history when he was snooping around African art for inspiration?”

Elaine de Kooning (1918–1989) American painter

n.p.
1950 - 1971, Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists' - Rosalyn Drexler with Elaine de Kooning (1971)

Women, School, Art, History

“If that impression does not remain on this intrepid and powerful people, into whose veins all nations pour their mingling blood, it will be our immense calamity. Public action, without it, will lose the dignity of consecration. Eloquence, without it, will miss what is loftiest, will give place to a careless and pulseless disquisition, or fall to the flatness of political slang. Life, without it, will lose its sacred and mystic charm. Society, without it, will fail of inspirations, and be drowned in an animalism whose rising tides will keep pace with its wealth.”

Richard Salter Storrs (1821–1900) American Congregational clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 23.

Life, People, Animals, Wealth

“There’s a passage where [the Buddha] contrasts his way of teaching with what he calls training in bombast. Training in bombast is where you’re taught things that are very poetic, that sound very high, very lovely, very inspiring, but no one is encouraged to ask what, precisely, they mean. After all, in bombast there really is no precise meaning. It’s all just vague, high-sounding words. But, as the Buddha said, he taught cross-questioning. Your training with him was in cross-questioning. When there was a teaching you didn’t understand, he encouraged you to ask, “What’s the meaning of this? What’s the purpose of that? How far should this word be taken?””

Thanissaro Bhikkhu (1949) Theravadin Buddhist Monk and Scholar

That way, wherever there are any doubts or uncertainties, you can clear them up.
Conviction and Confidence (2010)

Love, Way, Understanding, Question

“Darwin's theory of evolution was simple, beautiful, majestic and awe-inspiring. But because it contradicts the allegorical babblings of a bunch of made-up old books, it's been under attack since day one. That's just tough luck for Darwin. If the Bible had contained a passage that claimed gravity is caused by God pulling objects toward the ground with magic invisible threads, we'd still be debating Newton with idiots too.”

Charlie Brooker (1971) journalist, broadcaster and writer from England

The Guardian 2 August 2008. http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2008/aug/02/television.television Guardian columns

God, Books, Beauty

“The Bible is different from all other books; other books are written by man, but the Bible not only contains the sayings and commandments of God, but was also written entirely under divine inspiration. So we might say that it is God's book, which he gave to man to lead him to everlasting life.”

Matta El Meskeen (1919–2006) Egyptian monk

Orthodox Prayer Life: The Interior Way

Life, God, Books

“Yes, India is the land of the Gods par excellence… The experience of the divine presence in India is within the reach of anyone who searches even a little bit. The temples are full of flowers and offerings, and you only have to flow along with the crowd, melt into it and place yourself in the hands of the Gods. I do not advocate conversion to Hinduism, but I do recommend its inspiration. I told this to the brahmins that took me into their homes. One said, 'Establish your reawakened Paganism on a valid foundation and there'll come a day when it will catch on. It won't be long.”

Christopher Gérard (1962)

As true Pagans, they feel no need to convert anyone.
Pagan Power in Modern Europe (1999)

God, Feeling, Home, Search

“Actors are often inspired while playing by the very spirit who impressed the part upon the writer. When the actor is really mediumistic, as all great actors are whether they know it or not, the spirit may actually play the part through him.”

Natacha Rambova (1897–1966) American film personality and fashion designer

On the metaphysics of acting, p. 209
Rudolph Valentino: A Wife's Memories of an Icon (2009)

Parting

“Fame is but a beautiful classic delusion. The inspiration of the poet is like the inspiration of the Delphic oracles: what was once held divine is now confessed the promptings of an evil spirit mocking the votaries of whom it made victims. We firmly believe that the time is fast approaching when no more books will be written. The once writers: will say—“Why should we sacrifice our whole existence to obtain a vain praise, which, after all, never comes sufficiently home to us to be enjoyed? Why should we devote, to this most barren pursuit, industry and talent, which, in any other line, would be certain of that worldly success, which, as we live in the world, is the only success to be de sired?” Even poets must at last learn wisdom. The bitterness and the hollowness of praise will be perceived; and then who will be at the trouble of writing a book? Again we repeat, the time is fast approaching when no more books will be written.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Monthly Magazine

Wisdom, Books, World, Beauty

“I never believed, as many Marxists professed to do, that normative principles were irrelevant to the socialist movement, that, since the movement was of oppressed people fighting for their own liberation, there was no room or need for specifically moral inspiration in it. I thought no such thing partly for the plain reason that I observed enormous selfless dedication among the active communists who surrounded me in my childhood, and partly for the more sophisticated reason that the self-interest of any oppressed producer would tell him to stay at home, rather than to risk his neck in a revolution whose success or failure would be anyhow unaffected by his participation in it. Revolutionary workers and, a fortiori, bourgeois fellow-travellers without a particular material interest in socialism, must perforce be morally inspired.”

Gerald Cohen (1941–2009) Canadian philosopher

G. A. Cohen, Self-ownership, Freedom, and Equality https://books.google.com/books?id=oeUQjOLNY-wC&pg=PA3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 3

People, Travel, Home, Failure

“When I look at a work of Art I ask myself: does it inspire me, does it touch and move me, do I learn something from it, does it startle or amaze me - do I get excited, upset? That is the test any artwork has to pass: can it create an emotional impact on a human being even when he has no education or any information about art? I’ve always had a problem with art that you can only understand if you have a degree in art history, and I have a problem with theories. Most of them are bullshit anyway. Most critics and theorists have little respect for artists, and I think the importance of theory in art is totally overrated. Real art is self-evident. Real art is intense, enchanting, exciting and unsettling; it has a quality and magic that you cannot explain. Art is not logic, and if you want to experience it, your mind and rational thinking will be of little help. Art is something spiritual that you can only experience with your senses, your heart, your soul.”

Gottfried Helnwein (1948) Austrian photographer and painter

Interview by Brendan Maher http://www.gottfried-helnwein-interview.com/index.html, Start, Ireland, November 24, 2004

Education, Art, Soul, History

“I do not want to avoid immersing myself in trouble — to be a mess — to struggle out of it. I want to invent, to discover, to imagine, to speculate, to improvise — to seize the hazardous in order to be inspired. I want to experience the manifestation of the absolute — the manifestation of the unexpected in an extreme and unique relation. I know that only by following my creative instincts in an act of creative destruction will I be able to find it.”

Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) American artist

Statement of April 1950, as quoted in Hans Hofmann (1998), ed. Helmut Friedel and Tina Dickey
1950s

Imagination

“I do not believe that the loyalty of those many who over those 270 years, and particularly in this century, worked together and died together as part of the union under the Crown, was to the Crown quite simply, even though they wore the Crown on their uniforms and many of them wore it on their hearts. They were not the mercenaries of a Habsburg empire bound together by personal union and dynastic marriages; they were not the servants of a Hohenzollern empire imposed by military force. It was the Crown of the United Kingdom in parliament which was the centre of loyalty, as it is the essential unifying element of this realm, in the name of which and under the inspiration of which men and women these 270 years have worked and lived and died together.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1976/jan/19/devolution-scotland-and-wales in the House of Commons (19 January 1976) against devolution to Scotland. 1970s

Women, Men, Marriage, Heart

“I've always given everything for every team I've played for so that the ordinary fans, the people in the stadium, could identify with me. I owe a lot to the fans of Roma, Fiorentina and Argentina. They were the reason I played, my inspiration. I always worked hard to improve my game, to prove to myself that I could be one of the best for as long as possible. To be honest, I couldn’t care less what the others think.”

Gabriel Batistuta (1969) Argentine association football player

Batistuta's quiet goodbye, FIFA.com, 2006-08-13, 11 July 2005 http://fifa.com/en/news/feature/0,1451,108450,00.html,

People, Game, Thinking

“It's a natural achievement,
Conquering my homework
With her image pounding in my brain.
She's an inspiration
For my graduation,
And she helps to keep the classroom sane.”

Elton John (1947) English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist

Teacher I Need You
Song lyrics, Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player (1973)

Nature, Help

“By a pardonable abridgment of history, the Rationalist character may be seen springing from the exaggeration of Bacon's hopes and the neglect of the scepticism of Descartes; modern Rationalism is what commonplace minds made out of the inspiration of men of discrimination and genius.”

Michael Oakeshott (1901–1990) British philosopher

Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays (1962)

Men, Hope, History, Spring

“If I were the type of artist that didn't care whether or not my works communicated with viewers then I wouldn't bother exhibiting them, I might as well stock them in a warehouse. But I do exhibit and I do care because I want to communicate back to the viewer what I've viewed. My paintings are inspired by my homeland's traditional spaces. My colors are the colors of monasteries and mosques, the color of ruins of Sassanid and Seljuq era, colors of Bazaars of Isfahan and Shiraz, and colors of northern-Iran's ceramics. I have sensed all these colors, forms and everything within my painting's frame from the viewer's own world.”

Guity Novin (1944) artist

Source: Negin (1971), p. 57

World, Color, Communication, Sense

“This outcome is supported by the facts we have found – but I also know these findings may not be consistent with some people’s expectations. To all those who have closely followed this case, and who have engaged in the important national dialogue it has inspired, I urge you to read this report in full.”

Eric Holder (1951) 82nd Attorney General of the United States

2010s, Update on Investigations in Ferguson (2015)

People, Support, Reading

“Yet, though the French Revolution was so largely inspired by the ideal of the Rule of Law, it is questionable whether it really helped the advance towards that ideal. In its course too many different aspirations gained influence which it was difficult to reconcile with that ideal.”

Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economics laureate

Lecture II. Liberalism and Administration: The Rechtsstaat - 7. Montesquieu, Rousseau, and the French Revolution
1940s–1950s, The Political Ideal of the Rule of Law (1955)

Law, Question, Help

“Those who, like the present writer, never had the privilege of meeting Sidgwick can infer from his writings, and still more from the characteristic philosophic merits of such pupils of his as McTaggart and Moore, how acute and painstaking a thinker and how inspiring a teacher he must have been. Yet he has grave defects as a writer which have certainly detracted from his fame. His style is heavy and involved, and he seldom allowed that strong sense of humour, which is said to have made him a delightful conversationalist, to relieve the uniform dull dignity of his writing. He incessantly refines, qualifies, raises objections, answers them, and then finds further objections to the answers. Each of these objections, rebuttals, rejoinders, and surrejoinders is in itself admirable, and does infinite credit to the acuteness and candour of the author. But the reader is apt to become impatient; to lose the thread of the argument: and to rise from his desk finding that he has read a great deal with constant admiration and now remembers little or nothing. The result is that Sidgwick probably has far less influence at present than he ought to have, and less than many writers, such as Bradley, who were as superior to him in literary style as he was to them in ethical and philosophical acumen. Even a thoroughly second-rate thinker like T. H. Green, by diffusing a grateful and comforting aroma of ethical "uplift", has probably made far more undergraduates into prigs than Sidgwick will ever make into philosophers.”

C. D. Broad (1887–1971) English philosopher

From Five Types of Ethical Theory (1930)

Sense, Strong, Teachers, Reading

“Ah, the immortal ocean.
Consider the instructive metaphor: every conceivable terror dwells in her depths; she receives all wreckage, refuse, corruption of every kind, she pulls down into her depths human calamity indescribable; but none of this is any consideration to the sea. Let the screaming mortal passengers fight for room in the lifeboats, as the wreck belches flame and settles below the extinguishing wave; next morning she’ll still be beautiful and serene, her combers no less white, her distances as blue, her seabirds no less graceful as they wheel in the pure air. What perfection, to be so heartless. An inspiration to any lesser immortal.”

Kage Baker book The Children of the Company

Source: The Children of the Company (2005), Chapter 4, “Son Observe the Time” (p. 165)

Beauty, Fight, Perfection, Sea

“I was never as cocksure again after that first LSD inspiration. Especially with fame and reputation. You become very uncertain, you have to follow your own act. I never did get that kind of spontaneous cocksureness back again. It’s like going from being the observer to the observed. I had been used to being invisible when I was young. After I became well-known, it was very hard to be anonymous in the world. Of course, at first I liked all the attention. Suddenly, good-looking girls were interested in me! Wow! I couldn’t believe it.”

Robert Crumb (1943) American cartoonist

"R. Crumb, The Art of Comics No. 1" http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6017/the-art-of-comics-no-1-r-crumb, The Paris Review, Summer 2010, No. 193.

World, Girl

“Whether we believe the Greek poet, "it is sometimes even pleasant to be mad", or Plato, "he who is master of himself has knocked in vain at the doors of poetry"; or Aristotle, "no great genius was without a mixture of insanity"; the mind cannot express anything lofty and above the ordinary unless inspired. When it despises the common and the customary, and with sacred inspiration rises higher, then at length it sings something grander than that which can come from mortal lips. It cannot attain anything sublime and lofty so long as it is sane: it must depart from the customary, swing itself aloft, take the bit in its teeth, carry away its rider and bear him to a height whither he would have feared to ascend alone.”

Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist

In Latin, nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae fuit (There is no great genius without some touch of madness). This passage by Seneca is the source most often cited in crediting Aristotle with this thought, but in Problemata xxx. 1, Aristotle says: 'Why is it that all those who have become eminent in philosophy or politics or poetry or the arts are clearly melancholic?' The quote by Plato is from the Dialogue Phaedrus (245a).
On Tranquility of the Mind

Fear, Singing, Madness

“Tomorrow, millions of people will gather with loved ones across Canada and around the world to mark the Christmas holiday.
On this day, Christians reflect on their faith and celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. This occasion inspires families and communities to come together, share what they have, and give back to those less fortunate.
May we take this time to reflect on our many blessings, and remind our loved ones how much they mean to us.
On behalf of the Liberal Party of Canada and our entire Liberal Caucus, Sophie and I wish you all a most joyous holiday season. From my family to yours: merry Christmas.”

Justin Trudeau (1971) 23rd Prime Minister of Canada; eldest son of Pierre Trudeau

Statement by Liberal Party of Canada Leader Justin Trudeau on Christmas http://www.liberal.ca/statement-by-liberal-party-of-canada-leader-justin-trudeau-on-christmas/ (24 December 2014) 2014

Love, People, World, Family

“Even the most inspired verse, which boasts not without a relative justification to be immortal, becomes in the course of ages a scarcely legible hieroglyphic; the language it was written in dies, a learned education and an imaginative effort are requisite to catch even a vestige of its original force. Nothing is so irrevocable as mind.”

George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism

The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress (1905-1906), Vol. I, Reason in Common Sense

Age, Education, Imagination, Effort

“History has now confronted us with an immediate task which is the most revolutionary of all the immediate tasks confronting the proletariat of any country. The fulfilment of this task, the destruction of the most powerful bulwark, not only of European, but (it may now be said) of Asiatic reaction, would make the Russian proletariat the vanguard of the international revolutionary proletariat. And we have the right to count upon acquiring this honourable title, already earned by our predecessors, the revolutionaries of the seventies, if we succeed in inspiring our movement, which is a thousand times broader and deeper, with the same devoted determination and vigour.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

What is to be Done? (1902)

History, Time, Country

“One must build to the praise of a Being above, to build the noblest memorial of himself. Then, Angelo may verily " hang the Pantheon in the air." Then the unknown builder, whose personality disappears in his work, may stand an almost inspired mediator between the upward-looking thought and the spheres overhead. Each line then leaps with a swift aspiration, as the vast structure rises, in nave and transept into pointed arch and vanishing spire. The groined roof grows dusky with majestic glooms; while, beneath, the windows flame, as with apocalyptic light of jewels. Angelic presences, sculptured upon the portal, invite the wayfarer, and wave before him their wings of promise. Within is a worship which incense only clouds, which spoken sermons only mar. The building itself becomes a worship, a Gloria in Excelsis, articulate in stone; the noblest tribute offered on earth, by any art, to Him from whom its impulse came, and with the ineffable majesty of whose spirit all skies are filled.”

Richard Salter Storrs (1821–1900) American Congregational clergyman

Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 499.
Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Art, Angels, Light, Memory

“There is a contrast of primary significance between Augustine and Pelagius. The former crushes everything in order to rebuild it again. The other addresses himself to man as he is. The first system, therefore, in respect to Christianity, falls into three stages: creation – the fall and a consequent condition of death and impotence; a new creation – whereby man is placed in a position where he can choose; and then, if he chooses – Christianity. The other system addresses itself to man as he is (Christianity fits into the world). From this is seen the significance of the theory of inspiration for the first system; from this also is seen the relationship between the synergistic and the semipelagian conflict. It is the same question, only that the syngeristic struggle has its presupposition in the new creation of the Augustinian system.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Soren Kierkegaard's Journals and Papers, Volume 1 Hong translation 1967 p. 14-15 1 A 101 January 14, 1837
1830s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1830s

Death, World, Question

“The Venezuelans ought to become inspired by the Honduran model, and strive for a change of government as soon as possible, through pacific, democratic, and constitutional means--and not just electoral--to avoid a national tragedy.”

Alejandro Peña Esclusa (1954) Venezuelan politician

(March 11, 2010, referring to how Honduras's president had been deposed by the other branches of government), Venezolanos deben imitar a los hondureños http://www.unoamerica.org/unoPAG/noticia.php?id=896

Change

“Balachander is my inspiration. He had a heart problem 40 years back. He has been making films for another 46 years. He can never grow old. My father used to be like that until he suffered a stroke. Then I suddenly realized he was an old man. That's also true of my brothers Chandra Haasan and to an extent Charu Haasan. I can never imagine them being old.”

Kamal Haasan (1954) Indian actor

Aamir's choice of films makes Kamal Haasan happy

Imagination, Problem, Suffering, Heart

“Often it is the case that it takes ‘just a little’ to help and support people, so they can help themselves. I have met adults and children, men and women, whose living conditions are difficult for us to imagine, but every time I come away inspired by their strength and will to improve their lives and provide a better life for their children.”

Mary, Crown Princess of Denmark (1972) Crown Princess of Denmark

Speech at the opening of Danida’s 50th anniversary exhibition in Bella Center; quoted on royal website http://kongehuset.dk/Menu/materiale/taler/speech-by-hrh-the-crown-princess-at-the-launch-of-danidas-50th-anniversary-exhibition-in (16 March 2012)

Life, Women, Men, Children

“If we can do it in L. A., I want to say, we can do it across this country. In many ways, the West Coast is leading, and hopefully inspiring the nation to do the same.”

Eric Garcetti (1971) American politician

2016, 2016 Democratic National Convention speech

Way, Country

“With glee, Tory Members ritually attack the inner city authorities, the Greater London council, the metropolitan counties and all the others, and have voted through the Rates Act and with it rate capping. They will rue the day that they did that, because the Government are fundamentally attempting to destroy democracy for local government. They have been doing so since 1979. The political principle on which they have operated is sheer selective vindictiveness against the poorest people in the country. Every inner city area has been penalised by the Government because the Government's notion of overspending is that, if a council tries to provide services that go some way towards meeting some of the needs and aspirations of the poorest people, they kick the council in the teeth. If a council continues to do that, despite the Government's blandishments, it does not get kicked in the teeth, but has its head cut off and suffers an unprecedented media barrage inspired by the Government. If one looks at any inner city area, one finds that disgraceful pattern.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1985/jan/16/rate-support-grant-england in the House of Commons (16 January 1985). 1980s

People, Way, Democracy, Suffering

“Arms, hands [of the two van Gogh brothers, Vincent and Theo], like rifles, thrust out like non-stop ideas thoughts. Enormous thick veins like the ropes of a ship through which flow thoughts and inspirational excitement. They join the two brothers like nerve connections that pass from one body to the other, channeling the waves and opening up both in a magnetic ring of work and passion.”

Ossip Zadkine (1890–1967) French sculptor

quote, c. 1955; as quoted in: Zadkine and Van Gogh, ed. Garance Schabert and Ron Dirven (transl. Anne Porcelijn), Vincent van Goghhuis, Zundert & Scriptum Art, Schiedam 2008, p. 64
1940 - 1960

Idea, Passion

“To say he hath spoken to him in a Dream, is no more then to say he dreamed that God spake to him; which is not of force to win beleef from any man, that knows dreams are for the most part naturall, and may proceed from former thoughts; and such dreams as that, from selfe conceit, and foolish arrogance, and false opinion of a mans own goodlinesse, or other vertue, by which he thinks he hath merited the favour of extraordinary Revelation. To say he hath seen a Vision, or heard a Voice, is to say, that he dreamed between sleeping and waking: for in such manner a man doth many times naturally take his dream for a vision, as not having well observed his own slumbering. To say he speaks by supernaturall Inspiration, is to say he finds an ardent desire to speak, or some strong opinion of himself, for which hee can alledge no naturall and sufficient reason. So that though God Almighty can speak to a man, by Dreams, Visions, Voice, and Inspiration; yet he obliges no man to beleeve he hath so done to him that pretends it; who (being a man) may erre, and (which is more) may lie.”

Thomas Hobbes book Leviathan

The Third Part, Chapter 32
Leviathan (1651)

God, Lie, Dreams, Nature

“I’ve lost a lot of young, brilliant friends. Andy Wood and Layne [Staley] and Jeff Buckley, who was a good friend, and Kurt [Cobain], and Shannon Hoon [of Blind Melon] was a friend, and Mike Starr [Alice In Chains] was a friend, the list can kind of go on if I sit here and try and remember. And they’re all young and these guys all had limitless potential in their lives in front of them. And I think there’s something so inspiring about that – that is like the miracle of youth. And to see that be the final chapter so young is a really hard thing to swallow every time.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

The Life & Times of Chris Cornell, Rolling Stone Australia, 17 September 2015 https://rollingstoneaus.com/music/post/the-life-and-times-of-chris-cornell/2273, Solo career Era

Youth, Guy, Thinking, Time

“In the thousands of articles that made up the technical literature of chaos, few were cited more often than "Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow." For years, no single object would inspire more illustrations, even motion pictures, than the mysterious curve depicted at the end, the double spiral that became known as the Lorenz attractor.”

James Gleick book Chaos: Making a New Science

Source: Chaos: Making a New Science, 1987, p. 52; as cited in: Joshua Keating, in " Can Chaos theory teach us anything about Foreign Policy http://ideas.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/05/23/can_chaos_theory_teach_us_anything_about_international_relations", at ideas.foreignpolicy.com, May 23rd 2013.

Literature

“What justice also demands, inspired by the same feeling, is the punishment of the guilty and effective guaranties against an active return of the spirit by which they were tempted; and it is logical to demand that these guaranties should be given, above all, to the nations that have been, and might again be most exposed to aggressions or threats, to those who have many times stood in danger of being submerged by the periodic tide of the same invasions. What justice banishes is the dream of conquest and imperialism, contempt for national will, the arbitrary exchange of provinces between states as though peoples were but articles of furniture or pawns in a game. The time is no more when diplomatists could meet to redraw with authority the map of the empires on the corner of a table. If you are to remake the map of the world it is in the name of the peoples, and on condition that you shall faithfully interpret their thoughts, and respect the right of nations, small and great, to dispose of themselves, and to reconcile it with the right, equally sacred, of ethnical and religious minorities - a formidable task, which science and history, your two advisers, will contribute to illumine and facilitate.”

Raymond Poincaré (1860–1934) 10th President of the French Republic

Welcoming Address http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/parispeaceconf_poincare.htm at the Paris Peace Conference (18 January 1919).

People, World, Justice, Dreams

“He has attained supremacy in one particular line: he succeeds in inspiring a mysterious terror better than any other writer.”

J. Sheridan Le Fanu (1814–1873) Irish writer of Gothic tales and mystery novels

M. R. James "The Novels and Stories of J. Sheridan Le Fanu" (1923). http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pardos/ArchiveLeFanu.html Criticism

“They came here—the exile and the stranger, brave but frightened—to find a place where a man could be his own man. They made a covenant with this land. Conceived in justice, written in liberty, bound in union, it was meant one day to inspire the hopes of all mankind; and it binds us still. If we keep its terms, we shall flourish.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, Inaugural address (1965)

Justice, Hope

“Babe] also inspired me to become vegan. After having worked all morning with these extraordinary animals, I'd see their relatives on the lunch table. They had ham and duck, every animal except horse. That's when I said, "I've got to try to be a vegan." And for the most part, I have been vegan since 1994. [You were vegetarian before Babe. What inspired that change? ] I rode across the country on a motorcycle in 1975. I remember it was the worst time of year and bloody cold. When I was going through Texas, I went through the feedlots, which I had never seen before. It was a very sobering sight—heartbreaking and awful. It's a corporate system completely out of touch with what is sustainable, what is humane, what is compassionate. At the time, I didn't even know what a vegetarian was. I just thought, "I can't eat [animals] anymore."”

James Cromwell (1940) American actor and producer

"The Tale of an Unprejudiced Heart: An Interview with James Cromwell" http://www.humanesociety.org/news/magazines/2015/01-02/unprejudiced-heart-interview-with-babe-actor-james-cromwell.html by The Humane Society of the United States (17 December 2014)

Change, Time, Animals, Horse

“[W]ork is good. Work is virtuous and inculcates virtue. Work gives people a sense of meaning and of being needed. Obviously, not everyone feels such satisfaction in the job they have now, but that dissatisfaction is precisely the motivation people need to find the job that might provide it. That motivation inspires virtue, too.”

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

2010s, 2018, A Free People Must Be Virtuous (2018)

People, Feeling, Motivation, Sense

“This reconnection…has given me great satisfaction. I realise I have inadvertently become a source of inspiration and hope for people in India simply by the fact that I grew up there, went to my local university, but could go on to do well internationally. The Nobel, he says, is not just an affirmation of his past work; it’s an encouragement to keep working on interesting problems.”

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (1952) Nobel prize winning American and British structural biologist

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan

People, Hope, Problem, Universe

“Primarily, they (ideas) come from daydreaming or every day occurrences. I try to get out and about, especially new places to let the environment inspire me. I start an illustration of a building I see and then the elements of different characters will populate in my mind like a set and actors on a stage. If nothing comes up I continue to draw until something unfolds.”

Lorin Morgan-Richards (1975) American poet, cartoonist, and children's writer

Regarding how he comes up with ideas for his comic strips The Goodbye Family and The Noodle Rut (1 June 2017). Source: Lorin Morgan-Richards Newsletter #2, Us6.campaign-archive2.com, 2017-06-26 http://us6.campaign-archive2.com/?u=51e751ef352e602deca0ecdc7&id=2e82f26313,

Idea, Drawing

“[I call for] imagination and courage in the endless endeavor to make human life more meaningful and significant, more nearly expressive of the values we cherish… A national policy for the family will earn affirmation and as such should give re-direction to what we are now doing in our social life, and new hope and inspiration to individual men and women and new promise to youth.”

Lawrence K. Frank (1890–1968) American cyberneticist

Cited in: Ruth H. Jewson, James Walters (1988) The National Council on Family Relations: a fifty year history. p. 15
National Policy for the Family (1948)

Life, Women, Men, Youth

“I don’t consider myself an activist, but I realize how much I’ve benefited from the sacrifice of others, … So if hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it’s worth the trade-off with my own privacy.”

Tim Cook (1960) American business executive

WSJ.com http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/10/30/apples-tim-cook-im-proud-to-be-gay/?mod=e2fb&mg=blogs-wsj&url=http%253A%252F%252Fblogs.wsj.com%252Fdigits%252F2014%252F10%252F30%252Fapples-tim-cook-im-proud-to-be-gay%253Fmod%253De2fb

People, Feeling, Help

“Let the sacrifices of our heroes serve as an example and inspire us to come together, and teach us that our personal interests and well-being should always give way to the collective good of the Filipino people and the betterment of the country we all love.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

The Official Website of the Senate of the Philippines http://www.senate.gov.ph/press_release/2009/0405_escudero3.asp 2009, Statement: A Call for Heroism

Love, People, Way, Personality

“The higher commander who goes to Field Service Regulations for tactical guidance inspires about as much confidence as the doctor who turns to a medical dictionary for his diagnosis.”

Archibald Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell (1883–1950) senior officer of the British Army

III – The Soldier and the Statesman.
"Generals and Generalship" (1939)

Confidence

“The dramatic problems of today's complex world can only inspire a humble approach.”

António Guterres (1949) Secretary-General of the United Nations

Quoted in "UN General Assembly elects Guterres as secretary-general" http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-un-secretary-general-guterres-20161013-story.html, Chicago Tribune (13 October 2016)

World, Problem

“Now Stonewall Jackson is a man worth taking an interest in. Few people in history have achieved greater fame in a shorter period with less useful activity in the brainbox than Gen. Thomas J. Jackson. (long list of character deficiencies elided)…
His ineradicable fame rests almost entirely on the fact that he had a couple of small but inspiring victories when elsewhere Southern troops were being slaughtered and routed and by dint of having the best nickname any soldier has ever enjoyed.”

Bill Bryson A Walk in the Woods

Source: A Walk in the Woods (1997), Chapter 13 (p. 171)

People, History, Victory

“When I met Wittgenstein, I saw that Schlick's warnings were fully justified. But his behavior was not caused by any arrogance. In general, he was of a sympathetic temperament and very kind; but he was hypersensitive and easily irritated. Whatever he said was always interesting and stimulating and the way in which he expressed it was often fascinating. His point of view and his attitude toward people and problems, even theoretical problems, were much more similar to those of a creative artist than to those of a scientist; one might almost say, similar to those of a religious prophet or a seer. When he started to formulate his view on some specific problem, we often felt the internal struggle that occurred in him at that very moment, a struggle by which he tried to penetrate from darkness to light under an intense and painful strain, which was even visible on his most expressive face. When finally, sometimes after a prolonged arduous effort, his answers came forth, his statement stood before us like a newly created piece of art or a divine revelation. Not that he asserted his views dogmatically … But the impression he made on us was as if insight came to him as through divine inspiration, so that we could not help feeling that any sober rational comment of analysis of it would be a profanation.”

Rudolf Carnap (1891–1970) German philosopher

Rudolf Carnap, as quoted in The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap (1963) by Paul Arthur Schilpp, p. 25, and in Ludwig Wittgenstein : The Duty of Genius (1991) by Ray Monk, p. 244

Pain, People, Art, Way

“For instance the idea of intuition, imagination, inspiration.... is related in the principle to an invisible world.... when I call these drawings 'The Secret Block' then I try to stress this part of reality as the most important part because spiritual existence is firstly... I find if we are only confronted with this hard part of the world, this already done part of the world, we are not.... related to the whole idea of reality.... the mission of the art is to make visible the whole reality..”

Joseph Beuys (1921–1986) German visual artist

Quote from 'A. Beuys in the wilderness', 1974 (lecture at the Ulster Museum); as cited in Joseph Beuys and the Celtic Wor(l)d: A Language of Healing, Victoria Walters, LIT Verlag Münster, 2012, p. 198
1970's

Secret, World, Art, Imagination

“A drop of water when you are thirsty gives such relief. The same drop in a fountain inspires you with its beauty. The same water in a dirty drain is repelling. And the same drop in the river makes you want to swim there and take a bath. And when the same water goes in the sea it thrills you with its power.”

Hariprasad Chaurasia (1938) Indian bansuri player

On the theme of water.
Music is a Prayer:An interview with Hariprasad Chaurasia by Ian Gottstein

Beauty, Water, Sea

“It was from Tito that I drew inspiration while searching for the best road to take and when making crucial decisions during our liberation struggle. I often thought, what would Tito do at that moment?”

Robert Mugabe (1924–2019) former President of Zimbabwe

Mugabe cited in: Jasper Ridley, Tito: A Biography (Constable and Company Ltd., 1994), p. 400.
1980s

Search, Decision

“But a sculpture which sets out to achieve the same ends demands an almost unbelievable effort of concentration. Practically none of the episodes or moments of such a legend, [of Prometheus ] really lends itself to sculpture, and the sculptors of the nineteenth century were often quite careless or foolish in the choice of the moment which they set out to represent. Their works could thus become cluttered with all sorts of narrative details which detract from the monumental quality of the whole... That's why, in my 'Prometheus', I represent the fire as an integral part of the presence or appearance of the hero; he stands there before us in all his awe-inspiring grandeur, a human figure that seemed in the eyes of the men who first saw him to be actually consumed by the fire that he was bearing.”

Ossip Zadkine (1890–1967) French sculptor

c. 1960
Source: 1960 - 1968, Dialogues – conversations with.., quotes, c. 1960, p. 154

Men, Effort, Appearance, Parting

“The artificial intelligence approach may not be altogether the right one to make to the problem of designing automatic assembly devices. Animals and machines are constructed from entirely different materials and on quite different principles. When engineers have tried to draw inspiration from a study of the way animals work they have usually been misled; the history of early attempts to construct flying machines with flapping wings illustrates this very clearly.”

Maurice Wilkes (1913–2010) British computer scientist

Sect. 4: Design and Assembly
"Computers Then and Now" (1968)

Way, History, Intelligence, Problem

“I am more the inspirational type of speller. I work on hunches rather than mere facts, and the result is sometimes open to criticism by purists.”

Robert Benchley (1889–1945) American comedian

My Ten Years in a Quandary and How They Grew (1936)

“Your majesty, the king of Saudi Arabia, I was listening to your message. I wish that your voice will become the prevailing voice of the whole region, of all people. It's right, it's needed, it's promising … The initiative's portrayal of our region's future provides hope to the people and inspires confidence in the nations.”

Shimon Peres (1923–2016) Israeli politician, 8th prime minister and 9th president of Israel

On King Abdullah's Interfaith initiative, as quoted in "Saudi king promotes tolerance at U.N. forum", Reuters (12 November 2008) http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE4AB84U20081112?sp=true

People, Hope, Confidence, Future

“It was Homer who inspired the poet.”

Francis Wayland (1796–1865) President of Brown University

The Iliad and the Bible, reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 609.
Variant: It was Homer who gave laws to the artist.

“I had scarcely entered the room when I saw on my table an open book I had not put there. It was the works of Cardano. I did not intend to read it, but my gaze fell as though compelled on a story told by that philosopher. He writes that he was studying one night by candlelight when he saw two tall old men come in through the closed doors of his room. He asked them many questions, and they finally told him they were from the Moon; whereupon they disappeared.
I was so surprised, both by the book that had put itself on my table and by the page it was open to, that I took this chain of events for an inspiration from God, who was urging me to tell people that the Moon is a world.”

Cyrano de Bergerac (1619–1655) French novelist, dramatist, scientist and duelist

The Other World (1657)

Men, God, People, Books

“What has become of the descendants of the irresponsible adventurers, the scapegrace sons, the bond servants, the redemptionists and the indentured maidens, the undesirables, and even the criminals, which made up-not all, of course, but nevertheless a considerable part of-the earliest emigrants to these virgin countries?
They have become the leaders of the thought of the world, the vanguard in the march of progress, the inspirers of liberty, the creators of national prosperity, the sponsors of universal education and enlightenment.”

William Randolph Hearst (1863–1951) American newspaper publisher

Communication to the American Crime Study Commission (May 19, 1929)

World, Education, Universe, Parting

“They say that, hung in ancient halls,
At midnight from the silent lute
A melancholy music falls
From chords which were by daylight mute.
And so the human heart by night
Is touched by some inspired tone,
Harmonious in the deep delight,
By day it knew not was its own.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Meditation
Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

Music, Heart, Night

“Myself, the government and people of Nigeria are inspired by the United States of America's achievement and the principles which guide it.”

Umaru Yar'Adua (1951–2010) President of Nigeria

President Bush Meets with President Yar’Adua of the Federal Republic of Nigeria http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2007/12/20071213-1.html,

People