Selected inspiration quotes

1. How rich art is; if one can only remember what one has seen, one is never without food for thought or truly lonely, never alone.

2. Kafka could never have written as he did had he lived in a house. His writing is that of someone whose whole life was spent in apartments, with lifts, stairwells, muffled voices behind closed doors, and sounds through walls. Put him in a nice detached villa and he'd never have written a word.

3. Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.

4. Do something wonderful, people may imitate it.

5. There will be certain things in a man that have to be won, not forced; inspired, not compelled.

6. I hope that seeing the excitement of solving this problem will make young mathematicians realize that there are lots and lots of other problems in mathematics which are going to be just as challenging in the future.

7. I'd asked around 10 or 15 people for suggestions. Finally one lady friend asked the right question, 'Well, what do you love most?' That's how I started painting money.

8. Some books makes me want to go adventuring, others feel that they have saved me the trouble.

9. The really great people are the ones who know how to make the little people feel great.

10. Without wonder and insight, acting is just a trade. With it, it becomes creation.

11. Life is wide, limitless. There is no border, no frontier.

12. We are star stuff which has taken its destiny into its own hands. The loom of time and space works the most astonishing transformations of matter.

13. Old empires always appeal to modern poets more than new ones.

14. I can get excitement watching rain on a puddle. And then I paint it. Now, I admit, there are not too many people who would find that exciting. But I would. And I want life thrilling and rich. And it is. I make sure it is.

15. Poetry is what Milton saw when he went blind.

16. I am one of those unhappy persons who inspire bores to the greatest flights of art.

17. The explorers of the past were great men and we should honour them. But let us not forget that their spirit lives on. It is still not hard to find a man who will adventure for the sake of a dream or one who will search, for the pleasure of searching, not for what he may find.

18. Ideas came with explosive immediacy, like an instant birth. Human thought is like a monstrous pendulum; it keeps swinging from one extreme to the other.

19. Nature is my manifestation of God. I go to nature every day for inspiration in the day's work. I follow in building the principles which nature has used in its domain.

20. Marry Ann; and at the end of a week you'll find no more inspiration in her than in a plate of muffins.

21. One of the pleasant things those of us who write or paint do is to have the daily miracle. It does come.

22. We're creators by permission, by grace as it were. No one creates alone, of and by himself. An artist is an instrument that registers something already existent, something which belongs to the whole world, and which, if he is an artist, he is compelled to give back to the world.

23. We should not mourn for men of high ideals. Rather we should rejoice that we had the privilege of having had them with us, to inspire us by their radiant personalities.

24. Don't listen to what anybody says except the people who encourage you. If it's what you want to do and it's within yourself, then keep going and try to do it for the rest of your life.

25. I know no subject more elevating, more amazing, more ready to the poetical enthusiasm, the philosophical reflection, and the moral sentiment than the works of nature. Where can we meet such variety, such beauty, such magnificence?

26. Clark Kent grew not only out of my private life, but also out of Joe Shuster's. As a high school student, I thought that someday I might become a reporter, and I had crushes on several attractive girls who either didn't know I existed or didn't care I existed.

27. We've removed the ceiling above our dreams. There are no more impossible dreams.

28. You have to give people something to dream on.

29. My inspirations don't come from outer space, they just come to me. I have no idea why they come when they do.

30. Song ideas have come to me in the middle of interviews, in the shower, or while I'm writing another song.

31. Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere, I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, And with forced fingers rude Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.

32. He touch'd the tender stops of various quills, With eager thought warbling his Doric lay.

33. Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days, inciting at once to work and rest! Days in whose light everything seems equally divine, opening a thousand windows to show us God. Nevermore, however weary, should one faint by the way who gains the blessings of one mountain day; whatever his fate, long life, short life, stormy or calm, he is rich forever.

34. A mere copier of nature can never produce any thing great, can never raise and enlarge the conceptions, or warm the heart of the spectator.

35. I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework.

36. To be a catalyst is one of my life's objectives. I've been inspired by many people who in turn have been catalysts. It's very interesting to see the waves of interest come and go in Celtic territory. If I can be a catalyst for other people, that's wonderful.

37. If someone listens to our music, and it makes them creative, that makes me happier than anything.

38. 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.

39. And as long as the world lasts, all who want to make progress in righteousness will come to Israel for inspiration, as to the people who have had the sense for righteousness most glowing and strongest; and in hearing and reading the words Israel has uttered for us, carers for conduct will find a glow and a force they could find nowhere else.

40. How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!

41. I think I felt a bit trapped before I met Pete. Have you seen The Lavender Hill Mob? Alec Guinness plays this wonderful, colourful person who locks it all up and goes through the motions. I always felt a bit like that. But then I met the Pigman and he said, 'You can actually knock that on the head and get out.' So we threw ourselves into eternity. And it worked.

42. Creatures of a day! What is a man? What is he not? A dream of a shadow Is our mortal being. But when there comes to men A gleam of splendour given of Heaven, Then rests on them a light of glory And blessed are their days.

43. I am not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of 'LEAVES OF GRASS.' I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed. I am very happy in reading it, as great power makes us happy. It meets the demand I am always making of what seemed the sterile and stingy nature, as if too much handiwork, or too much lymph in the temperament, were making our western wits fat and mean. I give you joy of your free and brave thought. I have great joy in it. I find incomparable things said incomparably well, as they must be. I find the courage of treatment which so delights us, and which large perception only can inspire. I greet you at the beginning of a great career, which yet must have had a long foreground somewhere, for such a start. I rubbed my eyes a little, to see if this sunbeam were no illusion; but the solid sense of the book is a sober certainty. It has the best merits, namely, of fortifying and encouraging:

44. Olympian bards who sung Divine Ideas below, Which always find us young, And always keep us so.

45. Is no one inspired by our present picture of the universe? This value of science remains unsung by singers, you are reduced to hearing not a song or poem, but an evening lecture about it. This is not yet a scientific age.

46. There are still those people, like Senator Byrd, who exemplify the qualities of leadership strong personal character and a sense of virtues and principles that inspire others to greatness.

47. Reading Roberto Bolano is like hearing the secret story, being shown the fabric of the particular, watching the tracks of art and life merge at the horizon and linger there like a dream from which we awake inspired to look more attentively at the world.

48. He was the first poet I ever knew. His genius at that time had angelic wings, and fed on manna. He talked on for ever; and you wished him to talk on for ever. His thoughts did not seem to come with labour and effort; but as if borne on the gusts of genius, and as if the wings of his imagination lifted him from off his feet.

49. 'You see the stuff he plays through, and you can't have anything but respect for him. It makes you want to play harder, play through stuff.'

50. I invented something called The Oxford Muse. The Muses were women in mythology. They did not teach or require to be worshipped, but they were a source of inspiration. They taught you how to cultivate your emotions through the different arts in order to reach a higher plane. What is lacking now, I believe, is somewhere you can get that stimulation not information, but stimulation where you can meet just that person, or find just that situation, which will give you the idea of invention, of carrying out some project which interests you, and show how it can become a project of interest to other people.

51. I apologize for calling Madam President names in my statement on the radio. My purpose was to encourage every Finnish person to strive forward in life and try to realize their dreams. The statement I gave on the radio could have been phrased otherwise, for example: Everything in life seems possible when someone brought up on the streets can become a Member of Parliament and the ex-president of SETA the President of Finland. The Finnish people have elected you President and I respect their decision. Your politics I will continue to criticize.

52. Like I say, the way I write songs is, you know, inspirational. I have to wait for it to happen. And when it happens I get lines, and I just write them down, you know. I'm not sort of a Tin Pan Alley sort of songwriter. I just sort of write down what I get - without censoring or questioning what it is and what it means, you know. Like later on I look at what it means, but not at the time.

53. Now since I have seen the ocean with my own eyes, I feel completely how important it is for me to stay in the south and to experience the color which must be carried to the uttermost - it is not far to Africa.

54. The poem refreshes life so that we share, For a moment, the first idea . . . It satisfies Belief in an immaculate beginning And sends us, winged by an unconscious will, To an immaculate end.

55. In this painting, I was in fact in quest for a certain hour, which was and which remains always the most beautiful hour of the day in Moscow. The sun is already low and has reached its highest force, which it has searched all the day, to which it has aspired all the day. [:] The sun dissolves all Moscow in a spot which, as a frenzied tuba, makes entered into vibration all the inner being, the whole soul. [:] Rendering this hour seemed the biggest, the most impossible of the happiness for an artist. These impressions renewed every sunny day. They brought me a joy which shattered me until the bottom of the soul, and which reached until ecstasy.

56. Both of us loved blue, Franz Marc horses, I riders. Hence the name Der Blaue Reiter.(The Blue Rider)

57. The medieval pictures I painted were inspired by the impressions of old Schwabing.

58. I saw all my colours in spirit.Wild,almost mad lines drew themselves in front of me.(On seeing Wagner's Lohengrin)

59. His misfortune was that he loved youth - he was weak to it, it kindled him. If there was one eager eye, one doubting, critical mind, one lively curiosity in a whole lecture-room full of commonplace boys and girls, he was its servant. That ardour could command him. It hadn't worn out with years, this responsiveness, any more than the magnetic currents wear out; it had nothing to do with Time.

60. I have read books about the behavior of mobs - The Mob by Le Bon, if I remember rightly, was one - about the crime in children, and the genius in them, about the greatest bodies of things, and about the littlest of them. I have been fascinated by it all, grateful for it all, grateful for the sheer majesty of the existence of ideas, stories, fables, and paper and ink and print and books to hold them all together for a man to take aside and examine alone. But the man I liked most and the man who seemed to remind me of myself - of what I really was and would surely become - was George Bernard Shaw.

61. Lost in a gloom of uninspired research.

62. So living Nature, not dull Art, Shall plan my ways and rule my heart.

63. Upon the brink of the wild stream He stood, and dreamt a mighty dream.

64. I didn't do my best work until I got licked in the head by a horse.

65. Was never eie did see that face, Was never eare did heare that tong, Was never minde did minde his grace, That ever thought the travell long; But eies and eares and ev'ry thought Were with his sweete perfections caught.

66. 'This is for all the men who wanna see me, and for all the women...who want to BE me!'

67. And, far and near, through vale and hill, Are faces that attest the same, And kindle like a fire new stirr'd, At sound of Rob Roy's name.

68. And, far and near, through vale and hill, Are faces that attest the same; The proud heart flashing through the eyes, At sound of Rob Roy's name.

69. Rus! Rus! I see you, from my lovely enchanted remoteness I see you: a country of dinginess, and bleakness and dispersal; no arrogant wonders of nature crowned by the arrogant wonders of art appear within you to delight or terrify the eyes... So what is the incomprehensible secret force driving me towards you? Why do I constantly hear the echo of your mournful song as it is carried from the sea through your entire expanse?... And since you are without end yourself, is it not within you that a boundless thought will be born?

70. He really, really inspired me. He was so great. Wonderful. One of the best, but more than that. Kurt was one of the absolute best of all time for me.

71. Kurt Cobain reincarnated Sighs and licks his face.

72. A poet's Mistress is a hallowed thing.

73. There's a tendency for people to want to be led. I've touched on that subject a few other times in other songs I've written. But this one was more personal, and it also suggests that people find their true strength at a point where they seem to be at their biggest weakness. And I think that's when you can really find inspiration from someone. When someone is living high on the hog and someone can do no wrong and everyone loves them, that's really not the time to look at them and see what they're really made of or really worth. The time to be inspired by someone is when they're dealing with tragedy and negative aspects of themselves and the world around them. When I'm confident and filled with understanding and strength, I'm probably not really exhibiting anything that's worth following. But if I'm knee deep in shit and I'm managing to get through it, maybe I'm setting an example that someone else can benefit from.

74. 'This next song is about a video game where you get to slice people in half with chainsaws and shot them in the face'- before playing Gears of War

75. 'Here's a song I made up while I was watching Xena the Warrior Princess with the sound off. It's a fact. I had a secret crush on Xena. It was a secret to me too. I wouldn't admit it. She's pretty fuckin' tough. She has a good yell... she kills the stupid gladiators with the log-trap. Release the log-trap! She releases the log-trap and they all get... crushed. They'd all wanna be with her if they could, but unfortunately they're not on her side. It's a lot better with the sound off. Really, it is. And the song didn't have anything to do with Xena... but... I was about half a bottle through Jameson's... if that makes any sense.'

76. Do you know what I think of history? ... For a while I thought history was something that bitter old men wrote. But Jack loved history so... No one'll ever know everything about Jack. But ... history made Jack what he was ... this lonely, little sick boy ... scarlet fever ... this little boy sick so much of the time, reading in bed, reading history ... reading the Knights of the Round Table ... and he just liked that last song. Then I thought, for Jack history was full of heroes. And if it made him this way, if it made him see the heroes, maybe other little boys will see. Men are such a combination of good and bad ... He was such a simple man. But he was so complex, too. Jack had this hero idea of history, the idealistic view, but then he had that other side, the pragmatic side... his friends were all his old friends; he loved his Irish Mafia.

77. Blest pair of Sirens, pledges of Heaven's joy,

78. To few men was it given to realize so completely the elements of eternity- of time-effacing enjoyment in work- as it was to John Muir. The secret of it all was in his soul, the soul of a child, of a poet, and of a strong man, all blended into one. An innate nobility of character, an unstudied reverence for all that is sublime in nature or in life, unconsciously called forth the best in his friends and acquaintances. In the spiritual as in the physical realm flowers blossomed in his footsteps where he went. After all it is to such men as John Muir that we must look for the sustenance of those finer feelings that keep men in touch with the spiritual meaning and beauty of the universe, and make them capable of understanding those rare souls whose insight has invested life with imperishable hope and charm. To all who knew John Muir intimately his gentleness and humaneness toward all creatures that shared the world with him, was one of the finest attributes of his character... Among those who have won title to remembrance as prophets and interpreters of nature he rises to a moral as well as poetical altitude that will command the admiring attention of men so long as human records shall endure.

79. Musical Compositions Inspired by Lewis Carroll

80. What has passed with him since then he does not disclose to us. He tells us that we ourselves, led on by him and our own desire, will discover what has passed with him. Many of us have withdrawn from him. They returned to their parents, and learned trades. Some have been sent out by him, we know not whither; he selected them. Of these, some have been but a short time there, others longer. One was still a child; scarcely was he come, when our Teacher was for passing him any more instruction. This child had large dark eyes with azure ground, his skin shone like lilies, and his locks like light little clouds when it is growing evening. His voice pierced through all our hearts; willingly would we have given him our flowers, stones, pens, all we had. He smiled with an infinite earnestness; and we had a strange delight beside him. One day he will come again, said our Teacher, and then our lessons end. - Along with him he sent one, for whom we had often been sorry. Always sad he looked; he had been long years here; nothing would succeed with him; when we sought crystals or flowers, he seldom found. He saw dimly at a distance; to lay down variegated rows skilfully he had no power. He was so apt to break everything. Yet none had such eagerness, such pleasure in hearing and listening. At last, - it was before that Child came into our circle, - he all at once grew cheerful and expert. One day he had gone out sad; he did not return, and the night came on. We were very anxious for him; suddenly, as the morning dawned, we heard his voice in a neighbouring grove. He was singing a high, joyful song; we were all surprised; the Teacher looked to the East, such a look as I shall never see in him again. The singer soon came forth to us, and brought, with unspeakable blessedness on his face, a simple-looking little stone, of singular shape. The Teacher took it in his hand, and kissed him long; then looked at us with wet eyes, and laid this little stone on an empty space, which lay in the midst of other stones, just where, like radii, many rows of them met together.

81. I used to worship the mighty genius of Michael Angelo - that man who was great in poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture - great in every thing he undertook. But I do not want Michael Angelo for breakfast - for luncheon - for dinner - for tea - for supper - for between meals. I like a change, occasionally.

82. 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.

83. I will always desire to play with Bruce Springsteen. He's the most inspirational, most dedicated, most committed and most focused artist I've ever seen. I like to be around people like that.

84. It was Elvis that got me interested in music. I've been an Elvis fan since I was a kid.

85. Someone handed me Mexico City Blues in St. Paul [Minnesota] in 1959 and it blew my mind. It was the first poetry that spoke my own language.

86. 'You know, John Coltrane has been sort of a god to me. Seems like, in a way, he didn't get the inspiration out of other musicians. He had it. When you hear a cat do a thing like that, you got to go along with him. I think I heard Coltrane before I really got close to Miles [Davis]. Miles had a tricky way of playing his horn that I didn't understand as much as I did Coltrane. I really didn't understand what Coltrane was doing, but it was so exciting the thing that he was doing...'

87. I sit down to the piano regularly at nine-o'clock in the morning and Mesdames les Muses have learned to be on time for that rendezvous.

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

89. Khomeini has offered us the opportunity to regain our frail religion ... faith in the power of words.

90. I never tire of reading Tom Paine.

91. I believe firmly in the efficacy of religion, in its powerful influence on a person's whole life. It helps immeasurably to meet the storms and stress of life and keep you attuned to the Divine inspiration. Without inspiration, we would perish.

92. That kid had heart.

93. Jordan seeks to play only one role, that of a model state. It is our aim to set an example for our Arab brethren, not one that they need follow but one that will inspire them to seek a higher, happier destiny within their own borders.

94. The first time I saw Peter what made the impression was the visual content of what he and Dudley Moore were doing. It was Not Only, But Also..., and Pete and Dud were dressed up as nuns and were bouncing up and down on a trampoline. I rolled off my seat. I thought I'd ever seen anything so hilarious or so surreal or so... well... beautiful. I spent the next four or five years trying to emulate that sort of visual surprise. ~ Terry Jones

95. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

96. She would rather light a candle than curse the darkness, and her glow has warmed the world.

97. He had that quality for which the Africans, who know how to appreciate it, have found a special term. 'Nommo' is the Bantu word for the gift of making life rather larger and more vivid for everyone else.

98. There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism.

99. Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.

100. The most beautiful things are those that madness prompts and reason writes.