Sometimes, all you need is the right inspirational quote to give you a little pick-me-up when you’re feeling down. Here are a few of our favourites that we’ve shared over the years.
Images by Ensuper (Shutterstock), Dchauy (Shutterstock), and Alex Jackson (Shutterstock).
10. “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
You may think luck is a superstition, but there actually is a difference between people who consider themselves lucky and those who consider themselves unlucky. Sometimes luck is just hard work in disguise.
9. “Nothing is less productive than doing what should not be done at all.”
Not everything needs to get done — and even fewer things need to get done now. True productivity relies on separating the urgent from the important, and the unimportant from everything else.
8. “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.”
Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal once said Inspiration is like food poisoning: it sprays out uncontrollably when you need it the least. But you’ll never get food poisoning if you don’t eat, and you’ll never get inspired if you don’t work toward something.
7. “A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit.”
It doesn’t matter if you’re in a position of “leadership” or not — a lot of the world’s best leadership advice applies to your personal life, too. Don’t be afraid to ask for credit when it matters, but don’t get greedy when it doesn’t matter.
6. “You can’t rest on your laurels. Your own body of work is yet to come.”
Sometimes you have to work really hard to achieve your goals, but other times they come easily. Regardless, you can’t be complacent: instead of taking a break when things go right, use it to build momentum. Your best work is always ahead of you.
5. “Try not to become a person of success. Rather, become a person of value.”
Success is great, but applying value to that success won’t necessarily make you happy. Being a good person will actually make you happy.
4. “A man’s gotta make at least one bet a day, else he could be walking around lucky and never know it.”
This quote may be from Jim Jones, but that doesn’t mean your bet has to be suicide for a cult leader. It just means sometimes even evil people have good advice, and we could all benefit from breaking out of our comfort zone and taking a few risks.
3. “Here is something false: You only live once.”
Despite the cries of YOLO across the internet, you don’t only get one chance in life to do what you want. Conventional wisdom, according to webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, says it takes about 7 years to master something — which means you’ve got 11 chances to do whatever you want. So don’t be afraid to spend a few years teaching yourself a valuable skill, or pursuing that dream career. If it doesn’t work out, you haven’t wasted your only life — just one of them.
2. “A smooth sea never made a skillful sailor.”
Whether you’re trying to learn something new or survive a wave of criticism, sometimes life hands you lemons. Whatever it is, though, you’ll be better off in the end for surviving it. A smooth sea never made a skillful sailor.
1. “Those who do not give a fuck change the world. The rest do not.”
It may not have been said by a famous philosopher or former president, but some of the best advice we’ve ever heard is that no matter what you do, people will judge you. You’ll never be able to escape it. Luckily, you don’t need everyone to like you — the only people that matter are your people. So let yourself do the embarrassing. Embrace the awkwardness. If you do, you’ll go a lot higher than those who care what everyone else thinks.
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