108 Quotes to Inspire Love, Happiness, and Freedom

Inspirational quotations are a powerful way to transform your heart and mind if you actually use them for more than a moment's inspiration.  Don't let the inspiration float by, but bring it fully into your consciousness, allowing it to alter your way of being.  Here are three ways to use inspiration quotations as seeds for positive change.

1. Reflect on a new quotation each morning to infuse each day with a larger perspective.
2. Choose a single quotation that addresses a habit you would like to change or a quality you would like to embody.  Then work with it for an extended period.  Post it in prominent places as a regular reminder.
3. Use a quotation as a starting point for a reflection, free-writing, or a blog post.

Spring symbolizes rebirth and regeneration.  As flowers break through the ground and a display of color appears all around us, may you use this offering of inspiration to become who you truly are in every possible way.

A Feast of Inspiring Quotations

• "A little kingdom I possess, where thoughts and feelings dwell; And very hard the task I find of governing it well." - Louisa May Alcott
• "There are two things over which you have complete dominion, authority and control - your mind and your mouth." - African Proverb
• "Silence is medication for sorrow." - Arab Proverb
• "This is what I am learning, at 82 years old: the main thing is to be in love with the search for truth." - Maya Angelou

• "If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment."  - Marcus Aurelius
• "You write in order to change the world…. The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it.”  - James Baldwin
• “Silence is so much more productive of wisdom and clarity in thinking.” - Ajahn Brahm
• "Grow old with me! The best is yet to be."  - Robert Browning
• “All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” - Martin Buber
• "If you haven't wept deeply, you haven't begun to meditate." - Achaan Chah
• "Enlightenment is ego's ultimate disappointment." - Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
• "A joyful life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe." - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
• "The more you are motivated by love, the more fearless and free your action will be." - The Dalai Lama
• "Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend - or a meaningful day." - The Dalai Lama
• “Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.” - The Dalai Lama
• “If we want spiritual development, the practice of patience is essential. - The Dalai Lama
• "I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom." - Simone de Beauvoir
• "Forgiveness is attention without judgment. It heals the one who forgives and the one who is forgiven." - Deepak Chopra
• "...with the power of compassion there is nothing that cannot be accomplished." - Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
• "To wish happiness for others, even for those who want to do us harm, is the source of consummate happiness." - Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
• "Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better." - Albert Einstein
• "The splitting of the atom has changed everything except for how we think." - Albert Einstein
• "What do we live for if not to make life less difficult for each other?" - George Eliot
• “To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children … to leave the world a better place … to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.  This is to have succeeded.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
• "If everything is noted, all your emotional difficulties will disappear. When you feel happy, don't get involved in happiness. When you feel sad, don't get involved with it. Whatever comes, don't worry, just be aware of it." - Dipa Ma

• “If you vanquish ego-clinging today, tonight you will be enlightened.” - Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
• "Spiritual experiences are like mist, they will evaporate." - Dudjom Rinpoche
• "People like you and I, though mortal of course like everyone else, do not grow old no matter how long we live." - Albert Einstein
• "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."- Albert Einstein
• "It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded, but the fear of pain or death." - Epictetus
• "To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream, not only plan, but also believe." - Anatole France
• “Who we are looking for is who is looking.” - St. Francis of Assisi
• "When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves."  - Viktor Frankl
• "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." - Viktor Frankl
• "Life is 10% what you make it, and 90% how you take it." - Ben Franklin
• "I was always looking outside myself for strength and confidence but it comes from within. It is there all the time." - Anna Freud
• "You must learn to be still in the midst of activity and to be vibrantly alive in repose." - Indira Gandhi
• “In a gentle way, you can shake the world.” - Mahatma Gandhi
• "The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others." - Mahatma Gandhi
• “As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world but in being able to remake ourselves.” - Mahatma Gandhi
• “In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.” - Mahatma Gandhi
• "Your pain is the breaking of the shell which encloses your understanding” - Kahlil Gibran
• “Love with attachment consists of waves of emotion, usually creating invisible iron chains.” - Goenka
• "Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy." - Thich Nhat Hanh
• “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” - Ernest Hemingway
• "Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own." - Robert Heinlein
• "I am free, no matter what rules surround me.  If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them.  I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do." - Robert Heinlein
• "Every thought you think and every word you say is an affirmation for your future."- Louise Hay
• "I believe in pink, I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner, I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls, I believe that tomorrow is another day, and I believe in miracles." - Audrey Hepburn
• "When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will finally know peace" - Jimi Hendrix
• "It's not the load that breaks you down; it's the way you carry it."- Lena Horne

• "There’s only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self." - Aldous Huxley
• "Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune." - William James
• "Human beings, by changing their inner attitudes, can change the outer aspects of their lives." - William James
• "Stress is an alarm clock that lets you know you're attached to something not true for you." - Byron Katie
• "Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing."  - Helen Keller
• "Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion." - Jack Kerouac
• "Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
• "Everybody can be great… because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
• "The guru cannot awaken you; all that he can do is to point out what is." - J. Krishnamurti
• "Here is my secret: I don't mind what happens." - J. Krishnamurti
• "Enlightenment is an accident, but some activities make you accident-prone." - J. Krishnamurti
• Forgiveness is giving up all hope of having had a better past. - Anne Lamott
• “People are are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.  - Abraham Lincoln
• "There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread." - Mother Teresa
• "We can begin to open our hearts to others when we have no hope of getting anything back. We just do it for its own sake." - Pema Chödrön
• "When you open the door and invite in all sentient beings as your guests, you have to drop your agenda." - Pema Chödrön
• “The most difficult times for many of us are the ones we give ourselves.” - Pema Chödrön
• Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better, it’s about befriending who we are. - Pema Chödrön
• "Discomfort of any kind becomes the basis for practice. We breathe in knowing our pain is shared." - Pema Chödrön
• “All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today.” - Proverb
• "When you are strong and healthy, You never think of sickness coming, But it descends with sudden force, Like a stroke of lightning.  When involved in worldly things, You never think of death’s approach; Quick it comes like thunder, Crashing round your head." - Milarepa
• "Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody’s business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy."

- Thomas Merton
• "The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a magnificent world in itself " - Henry Miller
• "Once conform, once do what others do because they do it, and a kind of lethargy steals over all the finer senses of the soul." Michel de Montaigne
• "What? You search? You would multiply yourself by ten, by a hundred? You seek followers? Seek zeros!" - "
Nietzsche
• "Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living.' - Anais Nin

• "We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are." - Anais Nin
• "After a few years of meditation practice we can even learn how to occasionally ignore ourselves. And what relief that can be!" - Wes Nisker
• "All of man's difficulties are causes by his inability to sit, quietly, in a room by himself." -  Pascal
• "The revolutionary artist does not only focus on the negative aspects of capitalist lives, but also creates visions of a revolutionary future." - Pablo Piccaso
• “Of all the Gods, Love is the best friend of humankind, the helper and healer of all ills that stand in the way of human happiness.” - Plato
• "All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream." - Edgar Allan Poe
• "The only journey is the journey within."  - Rainer Maria Rilke
• "The quieter you become, the more you can hear." - Ram Dass
• “Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine.” - Suzuki Roishi
• "Let silence take you to the core of life." - Rumi
• “Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious.” - Rumi
• "Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity."  - St. Augustine
• "What is it you want to change? Your hair, your face, your body? Why? For God is in love with all those things and he might weep when they are gone." - St. Catherine of Sienna
• “I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
• “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
• "Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace." - Albert Schweitzer
• "Compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind." - Albert Schweitzer
• "Begin at once to live and count each separate day as a separate life." - Seneca
• "The mind unlearns with difficulty what it has long learned." - Seneca
• "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss
• "A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone." - Thoreau
• "Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you." - Jean-Paul Sartre
• "Seeing into one's self-nature is seeing into nothingness. Seeing into nothingness is true seeing & eternal seeing" - Shen-Hui
• "Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty." - Socrates
• “The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.” - Socrates
• "For the very reason that we expect things to be good and beautiful, they won’t be. In genuine spirituality, we don't look for bliss." - Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
• “Ultimately, happiness comes down to choosing between the discomfort of becoming aware of your mental afflictions and the discomfort of being ruled by them.” - Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
• “As muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone, it could be argued that those who sit quietly and do nothing are making one of the best possible contributions to a world in turmoil.”  - Alan Watts
• "A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within." Eudora Welty
• "Whatever situation you're in: Send love, place it in God's hands, open your heart to everyone involved - and it will turn out miraculously." - Marianne Williamson
• “The world is too much with us: Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.” - Wordsworth

How do you use inspirational quotations to make a long-lasting positive change?

Thank you for your presence, I know your time is precious!  Don’t forget to sign up for my e-letter and get access to all the free self-development resources (e-books, mini-guides + worksheets) in the Always Well Within Library. May you be happy, well, and safe – always.  With love, Sandra

Images Wikimedia:  (1) Ram-Man (2) Sh1019 (3) S Sepp (4) Jörg Hempel