Inspiring Quotes from the Famous (A-C)

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QUOTES FROM THE FAMOUS - with thanks to Tony Cooke Ministries.

 

ACCOMPLISHMENT: "I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can 

do something. And that which I can do, by the grace of God, I will do." - Dwight L. Moody 

 

ACCOUNTABILITY: “My greatest thought is my accountability to God.”- Daniel Webster

 

ACHIEVEMENT: “Four steps to achievement: 1. Plan purposefully. 

2. Prepare prayerfully. 3. Proceed positively. 4. Pursue persistently.” - William A. Ward

 

"The world of achievement has always belonged to the optimist." - J. Harold Wilkins

 

"Achievers are resolute in their goals and driven by determination. Discouragement 

is temporary, obstacles are overcome, and doubt is defeated, yielding to personal victory. 

You need to overcome the tug of people against you as you reach for high goals. Accept 

the challenges, so that you may feel the exhilaration of victory." - General George S. Patton

 

ACTION: “Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”- John Wooden

 

“Better that we should err in action than wholly refuse to perform. The storm is so much better than the calm, as it declares the presence of a living principle. Stagnation is something worse than death. It is corruption also” - William Gilmore Sims

 

"No man has a right to lead such a life of contemplation as to forget in his own ease the service due to his neighbour; nor has any man a right to be so immersed in active life as the neglect the contemplation of God." - Augustine of Hippo

 

"Nobody makes a greater mistake than he who does nothing because he could only do a little."

- Edmund Burke. "Nothing will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must first be overcome." - Samuel Johnson “Speak little, do much.” - Benjamin Franklin

 

"Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future run over him."- Dwight D. Eisenhower

 

"Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigours of the mind." - Leonardo da Vinci

 

"The Bible says, ‘Where there is no vision, the people perish.’ Have you a vision? And are you undeviatingly pressing and pushing toward its accomplishment? Dreaming alone will not get you there. Mix your dreams with determination and action."- B.C. Forbes

 

"Well done is better than well said."- Benjamin Franklin "Our grand business is not to see what lies dimly in the distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand." - Thomas Carlyle

 

"The only good thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good man to do nothing."

- Edmund Burke 

“The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of.” - C. S. Lewis

 

“As I grow older I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.”

- Andrew Carnegie

 

ADVENTURE: 

"Every forward step achieved by man has been due to the adventurous attitude. This attitude inspires dissatisfaction with the world as it is; it arouses the desire to change and improve things. The attitude of adventure is the flame that lights the fuse to explode new ideas."- Wilfred A. Peterson 

"Cowards falter, but danger is often overcome by those who nobly dare."- Queen Mother 

"It's kind of fun to do the impossible."- Walt Disney 

"The sea is dangerous and its storms terrible, but these obstacles have never been sufficient reason to remain ashore...unlike the mediocre, intrepid spirits seek victory over those things that seem impossible...it is with an iron will that they embark on the most daring of all endeavors...to meet the shadowy future without fear and conquer the unknown."

- Ferdinand Magellan, Explorer

 

PERSERVERANCE: “By faith and perserverance the snail reached the Ark.” 

 

ADVENTURE: "Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."- Helen Keller

 

ADVERSITY: "A diamond is a chunk of coal that made good under pressure." - Unknown

"Adversity causes some men to break, others to break records." - William A. Ward

"Adversity introduces a man to himself." - Anonymous

 

AFFIRMATION: "Commendation heals; condemnation destroys." - Carl Jung

 

AGE: "Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young." - Henry Ford

 

There are four ages of man: (1) When you believe in Santa Claus. (2) When you don't believe in Santa Claus. (3) When you are Santa Claus. (4) When you look like Santa Claus.

 

"Childhood: the time in life when you make funny faces in the mirror. 

Middle age: the time of life when the mirror gets even." - Unknown 

 

"Men do not quit playing because they grow old; they grow old because they quit playing" - Oliver Wendell Holmes

 

ANONYMITY: "There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit."- Ronald Reagan 

 

ANGER: "Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools."- Albert Einstein 

"Whatever is begun in anger, ends in shame."- Benjamin Franklin "How much more 

grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it." - Marcus Aurelius 

"The world needs anger. The world often continues to allow evil because it isn't angry enough."- Bede Jarrett

"When a man is wrong and won’t admit it, he always gets angry."- Haliburton

"As a girl my temper often got out of bounds. But one day when I became angry 

at a friend over some trivial matter, my mother said to me, ‘Elizabeth, anyone who 

angers you conquers you.’"- Elizabeth Kenny 

"No person is important enough to make me angry."- Carlos Castaneda 

 

ANXIETY: "Anxiety is the natural result when our hopes are centered in anything short of God and His will for us."- Billy Graham

 

ANYWAY: “People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered. Love them anyway!

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Do good anyway!

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway!

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway!

Honesty and frankness will make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway!

The biggest people with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest people with the smallest minds. Think big anyway! 

People favour underdogs but follow only top dogs. Fight for some underdogs anyway!

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway!

People really need help but may attack you if you help them. Help people anyway!

Give the world the best you have and you will get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway!”- Unknown

 

APATHY: “Everywhere there is apathy. Nobody cares whether that which is preached is true or false. A sermon is a sermon whatever the subject; only, the shorter it is, the better.”- Charles Spurgeon

 

APPRECIATION: “The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.”- William James

 

ASSOCIATION: "Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your 

own reputation, for ‘tis better to be alone than in bad company."- George Washington

"Tell me with whom thou art found, and I will tell thee who thou art."- Johann Von Goethe

 

ASSURANCE: “About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

- John Wesley, referring to his experience on Aldersgate Street

 

ASPIRATION: "When you reach for the stars, you may not quite get one, 

but you won’t come up with a handful of mud either."- Leo Burnett

 

ATTITUDE: "A great attitude is not the result of success; 

success is the result of a great attitude." - Earl Nightingale

 

"Ability is what you're capable of doing. 

Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it." - Lou Holtz

 

"Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure. The way you think about a fact may defeat you before you ever do anything about it. You are overcome by the fact because you think you are" - Norman V Peale

 

"The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a company… a church…a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past…we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude…I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you…we are in charge of our Attitudes." - Charles Swindoll 

 

"The last of all human freedoms is the ability to choose one’s own attitude in any set of circumstances."- Victor Frankl, Nazi Concentration Camp Survivor

"Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal. 

Nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude."- Thomas Jefferson 

 

"I have resolved that from this day on, I will do all the business I can honestly, have all the fun I can reasonably, do all the good I can willingly, and save my digestion by thinking pleasantly."- Robert Louis Stevenson 

 

"Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right."- Henry Ford 

"Keep your heart right, even when it is sorely wounded."- J.C. Macaulay 

 

"The pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; 

the optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."- Winston Churchill 

 

AVOIDANCE: "There is no problem so big it cannot be run away from."- Charles Schulz

 

BELIEF: "I believe in the sun even when it is not shining. I believe in love even when not feeling it. I believe in God even when He is silent."- Inscription on a wall in a cellar in Cologne. 

"Believe in dreams. Never believe in hurts… You can’t let the grief and the hurts and the breaking experiences of life control your future decisions." - Robert H. Schuller 

 

BIBLE: “It is easier for me to have faith in the Bible than to have faith in D.L. Moody, 

for Moody has failed me lots of times.”- D.L. Moody 

“Men do not reject the Bible because it contradicts itself, but because it contradicts them."- E. Paul Hovey

 

BIBLE STUDY: “In our prayers, we talk to God, in our Bible study, God talks to us, and we had better let God do most of the talking.”- D.L. Moody

 

BOOKS: "It is a man’s duty to have books. A library is not a luxury, but one of the necessaries of life." - Henry Ward Beecher 

"No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, 

or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance."- Atwood H. Townsend 

"Do not deny yourself the help of good books on the subject of your lessons. Buy, borrow or beg, if necessary, but obtain somehow the help of the best thinkers, enough at least to stimulate your own thought; but do not read without thinking. If possible, talk the lesson over with an intelligent friend; collision often brings light."- John Milton Gregory

 

CHARACTER: “We have all heard the story of the man who preached so well and lived so badly, that when he was in the pulpit everybody said he ought never to come out again, and when he was out of it they all declared he never ought to enter it again.”- Charles Spurgeon

“Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses or avoids.” Aristotle. "We set young leaders up for a fall if we encourage them to envision what they can do before they consider the kind of person they should be." - Ruth Barton 

 

"The line of least resistance makes crooked rivers and crooked men."- Bob Murphey 

"Character is the most effective means of persuasion."- Aristotle 

"Character is power."- Booker T. Washington 

"Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to stay there."- John Wooden

"To be persuasive, we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; 

to be credible, we must be truthful." - Edward R. Murrow

 

"Character is what you are in the dark."- D.L. Moody

"Your character is what you really are. Your reputation is only what others think you are."

“The measure of a man’s real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.”- Thomas B. Macaula

“If I take care of my character, my reputation will take care of itself.”- Dwight L. Moody

 

CHANGE: “The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one 

comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't.” - Henry Ward Beecher

“Little men with little minds and little imaginations go through life in little ruts, 

smugly resisting all changes which would jar their little worlds.”- Unknown

"If you want to make enemies, try to change something."- Woodrow Wilson

"When you’re through changing, you’re through." - Bruce Barton

"Many men today will change wives, children, businesses, anything, 

rather than change themselves. Real men face change and reality."- Ed Cole

"Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds 

cannot change anything."- George Bernard Shaw

 

CHEERFULNESS: "You find yourself refreshed by the presence of cheerful people. 

Why not make an honest effort to confer that pleasure on others?”- Lydia M. Child

 

CHILDREN: “Great ideals and principles do not live from generation to generation just 

because they are right, nor even because they have been carefully legislated. 

Ideals and principles continue from generation to generation only when they are built 

into the hearts of children as they grow up.”- George S. Benson

 

CHOICES: "Life is the sum of all your choices."- Albert Camus

 

CHRIST: “If you make a great deal of Christ, He will make a great deal of you; 

but if you make but a little of Christ, Christ will make but a little of you.”- R.A. Torrey

 

CHRISTIAN LIVING: “Live as though Christ died yesterday, rose from the grave today, 

and is coming back tomorrow.”- Theodore Epp

 

CHRISTIANITY: “He who shall introduce into public affairs the principles of 

primitive Christianity will change the face of the world.”- Benjamin Franklin

 

CHRIST-LIKENESS: "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. 

Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." - Mohandas Gandhi

 

CHURCH: “The church is the only cooperative society in the world that exists 

for the benefit of its non-members.” - William Temple

 

CIRCUMSTANCES: "People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. 

I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people 

who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, 

make them." - George Bernard Shaw 

 

CITIZENSHIP: "A Christian's first duty is to God. It then follows, as a matter of course, 

that it is his duty to carry his Christian code to the polls and vote them... 

If Christians should vote their duty to God at the polls, they would carry every election, 

and do it with ease... it would bring about a moral revolution that would be 

incalculably beneficent. It would save the country."- Mark Twain

"If America is to survive, we must elect more God-centered men and women to public office; individuals who will seek Divine guidance in the affairs of state." - Billy Graham

 

COMFORT: “If I had my ministry over again, I would devote far more time to the ministry 

of comfort and encouragement.”- F.B. Meyer

 

COMMITMENT: "There's a difference between interest and commitment. 

When you are interested in doing something, you do it only when it is convenient. 

When you are committed to something, you accept no excuses."- Ken Blanchard

“And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour.”

- The last sentence of the Declaration of Independence

 

COMPASSION: "He jests at scars that never felt a wound."- Shakespeare

"Believe me, every man has his secret sorrows, which the world knows not; 

and oftentimes we call a man cold when he is only sad." - Longfellow

"How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate 

with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. 

Because someday in your life you will have been all of these." - George Washington Carver

 

COMPETITION: "The only competition worthy of a wise man is with himself." - W. Allston 

Are we driven people, propelled by the winds of our times, pressed to conform or compete? Or are we called people, the recipients of the gracious beckoning of Christ when he promises to make us into something?"- Gordon MacDonald 

 

COMPETITIVENESS: "I never did say that you can't be a nice guy and win. I said that if 

I was playing third base and my mother rounded third with the winning run, I'd trip her up."

 

COMPLAINING:

"I personally think we developed language because of our deep need to complain."- Lily Tomlin

 

COMPROMISE: "As Christians, we must never compromise our faith with evil. It is often appropriate, however, to compromise with each other when no sin or evil intent is involved."

 

COMPULSION: "A driven person is usually caught in the uncontrolled pursuit of expansion… rarely having any time to appreciate the achievements to date. They are usually too busy for the pursuit of ordinary relationships in marriage, family, or friendship… not to speak of one with God."- Gordon MacDonald 

 

CONCLUSION: "A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking."- Unknown 

 

CONFLICT: "Never get in a spittin’ match with a skunk. Even if you win, you come out smelling bad."

 

CONFLICT MANAGEMENT: “The option for human beings, however, is not whether to experience conflict or not. The only choice is whether this conflict will be managed constructively or destructively.” - Douglas Lewis.

 

CONDUCT: "Remember, people will judge you by your actions, not your intentions. 

You may have a heart of gold -- but so does a hard-boiled egg."- Unknown

 

CONQUEST: "We cannot lower the mountain, therefore we must elevate ourselves."- T Skinner

 

CONSCIENCE: "A good conscience is a continual Christmas." - Benjamin Franklin 

"Most of us follow our conscience as we follow a wheelbarrow. 

We push it in front of us in the direction we want to go."- Billy Graham 

Throughout his administration, Abraham Lincoln was a president under fire, especially during the scarring years of the Civil War. And though he knew he would make errors of office, 

he resolved never to compromise his integrity. So strong was this resolve that he once said, "I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end, when I come to lay down the reins of power, I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me."

 

"Conscience," said an Indian, "is a three-cornered thing in my heart that stands still when I am good, but when I am bad, it turns around and the corners hurt a lot. If I keep on doing wrong, the corners wear off and it does not hurt anymore." 

 

CONSECRATION: “No one can sum up all God is able to accomplish through one solitary life, 

wholly yielded, adjusted, and obedient to Him.”- D.L. Moody

"Because I know that I am not my own master, 

I offer my heart as a true sacrifice to the Lord." - John Calvin

A group of ministers were once talking about a minister they could bring in for a 

city-wide revival. D.L. Moody's name was brought up and many concurred.

One minister said, "D.L. Moody doesn't have a monopoly on God."

Another responded: "No, but it's obvious that God has a monopoly on D.L. Moody."

"The mark of a saint is not perfection, but consecration. A saint is not a person without faults, but a man who has given himself without reserve to God." - Bishop Wescott

 

CONDUCT: "Resolved: that all men should live to the glory of God. 

Resolved second: that whether others do or not, I will."- Jonathon Edwards

 

CONSISTENCY: "I have observed very frequently that it is not the man who is so brilliant 

who delivers in times of stress and strain, but rather the man who can keep on 

going indefinitely doing a good, straightforward job". - D.D. Eisenhower 

 

CONTENTMENT: "It’s good to have money and the things that money can buy, 

but it’s good too, to check up once in a while and make sure you haven’t lost 

the things that money can’t buy." - George Horace Lorimer

 

CONTRIBUTION: "When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die." E. Roosevelt

 

CONTROL: “Control is when you leverage the strength of your position or personality against the weakness of someone else’s in order to get that person to meet your selfish agenda.”

 

CONSEQUENCES: "If you do what you should not, you must bear what you would not." - Benjamin Franklin 

“The ultimate effect of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.”

 

COVETOUSNESS: "Many speak the truth when they say that they despise riches, 

but they mean the riches possessed by other men."- Charles Cale Colton

 

COURAGE: "A man is a hero, not because he is braver than anyone else, but because he is brave for ten minutes longer." - Emerson

"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen." - Winston Churchill

 

CREATION: "I look at the universe and know there’s an architect."- Jack Anderson 

 

CREATIVITY: "Necessity is the mother of invention." - Jonathan Swift

"We bury the men who do the nation’s creative work under layers of administrators and mountains of memoranda. We shrivel creativity by endless frustrations."- Admiral Rickover 

"Necessity may be the mother of invention, but play is certainly the father." - Roger von Oech 

"The secret of creativity is knowing how to hide your sources." - Albert Einstein. 

"Creative solutions are, by definition, solutions that are untried. They involve risk and require you to make decisions that often do not meet with immediate, universal acceptance." - Oldach 

 

CRITICISM: "To escape criticism—do nothing, say nothing, be nothing." - Elbert Hubbard

"The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise, than saved by criticism."- Norman Vincent Peale 

"The strength of criticism lies in the weakness of the thing criticized." - Longfellow

"A wise man gets more out of his enemies, than a fool gets out of his friends." - B Gracian

"When love and skill work together expect a masterpiece." - John Ruskin

"Cynics and critics wake us up. Kindness often covers up the truth and 

allows us to sleep on in our ignorance." - Wilfred A Peterson.

 

One time preacher Dwight L. Moody was criticized because of the evangelistic methods he used. Moody replied, "I like my way of doing it better than your way of not doing it."

"A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks 

that others throw at him." - David Brinkley

"Life would be a perpetual flea hunt if a man were obliged to run down all the innuendoes, inveracities, insinuations and misrepresentations which are uttered against him."- Beecher.

 

*TV personality Gary Moore had a special way of handling criticism. Whenever he would receive a particularly nasty letter, he would send it back with a note: "The enclosed letter arrived on my desk a few days ago. I am sending it to you in the belief that as a responsible citizen you should know that some idiot is sending out letters over your signature."

 

CRITICISM: "If I tried to read, much less answer, all the criticisms made of me, and all the attacks leveled against me, this office would have to be closed for all other business. I do the best I know how, the very best I can. And I mean to keep on doing this, down to the very end. If the end brings me out all wrong, ten angels swearing I had been right would make no difference. If the end brings me out all right, then what is said against me now will not amount to anything." - Abraham Lincoln 

 

"Get a friend to tell you your faults, or better still, welcome an enemy who will watch you keenly and sting you savagely. What a blessing such an irritating critic will be to a wise man, what an intolerable nuisance to a fool!"– Charles Spurgeon 

 

CULTURE: "The men in the Lewis and Clark expedition thought of themselves as explorers, not a war party. This has to be our attitude toward contemporary culture - we are not at war with them; we are explorers looking for the initiation of God’s kingdom in the culture, so we can come alongside it as ambassadors of His kingdom and partner with Him."- Todd Hunter 

 

CURIOSITY: "Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect." - Samuel Johnson

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tires merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.”- Albert Einstein

 

CYNICISM: "Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack."