Top 25 Inspirational Quotes by Famous Personalities
by Dibyayan_Chakravorty | created - 08 Oct 2015 | updated - 21 Oct 2015 | PublicThis poll is in celebration of the 25th Anniversary of IMDb.
Which of these 25 quotes by famous personalities do you consider as the most inspirational?
You may discuss the poll here.
1. Albert Einstein
Writer | Schooling the World
Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Kingdom of Württemberg, to a German Jewish family. He was the son of Pauline (Koch) and Hermann Einstein, a featherbed salesman. Albert began reading and studying science at a young age, and he graduated from a Swiss high school when he was 17. He then attended a ...
"Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value."
2. Mark Twain
Writer | Big River
Mark Twain, born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in Florida, Missouri in 1835, grew up in Hannibal. He was a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River. Throughout his career, Twain served as a writer, lecturer, reporter, editor, printer, and prospector. Twain took his pen name from an alert cry used on his...
"The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why."
3. Theodore Roosevelt
Writer | Simple Gifts
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (October 27, 1858 - January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or his initials T. R., was an American politician, statesman, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. He previously served as ...
"Believe you can and you’re halfway there."
4. Martin Luther King
Soundtrack | Freedom Writers
Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. He was the son of Alberta Christine (Williams), a schoolteacher, and Martin Luther King Sr. a pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. For Martin the civil rights movement began one summer in 1935 when he was six ...
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
5. John Lennon
Actor | A Hard Day's Night
John Winston (later Ono) Lennon was born on October 9, 1940, in Liverpool, England, to Julia Lennon (née Stanley) and Alfred Lennon, a merchant seaman. He was raised by his mother's older sister Mimi Smith. In the mid-1950s, he formed his first band, The Quarrymen (after Quarry Bank High School, ...
"Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans."
6. Florence Nightingale
English nurse and hospital reformer. Florence Nightingale was named after the place of her birth in Italy. Educated at home by their wealthy, well-bred father, Nightingale and her older sister Parthenope studied history, philosophy, mathematics, and classics; they also wrote weekly compositions. ...
"I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse."
7. Steve Jobs
Producer | Toy Story
Steven Paul Jobs was born on 24 February 1955 in San Francisco, California, to students Abdul Fattah Jandali and Joanne Carole Schieble who were unmarried at the time and gave him up for adoption. He was taken in by a working class couple, Paul and Clara Jobs, and grew up with them in Mountain View...
"Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life."
8. Frank Sinatra
Actor | From Here to Eternity
Frank Sinatra was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Italian immigrants Natalina Della (Garaventa), from Northern Italy, and Saverio Antonino Martino Sinatra, a Sicilian boxer, fireman, and bar owner. Growing up on the gritty streets of Hoboken made Sinatra determined to work hard to get ahead. ...
"The best revenge is massive success."
9. Vincent van Gogh
Writer | Vincent Van Gogh - Der Weg nach Courrières
Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853, in Zundert, Netherlands. His father, named Theodorus van Gogh, was a Protestant minister. His mother, named Anna Cornelia Carbentus, was a daughter of the "book-binder to the King" Willem Carbentus; who had bound the first Consitution of Holland. ...
"If you hear a voice within you say “you cannot paint,” then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced."
10. The Dalai Lama
His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama (born Lhamo Döndrub, also known by his religious name, Tenzin Gyatso, shortened from Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso), is Tibet's head of state as well as the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people. He was recognized at age 2 as the reincarnation...
"Happiness is not something readymade. It comes from your own actions."
11. Helen Keller
Writer | Whirlpool
Helen Keller contracted a virulent childhood disease which resulted in complete loss of sight and hearing at nineteen months. Her parents futilely sought help for her, as did family friend Alexander Graham Bell. Finally, when Keller was seven, Annie Sullivan, a young teacher, was hired by the ...
"When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us."
12. Bob Dylan
Soundtrack | Renaldo and Clara
Robert Allen Zimmerman was born 24 May 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota; his father Abe worked for the Standard Oil Co. Six years later the family moved to Hibbing, often the coldest place in the US, where he taught himself piano and guitar and formed several high school rock bands. In 1959 he entered the...
"What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do."
13. Vincent Lombardi
Actor | Paper Lion
Vincent Lombardi was born on June 11, 1913 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Paper Lion (1968), Second Effort (1968) and The NFL on CBS (1956). He was married to Marie Lombardi. He died on September 3, 1970 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.
"Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is."
14. Norman Vaughan
Actor | Twinky
Norman Vaughan was born on April 10, 1923 in West Derby, Liverpool, Lancashire [now in Merseyside], England, UK. He was a writer and actor, known for London Affair (1970), Bullseye (1981) and Come Play with Me (1977). He was married to Bernice. He died on May 17, 2002 in Whitechapel, Tower Hamlets,...
"Dream big and dare to fail."
15. Oprah Winfrey
Producer | The Oprah Winfrey Show
Oprah Gail Winfrey , often known simply as Oprah, is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, broadcast from Chicago, which was the highest-rated television program of its kind in history and ...
"If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more. If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough."
16. Abraham Lincoln
Writer | Lincoln's Gettysburg Address
Abraham Lincoln was an American politician from Kentucky. He was the second presidential candidate of the then-new Republican Party, following John Charles Frémont (1813 - 1890). He served as President of the United States from 1861 to 1865, during the American Civil War. He was assassinated in ...
"It’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years."
17. Audrey Hepburn
Actress | Breakfast at Tiffany's
Audrey Hepburn was born as Audrey Kathleen Ruston on May 4, 1929 in Ixelles, Brussels, Belgium. Her mother, Baroness Ella Van Heemstra, was a Dutch noblewoman, while her father, Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston, was born in Úzice, Bohemia, to English and Austrian parents.
After her parents' divorce, ...
"Nothing is impossible, the word itself says, “I’m possible!”"
18. Eleanor Roosevelt
Writer | Women in Defense
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist. She served as the first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four terms in office, making her the longest-serving first lady of the United States. Roosevelt ...
"Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
19. Henry Ford
Writer | Upcoming Ford Project
Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 - April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that middle-class Americans could afford, he converted the ...
"When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it."
20. Jesus Christ
"Ask and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you."
21. Pablo Picasso
Art_department | Something's Gotta Give
Pablo Picasso, one of the most recognized figures of 20th century art, who co-created such styles as Cubism and Surrealism, was also among most innovative, influential, and prolific artists of all time.
He was born Pablo Ruiz Picasso on October 6, 1881, in Malaga, Spain. He was the first child of ...
"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up."
22. Plato
Writer | Frogs: World's First Film in Ancient Greek
One of the greatest Greek philosophers (considered the greatest Greek writer of prose by some), Plato, was born into an aristocratic Athenian family. He met Socrates around 407 BC and became his disciple in philosophy. Socrates was executed in 399 BC. Plato and fellow disciples took refuge under ...
"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light."
23. Maya Angelou
Actress | Poetic Justice
Maya Angelou was an American poet, singer, memoirist, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years. She received dozens of awards and more ...
"I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."
24. Confucius
Writer | Decodings
Chinese philosopher who was born Kong Qiu, with the formal name Kong Zhongni, in the state of Lu in what is now Shandong province. The second son of a minor aristocratic family that had fallen from power, Confucius was orphaned as a child and grew up in relative poverty. A voracious reader, he ...
"Everything has beauty, but not everyone can see."
25. Farrah Gray
Self | 18th Annual Trumpet Awards
"Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs."
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