If you’ve ever wished things could be different, you’re not alone. Every great innovator had a desire to create something new and wonderful―and with all the ways to get things done today, opportunity is at an all-time high.
All you need is a sharp imagination to get going. Create your own reality with some inspiration from these 88 motivating quotes.
Inspirational quotes for imagination
- “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” ―Albert Einstein
- “The man who has no imagination has no wings.” ―Muhammad Ali
- “What is now proved was once only imagined.” ―William Blake
- “You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” ―Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
- “Live out of your imagination, not your history.” ―Stephen R. Covey
- “Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine, and at last, you create what you will.” ―George Bernard Shaw
- “Imagination creates reality.” ―Neville Goddard
- “Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.” ―Gloria Steinem
- “You’re only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it.” ―Robin Williams
- “The imagination is the golden pathway to everywhere.” ―Terence McKenna
- “Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model.” ―Vincent Van Gogh
- “You have all the reason in the world to achieve your grandest dreams. Imagination plus innovation equals realization.” ―Denis Waitley
- “Trust that little voice in your head that says, ‘Wouldn’t it be interesting if…’; and then do it.” ―Duane Michals
- “If you fall in love with the imagination, you understand that it is a free spirit. It will go anywhere, and it can do anything.” ―Alice Walker
- “To bring anything into your life, imagine that it’s already there.” ―Richard Bach
- “I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” ―Albert Einstein
Inspirational quotes about life
- “We always may be what we might have been.” ―Adelaide Anne Procter
- “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” —C.S. Lewis
- “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” ―Oscar Wilde
- “You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching, love like you’ll never be hurt, sing like there’s nobody listening, and live like it’s heaven on earth.” ―William W. Purkey
- “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” ―Mahatma Gandhi
- “Optimism is a happiness magnet. If you stay positive, good things and good people will be drawn to you.” —Mary Lou Retton
- “May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.” ―Nelson Mandela
- “If you’re not positive energy, you’re negative energy.” —Mark Cuban
- “Inspiration comes from within yourself. One has to be positive. When you’re positive, good things happen.” —Deep Roy
- “I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.” —Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
- “You can’t rely on how you look to sustain you, what sustains us, what is fundamentally beautiful is compassion; for yourself and your those around you.” —Lupita Nyong’o
- “Everything you can imagine is real.” ―Pablo Picasso
- “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” ―George Bernard Shaw
- “And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” ―Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
- “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people just exist.” —Oscar Wilde
- “If you prioritize yourself, you are going to save yourself.” — Gabrielle Union
Inspirational quotes about hope and happiness
- “Keep your face always towards the sunshine, and the shadows will fall behind you.” —M.B. Whitman
- “You do not find the happy life. You make it.” —Camilla Eyring Kimball
- “Where there’s hope, there’s life. It fills us with fresh courage and makes us strong again.” —Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl
- “Happiness is not something readymade; it comes from your own actions.” —Dalai Lama
- “You’re braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” —Carter Crocker and Karl Geurs, Pooh’s Grand Adventure
- “When your dreams are bigger than the places you find yourself in, sometimes you need to seek out your own reminders that there is more. And there is always more waiting for you on the other side of fear.” ―Elaine Welteroth
- “Try to be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud.” —Maya Angelou
- “To have complete satisfaction from flowers, you must have time to spend with them.” —Grace Kelly
- “Once you face your fear, nothing is ever as hard as you think.” —Olivia Newton-John
- “Some people look for a beautiful place. Others make a place beautiful.” —Hazrat Inayat Khan
- “Stay close to anything that makes you glad you are alive.” —Hafez
- “If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.” —Booker T. Washington
- “It has always been easy to hate and destroy. To build and to cherish is much more difficult.” —Queen Elizabeth II
- “Develop an attitude of gratitude. Say thank you to everyone you meet for everything you do.” —Brian Tracy
- “Try to be like the turtle—at ease in your own shell.” ―Bill Copeland
- “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” ―Mahatma Gandhi
- “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” ―Albert Einstein
Inspirational quotes about confidence
- “Your self-worth is determined by you. You don’t have to depend on someone telling you who you are.” —Beyoncé
- “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” —Walt Disney
- “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.” —Henry David Thoreau
- “Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.” ―Helen Keller
- “We generate fears while we sit. We overcome them by action. Fear is nature’s way of warning us to get busy.” ―Dr. Henry Link
- “The man who has confidence in himself gains the confidence of others.” ―Hasidic proverb
- “Fake it until you make it! Act as if you had all the confidence you require until it becomes your reality.” ―Brian Tracy
- “There is nothing impossible to they who will try.” —Alexander the Great
- “Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.” ―Vince Lombardi
- “You define your own life. Don’t let other people write your script.” —Oprah Winfrey
- “You make a choice: continue living your life feeling muddled in this abyss of self-misunderstanding, or you find your identity independent of it. You draw your own box.” —Meghan Markle
- “Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn’t have the power to say yes.” —Eleanor Roosevelt
- “We become what we think about.” ―Earl Nightingale
- “There are no limits to what you can accomplish, except the limits you place on your own thinking.” ―Brian Tracy
- “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” — Alice Walker
Inspirational quotes about motivation
- “Let us make our future now, and let us make our dreams tomorrow’s reality.” —Malala Yousafzai
- “Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them.” —Madam C.J. Walker
- “All dreams are within reach. All you have to do is keep moving towards them.” —Viola Davis
- “What you lack in talent can be made up with desire, hustle and giving 110% all the time.” ―Don Zimmer
- “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” —Norman Vincent Peale
- “Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” —Theodore Roosevelt
- “Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.” —Ella Fitzgerald
- “What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.” —Zig Ziglar
- “Remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” —Henry Ford
Inspirational quotes for difficult times
- “If one window closes, run to the next window—or break down a door.” ―Brooke Shields
- “Leaders never use the word ‘failure.’ They look upon setbacks as learning experiences.” ―Brian Tracy
- “Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.” ―Will Rogers
- “You may encounter many defeats, but you just must never be defeated.” ―Maya Angelou
- “I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.” ―Jimmy Dean
- “We will fail when we fail to try.” —Rosa Parks
- “It is the same with people as it is with riding a bike. Only when moving can one comfortably maintain one’s balance.” —Albert Einstein
- “Tough times never last, but tough people do.” —Robert H. Schuller
- “If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.” —Dolly Parton
- “There is always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.” —Amanda Gorman
- “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” ―Thomas A. Edison
- “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 which has been opened for us.” ―Helen Keller
- “Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.” —Truman Capote
- “Hard things will happen to us. We will recover. We will learn from it. We will grow more resilient because of it.” —Taylor Swift
- “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: It goes on.” —Robert Frost
This article was updated June 2024. Photo by maxbelchenko/Shutterstock.com
