Motivational and thought provoking quotations
As consultants, trainers and coaches we collect and develop a wide range of resources for use with our clients. Here are some of our favourite quotations listed by author. Ideal for use in a speech, at a conference or to illustrate a report or workshop. Scroll through, dip in or use your browser's search facility to find a particular source.
| "Have less, do less, be more!" | |
| "A career is wonderful, but you can't curl up with a career on a cold night!" | |
| "Practise random kindness and senseless acts of beauty." | |
| "Joy is peace dancing, peace is joy resting." | |
| "Life is too short to learn only from my own mistakes" | |
| "Turn your face to the sun and the shadows will fall behind you." | |
| "The instructions for thinking outside the box are printed on the outside." | |
| "Usually, the brain that contains the problem is the brain that contains the solution." | |
| "Ships in harbour are safe, but that's not what ships are built for." | |
| Alan Alda | "Ships in harbour are safe, but that's not what ships are built for." |
| Alan Kay | "The best way to predict the future is to invent it." |
| Albert Einstein | "Imagination is more important than knowledge." |
| Albert Einstein | "There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." |
| Andy Middleton | "If I weren't so busy, I'd get really excited!" |
| Anthony Robbins | "When you're green you grow; when you're ripe you rot." |
| Mahatma Ghandi | "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." |
| Babaji | "Become a dynamo of irrepressible joy." |
| Bernard Leach | "Perfection can be a fetish" |
| Brian Dyson, CEO of Coca Cola Enterprises | "Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them – work, family, health, friends and spirit and you're keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls – family, health, friends and spirit are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for balance in your life." |
| Buckminster Fuller | "There is nothing about a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly." |
| Buckminster Fuller | "The minute you begin to do what you want to do, it's a different kind of life." |
| Cher | "If grass can grow through concrete, then love can find you at any time in your life." |
| Cicero | "We are all motivated by a keen desire for praise, and the better a man is, the more he is inspired by glory." |
| Coco Chanel | "How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something, but to be someone." |
| Dalai Lama | "Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck." |
| Daniel Webster | "There is always room at the top." |
| Demosthenes | "Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises." |
| Edmund Rostand | "What is life, without a dream?" |
| Elbert Hubbard | "God will not look you over for medals, degrees, or diplomas, but for scars." |
| Emile Coue | "Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better." |
| Francis Drake | "You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore." |
| Gabrielle Roth | "If you just set people in motion, they'll heal themselves." |
| George Bernard Shaw | "I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life lived for its own sake. Life is no "brief candle" to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations." |
| George Bernard Shaw | "A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, The one I feed the most. And you know how you eat tells much about who you are!" |
| George Bernard Shaw | "Both optimists and pessimists contribute to the society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute." |
| George Eliot | "It's never too late to become what you might have been." |
| Gerald Jampolsky | "How simple it is to see that we can only be happy now, and there will never be a time when it is not now." |
| Goethe | "Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now." |
| Goethe | "Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least." |
| Groucho Marx | "Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself: "I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it." |
| Henry Ford | "Don't find fault find a remedy." |
| Henry Ford | "This company doesn't pay anybody. Only customers can do that. The company merely handles the money." |
| Henry James | "Nothing is so fatiguing as the hanging on of an uncompleted task." |
| Henry Mintzberg | "If you ask managers what they do, they will most likely tell you that they plan, organise, co-ordinate and control. Then watch what they do. Don't be surprised if you can't relate what you see to those four words." |
| Horace | "Adversity reveals genius, prosperity conceals it." |
| Jawaharlal Nehru | "Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents determinism; the way you play it is free will." |
| Jean Paul Sartre | "One is still what one is going to cease to be and already what one is going to become." |
| John Lennon | "Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans." |
| Jonas Salk | "Your dreams tell you what to do; your reason tells you how to do it." |
| Jonathon Swift | "May you live all the days of your life." |
| Katherine Hepburn | "If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun." |
| Les Brown | "You don't have to be great to get started, but you have to get started to be great." |
| Mark Twain | "Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." |
| Mitch Radcliffe | "A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any other invention in human history, with the possible exception of handguns and tequila." |
| Mother Theresa | "If you judge people, you have no time to love them." |
| Mother Theresa | "Be kind and merciful. Let no one ever come to you without coming away better and happier." |
| Nancy Mitford | "If one can't be happy, one must be amused...." |
| Og Mandino | "Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if he or she were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness, and understanding you can muster, and do so with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again." |
| Persian proverb | "A blind man who sees is better than a seeing man who is blind." |
| Queen Victoria | "We will not have failure – only success and new learning." |
| Ralph Waldo Emerson | "What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us." |
| Rebecca Fisher | "If you care about what people think about you, how will you ever know how you feel about you?" |
| Red Cloud, Sioux Chief | "I am poor and naked, but I am the chief of the nation. We do not want riches but we do want to train our children right. Riches would do us no good. We could not take them with us to the other world. We do not want riches. We want peace and love." |
| Richard Bach | "You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true." |
| Ralph Waldo Emerson | "Our chief want in life it somebody who will make us do what we can." |
| Robert Fritz | "Dreamers only dream, but creators bring their dreams into reality." |
| Robert Half | "The longer the excuse, the less likely it's the truth." |
| Robert McCloskey | "I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realise that what you heard is not what I meant." |
| Ruyard Kipling | "I keep six honest serving men." (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who |
| Samuel Johnson | "Nothing at all will be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome." |
| Somerset Maugham | "Look after your laundry, and your soul will look after itself." |
| Somerset Maugham | "It is a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it." |
| Stephen R. Covey | "An empowered organisation is one in which individuals have the knowledge, skill, desire, and opportunity to personally succeed in a way that leads to collective organisational success." |
| T S Eliot | "You will find that you survive humiliation. And that's an experience of incalculable value." |
| The Talmud | "Your heart will give you greater teachings than all the world's scholars." |
| Thomas Edison | "If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves." |
| Vincent T Lombardi | "The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of endeavour." |
| Walt Disney | "It's kind of fun to do the impossible." |
| Werner Erhard | "We can choose to make our love for each other what our lives are really about." |
| William Blake | "As a man is, so he sees." |
| William James | "People are where they are because that's exactly where they really want to be...whether they'll admit that or not." |
| William Purkey | "Dance like no one is watching, Love like you'll never be hurt, Sing like no one is listening, Live like it's heaven on earth." |
| Winston Churchill | "Personally, I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught." |
| Winston Churchill | "I am easily satisfied with the very best." |
| Winston Churchill | "The price of greatness is responsibility." |
Free governance report for directors
Good corporate governance requires the performance of the board to be evaluated at least once a year.
CorporateCoach
e-newsletter
For executives and teams in organisations interested in using coaching to improve corporate performance.
Resources
Access these special resources on-line.
Directors e-course
FREE 26 week distance learning foundation programme covering new director needs, strategy planning and board processes.
Training Needs Analysis
FREE on-line tool to help discover your strengths and development needs, and prepare a personal development plan.
Learn more »
CorporateCoach
FREE newsletter for executives and teams in organisations interested in using coaching to improve corporate performance.
Read more and subscribe »
Training Resources
Downloadable games, training resources, and analysis tools designed for individuals and teams in organisations.
Wealth Dynamics
Wealth Dynamics profiling shows you not only which path to follow, but also who you should work with to leverage your talent.
Learn more »
Contact us
Find out how Brefi Group can help with organisation development, corporate governance, or coach training.
Contact us »Video selection
Demonstration of Coaching on a Credit Card
Latest Articles
Latest videos
Most Viewed
Personal Links
Get in touch
Talk to one of our consultants to find out more: –
Phone: 0845 0678 222 (UK)
Phone: +44 121 236 4068 (Int.)
Email: contact form
Brefi Group
Brefi Group helps individuals and teams in organisations to discover and achieve their potential so that they become more effective with less stress.
Learn more »Director Development
The Director Development Centre audits corporate governance and helps directors and boards become more effective by clarifying goals and improving communication.
Learn more »ASEC Coach Training
The ASEC School of Executive coaching provides coach training programs for managers and coaches throughout Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Learn more »