55 Inspiring Quotes: To Encourage and Defy the Impossible

“In quoting others, we cite ourselves.” ― Julio Cortázar, Around the Day in Eighty Worlds

Here's a little story about me.

I really love quotes.

It began as a happy accident when I was 18 years old, where I started to collect quotes as a form of coping mechanism during one of the hardest phases in my life.

Since then, the habit stuck and after almost a decade, I've amassed 1,500+ quotes (upon last count).

“I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.” ~ Marlene Dietrich (German-American actress and singer)

I've always been afraid.

What am I afraid you ask? Afraid that I do not know the way or even where would my destination would be in life. I would even admit that even if I knew them both, would it all be worth it in the end?

So, I've been fortunate to find words of wisdom through the ages, whether fictional or non-fictional from great individuals. They've successfully guided me true and steered me through the storm of life. If I had to say, I wouldn't be who I am today without them.

So today, on a spur of a life's moment just like any other, I decided to write this down to share to all. Do enjoy them and hope these quotes inspire you just as greatly as they did for me.

Without further adieu, I present the list for my top favourite 50 inspiring quotes that encourage us to defy the impossible.

1. “Don't believe in yourself who believes in me. Don't believe in me who believes in you. Believe in yourself who believes in you." ~ Unknown
2. "Any fool can run towards the light. It takes a master with courage to turn and face the darkness and shine his own light there." ~ Leslie Fieger
3. "Never forget that you are one of a kind. Never forget that if there weren't any need for you in all your uniqueness to be on this earth, you wouldn't be here in the first place. And never forget, no matter how overwhelming life's challenges and problems seem to be, that one person can make a difference in the world. In fact, it is always because of one person that all the changes that matter in the world come about. So be that one person." ~ R. Buckminster Fuller
4. "Each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible." ~ Viktor Frankl (Man's Search for Meaning)
5. “The strength of your life is measured by the strength of your will.” ~ Henry Van Dyke
6. “Character is how you treat those who can do nothing for you. " ~ Attributed to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
7. "Great heroes need great sorrows and burdens, or half their greatness goes unnoticed.." ~ Peter S.Beagle
8. "It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succor of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule." ~ Gandalf (The Lord of the Rings: Return of The King" by J.R.R. Tolkien)
9. "Sometimes you have to go up really high to see how small you are.." ~ Attributed to Neil Armstrong
10. “I shall pass through this world but once. And any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.” ~ Stephen Grellet
11. "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." ~ From Theodore Roosevelt’s famous speech (The Man in the Arena)
12. "Do not believe that he who seeks to comfort you lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life has much difficulty and sadness and remains far behind yours. Were it otherwise he would never have been able to find those words." ~ Rainer Maria Rilke
13. “Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.. ” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
14. “The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” ~ Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
15. "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by and that has made all the difference." ~ "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost
16. A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” ~ Greek Proverb
17. The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks; the long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, 'tis not too late to seek a newer world." ~ Tennyson
18. “The best teachers have showed me that things have to be done bit by bit. Nothing that means anything happens quickly--we only think it does. The motion of drawing back a bow and sending an arrow straight into a target takes only a split second, but it is a skill many years in the making. So it is with a life, anyone's life. I may list things that might be described as my accomplishments in these few pages, but they are only shadows of the larger truth, fragments separated from the whole cycle of becoming. And if I can tell an old-time story now about a man who is walking about, waudjoset ndatlokugan, a forest lodge man, alesakamigwi udlagwedewugan, it is because I spent many years walking about myself, listening to voices that came not just from the people but from animals and trees and stones.” ~ Joseph Bruchac, Author of "Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War Two"
19. “ [Galadriel]: “Why the Halfling..?” [Gandalf]: “I do not know. Saruman believes it is only great power that can hold evil in check.. but that is not what I have found. I found it is the small things..everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keeps the darkness at bay. Simple acts of kindness and love. Why Bilbo Baggins..? Perhaps it is because I am afraid. And he gives me courage.." ~ Gandalf to Galadriel, The Hobbit (2013) directed by Peter Jackson, based on J.R.R.Tolkien's novel.
20. "It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness, that is life." ~ Jean-Luc Picard
21. “Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. Their goals differed, but they all had this in common: that the step was first, the road new, the vision unborrowed, and the response they received — hatred. The great creators — the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors — stood alone against the men of their time. Every great new thought was opposed. Every great new invention was denounced. The first motor was considered foolish. The airplane was considered impossible. The power loom was considered vicious. Anesthesia was considered sinful. But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered and they paid. But they won.” ~ Ayn Rand (The Fountainhead)
22. "The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it." ~ Niccolo Machiavelli
23. “The courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle than the courage of a final moment; but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy." ~ John F. Kennedy
24. "People measure their esteem of each other by what each has, and not by what each is… Nothing can bring you peace but yourself." ~ Ralpho Waldo Emerson
25. Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have - life itself." ~ Walter Anderson
26. "The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it." ~ Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
27. “Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning (Attributed originally to Friedrich Nietzsche)
28. "You'll never reach your destination if you stop to throw stones at every dog that barks." ~ Winston Churchill
29. "There is no meaning to life except the meaning man gives his life by the unfolding of his powers." ~ Erich Fromm
30. "Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!" ~ Sylvester Stallone (Rocky Balboa)
31. "It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop. ~ Confucius
32. “By endurance we conquer.” ~ Ernest Shackleton
33. “I learned long ago that in order to heal my wounds, I must have the courage to face up to them.” ~ Paulo Coelho
34. "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms— to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” ~ Viktor Frankl (Man’s Search for Meaning)
35. "Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness." ~ Desmond Tutu
36. "Life becomes easier when you learn to accept the apology you never got." ~ Robert Brault
37. "Hope rises like a phoenix from the ashes of shattered dreams." ~ S.A. Sachs
38. "And when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” ~ Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
39. "A man must dream a long time in order to act with grandeur, and dreaming is nursed in darkness.” ~ Jean Genet
40. "To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
41. "The practical grounds the dreams of the theoretical. The theoretical gives flight to the realities of the practical." ~ Roboute Guilliman: Lord of Ultramar, in the Primarchs Series by David Annandale
42. "There is no shame in defeat so long as the spirit is unconquered." ~ Praetor Fenix / Talendar (Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void)
43. “The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are about to succeed.” ~ Unknown
44. "The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are." ~ C.G. Jung
45. "I dream, therefore I exist." ~ August Strindberg
46. "Do you remember what I used to tell you, son? A man is what he chooses to be. It's not how he's born, or how he's raised, that makes the man. It's his choices. Right now, you're choosing to walk down a dark path I can't condone. But a man can turn his life around with a single thought, a single decision. You can always choose to be something new. Never forget that." ~ Trace Raynor's final message to his son, James Raynor (Devil's Due by Christie Goldie, Starcraft Series)
47. "There is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison. We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself? That is why life is always like a sketch. No, "sketch" is not quite the word, because a sketch is an outline of something, the groundwork for a picture, whereas the sketch that is our life is a sketch for nothing, an outline with no picture." ~ The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Milan Kundera)
48. "The freedom to make my own mistakes was all I ever wanted." ~ Mance Rayder
49. "The world turns aside to let any man pass who knows where he is going." ~ Epictetus
50. "Grant me the strength to accept the things that I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." ~ Unknown
51. "What is to give the light must endure the burning." ~ Viktor Frankl (Man's Search for Meaning)
52. "Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars." ~ Les Brown
53. “Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. it’s yours.” ~ Ayn Rand
54. “Every form of life must struggle. Life is an aberration; death is ordinary. Life requires obstruction, conflict, reverses, and resolve. Life requires questing. Questing provides the meaning that we seek, a purpose to justify the inevitable struggle to live knowing the absurdity that we must die.” ~ Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
55. “I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next.” ~ Gilda Radner (Saturday Night Live)

Thank you.