Quotes About Inspiration

I have learned, as has many another better writer, to summon inspiration to my call as soon as I begin my day's stint, and not to hang around waiting for it. Inspiration is merely a pretty phrase for the zest to work. And it can be cultivated by anyone who has the patience to try. Inspiration that will not come at its possessor's summons is like a dog that cannot be trained to obey. The sooner both are gotten rid of, the better.

It is very hard to enroll people in anything. And there is a very big difference between the words motivate and inspire. Motivation means we have an idea and we are going to carry through on that idea. We work hard at it, and we are disciplined. A highly motivated person takes an idea, goes out there, and won't let anybody interfere with them. Inspiration is exactly the opposite. If motivation is when you get hold of an idea and carry it through to its conclusion, inspiration is the reverse. An idea gets hold of you and carries you where you are intended to go.

I want to have time for myself, my family and my friends. It's important because in order to sing well, you must have inspiration, and inspiration comes from life, from living.

I only write when I feel the inspiration. Fortunately, inspiration strikes at 10:00 o'clock every day.

My inspiration is always love and history, and my passion to a fault is craftsmanship and responsibility. Those are the simplest things. It goes beyond jewelry. It's every part of my life.

The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, not the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.

I like the idea that Ernest Hemingway always wrote about certain things he knew, he knew the ins and outs, back to fronts of what he was talking about. I love that as an inspiration for myself, to keep it true to what you know. I'm always writing little lines and saving them for later.

Again and again, I learn how much friendship enriches my life, bringing warmth, assurance, humour, inspiration, a sense of security. It depends on honesty, trust, loyalty. It's about giving. It's for sharing the good times, but also the tough times, hurt, grief, sadness.

Other things being equal, it is the person who can lift his work up to the plane of the intuitional and inspiration who achieves greatness, both in his work and in his career.

Don't wait. Where do you expect to get by waiting? Doing is what teaches you. Doing is what leads to inspiration. Doing is what generates ideas. Nothing else, and nothing less.

I pledged to work for righteousness. God's given me inspiration. God's the boss, he tell me what to do.

Just as anyone who listens to the muse will hear, you can write out of your own intention or out of inspiration. There is such a thing. It comes up and talks. And those who have heard deeply the rhythms and hymns of the gods, can recite those hymns in such a way that the gods will be attracted.

Insomnia is my greatest inspiration.

The greatest source of inspiration for me has been my wife; she is the love of my life, my best friend, and my most ardent supporter.

I have many sources of inspiration. I'd have to point to Dr. Martin Luther King, first and foremost. But my parents were good, hardworking folks who kept us in the church and the public schools, and out of trouble, for the most part.

I have worked enough and I am happy to be touring the country speaking about living with MS to give people inspiration and motivation to help themselves.

What I'm looking for in my career, you know? You're looking for those lightning bolts of inspiration where someone says something that sparks an idea or suggests something strange.

We need art as much as we need good works. You need it like food. You need it for inspiration to keep going on the days that your low. We need each other in that way.

Get off your ass and do something. All you need is the right inspiration. Anger has fueled me my entire life. It makes me feel good and... I'm okay with that. My fear is that my anger will one day make me so damned successful that I'll actually be happy. And then I'll just stop.

Do not work self into a state of over-anxiety at the changes that will be found, or attempt to use up the strength and vitality ... Forget not the sources of thine inspiration.

We are not built for the mountains and the dawns and aesthetic affinities, those are for moments of inspiration, that is all. We are built for the valley, for the ordinary stuff we are in, and that is where we have to prove our mettle. Spiritual selfishness always wants repeated moments on the mount. We feel we could talk like angels and live like angels, if only we could stay on the mount. The times of exaltation are exceptional, they have their meaning in our life with God, but we must beware lest our spiritual selfishness wants to make them the only time.

The creative union of the conscious with the unconscious is what one usually calls 'inspiration.'

To improve our schools, we have to humanize them and make education personal to every student and teacher in the system. Education is always about relationships. Great teachers are not just instructors and test administrators: They are mentors, coaches, motivators, and lifelong sources of inspiration to their students.

Genius is not inspired. Inspiration is perspiration.

Walt had a seat-of-the-pants approach on what he wanted musically. We kind of 'read' the boss and had a very high batting average, but there were occasions when he felt we had just written the wrong piece for the situation he wanted. We invariably listened to what he wanted - he was very descriptive in what he wanted and we could read him. We'd go back to the drawing board and work out what he wanted. He was a great inspiration, but a tough taskmaster.

I do not believe in inspiration, but I must have a title in order to work, otherwise I am lost

Traveling is also a big inspiration for me.

Sometimes when I walk into one of my own stores, I look at the display and say, "This looks so good - I want to buy it." Yet other times I walk in and the displays and mannequins will be all wrong, and I don't want to buy anything. When a customer walks into a store, she's looking for inspiration. So I'm tuned in to people, and I care about what they need and who they are.

As for work, without it, without painstaking work, any writer or artist definitely remains a dilettante; there's no point in waiting for so-called blissful moments, for inspiration; if it comes, so much the better--but you keep working anyway.

Cathedrals are built with pennies of the faithful. A great opera house also is a spiritual center, a temple of sorts, where many gather together for recreation, education, and inspiration - a blessed trinity worthy of public support.

Shall we speak of the inspiration of a poet or a priest, and not of the heart impelled by love and self-devotion to the lowliest work in the lowliest way of life?

This President takes his inspiration from the capitals of Europe; we look to the cities and small towns of America. This President puts his faith in government. We put our faith in the American people.

The great miraculous bell of translucent ice is suspended in mid-air. It rings to announce endings and beginnings. And it rings because there is fresh promise and wonder in the skies. Its clear tones resound in the placid silence of the winter day, and echo long into the silver-blue serenity of night. The bell can only be seen at the turning of the year, when the days wind down into nothing, and get ready to march out again. When you hear the bell, you feel a tug at your heart. It is your immortal inspiration.

My inspiration is my hometown.

The spirit of a country, if it is to be true to itself, needs continually to draw great breaths of inspiration from the simple realities of the country; from the smell of its soil, the pattern of its fields, the beauty of its scenery and from the men and women who dwell and toil in the rural areas

In the 1880s, people all over the world looked to America for inspiration. Its very existence was proof that it was possible to have a relatively free and peaceful country. No income tax, no foreign wars, no welfare state, no intrusions on civil liberties.

I try to think about me, as an audience member, and it [inspiration for movies] comes from there.

I encourage all of you to discover ever more fully in the Eucharist, the sacrament of Christ's sacrificial love, the inspiration and strength needed to work ever more generously for the spread of God's Kingdom and the growth of the civilization of love.

Any band on their first couple records is just trying to keep up with their inspiration.

Inspiration arrives as a packet of material to be delivered.

When I was younger I thought I was an artist, and inspiration would just come to me.

If I gave America any kind of hope or any kind of inspiration, I really want to say thank you for allowing me to continue doing that week after week.

Courage, not cleverness; not even inspiration, is the grain of mustard that grows up to be a great tree.

You can draw inspiration from anything. If you're a good storyteller, you can take a dirty look somebody gives you, or if a guy you used to have flirtations with starts dating a new girl, or somebody you're casually talking to says something that makes you so mad - you can create an entire scenario around that.

All an actor has, I think, is their heart, really,...that's the place you go for your inspiration. If my heart wasn't filled with them, where would I get stuff? What would I have to express?

Information and inspiration are everywhere... history, art, architecture, everything an illustrator needs. Europe is, after all, the land that has generated most of the enduring myths and legends of Western culture.

I believe in the relation between photography and music; And thats my inspiration.

The success of every woman should be the inspiration to another. We should raise each other up. Make sure you're very courageous: be strong, be extremely kind, and above all be humble.