150 Best Short Quotes to Quickly Inspire You

These short quotes may not have a ton of words, but they have a big impact.

Author:
Nicole Penn
Updated:
Dec 12, 2023

We can all use a dose of wisdom every so often, and what better way to learn and get inspired on the go during our oh-so-busy lives than with short quotes?

We have quick, deep nuggets and positive, profound sayings to easily share, rapid-fire, heartfelt thoughts about family and friends and so much more. Whether you're looking for a simple quote for your vision board, a quick quote to add to your Instagram post, short and sweet messages to write in a text or card, or whatever the case(!), you'll find everything you need here in one place.

From inspirational to love to motivational, here are 150 of the best short quotes for when you need an extra boost of encouragement.

Best Short Quotes

1. “Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you're climbing it.” ― Andy Rooney

2. “Always remember, your focus determines your reality.” ― George Lucas

3. “Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it.” ― Madeleine L'Engle, The Summer of the Great-Grandmother

4. “Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy.” ― Tchaikovsky

5. “Women belong in all places where decisions are being made.” ― Ruth Bader Ginsburg

6. “I don't think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.” ― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

7. “One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.” ― Malala Yousafzai

8. “It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.” ― Theodore Roosevelt

9. “When someone tells me "no," it doesn't mean I can't do it, it simply means I can't do it with them.” ― Karen E. Quinones Miller

10. “Always remember, your focus determines your reality.” ― George Lucas

11. “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” ― Oscar Wilde

12. “Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.” ― Salvador Dali

13. “Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.” ― Marilyn Monroe

14. “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” ― Oscar Wilde

15. “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” ― Thomas A. Edison

Short Inspirational Quotes

16. “It is never too late to be what you might have been.” ― George Eliot

17. “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” ― Maya Angelou

18. “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” ― Winston S. Churchill

19. “It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.” ― Lewis Carroll

20. “You can't live your life for other people. You've got to do what's right for you, even if it hurts some people you love.” ― Nicholas Sparks

21. “Well-behaved women seldom make history.”― Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

22. “Nothing is impossible, the word itself says 'I'm possible'!” ― Audrey Hepburn

23. “Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway.” ― Eleanor Roosevelt

24. “I can't give you a sure-fire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time.” ― Herbert Bayard Swope

25. “Peace begins with a smile.” ― Mother Teresa

26. “Always do what you are afraid to do.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

27. “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.

28. “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” ― Eleanor Roosevelt

29. “Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” ― Robert Louis Stevenson

30. “None but ourselves can free our minds.” ― Bob Marley

Short Deep Quotes

31. “Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.” ― Isaac Asimov

32. “The unexamined life is not worth living.” ― Socrates

33. “The price of greatness is responsibility.” ― Winston Churchill

34. “What the superior man seeks is in himself; what the small man seeks is in others.” ― Confucius

35. “Life is and will ever remain an equation incapable of solution, but it contains certain known factors.” ― Nikola Tesla

36. “The trouble is if you don’t spend your life yourself, other people spend it for you.” ― Peter Shaffer, Five Finger Exercise

37. “If you love deeply, you're going to get hurt badly. But it's still worth it.” ― C.S. Lewis

38. “I used to think the worst thing in life is to end up all alone. It's not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone.” ― Robin Williams

39. “Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens” ― Jimi Hendrix

40. “Angry people are not always wise.” ― Jane Austen

Short Quotes About Life

41. “With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.” ― Eleanor Roosevelt

42. “People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they’re not on your road doesn’t mean they’ve gotten lost.” ― Dalai Lama XIV

43. “Crying does not indicate that you are weak. Since birth, it has always been a sign that you are alive.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

44. “Everything you need to know you have learned through your journey.” ― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

45. “The life you have left is a gift. Cherish it. Enjoy it now, to the fullest. Do what matters, now.” ― Leo Babauta

46. “The past is never dead. It's not even past.” ― William Faulkner

47. “You may delay, but time will not.” ― Benjamin Franklin

48. “Being with you and not being with you is the only way I have to measure time.” ― Jorge Luis Borges

49. “Time can be a greedy thing-sometimes it steals the details for itself.” ― Khaled Hosseini

50. “Enjoy life. There's plenty of time to be dead.” ― Hans Christian Andersen

51. “You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.” ― William Faulkner

52. “Life's under no obligation to give us what we expect.” ― Margaret Mitchell

53. “There is nothing like a dream to create the future.” ― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

54. “With every mistake, we must surely be learning.” ― George Harrison

55. “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” ― Mae West

56. “Punctuality is the thief of time” ― Oscar Wilde

57. “Time is precious, but truth is more precious than time.” ― Benjamin Disraeli

58. “Time moves slowly, but passes quickly.” ― Alice Walker

59. “When you are measuring life, you are not living it.” ― Mitch Albom

60. “Realize deeply that the present moment is all you will ever have.” ― Eckhart Tolle