Inspirational & Motivational Quotes: I-J

I am only one, but I am one. I can't do everything, but I can do something. And that I can do, I ought to do. And what I ought to do, by the grace of God, I shall do.
- Edward Everett Hale

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world.
- E.B. White

I call all times soon.
- Aslan (from The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader)

I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying.
- Michael Jordan

I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.
- Bill Cosby

I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is the moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the battlefield of victory.
- Vince Lombardi

I hated every minute of training, but I said, "Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion."
- Muhammad Ali

I have always found that mercy bears richer fruit than strict justice.
- Abraham Lincoln

I have been driven to my knees many times by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.
- Abraham Lincoln

I have found a desire within myself that no experience in this world can satisfy; the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.
- C.S. Lewis

I have no desire to be a teenager again. I think that would be beyond nature in a very, very dangerous way. And, in fact, this goes back to the parables of Dorian Gray and Peter Pan about eternal youth. It's disastrous. It's incredibly toxic. Within our culture in general, there's a lot of people trying to prolong their youth, in disastrous ways. It just doesn't work. The human body has finite limits.
- John Savage

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work.
- Thomas Alva Edison

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.
- Chinese Proverb

I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.
- Helen Keller

I make myself rich by making my wants few.
- Henry David Thoreau

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.
- Michelangelo

I think the one lesson I have learned is that there is no substitute for paying attention.
- Diane Sawyer

I will never look at a firefighter the same way again. What is it in someone, hundreds of them, to compel them to run into a burning building while everyone else is running out...just to save people they don't even know? Their bravery has become part of our collective national legacy. Their bravery dignifies us all.
- Bill Hybels

I wish people could achieve what they think would bring them happiness in order for them to realize that that's not what happiness really is.
- Alanis Morissette

I've read that I flew up the hills and mountains of France. But you don't fly up a hill. You struggle slowly and painfully up a hill, and maybe, if you work very hard, you get to the top ahead of everybody else.
- Lance Armstrong

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
- Henry David Thoreau

If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself alone. A man should keep his friendships in constant repair.
- Samuel Johnson

If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say: Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.
- C.S. Lewis

If I ran a school, I'd give the average grade to the ones who gave me all the right answers, for being good parrots. I'd give the top grades to those who made a lot of mistakes and told me about them, and then told me what they learned from them.
- R. Buckminster Fuller

If men could only know each other, they would neither idolize nor hate.
- Elbert Hubbard

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he had imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
- Henry David Thoreau

If the blind put their hand in God's, they find their way more surely than those who see but have not faith or purpose.
- Helen Keller

If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.
- Stephen R. Covey

If there were not hope, the heart would break.
- Ancrene Wisse

If we were humble, nothing would change us - neither praise nor discouragement.
- Mother Teresa

If you advance confidently in the direction of your dreams and endeavor to live the life which you have imagined, you will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
- Henry David Thoreau

If you ever have something bad to say about anybody, be sure the answer to these three questions is 'yes' before you say it: Is it true? Is it just? Will it do anybody any good to say it?

If you have so much business to attend to that you have no time to pray, depend on it that you have more business on hand than God ever intended that you should have.
- D.L. Moody

If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies within yourself.
- Tecumseh

If you want to be a leader...stop trying to control.
– Tao Te Ching

If you want to be successful, it's just this simple: Know what you're doing. Love what you're doing. And believe in what you're doing.
- O.A. Battista

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.
- Henry David Thoreau

In character, in manner, in style, in all things...the supreme excellence is simplicity.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.
- Albert Schweitzer

In Maine, we have a saying that there's no point in speaking unless you can improve on silence.
- Edmund Muskie

In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
- Thomas Jefferson

In order to do something, you must be something.
- Admiral James B. Stockdale

In this country, you are still privileged to free speech...but that's as far as the Constitution goes. It doesn't guarantee listeners.

In our lives, trouble is inevitable, misery is optional.

Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.
- Steve Jobs

Integrity has no need of rules.
- Albert Camus

Interestingly, koi, when put in a fish bowl, will only grow up to three inches. When this same fish is placed in a large tank, it will grow to about nine inches long. In a pond koi can reach lengths of eighteen inches. Amazingly, when placed in a lake, koi can grow to three feet long. The metaphor is obvious. You are limited by how you see the world.
- Vince Poscente

It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop.
- Confucius

It has become appalingly obvious that our technology has exceeeded our humanity.
- Albert Einstein

It is almost impossible for anyone, even the most ineffective among us, to continue to choose misery after becoming aware that it is a choice.
- William Glasser

It is better to sleep on things beforehand than lie awake about them afterward.
- Baltasar Gracian

It is easy to acknowledge, but almost impossible to realize for long, that we are mirrors whose brightness, if we are bright, is wholly derived from the sun that shines upon you. Surely we must have a little -- however little -- native luminosity? Surely we can't be quite creatures. Grace substitutes a full, childlike and delighted acceptance of our Need, a joy in total dependence. We become 'jolly beggars'.
- C.S. Lewis

It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.
- Epictetus

It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?
- Henry David Thoreau

It is not what we get but who we become, what we contribute...that gives meaning to our lives.
- Anthony Robbins

It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free; their passions forge their fetters.
- Edmund Burke

It is paradoxical but nonetheless true that the nearer man comes to his goal to make his life easy and abundant, the more he undermines the foundations of a meaningful existence.
- Franz Alexander

It is surprising what a man can do when he has to, and how little most men will do when they don't have to.
- Walter Linn

It takes less time to do the right thing than to explain why you did it wrong.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.
- Warren Buffett

It wasn't until quite late in life that I discovered how easy it was to say, "I don't know."
- W. Somerset Maugham

It's a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn't want to hear.
- Dick Cavett

It's better to be silent and be considered a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
- Abraham Lincoln

It’s good to have money, and the things money can buy. But it’s good, too, to check up once in a while and be sure you haven’t lost the things money can’t buy.
- George Horace Lorimer

It's good to shut up sometimes.
- Marcel Marceau

It's hard to listen while you're planning something you think needs to be said.

It's just like magic: When you live by yourself, all of your annoying habits are gone.
- Merrill Markoe

It's what you do when you have nothing to do that reveals who you are.