45 Most Inspiring Literary Quotes Ever

If you scroll through GoodReads, you’ll surely come across a bunch of inspirational literary quotes from some of the best books in the world.

Instead of focusing on the world’s problems, give your attention and energy to trust, love, abundance, education, and peace. ― Rhonda Byrne, The Secret

Every time I pick up a book and read through it, there are things that I get to know about the world & about myself, get closer to emotions that I fail to express at times, walk down the trails that otherwise seem so hard to be traversed, and in between all of these, time flows.

They say it right when they say, a book is a man’s best friend. Well, I completely agree with that thought and being an avid reader, I always cherish flipping through the pages & often end up marking my favorite lines which impact me deeply.

But I thought to compile some of my favorites and here’s a list of motivational quotes that I keep re-reading. I’m sure that you’re gonna love these quotes from famous books.

This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you sign up or make a purchase I might get a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting. Read the full discloser here.

Most inspiring literary quotes:

1. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.

– H.Jackson Brown Jr, P.S. I Love You

2. It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.

– André Gide, Autumn Leaves

3. Travel far enough, you meet yourself.

– David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

4. Most people are nice when you finally see them.

– Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

5. All endings are also beginnings. We just don’t know it at the time.

– Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet In Heaven

6. When someone leaves, it’s because someone else is about to arrive.

– Paulo Coelho, The Zahir

7. It’s no use going back to yesterday because I was a different person then.

– Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

8. The only limits for tomorrow are the doubts we have today.

–Pittacus Lore, The Power of Six

9. It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.

– J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

10. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.

– Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

11. Not all those who wander are lost.

– J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

12. If I got rid of my demons, I’d lose my angels.

– Tennessee Williams, Conversations with Tennessee Williams

13. If you’re making mistakes it means you’re out there doing something.

– Neil Gaiman, Make Good Art

14. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

– Paulo Coelho, Brida

15. If my life is going to mean anything, I have to live it myself.

– Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief

16. Everything is possible. The impossible just takes longer.

– Dan Brown, Digital Fortress

17. When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.

– Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

18. The best antidote for fear is knowledge.

– Robin S. Sharma, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

19. Don’t cling to things because everything is impermanent.

– Mitch Albom’s, Tuesdays with Morrie

20. Society has no chance of success if its women are uneducated.
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

21. Remember, you have been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.
― Louise L. Hay, You Can Heal Your Life

22. In school, we learn that mistakes are bad, and we are punished for making them. Yet, if you look at the way humans are designed to learn, we learn by making mistakes. We learn to walk by falling down. If we never fell down, we would never walk.
― Robert T. Kiyosaki, Rich Dad, Poor Dad

23. Every adversity, every failure, every heartbreak, carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.
― Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich

24. A dream is not that which you see while sleeping it is something that does not let you sleep.
― A P J Abdul Kalam, Wings of Fire

25. Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have
― Eckhart Tolle, Practicing the Power of Now

26. Talk to someone about themselves and they’ll listen for hours.
― Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People

27. If I really want to improve my situation, I can work on the one thing over which I have control – myself.
― Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

28. “It’s not that we fear the place of darkness, but that we don’t think we are worth the effort to find the place of light.”
― Hugh Prather, Notes to Myself: My Struggle to Become a Person

29. “I read somewhere… how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong, but to feel strong… to measure yourself at least once.”
― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

30. “How you love yourself is
How you teach others to love you”
― Rupi Kaur, Milk, and Honey

31. “Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary, as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies

32. “As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”

— John Green, The Fault In Our Stars

33. “My advice is, never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time.”
— Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

34. “Everything that is beautiful doesn’t always start beautifully.”
― Noor Unnahar, Yesterday I Was the Moon

35. The way to happiness: keep your heart free from hate, your mind from worry. Live simply, expect little, give much. Fill your life with love. Scatter sunshine. Forget self, think of others. Do as you would be done by. Try this for a week and you will be surprised.
― Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking

36. Instead of focusing on the world’s problems, give your attention and energy to trust, love, abundance, education, and peace. 🙂
― Rhonda Byrne, The Secret

37. Those who believe they can move mountains, do. Those who believe they can’t, cannot.
― David J. Schwartz, The Magic of Thinking Big

38. If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.
― Jen Sincero, You Are a Badass

39. To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.
― Anthony Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within

40. If you’re stuck on a problem, don’t sit there and think about it; just start working on it. Even if you don’t know what you’re doing, the simple act of working on it will eventually cause the right ideas to show up in your head.
― Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

41. I am here for a purpose and that purpose is to grow into a mountain, not to shrink to a grain of sand. Henceforth will I apply ALL my efforts to become the highest mountain of all and I will strain my potential until it cries for mercy.
― Og Mandino, The Greatest Salesman in the World

42. “I learned a lesson I’d never forget. The lesson was that, when you have setbacks and failures, you can’t overreact to them.”
― Angela Duckworth, Grit

43. “You can’t control how you feel. But you can always choose how you act.
― Mel Robbins, The 5 Second Rule

44. Typically, people who exercise, start eating better, and becoming more productive at work. They smoke less and show more patience with colleagues and family. They use their credit cards less frequently and say they feel less stressed. Exercise is a keystone habit that triggers widespread change.
― Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit

45. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

Do you know any motivational quotes from the book you have read? Let us know in the comment section.

Related:

51 Mindfulness Quotes To Live Mindfully Everyday

90 Best Motivational Life Quotes To Encourage Your Success