Our site includes affiliate links to products we recommend. If you use one to make a purchase, we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thanks for your support!
Everyone needs a little inspiration sometimes and when it comes to inspirational quotes, short ones are often the best. We gathered the best inspirational short quotes including short motivational quotes, and short encouraging quotes.
We have also combined some of our favorite short inspiring quotes with photos from moments that we found inspirational.
Jump ahead to your favorite category or just start scrolling to find your favorite short inspiration quote or short motivational quote.
Our Favorite Short Inspirational Quotes
Here are some of our favorite short inspiration quotes.
“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” – Edith Wharton
“Whatever you are, be a good one.” – Abraham Lincoln
“Nothing is impossible. The word itself says “I’m possible!” – Audrey Hepburn
“Don’t wait, the time will never be just right.” – Napoleon Hill
“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of others.” – Charles Dickens
“You can if you think you can.” – George Reeves
“You never fail until you stop trying.” – Albert Einstein
“There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future.” – Augustine of Hippo
“Have faith in yourself and in the future.” – Ted Kennedy
“To know oneself, one should assert oneself.” –Albert Camus
“All limitations are self-imposed.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes
“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.”– Milton Berle
“Mostly, the world sees you the way you see yourself.”– Lisa Nichols
“When in doubt, throw doubt out and have a little faith….” – E.A. Bucchianeri
“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” – Confucius
“In a gentle way, you can shake the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.” – Muhammad Ali
“You can be everything. You can be the infinite amount of things that people are.”— Kesha
“You can choose to not let little things upset you.” – Joel Osteen
“Life changes very quickly, in a very positive way, if you let it.” – Lindsey Vonn
“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive.” – Maya Angelou
“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” –George Bernard Shaw
The best way to prepare for life is to begin to live.”- Elbert Hubbard
“And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It is the life in your years.” – Abraham Lincoln
“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”—Confucius
“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forward.” – Soren Kierkegaard
“Life is as easy or as hard as you think it is.”– Jonathan Lockwood Huie
“A life of sacrifice is the pinnacle of art, and is full of true joy.” –Mahatma Gandhi
“Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.” – Albert Einstein
“The meaning of life is to give life meaning.” – Ken Hudgins
“Don’t get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.” – Dolly Parton
“My life is my message.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.” – Bruce Lee
“You define your own life. Don’t let other people write your script.”— Oprah Winfrey
“You can’t live an exceptional life by being “normal.”” – Nick Maley
If you like quotes that are short check out our list of the Best Short Quotes.
“Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.” – Rumi
“We accept the love we think we deserve.” – Stephen Chbosky
“Spread love everywhere you go.”— Mother Teresa
“Love is not love until love’s vulnerable.” – Theodore Roethke
“We can only learn to love by loving.” – Iris Murdoch
“Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.” – Franklin P. Jones
“If I know what love is, it is because of you.” – Hermann Hesse
“Loved you yesterday, love you still, always have, always will.” – Elaine Davis
“True love stories never have endings.” – Richard Bach
“We need not think alike to love alike.” – Francis David
“To love at all is to be vulnerable” – C.S. Lewis
“Love is an untamed force.” – Paulo Coelho
“Love is a thing that is full of cares and fears.” – Ovid
“Love is never wrong.” – Melissa Etheridge
“All you need is love.” – Paul McCartney
“A loving heart is the truest wisdom.” – Charles Dickens
“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.” – William Shakespeare
“Love is a choice you make from moment to moment.” – Barbara De Angelis
“We love the things we love for what they are.” – Robert Frost
“A life lived in love will never be dull.” – Leo Buscaglia
“Happiness is not by chance, but by choice.” – Jim Rohn
“When one door of happiness closes, another opens.“ – Helen Keller
“Happiness depends upon ourselves.” – Aristotle
“Simplicity makes me happy.” – Alicia Keys
“Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions.” – Dalai Lama
“Being miserable is a habit; being happy is a habit; and the choice is yours.” – Tom Hopkins
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions.” – Dalai Lama
“Happiness depends upon ourselves.” – Aristotle
“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” – Dr. Seuss
“Success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you get” – W. P. Kinsella
“Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness.” – Ayn Rand
“Happiness [is] only real when shared” – Jon Krakauer
“Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.” – Robert Frost
“No one has ever become poor by giving.” – Anne Frank
“Worrying is like paying a debt you don’t owe.” – Mark Twain
“We can do anything we want to if we stick to it long enough.” – Helen Keller
“Always do what you are afraid to do.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“No great thing is created suddenly.” —Epictetus
“Men do less than they ought unless they do all they can.” – Thomas Carlyle
“Determine your priorities and focus on them.” – Eileen McDargh
“Don’t you know your imperfections is a blessing?” – Kendrick Lamar
“Belief creates the actual fact.”— William James
“Positive anything is better than negative nothing.” – Elbert Hubbard
“Stay close to anything that makes you glad you are alive.” – Hafez
“Wherever you go, go with all your heart.” – Confucius
“If it matters to you, you’ll find a way.” – Charlie Gilkey
“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” – Michael Altshuler
“Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.” – Samuel Beckett
“The wisest mind has something yet to learn.” – George Santanaya
“Whatever you do, do with all your might.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero
“Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.” – Ralph Emerson
“It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.” – Edmund Hillary
“No wind favors he who has no destined port.” —Montaigne
“Be not afraid of going slowly, be afraid only of standing still.” –Chinese Proverb
“Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.”– Oprah Winfrey
“You can’t have everything. Where would you put it?” – Steven Wright
“All progress takes place outside of your comfort zone.” – Michael John Bobak
“The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.” – Henry Ford
“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.”— Aristotle
“If you want to see a rainbow you have to learn to see the rain.” – Paulo Coelho
If you like this quote head to our list of After Every Storm There is a Rainbow Quotes.
“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“When you make a choice, you change the future.”– Deepak Chopra
“There is nothing permanent except change.” – Heracl*tus
“Change before you have to.” – Jack Welch
“Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.” – John C. Maxwell
“Things don’t have to change the world to be important” – Steve Jobs
“Change in all things is sweet.” – Aristotle
“Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.” – Helen Keller
“Be faithful to that which exists within yourself.” – André Gide
“Tough times never last, but tough people do.” – Dr. Robert Schuller
“Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.” – Maya Angelou
“The only thing that can grow is the thing you give energy to.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.” – Winston Churchill
“Open your mind. Get up off the couch. Move.” – Anthony Bourdain
“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
“Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway.“ – Eleanor Roosevelt
“The true vocation of man is to find his way for himself.” – Hermann Hesse
“If I’m gonna tell a real story, I’m gonna start with my name.” – Kendrick Lamar
“Learn as if you will live forever, live like you will die tomorrow.” — Mahatma Gandhi
“When you have a dream, you’ve got to grab it and never let go.” – Carol Burnett
“No matter what you’re going through, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.” – Demi Lovato
“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill
“We have a responsibility to help those around us and help others in need.” – Virginia Williams
“Get to the point where you get allergic to average! You don’t think average!” – Eric Thomas
“In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.” – Albert Einstein
“Defeat may serve as well as victory to shake the soul and let the glory out.” – Edwin Markham
“Courage is fear that has said its prayers.” – Dorothy Bernard
“A clever man commits no minor blunders.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.” – Mark Twain
“I could agree with you but then we’d both be wrong.” – Harvey Specter
“Everything you can imagine is real.” – Pablo Picasso
“The most important thing is to keep going.” – Maxime Lagacé
“Never regret anything that made you smile.” – Mark Twain
“I don’t need it to be easy, I need it to be worth it.” – Lil Wayne
“Energy and initiative count as much as talent and luck.” – Will Peters
“When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed.” – Maya Angelou
“To know how much there is to know is the beginning of learning to live.” —Dorothy West
Very Short Inspirational Quotes
Here are some very short inspirational quotes.
“Impossible is for the unwilling.” – John Keats
“Stay foolish to stay sane.” – Maxime Lagacé
“Stay hungry. Stay foolish.” – Steve Jobs
“Dream big and dare to fail.” – Norman Vaughan
“No guts, no story.” – Chris Brady
“No pressure, no diamonds.” – Thomas Carlyle
“Keep going. Be all in.” – Bryan Hutchinson
“Leave no stone unturned.” – Euripides
“Begin anywhere.” – John Cage
“Do it Now!” – Napoleon Hill
“Live your dreams.” – Les Brown
And that does it for our list! We hope you found the short inspiration quote you were looking for.
Let us know in the comments below if we missed a short inspiring quote that should be added.
We also have lists of quotes for other things that inspire us, including heading out for a hike (Hiking Quotes), watching a sunset (Short Sunset Quotes), seeing a field of sunflowers (Sunflower Quotes), falling leaves in the fall (Fall Quotes), spending time with family during the holidays (Short Christmas Quotes), trekking in the mountains (Mountain Quotes) and spending time by a lake (Lake Quotes).
So go out and find what inspires you!
Pin it for Later!
About the Author
Laynni Locke
Laynni has been sharing her travel adventures and day-to-day life on Routinely Nomadic social media for over 15 years and appreciates the importance of finding the perfect quote or caption to showcase those experiences. Putting her extensive writing and education background to good use, Laynni has become passionate about researching and curating comprehensive lists of all the best quotes and captions for every occasion.
Other short quotes lists that you may be interested in:
Short Deep Quotes
Short Mountain Quotes
Inspirational Quotes for Women
