25 Inspirational Quotes From Big-Time Authors

By Ashley Paige

Updated on 5/22/2016 at 7:30 PM

POPSUGAR Photography | Maria del Rio
POPSUGAR Photography | Maria del Rio

If you believe in the power of a good quote, your life can turn around. Whether you radically alter your outlook, take a new course of action, or (best of all) combine the two, a certain special phrase may provide the underlying motivation and stick with you forever. Ahead are 25 inspirational quotes from some of the world's favorite (and most famous) authors. Take a few minutes to let these wise words sink in.

  1. "Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead." — Oscar Wilde
  2. "Make a difference about something other than yourselves." — Toni Morrison
  3. "How do you know you're going to do something, until you do it?" — J.D. Salinger
  4. "You've been here before. It won't kill you. It feels like you can't breathe, but you actually are breathing. It feels like you'll never stop crying, but you actually will." ― Liane Moriarty
  5. "You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say." — F. Scott Fitzgerald
  6. "I am not pretty. I am not beautiful. I am as radiant as the sun." ― Suzanne Collins
  7. "The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places." — Ernest Hemingway
  8. "There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart." — Jane Austen
  9. "The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience." ― Harper Lee
  10. "Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work." — Stephen King
  11. "Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness." — George Orwell
  12. "I am no bird, and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will." — Charlotte Brontë
  13. "Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter." — Mark Twain
  14. "The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot forever fence it out." — J.R.R. Tolkien
  15. "You only get one life. It's actually your duty to live it as fully as possible." ― Jojo Moyes
  16. "Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever." ― Anthony Doerr
  17. "Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world . . . would do this, it would change the earth." ― William Faulkner
  18. "It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default." — J.K. Rowling
  19. "You make a life out of what you have, not what you're missing." ― Kate Morton
  20. "There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast." — Charles Dickens
  21. "Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you." ― George R.R. Martin
  22. "To make real friends you have to put yourself out there. Sometimes people will let you down, but you can't let that stop you. If you get hurt, you just pick yourself up, dust off your feelings, and try again." ― Kristin Hannah
  23. "Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't try to do things. You simply must do things." — Ray Bradbury
  24. "The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds." ― Nicholas Sparks
  25. "And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it." ― Roald Dahl