Block quotes are an essential tool in academic writing and professional documentation that serve to emphasize significant excerpts and maintain the reader’s focus on pivotal information. In APA style, such block quotes are employed to respectfully incorporate other authors' insights while adhering to attribution requirements. Below, we explore diverse thematic areas through block quotes, exhibiting engaging ways to incorporate quotations across various contexts. This guide offers ten different categories, each presenting twelve illustrative block quotes, designed to inspire your writing style by effectively using quotes. Whether you're looking to bolster your narrative with historical anecdotes or enrich your text with motivational wisdom, these examples illustrate the robust application of block quotes, all while maintaining APA’s fine standards.
Inspirational Quotes
"The only way to do great work is to love what you do." - Steve Jobs
"Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going." - Sam Levenson
"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." - Eleanor Roosevelt
"You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream." - C.S. Lewis
"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success." - Albert Schweitzer
"What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals." - Zig Ziglar
"Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does." - William James
"Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact." - William James
"Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot, but make it hot by striking." - William Butler Yeats
"Keep your face always toward the sunshine—and shadows will fall behind you." - Walt Whitman
"Believe you can and you're halfway there." - Theodore Roosevelt
"Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear." - George Addair
Motivational Quotes
"Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough." - Og Mandino
"The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing." - Walt Disney
"Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life." - Steve Jobs
"Don’t be pushed around by the fears in your mind. Be led by the dreams in your heart." - Roy T. Bennett
"The secret of getting ahead is getting started." - Mark Twain
"It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up." - Vince Lombardi
"Failure is not the opposite of success; it’s part of success." - Arianna Huffington
"With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts." - Eleanor Roosevelt
"It always seems impossible until it’s done." - Nelson Mandela
"Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Till your good is better and your better is best." - St. Jerome
"Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can." - Arthur Ashe
"Do what you can with all you have, wherever you are." - Theodore Roosevelt
Quotes on Success
"Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it." - Henry David Thoreau
"If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way. If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse." - Jim Rohn
"Success is not how high you have climbed, but how you make a positive difference to the world." - Roy T. Bennett
"Success is not in what you have, but who you are." - Bo Bennett
"Success isn’t just about what you accomplish in your life; it’s about what you inspire others to do." - Unknown
"The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same." - Colin R. Davis
"Success is not the absence of failure; it’s the persistence through failure." - Aisha Tyler
"The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus." - Bruce Lee
"Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill
"The elevator to success is out of order. You’ll have to use the stairs, one step at a time." - Joe Girard
"Don’t be distracted by criticism. Remember—the only taste of success some people get is to take a bite out of you." - Zig Ziglar
"Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day-in and day-out." - Robert Collier
Quotes on Perseverance
"Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other." - Walter Elliot
"Through perseverance, many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure." - Benjamin Disraeli
"The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones." - Confucius
"Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th." - Julie Andrews
"It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop." - Confucius
"Perseverance, secret of all triumphs." - Victor Hugo
"Life is not about how fast you run or how high you climb, but how well you bounce." - Vivian Komori
"By perseverance the snail reached the ark." - Charles Spurgeon
"Success is not the absence of failure; it’s the persistence through failure." - Aisha Tyler
"Just remember, you can do anything you set your mind to, but it takes action, perseverance, and facing your fears." - Gillian Anderson
"Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." - Thomas Edison
"Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Quotes on Leadership
"A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way." - John C. Maxwell
"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower." - Steve Jobs
"Leadership is not about titles, positions or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another." - John C. Maxwell
"The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers." - Ralph Nader
"A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus." - Martin Luther King Jr.
"The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes." - Tony Blair
"Leaders think and talk about the solutions. Followers think and talk about the problems." - Brian Tracy
"Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality." - Warren Bennis
"The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves." - Ray Kroc
"A leader is a dealer in hope." - Napoleon Bonaparte
"The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision. It’s got to be a vision you articulate clearly and forcefully on every occasion. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet." - Theodore Hesburgh
"People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision." - John C. Maxwell
Quotes on Education
"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." - Nelson Mandela
"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education." - Martin Luther King Jr.
"The aim of education is the knowledge, not of facts, but of values." - William Ralph Inge
"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." - William Butler Yeats
"The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet." - Aristotle
"Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten." - B.F. Skinner
"The purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open one." - Malcolm Forbes
"Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow." - Anthony J. D'Angelo
"Change is the end result of all true learning." - Leo Buscaglia
"The great aim of education is not knowledge but action." - Herbert Spencer
"The function of education is to prepare the client to work with their own transformation processes." - Paulo Freire
"Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself." - John Dewey
Quotes about Love
"Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope." - Maya Angelou
"The best thing to hold onto in life is each other." - Audrey Hepburn
"You can’t blame gravity for falling in love." - Albert Einstein
"There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved." - George Sand
"To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides." - David Viscott
"Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies." - Aristotle
"Where there is love there is life." - Mahatma Gandhi
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage." - Lao Tzu
"The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard, but must be felt with the heart." - Helen Keller
"Love does not dominate; it cultivates." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"Loving someone and having them love you back is the most precious thing in the world." - Nicholas Sparks
"There is no remedy for love but to love more." - Henry David Thoreau
Quotes about Friendship
"True friendship comes when the silence between two people is comfortable." - David Tyson
"Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together." - Woodrow Wilson
"A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out." - Walter Winchell
"Friendship is the golden thread that ties the heart of all the world." - John Evelyn
"Friends are the siblings God never gave us." - Mencius
"One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives." - Euripides
"A friend is what the heart needs all the time." - Henry Van Dyke
"The only way to have a friend is to be one." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"True friends are like diamonds – bright, beautiful, valuable, and always in style." - Nicole Richie
"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.'" - C.S. Lewis
"Growing apart doesn’t change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side; our roots will always be tangled. I'm glad for that." - Ally Condie
"To the world you may be just one person, but to one person you may be the world." - Dr. Seuss
Quotes on Happiness
"Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions." - Dalai Lama
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony." - Mahatma Gandhi
"Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be." - Abraham Lincoln
"For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Happiness depends upon ourselves." - Aristotle
"Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product." - Eleanor Roosevelt
"The most important thing is to enjoy your life—to be happy—it’s all that matters." - Audrey Hepburn
"Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort." - Franklin D. Roosevelt
"The purpose of our lives is to be happy." - Dalai Lama
"There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved." - George Sand
"Happiness is the art of never holding in your mind the memory of any unpleasant thing that has passed." - Unknown
"Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action." - William James
Quotes about Life
"In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years." - Abraham Lincoln
"Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans." - John Lennon
"Get busy living or get busy dying." - Stephen King
"The purpose of our lives is to be happy." - Dalai Lama
"Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated." - Confucius
"May you live all the days of your life." - Jonathan Swift
"Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale." - Hans Christian Andersen
"Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment." - Buddha
"Life is a long lesson in humility." - James M. Barrie
"In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: It goes on." - Robert Frost
"Love the life you live. Live the life you love." - Bob Marley
"Life is short, and it's up to you to make it sweet." - Sarah Louise Delany
Final words
Block quotes serve as a vital tool in conveying powerful messages, offering readers moments to pause and reflect on significant information in your work. In applying these quotes to your writing, particularly in APA style, you honor the original voice while enhancing your narrative. Through this collection of themes—ranging from inspiration to life’s philosophies—you are equipped to enrich your writing’s depth and expand its reach. These quotes not only emphasize nuanced information but also spur thoughtful engagement, providing a bridge to emotional resonance and intellectual clarity. By adeptly embedding quotes into your discourse, you cultivate a connection that resonates with readers, fostering both comprehension and enjoyment. Remember, the wisdom of others is a resource worthy of thoughtful integration, profoundly impacting how your stories or discourses are perceived and received.
