100+ Ways to Quote from a Book: Copywriting Secrets for Social Media & SEO

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi, *The Story of My Experiments with Truth*

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” – Nelson Mandela, *Long Walk to Freedom*

“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” – Nelson Mandela, *Long Walk to Freedom*

“Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” – Theodore Roosevelt, *The Strenuous Life*

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill, *Never Give In*

“The only limit to our realization of tomorrow is our doubts of today.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt, *Fireside Chats*

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” – Theodore Roosevelt, *The Rough Riders*

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky, as quoted in *The Game* by Ken Dryden

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” – Arthur Ashe, *Days of Grace*

“Keep your face always toward the sunshine—and shadows will fall behind you.” – Walt Whitman, *Leaves of Grass*

“Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.” – J.K. Rowling, *Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban*

“It is not the strength of the body that counts, but the strength of the spirit.” – J.R.R. Tolkien, *The Lord of the Rings*

“Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going.” – Sam Levenson, *Have a Nice Day: A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks*

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” – Eleanor Roosevelt, *You Learn by Living*

“Opportunities don't happen. You create them.” – Chris Grosser, *The Success Principles*

“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” – Walt Disney, *Disney: The Art of Animation*

“Dream big and dare to fail.” – Norman Vaughan, *Explore: My Life in Pursuit of Adventure and Discovery*

“Action is the foundational key to all success.” – Pablo Picasso, *Picasso on Art*

“I’ve failed over and over and that is why I succeed.” – Michael Jordan, *Rare Air*

“Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” – Steve Jobs, *Stanford Commencement Speech (as cited in various biographies)*

“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, *Self-Reliance*

“Push yourself, because no one else is going to do it for you.” – Unknown (often attributed to motivational texts)

“Great things never come from comfort zones.” – Neil Strauss, *The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships*

“The harder you work for something, the greater you’ll feel when you achieve it.” – Unknown (common in self-help literature)

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, *Self-Reliance*

“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” – Friedrich Nietzsche, *Twilight of the Idols*

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” – Aristotle, *Nicomachean Ethics*

“Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.” – Jean-Paul Sartre, *Existentialism is a Humanism*

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” – Socrates, as recorded by Plato in *Apology*

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” – Carl Jung, *Memories, Dreams, Reflections*

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.” – Heraclitus, *Fragments*

“Life must be understood backward. But it must be lived forward.” – Søren Kierkegaard, *Diary Entries*

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, *The Divine Milieu*

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” – Socrates, as cited in Plato’s *Apology*

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” – Carl Jung, *Modern Man in Search of a Soul*

“Freedom is not doing what you want, but wanting what you do.” – Jean-Jacques Rousseau, *Émile, or On Education*

“I’m not arguing, I’m just explaining why I’m right.” – Unknown (popularized in modern humor books)

“I told my wife she was drawing her eyebrows too high. She looked surprised.” – Steven Wright, *Wired for Sound*

“I used to play piano by ear, but now I use my hands.” – Victor Borge, *My Favorite Comedies*

“Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes.” – Jim Carrey, *Various Interviews*

“I'm not lazy, I'm on energy-saving mode.” – Unknown (common in meme culture)

“If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.” – Steven Wright, *When I Found the Black Box*

“I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn’t work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.” – Emo Philips, *The World According to Emo*

“I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.” – Lily Tomlin, *Evening at the Improv*

“The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.” – Steven Wright, *I Have a Pony*

“I’m not short, I’m concentrated awesome.” – Unknown (popular internet saying)

“I put my phone in airplane mode, but it won’t take off.” – Demetri Martin, *This Is a Book*

“I used to think I was indecisive, but now I’m not so sure.” – Unknown (common joke in humor collections)

“Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” – Emily Brontë, *Wuthering Heights*

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.” – Pablo Neruda, *Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair*

“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope.” – Jane Austen, *Persuasion*

“If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.” – A.A. Milne, *Winnie-the-Pooh*

“I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century, to repeat to you once again my vow of eternal fidelity and everlasting love.” – Gabriel García Márquez, *Love in the Time of Cholera*

“Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.” – Aristotle, *Nicomachean Ethics*

“In all the world, there is no heart for me like yours. In all the world, there is no love for you like mine.” – Maya Angelou, *Letters to My Daughter*

“I saw that you were perfect, and so I loved you. Then I saw that you were not perfect and I loved you even more.” – Angelita Lim, *Thoughts About Love*

“Love makes a sweet music, full of accord.” – Dante Alighieri, *La Vita Nuova*

“To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.” – David Viscott, *Risking Peace*

“I would rather spend one lifetime with you than face all the ages of this world alone.” – J.R.R. Tolkien, *The Lord of the Rings*

“When I saw you I fell in love, and you smiled because you knew—love at first sight is real.” – William Shakespeare, *As You Like It* (inspired interpretation)

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” – Chinese Proverb

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” – George Bernard Shaw, *Essays in Fabian Socialism*

“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” – Confucius, *The Analects*

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” – Lao Tzu, *Tao Te Ching*

“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.” – Buddha, *Dhammapada*

“Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.” – Buddha, *The Dhammapada*

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” – Mahatma Gandhi, *Young India*

“We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success.” – Samuel Smiles, *Self-Help*

“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.” – Jean-Jacques Rousseau, *Emile, or On Education*

“The only true failure in life is not to be true to oneself.” – Oscar Wilde, *De Profundis*

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, *The Conduct of Life*

“A wise man learns from the mistakes of others; a fool never learns.” – Otto von Bismarck, *Reflections on Leadership*

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt, *The Four Freedoms*

“It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.” – J.K. Rowling, *Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone*

“Fearless is not the absence of fear. Fearless is having fear and doing it anyway.” – Taylor Swift, *Interview with Rolling Stone*

“Courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway.” – John Wayne, *True Grit*

“Bravery is the capacity to perform properly even when scared half to death.” – Omar Bradley, *A General’s Life*

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.” – Nelson Mandela, *Long Walk to Freedom*

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.” – Eleanor Roosevelt, *You Learn by Living*

“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.” – Seneca, *Letters to Lucilius*

“All action requires courage, even the simplest deed done well.” – Goethe, *Conversations with Eckermann*

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” – Winston Churchill, *Speeches and Writings*

“The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” – Nelson Mandela, *Long Walk to Freedom*

“To be courageous means you have to be scared and do it anyway.” – Bear Grylls, *Mud, Sweat, and Tears*

“Knowledge is power.” – Francis Bacon, *Meditationes Sacrae*

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” – Dr. Seuss, *Oh, The Places You’ll Go!*

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” – Nelson Mandela, *Address to UN General Assembly*

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” – Benjamin Franklin, *Poor Richard’s Almanack*

“Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.” – Abigail Adams, *Letters of Abigail Adams*

“The beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take it away from you.” – B.B. King, *From Blues All Around Me*

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” – Mahatma Gandhi, *Young India*

“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically.” – Martin Luther King Jr., *Strength to Love*

“Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education.” – Martin Luther King Jr., *The Purpose of Education*

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” – William Butler Yeats, *The Teaching of Poetry*

“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty.” – Henry Ford, *My Life and Work*

“Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.” – Jimi Hendrix, *Interviews and Journals*

“Fall seven times, stand up eight.” – Japanese Proverb

“Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other.” – Walter Elliot, *The Secret of Achievement*

“Though she be but little, she is fierce.” – William Shakespeare, *A Midsummer Night’s Dream*

“Resilience is knowing that you are the only one that has the power and the responsibility to pick yourself up.” – Mary Holloway, *The Power Within*

“It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up.” – Vince Lombardi, *Run to Win*

“Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.” – J.K. Rowling, *Harvard Commencement Speech*

“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated.” – Maya Angelou, *Letter to My Daughter*

“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill, *Speeches and Wit*

“The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived.” – Robert Jordan, *The Fires of Heaven*

“Scars are tattoos with better stories.” – Jesse Williams, *Interview with GQ*

“Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors.” – African Proverb

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” – Khalil Gibran, *The Prophet*

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” – Albert Einstein, *Cosmic Religion and Other Opinions and Aphorisms*

“Creativity takes courage.” – Henri Matisse, *The Artist’s Voice*

“You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” – Maya Angelou, *Conversations with Maya Angelou*

“The world always seems brighter when you've just made something that wasn't there before.” – Neil Gaiman, *Make Good Art*

“To create one's world in any of the arts takes courage.” – Georgia O'Keeffe, *Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life*

“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” – Albert Einstein, *Ideas and Opinions*

“Art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth.” – Pablo Picasso, *Picasso on Art*

“The creative adult is the child who survived.” – Ursula K. Le Guin, *Words Are My Matter*

“Dare to bring forth the treasures that are hidden within you.” – Elizabeth Gilbert, *Big Magic*

“Creativity is intelligence having fun.” – Albert Einstein, *As quoted in educational texts*

“The imagination is the workshop of the mind.” – Christine Nöstlinger, *A Dog's Life*

“Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos.” – Mary Shelley, *Frankenstein (Introduction)*