Quotations: Inspiration

Inspiration never arrived when you were searching for it.
Lisa Alther

Nature has been for me, for as long as I remember, a source of solace, inspiration, adventure, and delight; a home, a teacher, a companion.
Lorraine Anderson

Talent is like a faucet; while it is open, you have to write. Inspiration? - a hoax fabricated by poets for their self-importance.
Jean Anouilh

Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time... The wait is simply too long.
Leonard Bernstein

Without craftsmanship, inspiration is a mere reed shaken in the wind.
Jonannes Brahms

When twenty thousand people applaud as you walk out to do your job, it should be an inspiration.
Jim Brosnan

A deadline is negative inspiration. Still, it's better than no inspiration at all.
Rita Mae Brown

Greatness is more than potential. It is the execution of that potential. Beyond the raw talent. You need the appropriate training. You need the discipline. You need the inspiration. You need the drive.
Eric A. Burns

Nobody motivates today's workers. If it doesn't come from within, it doesn't come. Fun helps remove the barriers that allow people to motivate themselves.
Herman Cain

There never was a great soul that did not have some divine inspiration.
Cicero

Inspiration may be a form of superconsciousness, or perhaps of subconsciousness - I wouldn't know. But I am sure it is the antithesis of self- consciousness.
Aaron Copland

The greatest inspiration is often born of desperation.
Comer Cotrell

Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration.
Thomas A. Edison

Do we not all agree to call rapid thought and noble impulse by the name of inspiration?
George Eliot

The torpid artist seeks inspiration at any cost, by virtue or by vice, by friend or fiend, by prayer or by wine.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Without inspiration the best powers of the mind remain dormant, there is a fuel in us which needs to be ignited with sparks.
Johann Gottfried von Herder

They who lack talent expect things to happen without effort. They ascribe failure to a lack of inspiration or ability, or to misfortune, rather than to insufficient application. At the core of every true talent there is an awareness of the difficulties inherent in any achievement, and the confidence that by persistence and patience something worthwhile will be realized. Thus talent is a species of vigor.
Eric Hoffer

Inspiration and genius--one and the same.
Victor Hugo

Inspiration developed the noblest fantasies of the ancients.
Jules Janin

Quotes are nothing but inspiration for the uninspired.
Richard Kemph

Inspiration is solitary, never consecutive.
Alphonse de Lamartine

You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
Jack London

The glow of inspiration warms us; it is a holy rapture.
Publius Ovidius NasoOvid

The glow of inspiration warms us; this holy rapture springs from the seeds of the Divine mind sown in man.
Ovid

Inspiration does exist, but it must find you working.
Pablo Picasso

He is gifted with genius who knoweth much by natural inspiration.
Pindar

Inspiration is needed in geometry, just as much as in poetry.
Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin

Keep your fears to yourself, but share your inspiration with others.
Robert Louis Stevenson

Just as appetite comes by eating, so work brings inspiration, if inspiration is not discernible at the beginning.
Igor Stravinsky

We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.
Frank Tibolt

Leadership is based on inspiration, not domination; on cooperation, not intimidation.
William Arthur Wood

The Past: Our cradle, not our prison; there is danger as well as appeal in its glamour. The past is for inspiration, not imitation, for continuation, not repetition.
Israel Zangwill