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Inspiration is the state in which we create passionately without effort

• Inspiration is the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative.  Oxford Dictionary
• Inspiration is the sense of being filled with spirit and passion. Having a burning desire to create and express, and the feeling that we need, not just want, to take creative action. It is as if our need to use our talents takes on an energy all of its own, and demands release and fulfilment.  Amanda Harvey
• Inspiration is the flow of energy that moves through us when we are in tune with our higher selves. It is the state in which we can create without effort. Our actions flow through us, and rather than trying to make things happen.  Amanda Harvey
• Creativity,  Creative expression,  Ideas,   Insight,  Genius,  Effortlessness,  Intelligence,  Innovation,  Encouragement,  Enthusiasm,  Vision

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Inspiration is a free flow of ideas

• Inspiration means that you don’t have to figure things out, or think about them. Ideas and answers pop into your head and the energy carries you forward, if you allow it.  Chuck Spezzano
• Inspiration:  A sudden brilliant or timely idea.  Oxford Dictionary
• It is already a great thing if the main ideas and general outline of a work come without any racking of brains, as the result of that supernatural and inexplicable force we call inspiration.  Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky
• Ideas,  Thinking

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Inspiration is the key to everything…

• Method is much, technique is much, but inspiration is even more.  Benjamin Cardozo
• Inspiration is the key to everything.  Olivia Wilde
• I want to inspire, and be inspired.  Sam Mendes
• To succeed, you need to find something to hold on to, something to motivate you, something to inspire you. Tony Dorsett
• Our moments of inspiration are not lost though we have no particular poem to show for them; for those experiences have left an indelible impression, and we are ever and anon reminded of them.  Henry David Thoreau

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… for, without inspiration, the best of us remains dormant

• 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
• As long as you feel inspired, your life is being well spent.  Hugh McLeod
• Potential

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Inspiration is a divine gift

• Inspiration is God making contact with itself.  Ram Dass
• Science sometimes falls short when trying to fathom the depths of our essence – and our inspiration comes from that essence. Lance Secretan
• No one was ever great without some portion of divine inspiration.  Marcus Tullius Cicero
• The glow of inspiration warms us; it is a holy rapture.   Ovid
• The artist must raise the cup of his vision aloft to the gods in the high hope that they will pour into it the sweet mellow wine of inspiration.  Paul Brunton
• There is a deity within us who breathes that divine fire by which we are animated.  Ovid
• Inspiration is indispensable to my work, but it is hard to come by. It is there or it is not; it is a gift of the gods.  Elaine de Kooning
• Inspiration is a message-in-a-bottle from the distant shore, a window into the other world, a tap of the muse’s finger, the grace of the gods. It comes when you least expect it.  Phil Cousineau
• I am convinced that there are universal currents of Divine Thought vibrating the ether everywhere and that any who can feel these vibrations is inspired.  Richard Wagner
• Inspiration arrives as a packet of material to be delivered.   John Updike
• Wealth is not a matter of intelligence.  It’s a matter of inspiration.   Jim Rohn
• Inspiration is what keeps us well.  James Redfield
• A breath of our inspiration is the life of each generation.  Arthur O’Shaughnessy

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Inspiration and motivation are bed fellows

• Inspiration is external and motivation is internal. It is up to me to provide the switch and you to flip it on!  Tricia Cunningham
• Inspiration is the sense of being filled with spirit and passion. Having a burning desire to create and express. Motivation is, perhaps, the mental equivalent of inspiration. It is the will, and the drive, to take action that brings us in line with our goals and desires. Inspiration and motivation together are a formidable combination. If you are both inspired and motivated, then watch out world- you will be unstoppable!   Amanda Harvey
• Motivation

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Inspiration is intellect joined with enthusiasm

• Inspiration demands the active cooperation of the intellect joined with enthusiasm, and it is under such conditions that marvellous conceptions, with all that is excellent and divine, come into being.  Giorgio Vasari
• The Greeks have given us one of the most beautiful words of our language, the word “enthusiasm”–a god within. The grandeur of the acts of people is measured by the inspiration from which they spring.  Happy are they who bear a God within.  Louis Pasteur
• Enthusiasm

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Inspiration is at the heart of creativity …

• The lagoon of inspiration may be a material place or it may be a spiritual state of man… the inspiration comes with a spirit of creativity. The creativity comes when is present the moment of investigation and new decisions to investigate. Yaroslaw Rozputnyak
• Creativity

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… and the soul of art

• Inspiration is an awakening, a quickening of all man’s faculties, and it is manifested in all high artistic achievements.  Giacomo Puccini
• Inspiration in Science may have to do with ideas, but not in Art. In art it is in the senses that are instinctively responsive to the medium of expression.  Arthur Erickson
• The torpid artist seeks inspiration at any cost, by virtue or by vice, by friend or by fiend, by prayer or by wine.  Ralph Waldo Emerson
• The soul of art is inspiration.  Ginia A. Davis
• Painting without inspiration is like trying to drive a car with flat tires.  Ron Elstad
• My work is inspired by two things: the external world and the internal world. A good day is when they meet on canvas.  Bonnie Mandoe
• Art

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Inspiration is at the heart of genius and greatness

• Inspiration and genius – one and the same. Victor Hugo
• Better beware of notions like genius and inspiration; they are a sort of magic wand and should be used sparingly by anybody who wants to see things clearly.  José Ortega Y Gasset
• 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
• Genius,  Greatness

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Inspiration can seem unpredictable and hard to find at times

• Inspiration doesn’t really work like that – you’re not looking out for it. Inspiration is something that tends to capture you rather than you capture it.  Joan Armatrading
• In general, I don’t know when inspiration will pop up.  Larry Niven
• Inspiration is hard to come by. You have to take it where you find it.  Bob Dylan

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However, the truth is that inspiration is everywhere if you know where to look

• Inspiration is just about everywhere you can look, if you’re looking for it. That’s the key: to keep your eyes open. Too often we miss beautiful sources of inspiration, because we’re too busy thinking about other things.  Leo Babauta
• You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we’re doing it.  Neil Gaiman
• Wherever you look there are inspirations, books, literature, paintings, landscapes, everything. Just living is an inspiration.  Gavin Rossdale
• You can look anywhere and find inspiration.  Frank Gehry
• Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery – celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to.”  Jim Jarmusch
• Inspiration is finding something else that is divinely inspired (people, nature, amazing ideas), having that inspiration breathed into you (“breath” is the root of “inspiration”), and then taking action on it. Creating, doing, inspiring others.  Leo Babauta
• Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new film, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul.  Jim Jarmusch
• Much like a patchwork quilt, inspiration that stirs and motivates me is made of many things.  Robert Reynolds
• Inspiration can come from any direction, but only you can tap into it.  Faith Puleston

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Find inspiration in nature

• 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
• Beauty and inspiration can be found in any natural place of the earth.  Akiane Kramarik
• The richness I achieve comes from Nature, the source of my inspiration.  Claude Monet
• Everybody needs time to reflect and contemplate, and the most inspirational and peaceful place to do so is in nature.  Akiane Kramarik
• Get outside – nature is one of the biggest inspirations, and you’ll miss it if you’re inside all day.  Leo Babauta
• Nature is my manifestation of God. I go to nature every day for inspiration in the day’s work. I follow in building the principles which nature has used in its domain.  Frank Lloyd Wright
• The observation of nature is part of an artist’s life, it enlarges his form and knowledge, keeps him fresh and from working only by formula, and feeds inspiration.  Henry Moore
• Nature is my manifestation of God.   Go to nature every day for inspiration in the day’s work.  Frank Lloyd Wright
• Inspiration is not born of ‘the eureka moment’ but in the quiet spaces we allow ourselves to be in – whether in a beautiful part of nature or in a peaceful meditative state of mind.  Sharon Knettell
• Inspiration comes from nature itself. I am enamoured of nature, and that admiration has only increased as I age.  Benjamin Eisenstat
• Nature

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Find inspiration through books and movies

• Most of my inspiration, if that’s the word, came from books themselves.  Shelby Foote
• What is indispensable to inspiration? …sound sleep and the provocation of a good book or a companion. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• There are a lot of movies that inspire me to do what I do.  Jerry Bruckheimer
• Books,  Movies

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Find inspiration through art

• Art has the power to transform, to illuminate, to educate, inspire and motivate.  Harvey Fierstein
• Art, a book, a painting, a song, can definitely inspire change, whether it’s a small change or a big change but you know there’s novels I’ve read or a scene in a film that I’ve seen where I definitely inspired something and made a change or addressed an issue in my life or done something cliche like make a phone call. Rose Byrne
• There is incredible power in the arts to inspire and influence.  Julie Taymor
• My inspiration is art… because without art, we would just be stuck with reality.  Daniel R. Lynch
• Art

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Find inspiration through music

• Actually, I feel music becoming more and more important. It’s a big source of inspiration. With what’s going on in the world, we feel almost desperate. Music also brings you peace.  Cecilia Bartoli
• I travel the garden of music, through inspiration. It’s a large, very large garden, seen?  Peter Tosh
• Music

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Find inspiration through the inspired words of others

• Inspiring quotes and phrases are like vitamins to the soul.  Remez Sasson
• A good quote can sometimes act as a magical spark, setting in motion thoughts, ideas, and feelings that can lead to life- changing revelations.  Alex Andrei
• Witty inspirations are the proverbs of the educated. Friedrich Von Schlegel
• Quotations to thinking minds are the seeds from which spring vast fields of new thought, that may be further cultivated, beautified, and enlarged. Ramsay
• All of us encounter, at least once in our life, some individual who utters words that make us think forever. There are men whose phrases are oracles; who can condense in one sentence the secrets of life; who blurt out an aphorism that forms a character, or illustrates an existence.  Benjamin Disraeli
• Books of quotation are not only of importance to the reader for what they contain of matured thought, but also for what they suggest. Our brains receive the spark and become luminous, like inflammable material by the contact of flint and steel.   Maturin M. Ballou
• Words

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Find inspiration by spending time with inspired people …

• Work with inspired people – one of the best ways to stay inspired is to work with creative, energetic, positive people.  Leo Babauta
• I’ve been lucky enough that I can gather all sorts of experiences and find inspiration by traveling around and by spending time with people I admire. Bonnie Raitt

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… and by finding mentors and role models

• What do mentors give? Wisdom in nuggets. Gold that you remember and use to smooth the path (or find the path) to success. They provide inspiration and guidance when you need it most.  Jeffrey Gitomer
• Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.  Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Mrs. Parks was a shy, soft spoken woman who was uncomfortable being revered as a symbol of the civil rights movement. She only hoped to inspire young people to achieve great things. Jim Costa
• The men who have furnished me with my greatest inspiration have not been men of wealth, but men of deeds.  James Cash Penney
• Families are the compass that guide us. They are the inspiration to reach great heights, and our comfort when we occasionally falter.  Brad Henry
• Another great way to find inspiration and motivation is to read the stories of other people who have overcome obstacles and made their dreams come true. These motivational stories remind us that there is always a way to create what we want in our lives- we just need to believe it!  Amanda Harvey
• Having a role model in life is a great thing to have; one who provides us with direction and inspiration. However, we will forever be restricted by that person’s limitations if we live within their boundaries. Be influenced, but set your own standards and develop your own principals, if you are ever to live beyond someone else’s dreams.  Jason Shahan
• Mentorship,  Role models

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Most of all, find inspiration from life itself

• My life. The life I’m living that’s where all my inspiration comes from. Real life experiences.  Fred Durst
• Inspiration for my music just comes from, you know, my life experiences.  Avril Lavigne
• Life inspires me to paint. Painting inspires me to paint.  Dion Archibald
• The most important source of inspiration for painting ideas is our own lives… and what we like most.  Jack Dickerson

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Find inspiration by following your passion

• The moment you start The Project, everything shifts. Purpose, focus, passion and peace returns to your life. Eyes sparkle. Energy explodes. Inspiration flows. And your days become supported by coincidence, power and peak possibility.  Robin Sharma
• Passion is the most powerful statement of who your are as a unique individual. Passion brings inspiration, excitement, clarity and purpose into your life. Peter Wallman
• Enthusiasm is the inspiration of everything great. Without it no man is to be feared, and with it none despised.  Christian Nestell Bovee
• Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.  Ella Fitzgerald
• Your passion is the most powerful expression of who you are as a unique individual. Passion brings inspiration, excitement, clarity and purpose to your life and work.  Peter Wallman
• Enthusiasm is excitement with inspiration, motivation, and a pinch of creativity.   Bo Bennett
• When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds; Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world.  Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.  Patanjali
• Passion

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Find inspiration by travelling to new places  …

• I’ve been lucky enough that I can gather all sorts of experiences and find inspiration by traveling around and by spending time with people I admire.  Bonnie Raitt
• We travel to learn; and I have never been in any country where they did not do something better than we do it, think some thoughts better than we think, catch some inspiration from heights above our own.  Maria Mitchell
• Travel

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… and by trying something new

• Sometimes just getting out of the house and doing something you haven’t done in a long time (or never done!) can open up the doors to musical inspiration. Ken Hill
• Every great inspiration is but an experiment.  Charles Ives
• After you’ve done it for so many years, you have to find a new direction. You have to find something in your soul that’s going to push you towards – to find your inspiration.  Elvis Stojko
• Talk with new people – they’ll always expose you to new and interesting things, if you’re open to it.  Leo Babauta
• Break out of your routine – see things from a different perspective. Take a new route home. Go to a new restaurant. Visit someplace new in your area.  Leo Babauta
• Sometimes you need to take a departure from what you do to something that’s slightly different in order to get inspiration.  Tori Amos
• What inspires me to paint? …revisiting some old greats like Sargent, Homer, Whistler or local masters… thinking hard about a new approach or idea; or seeing a new painting on a friend’s lounge room wall.  Amanda Hyatt
• Experimentation,  Explore new approaches

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Find inspiration by doing something for others

• To do something, however small, to make others happier and better, is the highest ambition, the most elevating hope, which can inspire a human being.   John Lubbock
• Service

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Find inspiration by learning the art of creative thinking

• Inspiration comes and goes, creativity is the result of practice.  Phil Cousineau
• The most valiant thing you can do as an artist is inspire someone else to be creative.  Joseph Gordon-Levitt
• Creative thinking inspires ideas. Ideas inspire change. Barbara Januszkiewicz
• Creative thinking

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Find inspiration by cultivating your imagination …

• Let go and trust; allow inspiration and imagination to lead the way beyond the limitations of what the mind knows.  Linda Saccoccio
• The future is simply infinite possibility waiting to happen. What it waits on is human imagination to crystallize its possibility.  Leland Kaiser
• Let your imagination release your imprisoned possibilities.  Robert H. Schuller
• Use your imagination not to scare yourself to death but to inspire yourself to life.  Adele Brookman
• Imagination is what you do with your inspiration.  Violet Haberdasher
• Imagination

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… and intuition

• I believe in intuition and inspiration. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.  Albert Einstein
• Listen to your hunches, pay attention to your intuition, do not dismiss your random thoughts, inspirations or ideas. Heaven talks in snippets, not in speeches. Angels whisper fast. They have to when they’re flying around… Honour your Hints from Heaven. They could be giving you the best advice you ever had. Neale Donald Walsch
• Intuition

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Find inspiration by asking why

• Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask ‘how’, while others of a more curious nature will ask ‘why’. Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information. Man Ray
• Questions

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Find inspiration by relaxing and getting your mind off things   …

• Do you remember the story of Archimedes?  He was having a quiet bath one day, slopped some water over the side, then suddenly leapt in delight from his tub and ran naked through the main street of Athens shouting “Eureka!  I’ve got it!”  He had discovered an important theory.  It took just a moment of inspiration while relaxing in the bath, doing nothing much. Time is like that: cussed when we try to speed up, a dear friend when we slow down.  Richard Koch
• Relaxation is the prerequisite for that inner expansion that allows a person to express the source of inspiration and joy within.  Deepak Chopra
• ‘Alas! I do not believe that inspiration falls from heaven.  I think it rather the result of a profound indolence.  Jean Cocteau
• Relaxation,  Letting go

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… by getting away from your desk for a while …

• When inspiration does not come, I go for a walk, go to the movie, talk to a friend, let go… The muse is bound to return again, especially if I turn my back!   Judy Collins
• If you get stuck, get away from your desk. Take a walk, take a bath, go to sleep, make a pie, draw, listen to music, meditate, exercise; whatever you do, don’t just stick there scowling at the problem. But don’t make telephone calls or go to a party; if you do, other people’s words will pour in where your lost words should be. Open a gap for them, create a space. Be patient.  Hilary Mantel

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… by going for long walks …

• All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.  Friedrich Nietzsche
• If you are seeking creative ideas, go out walking. Angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk.  Raymond Inmon
• Me thinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow.  Henry David Thoreau
• To solve a problem, walk around.  Gregory McNamee
• Thoughts come clearly while one walks.  Thomas Mann
• If you can’t find your inspiration by walking around the block one time, go around two blocks- but never three.  Robert Motherwell
• How I have walked… day after day, and all alone, to see if there was not something among the old things which was new!  Thomas Cole
• Walking

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… by spending time alone

• I learned that inspiration does not come like a bolt, nor is it kinetic, energetic striving, but it comes into us slowly and quietly and all the time, though we must regularly and every day give it a little chance to start flowing, prime it with a little solitude and idleness.  Brenda Ueland
• One can be instructed in society; one is inspired only in solitude.  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Solitude

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Find inspiration by getting in touch with your inner stillness …

• There is no substitute for the creative inspiration, knowledge, and stability that come from knowing how to contact your core of inner silence.   Deepak Chopra
• Inner silence promotes clarity of mind. It make us value the inner world. It trains us to go inside to the source of peace and inspiration when we are faced with problems and challenges.  Deepak Chopra
• Find time for silence – it’s more inspiring than you might think. Unfortunately, not enough of us do it.  Leo Babauta
• A peaceful mind is a springboard to positive transformation, for by cleansing the mind we inspire the spirit and motivate the soul.  Micheal Teal
• Stop. Breathe. Allow yourself the luxury of doing nothing for a moment, or an hour, or even a day. It is in emptiness that inspiration will appear. Carole Katchen
• Sometimes you just have to take your clothes off, sit in the dark, and see what happens.   Alvin Sargent
• Silence is the great teacher and to learn its lessons you must pay attention to it. There is no substitute for the creative inspiration, knowledge, and stability that come from knowing how to contact your core of inner silence.  Deepak Chopra
• Stillness

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… by practicing meditation

• There is no necessity for a technique or formula for meditation. Inner feeling, or inner knowing, is the silent voice of inspiration.  Walter Russell
• There are five stages of meditation, each one leading gradually into the next: concentration, meditation, contemplation, illumination, and inspiration.  Benjamin Creme
• Meditation is an essential travel partner on your journey of personal transformation. Meditation connects you with your soul,and this connection gives you access to your intuition, your heartfelt desires, your integrity, and the inspiration to create a life you love.  Sarah McLean
• Inspiration is not born of ‘the eureka moment’ but in the quiet spaces we allow ourselves to be in – whether in a beautiful part of nature or in a peaceful meditative state of mind.  Sharon Knettell
• Meditation

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Find inspiration by getting in touch with your inner self

• All you can ever achieve is a sense of your soul. You gain little glimpses of its light, colours, and contours. You feel the inspiration of its possibilities and the wonder of its mysteries.  John O’Donohu
• Inspiration is the moment in which the spirit within is accessed and revealed. Inspiration dawns when something in your outer world sparks a flame within you and calls forth a message.  It arrives to remind you that all  your answers lie inside of you, and that you alone are the wisest wizard in your kingdom.  It is often easy to miss those moments until you learn to truly hear the inner “ding!” and give it the space to emerge into your  consciousness.  As you move oward honoring your inner knowing, you can more easily recognize those moments of inspiration–many of which can be life-transforming.   Cherie Carter-Scott
• At a certain point in your life, you have to stop looking outside to look internally for inspiration.  Catherine Nash

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Find inspiration from the past …

• Inspiration could be called inhaling the memory of an act never experienced.  Ned Rorem
• The moment of inspiration can come from memory, or language, or the imagination, or experience – anything that makes an impression forcibly enough for language to form.  Carol Ann Duffy
• My greatest inspiration is memory.  Paul Theroux
• 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.
• While I take inspiration from the past, like most Americans, I live for the future.  Ronald Reagan
• My inspiration is moulded by my childhood dreamworld of small boundaries – the perennial border of fairy tales and domesticity, summers that stretched long and unplanned at an unhurried, quiet pace.  Mary Kay Krell
• The past

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… but also by remaining present and open in the now

• It’s all about being present and doing the work with full consciousness. Ideas and inspiration, past, present and future are mingled together in the work of the artist.  Linda Saccoccio
• An artist’s duty is rather to stay open-minded and in a state where he can receive information and inspiration. You always have to be ready for that little artistic Epiphany. Nick Cave
• Do stuff. be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.  Susan Sonrag
• Live in the present

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Find inspiration by opening your eyes to the magic of life and the wonders of the world

• Daily inspiration comes from creating a habit of always looking at the magic in life. Rather than focusing our attention on the doom and gloom that the popular media promotes, we need to open our eyes to the wonder of the universe if we want to be inspired.  Amanda Harvey
• At moments of wonder, it is easy to avoid small thinking, to entertain thoughts that span the universe, that capture both thunder and tinkle, thick and thin, the near and the far.  Yann Martel
• Stuff your eyes with wonder … live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.  Ray Bradbury
• Even in the familiar there can be surprise and wonder.  Tierney Gearon
• A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear- eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. Rachel Carson
• There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle or you can live as if everything is a miracle.  Albert Einstein
• Wonder,  Magic

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Find inspiration by being open to the possibilities inherent in every new day

• Daily inspiration comes from waking up every day and knowing that this day brings a fresh start. A start that builds on all the knowledge and understanding gained from the past.  Amanda Harvey
• We have a wonderful world to be inspired by and each new day is like an adventure into the unknown, where things that require a second glance can be captured in time on a canvas for anyone to enjoy forever.  Louise Corke
• With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.  Eleanor Roosevelt
• I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.   J. B. Priestly
• Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.  Meister Eckhart
• Each golden sunrise ushers in new opportunities for those who retain faith in themselves, and keep their chins up… Meet the sunrise with confidence. Fill every golden minute with right thinking and worthwhile endeavor. Do this and there will be joy for you in each golden sunset.  Alonzo Newton Benn
• A day is Eternity’s seed, and we are its Gardeners.  Erika Harris
• Possibility

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Find inspiration in diversity

• We need to reach that happy stage of our development when differences and diversity are not seen as sources of division and distrust, but of strength and inspiration.  Josefa Iloilo
• Diversity

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Find inspiration by setting goals that excite you

• The only real purpose of a goal is to inspire you to fall more deeply in love with life.  Michael Neill
• People are not lazy. They simply have impotent goals – that is, goals that do not inspire them.   Tony Robbins
• The secret of unleashing your true power is setting goals that are exciting enough that they inspire your creativity and ignite your passion.  Tony Robbins
• If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy and inspires your hope.  Andrew Carnegie
• Goal setting

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Find inspiration by taking action  …

• Just as appetite comes by eating, so work brings inspiration, if inspiration is not discernible at the beginning.  Igor Stravinsky
• Don’t waste time waiting for inspiration. Begin, and inspiration will find you.  H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
• We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.  Frank Tibolt
• Inspirations never go in for long engagements; they demand immediate marriage to action.  Brendan Francis
• Frequently, if you begin a task, such as sitting down to write an article, so long as this task is in line with your life purpose, the inspiration will come.   Amanda Harvey
• The good news is that inspiration and motivation can be created. We don’t need to wait for a bolt of lightning from the heavens. Inspiration and motivation come from action, and action can be taken as a purely mechanical physical activity.  Amanda Harvey
• There is no such thing as waiting for inspiration. The Muse visits during the process of creation, not before.  Roger Ebert
• Don’t wait for inspiration. Take action! Action generates inspiration.  Frank Tibolt
• Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.  Frank Tibolt
• The men who have furnished me with my greatest inspiration have not been men of wealth, but men of deeds.  James Cash Penney
• Inspiration comes from doing.  Robert Genn
• Action

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… for you can’t wait for inspiration; you must go after it

• You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.  Jack London
• When inspiration doesn’t come, I go halfway to meet it.  Sigmund Freud
• There is no such thing as waiting for inspiration. The Muse visits during the process of creation, not before.   Roger Ebert
• Most of life is routine – dull and grubby, but routine is the momentum that keeps a man going. If you wait for inspiration you’ll be standing on the corner after the parade is a mile down the street.  Ben Nicholas
• Do stuff. be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.  Susan Sonrag

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Start to work and inspiration will find you soon enough

• By performing the mundane act of sitting down and starting to work, you set in motion a mysterious but infallible sequence of events that will produce inspiration, as surely as if the goddess had synchronized her watch with yours.  Steven Pressfield
• Just as appetite comes by eating, so work brings inspiration, if inspiration is not discernible at the beginning.  Igor Stravinsky
• Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy.  Pyotr  Tchaikovsky
• If you wait for inspiration to write; you’re not a writer, you’re a waiter.  Dan Poynter
• I write when I’m inspired, and I see to it that I’m inspired at nine o’clock every morning.  Peter De Vries
• If I waited for inspiration every time I sat down to write a song I probably would be a plumber today.  Barry Mann
• Inspiration comes of working every day.  Charles Baudelaire
• Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working.  Pablo Picasso
• Amateurs look for inspiration; the rest of us just get up and go to work.  Chuck Close
• Inspiration usually comes during work rather than before it.  Madeleine L’Engle
• Inspiration is a byproduct of discipline… simply getting up everyday and planning, plotting, sketching, setting up or actually applying paint to a painting.  Beverly Claridge
• Inspiration comes from doing.  Robert Genn
• For hundreds of years people have talked about artists having inspiration, but often some persons would say, ‘Write us a symphony or write us a song, on commission.’ The artists would come up with a masterpiece without waiting to have their muse inspire them.   Tom Glazer
• Don’t wait for inspiration. It comes while one is working.  Henri Matisse
• Artists know that diligence counts as much, if not more, as inspiration; in art, as in politics, patience counts as much as revolution.  Tony Kushner
• Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.  Thomas Edison
• Embarking on the journey to self-discovery involves your willingness to endure some perspiration as well as inspiration.  Michael Bernard Beckwith
• The inspiration comes simply by ‘showing up’ before the easel or sculpture stand.  Kathy Ostman-Magnusen
• Whether it’s a painter finding his way each morning to the easel, or a medical researcher returning daily to the laboratory, the routine is as much a part of the creative process as the lightning bolt of inspiration, maybe more.  Twyla Tharp
• The great composer does not set to work because he or she is inspired, but becomes inspired because he or she is working. Beethoven, Wagner, Bach, and Mozart settled down day after day to the job in hand with as much regularity as an accountant settles down each day to his or her figures. They didn’t waste time waiting for an inspiration.  Ernest Newman
• Work

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This is especially true of writing

• Writer’s block is a condition that affects amateurs and people who aren’t serious about writing. So is the opposite, namely inspiration, which amateurs are also very fond of. Putting it another way: a professional writer is someone who writes just as well when they’re not inspired as when they are.  Philip Pullman
• You don’t need to wait for inspiration to write. It’s easier to be inspired while writing than while not writing.  Josip Novakovich
• What I write when I force myself is generally just as good as what I write when I’m feeling inspired. It’s mainly a matter of forcing yourself to write.  Tom Wolfe
• It isn’t that inspiration doesn’t exist, but it comes only with writing.  John Braine
• 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
• Inspiration will usually follow once you start writing I have forced myself to begin writing when I’ve been utterly exhausted, when I’ve felt my soul as thin as a playing card…and somehow the activity of writing changes everything.  Joyce Carol Oates
• Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.  Louis L’Amour
• Someone once asked Somerset Maugham if he wrote on a schedule or only when struck by inspiration. “I write only when inspiration strikes,” he replied. “Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.  Steven Pressfield
• Writing

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If all else fails, inspiration can come from desperation …

• I am one of those people who thrive on deadlines, nothing brings on inspiration more readily than desperation.  Harry Shearer
• The greatest inspiration is often born of desperation.  Comer Cotrell
• Who knows where inspiration comes from. Perhaps it arises from desperation. Perhaps it comes from the flukes of the universe, the kindness of the muses.  Amy Tan
• In life you need either inspiration or desperation.  Tony Robbins

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… and a looming deadline

• You can’t just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood.  –  What mood is that?   –  Last- minute panic.  Bill Watterson
• The ultimate inspiration is the deadline  Nolan Bushnell
• A deadline is negative inspiration. Still, it’s better than no inspiration at all.  Rita Mae Brown

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More places and ways to find inspiration

• We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.  Winston Churchill
• Observation capitalizes inspiration.  Alex Osborn
• Confidence imparts a wonderful inspiration to its possessor.  John Milton
• To put it another way, try to think of your mind as an e-mail in-box and the distractions of the world as junk mail. If you don’t clear out that junk mail, you’re not going to be able to receive all the valuable messages of inspiration, beauty, and love that the world’s trying to send you.  Russell Simmons
• It’s really quite simple: If you want inspiration, think inspiring thoughts; if you want healing, think healing thoughts; if you want creativity, think creative thoughts; and if you want to live in a higher way, think higher thoughts.  Sonia Choquette
• Here is the secret of inspiration: Tell yourself that thousands and tens of thousands of people, not very intelligent and certainly no more intelligent than the rest of us, have mastered problems as difficult as those that now baffle you.  William Feather
• In order to receive an ‘inspiration’or a ‘hunch’ the person must first of all be intensely interested in solving a particular problem or securing a particular answer. He must think about it consciously, gather all the information he can on the subject, consider all the possible courses of action. And above all, he must have a burning desire to solve the problem. But, after he has defined the problem, sees in his imagination the desired end result, secured all the information and facts that he can, then additional struggling, fretting and worrying over it do not help, but seem to hinder the solution.  Maxwell Maltz
• The essence of optimism is that it takes no account of the present, but it is a source of inspiration, of vitality and hope where others have resigned; it enables a man to hold his head high, to claim the future for himself and not to abandon it to enemy.   Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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Find ways to inspire others …

• I am burning. If anyone lacks tinder, let him set his rubbish ablaze with my fire.  Rumi
• Every day I expand in creativity, love, kindness, generosity and abundance as I inspire those around me to do the same.  Gay Hendricks
• If something comes to life in others because of you, then you have made an approach to immortality.  Norman Cousins
• This is a lifelong journey—no matter how old you are, this process of finding what works and discovering your path gives your life meaning. You continually develop your understanding of your relationship to the highest goal. By creating from your highest goal and living on your path toward it, you inspire others. And this becomes your greatest legacy.  Michael Ray
• The best and only thing one artist can do for another is to serve as an example and an inspiration.  Steven Pressfield
• You become an inspirational person by setting your goals and pursuing them. Live by example, make your life the highest version of what it can be, and inspire others by your direct actions.  Celestine Chua
• I think we all have blocks between us and the best version of ourselves, whether it’s shyness, insecurity, anxiety, whether it’s a physical block, and the story of a person overcoming that block to their best self. It’s truly inspiring because I think all of us are engaged in that every day.  Tom Hooper
• Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others.  Plato
• If I can inspire someone to go in a positive way and pursue a dream, it can only be good.  Parminder Nagra
• When you make people angry, they act in accordance with their baser instincts, often violently and irrationally. When you inspire people, they act in accordance with their higher instincts, sensibly and rationally. Also, anger is transient, whereas inspiration sometimes has a life-long effect.  Peace Pilgrim
• Try to be inspired by something every day. Try to inspire at least one person every day.  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
• Those who have changed the universe have never done it by changing officials, but always by inspiring the people.  Napoleon Boneparte
• Keep your fears to yourself, but share your inspiration with others.  Robert Louis Stevenson

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… especially through the way you live your life

• People will look at your life and think, My God, it’s magic. They’ll be right: You created that magic.  James Arthur Ray
• Live your life fom your heart. Share from your heart. And your story will touch and heal people’s souls.  Melody Beatti
• Everything you think, say, and do is a message. Your whole life is your teaching. If you thought that others, tomorrow, would walk in the path that you have taken today, would you take the same path?   You may think that people do not look to you, but they do. More people than you know. Everyone, in fact whose life you touch is touched by your example.  Neale Donald Walsch

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The ability to inspire is at the heart of great leadership …

• If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.  John Quincy Adams
• I think leadership is service and there is power in that giving: to help people, to inspire and motivate them to reach their fullest potential.  Denise Morrison
• Leadership is not so much about technique and methods as it is about opening the heart. Leadership is about inspiration—of oneself and of others.  Great leadership is about human experiences, not processes. Leadership is not a formula or a program, it is a human activity that comes from the heart and considers the hearts of others.  It is an attitude, not a routine.  Lance Secretan
• Leadership is based on inspiration, not domination; on cooperation, not intimidation.  William Arthur Ward
• Leadership

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… and great teaching

• The teacher who is attempting to teach without inspiring the pupil to learn is hammering on cold iron.  Horace Mann
• The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.  William Arthur Ward
• A good teacher is never done … always trying to reinvent, improve and inspire.  David Carlson
• What was the duty of the teacher if not to inspire?  Bharati Mukhejee
• A good teacher can inspire hope, ignite the imagination, and instill a love of learning.  Brad Henry
• Teachers have a chance to mold someone, inspire them. I hope all teachers realize that.  Kevin James
• Our best teachers do more than impart facts and figures – they inspire and encourage students and instill a true desire to learn. That’s a fine art in itself.  Sonny Perdue
• Teaching

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Be open and receptive to inspiration …

• One need not travel the world for inspiration. If one is receptive it meets them on the way.  Sandy Sandy
• No inspiration comes from nowhere. No invention is based on nothing. You always need to be tuned up and be ready to start receiving the energy you look for.  Nikolay Semyonov
• Creativity lies at the heart of synchronicity.  When you’re looking for inspiration, remain alert for synchronicities. If you’re blocked in composing a song, writing a short story, or designing a poster, take a break, do something different, and watch what happens. Perhaps an e-mail from a friend inadvertently provides you with exactly what you need. Or a voice on the radio or television offers the perfect solution, even though the comment might be related to a different subject.  The message: If you are open to receiving inspiration, it can come to you from multiple sources and change your course in a refreshing way.  Trish and Rob MacGregor
• Openness

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… and let it surprise you

• When I’m inspired, I get excited because I can’t wait to see what I’ll come up with next.   Dolly Parton
• When I am true to my inspiration, my brushstrokes sometimes surprise me by exposing something of my inner spirit I was not even aware of.  Keiko Tanabe
• Inspiration is never genuine if it is known as inspiration at the time.  True inspiration always steals on a person, its importance not being fully recognised for some time.  Samuel Butler
• Surprise

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Be ready for inspiration

• He who is best prepared can best serve his moment of inspiration.  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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Have a notebook ready to record your inspiration

• Inspiration comes whenever it wants, even at the most unlikely times and in the most inappropriate situations.  Often it arrives bit by bit. Therefore it must be anchored, and this is where a most valuable item makes its appearance: the notebook.  Piero Ferrucci

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When inspiration strikes, put all else aside and follow it

• You can’t plan for a seizure of feeling, and for this reason I put everything else aside when I’m inspired.  May Sarton
• It usually happens that the more faithfully people follow the inspirations they receive, the more do they experience new inspirations which ask increasingly more of them.  Joseph de Guibert

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When inspiration strikes, hold back the analytical mind at least for a while

• The inspired moment may sometimes be described as a kind of hallucinatory state of mind: one half of the personality emotes and dictates while the other half listens and notates. The half that listens had better look the other way, had better simulate a half attention only, for the half that dictates is easily disgruntled and avenges itself for too close inspection by fading entirely away.  Aaron Copland
• Cease trying to work everything out with your minds. It will get you nowhere. Live by intuition and inspiration and let your whole life be Revelation.  Eileen Caddy

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Stay clear of the enemies of inspiration

• Over-preparation is the foe of inspiration.  Napoleon Bonaparte
• 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 Copeland
• Inspiration is there all the time. For everyone whose mind is not clouded over with thoughts whether they realize it or not.  Agnes Martin
• Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination;  do not become the slave of your model.  Vincent van Gogh
• Don’t park… Arrival is the death of inspiration.  Ernst Haas

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Inspiration is best combined with skill

• Without craftsmanship, inspiration is a mere reed shaken in the wind.  Johannes Brahms
• It is all about technique. The great mistake of this century is to put inspiration and creativity first.  Vivienne Westwood
• A musician may suddenly reach a point at which pleasure in the technique of art entirely falls away, and in some moment of inspiration, he becomes the instrument through which music is played.  Edwin Diller Starbuck
• Skill

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• There are three types of people who major in art: those so full of passion they find inspiration in a falling leaf; those who yearn to feel anything at the sight of a falling leaf; and those who cannot do math.  Jessica C. Bakule
• It must be difficult to post inspirational Tweets when your blood type is B Negative.
• During exams you are permitted to look down for inspiration and up in exasperation but you are not permitted to look side to side for information.
• Inspiration is a farce that poets have invented to give themselves importance.  Jean Anouilh

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