Inspirational Quotes for Taking Risks and Living Authentically
We put this collection of quotes together while preparing to quit our jobs and travel the world.
They helped encourage and inspire us and we hope they do the same for you.
On Fulfilling Your Dream:
“The right time is any time that one is still so lucky as to have.” — Henry James
““If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.””
“I’d rather regret the risks that didn’t work out than the chances I didn’t take at all.” — Simone Biles
On Courage:
“There’s only one very good life and that’s the life you know you want and you make it yourself.”― Diana Vreeland
““The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure that you seek.””
“You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be. And one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid. You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity…Well, you may go on and live until you are 90, but you’re just as dead at 38 as you would be at 90. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
“As you go the way of life, you will see a great chasm. Jump. It is not as wide as you think.” — Joseph Campbell
On the Vagabonding Mindset:
“Vagabonding is an outlook on life. Vagabonding is about using the prosperity and possibility of the information age to increase your personal options instead of your personal possessions. Vagabonding is about looking for adventure in normal life, and normal life within adventure. Vagabonding is an attitude — a friendly interest in people, places, and things that makes a person an explorer int he truest, most vivid sense of the word. Vagabonding is not a lifestyle, nor it is a trend. It’s just an uncommon way of looking at life — a value adjustment from which action naturally flows. And, as much as anything, vagabonding is about time — our only real commodity — and how we choose to use it.” — Rolf Potts
On The History of Sabbaticals:
“We tend to think of sabbatical in academic terms, as a school year free from teaching duties that can be devoted to research, travel, and writing. Traditionally, this occurs every seventh year. Because of this scholarly context, we may easily miss what is hiding in plain sight: that sabbatical is related to Sabbath, which refers to the Biblical day of rest, or the seventh day. We trace the origins of both sabbatical and Sabbath to the Greek word sabbaton. Sabbaton itself traces to the Hebrew word shabbāth, meaning “rest.” The Old Testament refers to God’s “day of rest” most famously in Genesis, but Sabbath referring to an entire year of rest is mentioned in Leviticus (25:3–5):
Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof; But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the LORD: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard. That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land.” — from Merriam-Websters Dictionary
On Travel:
“Traveler, there is no path, paths are made by walking.” ― Antonio Machado, Cantares
““The most dangerous worldview is the worldview of those who have not viewed the world.””
On Self-Exploration:
“We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe whose riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again- to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.” ― Pico Iyer
“Social psychologists argue that who we are at any one time depends mostly on the context in which we find ourselves. But who creates the context? The more mindful we are, the more we can create the contexts we are in. When we create the context, we are more likely to be authentic. Mindfulness lets us see things in a new light and believe in the possibility of change.”-- Ellen Langer
““Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”
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On Travel & Love:
“If you have someone you think is the one, take them and travel around the world. Buy a plane ticket for the two of you to travel all over the world, to places that are hard to reach and hard to get out of. And when you land at JFK and you’re still in love with that person, get married.” ― Bill Murray
“And if travel is like love, it is, in the end, mostly because it’s a heightened state of awareness, in which we are mindful, receptive, in dimmed by familiarity and ready to be transformed. That is why the best trips, like the best love affairs, never really end.” ― Pico Iyer
On Individuality:
“When we allow ourselves to exist truly and fully, we sting the world with our vision and challenge it with our own ways of being.” — Thomas Moore
““My great mistake, the fault for which I can’t forgive myself is that one day I ceased my obstinate pursuit of my own individuality.” ”
“Never be limited by other people’s limited imaginations.” — Dr. Mae Jemison
“Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else’s hands, but not you.” — Jim Rohn
“The spiritual journey is individual, highly personal. It can’t be organized or regulated. It isn’t true that everyone should follow one path. Listen to your own truth.” — Ram Dass
“I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” — Henry David Thoreau
Let us know what your favorite quote is. Comment below.
